“You’re dreaming.”
I hear a voice.
My vision is still dyed a deep red. No, even with my eyes closed, I can tell a light is shining down from above. Viewing it through the capillaries behind my eyelids, it all seems to be dyed red. That crimson seems to wriggle about like a face, smiling broadly, with the grandeur of a king......
I can hear sounds. My eyes are closed, but I can see.
However, my body won’t move. My fingers won’t even twitch.
It’s like I have sleep paralysis.
Or like every muscle in my body has been yanked out. Or like my brain alone has been transplanted into someone else’s body. Like I am no longer myself, like I can no longer move of my own volition.
Sleep paralysis is where only your brain is awake...... Or rather, where your consciousness alone is awake. Your body is still resting and will not move.
As you sleep, the parts of you that are still active continue to work, unchanged. Like your heartbeat, or your breathing...... All that I can hear are the sounds of my own heart and breathing.
It feels as if my consciousness is waking up. Maybe I’ve finally awakened. But this is the first time I’ve ever woken up like this. That’s why I’m so perplexed.
Half-asleep, my memories are all fuzzy, and I can’t think straight.
I’m pretty sure that I was pushed from atop those stacked blocks by that girl with the hat and scarf. Then I smacked into the ground and was crushed.
No, back in that rainbow-colored tent — in that cute little room, you turned off that light switch. And then I got the feeling that you were about to turn it on again.
The order of events gets all mixed up, and I have no idea what’s going on.
The passage of time within our dreams is different from the passage of time in reality, and there’s no sense of logic as the locations change. Like a book full of missing pages. All of those branching points, the four-point plot structure, the flow of all those stories, exist within me at once — and yet, my awakening cuts them all off.
My body is incredibly heavy.
The ringing in my ears echoes with a hum, hum.
All of the stimuli is excruciating and painful, like a hell built to torment me.
If only I were awake. If only this were reality.
Why is this such an unpleasant world?
“Such a strange thing.”
A voice echoes.
“Sleeping, dreaming, is an escape. In order to escape a detestable reality... All I can think is that reality doesn’t have to be that awful, does it? No, I don’t think it’s anything that romantic — it’s just a physiological mechanism. There’s no mysticism to it. Science won’t allow it. Someone like Jung, who was occupied with the occult, probably feels differently though.”
Jung. Jung. Jung.
That’s all it is — hard on my ears, and I’m growing tired of it.
“Sleep only had a mystique about it during the age of magic and alchemy. Scientifically, it’s merely a physiological reaction. Back in the days of Aristotle, it was believed that sleep was caused by a release of vapors from the lungs.”
Since my eyes aren’t open, I don’t know who it is.
But someone speaks with expertise at my bedside.
“As time marches on, science has begun to unravel the mysteries of what happens during sleep. Some sort of material activates a function in the brain, leading to sleep. Leucomaine, cytokine — through a variety of these scientific explanations, the mysticism of sleep, of dreams, is ripped away. From the god of sleep, Hypnos, to the chemical substance Hypnotoxin, sleep has come to ruin.”
It is a tedious story.
And so, I become sleepy.
I’ve slept so much, I’ve long since tired of it.
“We’ve finally pinpointed the substances in the brain that cause humans to sleep. It also has to do with a slight drop in body temperature. It’s something we can describe with chemical formulas, something extremely logical. Of course, what’s making you tired right now — that is, boredom, is also an important component of sleep.”
I feel shocked.
The owner of this voice knows that I am awake.
“Your heart rate has gone up. It’s reacted to stimuli, and now you’re no longer sleepy. If you wake up to a life where simple functions can be handled without focus, a life with no change or stimulus, then you invite sleep. It’s so that the brain can judge whether or not there will be problems if it takes a rest. The brain goes all in on its consumption of calories, and so if it can rest, it will. Such a lazy thing.”
I can offer nothing but small noises to show I am listening.
Even now, my body is still asleep.
“It’s a function of being a living creature or a beast. But for creatures like humans, who have gained such a high social standing, it has become a troublesome function. That’s what sleep is. When you’re sleepy, you lose focus. Falling asleep at the wheel after becoming tired of the tedium of driving, only awakening on some stimulus, like finding a side street or looking away. You can’t string words together well when you’re tired, can’t write a thesis or use your knowledge to its utmost. You become incapable of flexible thought, acting only on emotion.”
It seems like the owner of the voice doesn’t care much for sleep.
There’s something venomous mixed in this person’s intonation.
“Sleeping and dreaming are unnecessary functions. They’re bulky refuse that humanity has discarded along the path of evolution from beasts. When humans allow themselves to be ruled by sleep, by the unconscious, they take a step backwards, to beasts. No, humans are more like mechanical automatons, merely reacting to their fate and their circumstances. Machines repeat the same actions over and over. Just working, unimpressively, without spontaneity.”
That voice now bears only hatred.
“Sleep is inhuman, lacking intelligence, the enemy of civilization.”
Like a dictator, the voice declares that we must conquer sleep and our dreams.
The loud voice at my bedside is so disquieting, I try to open my eyes.
I at least want to see the face of the voice’s owner. It’s frustrating to have words dropped on me like bombs in a raid. I at least want to respond, to ask about the parts I don’t understand. The person seems rather well-informed, so I want to ask: who am I? Why do I keep having these ceaseless nightmares? What in the world was that dream? I struggle to open my eyes, like a baby.
“Eek!”
And then, I am shocked.
A barely comprehensible scream leaks out of my throat.
Like waking up early in the morning after a long sleep, my eyes are bleary and I can’t seem to focus. That might be why, but I see something totally abnormal. Right in front of me is a giant face. Someone’s face, peering at me.
No, it’s something that looks like a face. That outline seems like it was melted at a high temperature, leaving it pulpy, swirling about strangely. Like everything around me, it’s a sloppy mess. The ringing in my ears gets worse as a hysteric shriek vibrates my ears.
I sort of understand. The one looking at me is rather masculine. I think I might have heard someone refer to him as “Sensei.” Perhaps he is a doctor. Amidst a background that looks as if it were drawn with disorderly strokes, I get a general sense of the objects around me: an old TV, shelved books, and what I’m lying in seems to be a bed.
Maybe this is a hospital room. It’s extremely plain and sterile, with a sanitized smell. The lighting is so extreme and blindingly bright. It overflows with a brightness that is almost painful, the stimuli from it overpowering.
Is this a hospital? Or perhaps a nursing facility? I’m not sure, and that makes it scary. I tremble within this fuzzy, incomprehensible world. I panic and flail about, as if trying to get away from something scary. The scream that escapes from the depths of my throat mixes with the ringing in my ears, creating a dissonant sound.
“Calm down, please, calm down—”
A voice calls out and someone grabs my shoulders.
I resist desperately.
The nearby face that looks like a doctor gazes at me as they would a monster. I can’t stand that stare. Don’t look. Don’t look at me. Don’t look at me with those eyes—
I want to look away. I want to escape. However, if this is reality, there is nowhere for me to run. I have no choice but to live here. No. In this case, it really would be better if this were a dream. Because I cannot run if this isn’t a dream.
My head is terribly heavy, and while I try my best to sit up, I can’t and fall back.
I hit the back of my head hard.
The flow of blood stops for a bit.
My brain relinquishes its hold on consciousness.