the list of people who have heard me wake up scremaing from a dream increased to 2 this day. it seems like there should be more humans who have heard that shrill and dog-like yelp, but i do believe that there are only 2. the dream was stupid: i was walking along a street in a residential area when a couple of bicyclists raced past at 40mph, nearly knocking me over and calling me names as they raced off into the night. i ducked into a house, and into the bathroom, fearing the return of the bicyclists. sure enough, they came back, and started pounding on the bathroom door with the baseball bats they intended to use to beat upon my head. that is when i woke up screaming.
the scene in the bathroom reminded me whilst still dreaming) of a scene from tthe opening pages of “Helter Skelter”, where Manson’s “children” raid the houses of Tate and others. Those opening salvos from “Helter Skelter” were enough to make me put the book away, and to put away any sympathies I had for the human race.
not that my silly dream with its irrational presence of thug bicyclists is any reflection on my Mansonian inclinations. I have none. Bicyclists do kinda scare me, though, but only because they ignore rules, bump into me, wield death with a strange currency in their justification of bike lanes, and they spew obscenities with impunity — not because i fear they will chase me into the shitter and pummel me with bats.
i had a dramatic wake-up-screaming incident a couple of years ago. it was inspired by a woman who i still talk to once in a while, though she has no idea about the dream. she would probably be pretty surprised to know about it.
in the dream this woman was pacing around my bed, ignoring me but making it evident that she knew i was there. she was whispering to herself, talking about what pigs men are, and how she couldn’t even imagine friendship with a man. her words were sent away from me, but i interpreted them as being intended for me. i became unhinged and i tried to punch her. i literally rose up in the bed, standing on my knees and swinging punches in her direction. i lunged toward her, though of course she was not really there. i swung punches, yelling “Nooooo!”, and i fell face-first to the floor, smashing my eastern asscheek against the old Magnavox television that sat where i dreamed the misandrist woman stood. my full body crahsed to the floor like a bag of cement, and i lay there in a fetal position whilst slowly coming to sentience and informing myself as the mental grasslands were mowed down by consciousness that all evidence suggests that the woman was not really there. i heard a buzz of activity in the apartments both upstairs and downstairs from me. my phantasmagorical fist-swinging had woken up the others in this community mausoleum for the living. the sun crawled like treacle through the blackout vinyl. it was 5:30am.
i lay naked on the floor for what seemed like a century before finding the clarity to return to the bed, where i found sleep again.
for weeks i had a bruise the size of Cuba on my right asscheek and leg. i am lucky that i did not crack a rib or a buttbone or even my fucking face.
so maybe the list of people who have experienced my wake-up thuddery should include those upstairs and downstairs neighbors for whom my full-body confluence with gravity was their alarm clock for the day.
the reason that woman appeared in the dream in that manner was not because she was a misandrist. i do not think she is, or was. what had happened was her fiancee died just days before their wedding day, and the first words i ever heard her speak were to the effect that she would never try again, never seek out the company of men or a lifetime of companionship.
…..
i walked the walk today. to the 181 at rockefeller center, and all around midtown, and then back to AsLIC. i should be tired, and i mostly am, but i think the lack of sleep, and lack of peaceful sleep at that, are more to blame than are the ambulatory exertions of the nonce.