Even when a person dreams, there is only a 5% chance they will wake up remembering the dream. This is likely because the mind does not see this information as new or in need of remembering because its origins are from memories already. Furthermore…
The page dragged on and on with facts about sleep and twitchy eyed REM and the importance of a dream journal for lucid dreaming, but there was no help for me. What had happened was not a lucid dream, it was an invasion that I remembered, but the poor girl next to me, hopefully, would not. The first time it happened I didn’t understand and assumed it was just a creative dream I’d had. This time I was sure. I had been in her dream, I could control the way she distorted the reality she created.
It was only 5 a.m. and she slept soundly sprawled against the mattress, left leg coiled around the comforter to keep a comfortable balance of heat and chill. 30 minutes ago I had pushed myself out of her head and subsequently out of the bed trying to find any information on what I had done. We’d been best friends forever, we told each other everything, breakups and blackouts, struggles and euphoria, but she waited until we were both unconscious to admit to me that she was in love with her best friend. Weird stuff happens in dreams, I supposed, for all I knew her best friend in there was an angry baboon with a pet finch. But I had a sinking feeling she meant me. As the third and fourth pages of search results provided no help I decided to leave for a bit.
I got dressed, opting for a sports bra, deciding a run would help clear my head. Border Cafe, a tea and coffee house/library/bookstore/odd antique halfway house, was about three quarters of a mile away and I could waste the morning there, I decided. Maybe even take a nap so as not to step on anyone’s unconscious, proverbial, toes. I flipped my light brown hair through an elastic band and shivered when the tips swatted the nape of my neck as they settled. I checked the mirror before leaving and thanked myself as I washed my face of the raccoon costume I was wearing from last night. The sun blinked to my right as I left the lobby of the apartment complex. I turned my back to the light and kept pace with the playlist on my right arm as the street lights flipped off and the grayscale faded to morning colors in the trees planted between slabs of concrete and the murals painted on the old brick walls.
The cafe walls were covered in oblong stones and the door was held open by a black 1984 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica Volume 16 as the smell of coconut and frankincense from Mr. Doe’s odd choice of incense drifted out of the doorway. I walked under the wooden plank with the cafe’s name burned into it and up to the unoccupied counter.
“Good morning, how can I assist you today?”A tall man emerged from a doorway too short for him as the words slipped from his lips like hot blueberry tea, a kind of voice that woke you up as it lulled you to relax. But his casual formality wasn’t the kindly old soul I expected.
“I’d like a hot Raspberry Champagne White Tea, please. Where is Mr. Doe?”
“Right away, madam,” he said as he turned his back to the counter to fill the order, his voice carried as he went on talking, “Mr. Doe requested I never wake him should I arrive before he’s risen, today is the first time such a thing has happened but I fear what he may do should I disturb him before he is ready to wake up.” He swiveled on his heels and proffered a large teacup adorned with birds sitting beak to beak with a swift nod of his head. I grabbed the handle as my right hand added the teaspoon of honey and began to stir. He grabbed the money off the counter and returned the change which I let slip into the green and brown bowl made of petrified wood for tips.
“Would you let me know when he wakes up?” I ask.
“Certainly, enjoy your tea,” he replied smiling. He then reclined onto a stool and opened a copy of Old Man and The Sea I had read last week that sat in front of the cash register.
“Thank you.”