Hypnagogia

There it goes. Yapping once, twice, three times. Some kind of hellhound serenading tonight's full moon whilst I lay in my bed wide-eyed, staring at the ceiling and waiting for sleep to drag me into an oblivion of dreams. I consider shutting the window to give myself some peace but know that I am in a stage of sleeplessness between consciousness and the land of nod. I'm in some kind of limbo. I'm paralysed. My senses are too sharp to sleep but I'm too tired to move. I'm trapped. I wait, and listen to the barks, to the growls, to the cries of desperate pain. I have no idea what the noise is, but it is continuously flooding through my window and it is relentless. It's starting to feel like torture.

Beneath my bed something felt unnatural; it creaked, shuddered violently and burst into life. I clung to the sheets, I clung to the mattress, and I clung on to anything that was in arms' reach. I was shitting my pants. The bed was moving uncontrollably and I had no idea why. The legs thumped hard against the cold, wooden floorboards as the thing started to lift into the air. I had no idea what was happening and I was trying not to lose my nerve completely. I exhaled deeply in a vain attempt to extinguish my panic. I couldn’t get a grip – on neither my emotions nor the bed beneath me.  If only I didn't bite my nails I would have something to dig into the mattress. I was scared. I was having reruns of horrible Hollywood horror movies running through my mind and none of them were any good and none of them were supplying any answers. The bed was moving by itself. Nothing else in my room was moving, it was just the bed. I was sober too, so I couldn't blame it on the drink and stretch a leg out, lay it on the floor and stop the world from spinning around me. It was alive and it was moving. I felt it, I heard it. I could even sense its pulse. This couldn't be real. I had to wake up. I had to challenge this nightmare. It erupted. My bed erupted upwards, towards the ceiling and bolted like a frightened colt, fleeing a venom filled cobra, and darted towards the window. My bed, which on so many nights had been my sanctuary was now inexplicably out of control.  The covers would be my only protection. I'd duck beneath them and find safety. I'd revert to a child and pretend to be mining some precious material before the mine would collapse, turning me into a martyr and leave a beautiful girl behind to mourn my loss. If I believed that, then I really was stuck in the world of dreams. I lifted my head above the covers and saw the window explode into fragments of diamonds as the bed hovered in the sky above the street. The moon was bright and full and gloating. The clouds cowered out of sight. The night was beautiful and my sheets were grubby. I inhaled hard on the clear night air and tried to fall back to sleep.

And then it tilted downwards. Like a cold, heartless killer - calm in the act and dangerously patient - the nose of the machine I floated on aimed directly at the ground and, shooting to kill, the thing plummeted. Surely I was done. It was the final chapter. Here'd be the story that might take up an inch or two of the local newspaper if anybody cared or even if it had just been a quiet week. Down, down it went. I expected to snap out of it. To jerk, twist and panic and find myself in between the sheets with my heart tapping on the inside of my chest as though it was begging to be let out and finally set free. It had decided that it could take no more suffering. There'd be sweat, too.  It would be gathered on my forehead and my temples. It would be gathered on my palms and the soles of my feet. Maybe even beneath my arms, too. My eyes would part and absorb the familiarity of my walls, but it never came. Down, down I went instead. Wind in my hair, stomach in my mouth, testicles six feet above me, still in the air from where I was falling. The ground grew and swelled. The pavement was spinning towards my face. I should open my eyes. Where was the jolted jump and return to safety? Down, down, down I continued.

Then it happened. The lights came on. I was safe. I peeled my eyes open prepared for the row of small spotlights of my bedroom ceiling staring back at me, but was fully aware I shut them all off before I crawled into my resting place. It must be morning, with the light coming in through the window. My curtains are thick and always closed tight. Nothing gets through them. I stared ahead and saw nothing but light. My peripheral vision was hazy - grey turning to black. The harder I stared the brighter and more focussed the light became. Soon there'd be nothing but light as it approached me. I had tunnel-vision. Now was the time to wake up. Pinch me, punch me, even fuck me, but this couldn't be it, not like this. A light at the end of the tunnel? Bullshit. I wanted a desperate, eternal emptiness. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to wake up.