I had a weird dream last night.
First off, I had a very sore throat in the dream--unrelated to the Spanish Flu epidemic which recently broke out in The Apartment. The sore throat turned out to be cancer of the esophagus--and when the word "esophagus" plays a prominent role in your dream, you know you're in for a weird one.
So, esophagal cancer. The doctors told me they needed to operate, immediately. The procedure was to entail nothing short of slitting my throat, reaching into my neck like a sack of toys, and pulling out a white ball--the cancer. OK, fine, I thought in my dream.
To make matters better, my friend The Anesthesiologist took me to the operating room, but unfortunately he couldn't put me under because he knew me, and there were ethical codes against that sort of thing. So he said he would just stay there and make sure the other doctors didn't screw up. This seemed to be a really good idea. I think in any life-threatening operation--whether in reality or in the subconscious--you want your own personal doctor breathing down the other doctors' necks the whole time, just in case they are up to no good. They may have accidentally taken my voice box out instead of the bouncy ball cancer, because I think the voice box closely resembles a bouncy ball--just in box form.
Anyway, my friend The Anesthesiologist told me they are going to start putting me under, that they have an IV hooked up and I'm going to start feeling sleepy, which I do immediately. Honestly, this wasn't that much of a stretch, seeing as though I was already asleep to begin with.
Now, here's where it gets rather philosophical. You know how we all have those dreams where we fall off a cliff, or a building, or start to drive into a tree... And we wake up just before we die, wipe the beads of sweat off our forehead, and stare into the pre-dawn darkness in relief, grateful to just be alive? Well, I don't always wake up in time. I mean, so far I've always eventually woken up at some point thereafter, but not always before I die in the dream. I have already died several times in the dream world--usually I die of cancer or some other terminal illness. It feels a lot like falling asleep, dying in the dream world--just heavier and more relaxing, and very peaceful. Actually the most peaceful feeling in the world. The first time this happened, when I woke up, I started crying--that's how at peace I had felt in the dream. I stopped crying when I realized how weird and morbid that was. Recently, in real life, I found out I have hypoglycemia, and that my blood sugar levels at night were nearly low enough to go into a coma. Since I found that out, I've thought a little about all those dreams I had in which I was dying, and it all kind of freaks me out, because maybe all those times I was nearly comatose, and that's why I felt so peaceful.
That said, the dream last night had nothing to do with all of that. There was one point in my dream I thought to myself "Here we go again, I'm about to die again..." But, no. It was a totally different animal.
Anyway. So, I start to feel sleepy, as though I am beginning to go unconscious. It feels rather nice and relaxing, sort of like the death dreams. "This feels so nice," I thought to my dream self. "I wish I could have throat cancer every day." Meanwhile, my friend The Anesthesiologist is holding my hand and telling me that I'm getting very sleepy. Looking back upon my dream, this seems a rather obvious observation, and I wonder whether he needed to waste his breath pointing out such a self-evident fact in my dream. Are all Anesthesiologists that perceptive?
"Guys, I think she's under," my friend said loudly. I was sleepy and half-drugged, but I could still hear the doctors getting the OR ready for the procedure: setting instruments on the table, talking in muffled voices, that sort of thing. I don't think I should still be hearing this if I were truly unconscious and ready to be operated on, I thought. Crap!
I tried to tell The Anesthesiologist that I was not, in fact, anesthatized. HOLD THE SCALPEL, YOU IDIOTS! I tried to scream at the doctors. But as is usual for the vast majority of my dreams, I couldn't really speak beyond a few narcoleptic mumbles. Also, per usual, I couldn't see worth a darn in that dream--and not just because in that dream I was feigning unconsciousness. Somehow in my haste of falling asleep at night, I always forget to bring my glasses with me to the flip side. You'd think, being of PhD caliber and everything, my brain would be imaginative enough to allow me the luxury of having 20/20 vision at least in my wildest fantasies--but no, way too much of a stretch for this cerebral cortex, apparently.
So I began to resign myself to the fact (are there facts in dreams? I don't know. That might be a logical fallacy on my part) that I was about to be sliced open while still semi-conscious. I began to imagine in my dream what it would feel like to have my throat sliced open (it was a painful day dream within my night dream). I listened to the doctors preparing for surgery once more--these were, after all, the sounds of my imminent demise. I heard one of the doctors rustle something on the table. Then, another one dropped something made of glass on the floor and I heard it shatter. Another doctor set something--probably a puke bucket, I surmised--next to my head on the bed...
...One of the doctors meowed into my ear...
"THAT'S NOT AN OPERATION!" I screamed, sitting bolt upright in bed. "THAT'S A CAT! LUCY, I'M GOING TO FREAKING KILL YOU! GET OUT OF MY ROOM!"
Pillows were thrown. Blankets were thrown. I think, possibly, my cell phone also got thrown because it has been working even worse than usual today. By the time I was fully awake, my room was completely disheveled and Lucy was cowering somewhere deep inside the vestiges of the Lair.
Only later, as I was cleaning up the remnants of Lucy's nocturnal escapades in my room did I realize the sound of the doctor knocking something glass off the table in the operating room had actually been Lucy knocking over the framed picture of herself she had given me for Valentine's Day. Evidently the whole night had been an episode of grappling with unrequited love. It is quite possible Lucy was planning on removing my throat cancer with those very shards of glass.
My short term strategy is to lock my bedroom door at night. And install various spring loaded knives, should the door just happen to open as a result of feisty paws.
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