Don't Wake Me if I'm Dreaming by J. E. Chaney Page A

the alcohol settled in, making me into sap. I did my best to clear my head of Aimee’s tragic death, and instead thought of Jack, which was easy from my drunken stupor. Not his vision, nor his purpose, just the man I had just met in my dream. His every detail flooded me as if our encounter was existent. I clearly visualized his face, his deep almost black hair, the dark five o’clock shadow outlining his sharp jaw. His eyes gave me chill bumps remembering them glistening as if absorbing the sunlight. They were a perfect silvery-blue, like crystals. He was amazingly flawless, attractively so. As handsome and kind as he was, seeing him again in my dreams was not worth the agony of subjecting myself to another night of witnessing Aimee’s death all over again.
    With a final yawn, I pressed my face into my pillow, feeling myself sinking like an anchor, passing out.
     

Sanity
     
    W rapped in a towel, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror doing my makeup. I rehearsed the one-sided conversation that in a couple short hours would involve my doctor. I had to explain to her, face-to-face, “I have enigmatic people that visit me in my sleep. They make me hallucinate and see into their thoughts, and even though the events haven’t occurred, yet, I’m shown exactly how it will happen and it’s up to me to do something about it. And if that’s not fruity enough, I have the same dreams every night with the same people, in the same location, and the same events.” Well, that didn’t sound crazy. I sighed heavily.
    I stared at my vacuous self, wondering how the doctor could resist the temptation of referring me for a psychiatric evaluation with the intention of locking me in a padded cell. Saying the words out loud had me second-guessing my sanity, leaving a nauseating feeling in my stomach. I suddenly wondered if this was how mom felt. 
    Just a little over seventy minutes later, my mind was still on my mother and how she must have suffered the same as I, or the other way around. The doctor’s assistant took my blood pressure, but I was completely oblivious to her words, fearing the impending conversation with the doctor. She finally caught my attention when she said, “You’ve lost a few pounds since your last check-up, likely from stress, but overall your vitals are great.”
    I must have looked at her like she spoke a foreign language because her tone slightly changed when she spoke again. “Should I repeat myself?” Was her subtle way of acknowledging I hadn’t paid attention to a word she said as she pressed a smile.
    “That’s great, weight loss,” I mumbled unthinkingly, slightly sinking in my seat at the excess poundage she carried, hoping not to have offended her.
    Relieved when the door opened, interrupting the awkwardness of the moment, the assistant strode out of the room rather perturbed as the doctor ambled in and began reading from a chart the assistant pushed into her hand. 
    “Lucid nightmares, insomnia, exhaustion, loss of appetite.” She looked at me. “Now that can’t be fun. Aside from sleep-related issues, is all else okay?” She peered at the nurse’s notes.
    “Uh, sure, as fine as can be, considering, but there has been a bit of a spiral effect from my dreams. It’s definitely affecting other aspects of my life.”
    “I see that.” She flipped back a page checking over my last visit. “Can you explain a little about the dreams?” She glanced at me only a second, continuing her reading.
    “Uh…well.” I apprehensively shared the humiliating details about my nightly haunts with vague details. “I have reoccurring nightmares every night. I’m terrified to sleep, since the dreams leave me disoriented and scared. I don’t really know what’s causing them, but on the rare occasion that I manage five hours of sleep at night, I feel a sense of accomplishment. But those occasions are far and few between.” That version sounded doubtlessly saner than the conversation I had with myself