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From Journal, 12.02.2013 - Edited
I had a strange dream last night. It came out of a strange jumble where
I was, for some reason, in a changing room with a crowd of half-naked people and
obliged to dress under the not unwelcome eyes of a girl I think I knew from class.
The dream was this. I was facing sentencing for a terrible
crime, but one I didn’t seem to have committed, as I had no feelings of either
guilt or regret. I did not even know what the crime was, but it wasn’t a concern
in the dream. This dream was not self-accusatory -I’m sure of this- I simply
seemed to have taken the role of the convicted out of pure curiosity and a desire
to experience the poetic last moments of the caught-yet-never-defeated man,
proud and resolute even to the end.
In the dream, I had been given a choice of sentence; either life-imprisonment with no chance of release, or more simply, death. To this, I had complacently chosen death; presumably reasoning that life-in-prison was no life at all, which, on the face of it, is a sentiment I would still agree to. The decision was made, I would bow-out and retain my dignity and spite my accusers. At this point, the the dream really started, and I began to freely think and feel as the condemned. I have never experienced such a vivid dream. Usually there is a ‘dullness’ to my dreams so that they only seem half-real; convincing enough to stimulate basic emotions, though never truly and wholly immersive. Yet this dream was.
In the dream, I had been given a choice of sentence; either life-imprisonment with no chance of release, or more simply, death. To this, I had complacently chosen death; presumably reasoning that life-in-prison was no life at all, which, on the face of it, is a sentiment I would still agree to. The decision was made, I would bow-out and retain my dignity and spite my accusers. At this point, the the dream really started, and I began to freely think and feel as the condemned. I have never experienced such a vivid dream. Usually there is a ‘dullness’ to my dreams so that they only seem half-real; convincing enough to stimulate basic emotions, though never truly and wholly immersive. Yet this dream was.
I was alone in a small, clinically-white room, sitting
freely in a chair, haughty but comfortable. There was a door into the room that
was closed and locked and a two-way mirror in the wall facing me. I seemed to
be waiting. The dream gave me no more information than that. Presumably I was
waiting for the procedure. It was to be a modern, clean death. Lethal injection
or similar; I would feel nothing, and my body would not be violated after death.
As easy as you could wish.
But I was alone. It was silent. And I was facing my imminent
death. There was now no future, no freedom to make any choices, and no option
to quit if I suddenly changed my mind. I was going to die, and I became afraid.
The fear came from deep inside, but was not a product of my thought. I could understand
the terrible loss and bitterness of death, the waste, but that would make me
angry, not afraid. This fear came from somewhere else, and I couldn’t
suppress it. It was becoming real. The only way I can explain it
is to suggest that what I was feeling wasn’t part of the dream. The
room and the impending execution was a creation of the dream, but the emotion
was as powerful and consuming as anything I’d ever felt while awake. And yet, I have never felt this particular emotion -the fear of death- as I have never before
faced death. This dream gave me that experience, or a simulation so real, I
could not know the difference. I’ve never been truly terrified before, but now
I was experiencing a total, mind-consuming terror that I could not have before
imagined. I truly believed I was going to die.
It sounds stupid now; how many times do you make jokes about death? And how often do we even see it in film? A gunshot or explosion and someone is killed, never to return, never to see another sunrise, but so what? We feel nothing more than a sense of waste or disappointment, and I had, at first, casually accepted my own execution in the dream. I had calmed my anxieties with cold reason and bitter satisfaction, and just as a movie-villain, I would slowly close my eyes and relax my limbs and allow the death to wash over me.
It sounds stupid now; how many times do you make jokes about death? And how often do we even see it in film? A gunshot or explosion and someone is killed, never to return, never to see another sunrise, but so what? We feel nothing more than a sense of waste or disappointment, and I had, at first, casually accepted my own execution in the dream. I had calmed my anxieties with cold reason and bitter satisfaction, and just as a movie-villain, I would slowly close my eyes and relax my limbs and allow the death to wash over me.
But as I sat there, this new fear grew and my resolve began
to waver. I didn’t understand it, nor could I control it any longer. Where was my
cool, superior logic? What had my rationale been? I had been so confident
before, but now all my ideas seemed vague and empty. I began to doubt; have I amde a mistake? My conscience began to dissolve and my mind to collapse; I could no
longer suppress this fear, this dumb, primal fear of death. What was it? It had
no description. It was beyond rationalisation. I had already accepted the inconvenience of death, but what was there
to be afraid of in death?
It was not rational. It was an animal thing. And now
I perceived the true horror of the dream, I was for the first time in my life,
introduced to the true custodian of my body. It is a primitive being, but much
older and stronger than I, who arose suddenly from slumber, wild-eyed and
panting, like a feral and slavering dog cornered and desperate and it now
possessed my body. It was a revelation. I was the alien. An evolutionary phenomenon,
but nothing more than the semblance of intellect and free will that was in
truth the complex sum of the myriad basic bodily reactions to everyday stimulus.
Where I had arrogantly assumed myself to be the master, I was unnecessary,
and when the whole came under threat, I was swept away in the wake of that
blind titan. My logic and reason was proven worthless. I was like a child,
pulled away from the wheel only when the car is already plummeting, and who can
then only watch horrified with his parent. All I have now is this terror. It is
beyond belief. My control is now completely gone. Slowly, as I being to sweat
and shake, I recognise dimly, with the last semblance of my imagined humanity, the
shame and humiliation of tears and pleading. But I now have no power to control
this. When the door opens, what will I do? The animal has taken over
completely. Will I beg before the end?
---
This dream confronted me with death, and I believed it so
absolutely, that it spoke to what I believe is my primal-being, what we all
must have, and what makes people forget reason and do terrible or shameful
things. This was something I had never appreciated before; I was partly under
the belief that fear must be deliberately, though foolishly expressed, and if it
was humiliating, it was still no different than a person stuttering or falling
down. A woman screaming in fear, a man lashing out in anger, this is the animal
in all of us revealing itself, though briefly, until the mind can reassert its
dominance. We have been civilised for a very long time, and can make decisions
rationally, but the animal is still there.
