...cont

For instance, one morning, it’s just before dawn, and I’m standing in line in the women’s bathroom. In line with me is someone I recognize as one of my classmates. We discuss ideas for our projects due tomorrow, and confide to each other how nervous we are at the thought of speaking before the class. Then we’re sitting on the edge of the bathroom sink and another classmate is giving her presentation already. I fumble for my notebook. I know it’s around here somewhere....

Just before dawn I awoke, springing from bed to desk to watch my hands going frantic among papers and books and stained coffee cups. I know it’s around here somewhere—I watched my hands for the longer portion of a minute before I remembered to tell them to stop. Out loud, like this: “Stop that.” I returned to bed, feeling a few cards short of a poker face and annoyed at myself for it. But it’s a usual feeling for so early in the morning, and nothing that can’t be fixed by one more hour of sleep or a good, hot shower.

And then there was the time I was browsing in a bookstore and suddenly knew myself to be dreaming. Instead of sensibly realizing that everything would go away when I woke up, I grabbed a book off the shelf and jumped straight into the dream. Both feet hit my bedroom floor with an audible “thump.” I was still holding the book, but it writhed in my hands. It changed into a snake, into a miscellaneous bit of black rubber—into garbage. What I held became illegible, nothing I wanted to keep anymore. And then I woke up for real.

It seemed logical at the time, you must agree. You of all people. Look, I couldn’t stay there to read the book. It would take the longest dream I ever dreamt to get me from page one to “The End,” a dream as long as the rest of my life. And this dream was ending after only brief seconds. So I figured, reasonably enough, that I could take the book with me and read it while awake....