NONFICTION  -
      With the Theme of Dreams     
"I'm dreaming those first few pages of Proust"  
                          Photo by Weebly.com                                    

Three AM
by  Mickey Eliason

“For a long time, I used to go to bed early. Sometimes when I had put out my candle, my eyes would close so quickly that I had not even time to say ‘I’m going to sleep.’ And half an hour later, the thought that it was time to go to sleep would awaken me.” (Marcel Proust, opening lines of Swann’s Way)
 
Have you ever read Proust? I have been convinced that my intellectual credentials are questionable if I don’t read him. I’ve read the first five or six pages of Swann’s Way at least five times in the past two years, but never get any further. I’m stuck in the beginning, about trying to sleep or trying to wake up. It’s been my pandemic goal to finally read this book. But even though I haven’t reached my goal, Proust is having an effect.
 
Like now, I’m dreaming those first few pages of Proust. I’m awake, but not really; thoughts and images are passing through my mind in random juxtapositions and nonsensical plots. I struggle to hold one coherent thought in my head and remember a dream. Or is it a memory? I am rummaging through a huge purse. I’m looking for my keys but I hold them in my left hand while my right hand stirs around the many objects in the handbag: gum wrappers, restaurant receipts, a notebook, dozens of pens (I cannot leave the house unless I know I have writing utensils and paper), a paperback book, a hat in case the sun shines too brightly, and a toaster. I open a side compartment and find sand dollars. Okay, it’s a dream, not a memory, I think. The dream is vivid, but what does it mean? I have not carried a purse since I came out as a lesbian in the early 1980s. Why did I dream about a purse, I wonder? And why was there a toaster in it?
 
I lapse into another scenario or dream where I am in a writing class in a large room with old-fashioned student desks. Everyone else is hunched over their desks furiously scribbling in a notebook or tapping on the keys of their laptops. I am staring at my blank page trying to decide what to write about. It’s not a writer’s block but the opposite—I have too many ideas and a paralyzing inability to choose one. I cannot latch onto any single idea and the words physically fly past me like a noisy flock of crows.  ​
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​Then I am firmly back in my present self, aware of lying in bed with the CPAP mask on and air hissing in a leak near my chin. My right hip aches and I try to roll over, repositioning pillows between my knees and under my head to find a comfortable position that doesn’t dislodge the mask again. I so desperately want to return to sleep. Shut up, I tell my racing mind--go back to sleep. Then I see myself standing in front of the refrigerator. I want a toasted English muffin with peanut butter, but I forgot to buy English muffins yesterday when I ordered groceries online from Safeway. My neighborhood grocery: Safeway by the Sea, Safeway by the Sea, my mind whispers over and over to a soundtrack of foghorns and waves spilling over. At least now the toaster in my purse makes some sense.
 
I come back to the present again and wonder about the English muffins. Was I dreaming, was it a waking thought, or did I actually open the refrigerator? I cannot tell. When I remembered standing at the refrigerator, I could feel the cold air wafting toward me and could hear the whooft sound when I closed the door.
 
“The fitful sleeping makes the hours pass slowly; it seems to me the night has many nights in it―has years of nights!―through which, as if through drifts of smoke, I am compelled to stumble.” (Sarah Waters, Fingersmith)
 
When I awaken at three or four AM, my mind goes into overdrive trying to discern reality from fantasy. I never know if these little scenarios are dreams or waking thoughts that I focus on because there is nothing else to distract me from my own mind. Or maybe the rational part of my brain is actually asleep, letting some other entity run the show. Am I actually sleeping while having these frustrating thoughts about not being able to sleep? Am I just dreaming that I have insomnia? Like Proust, is the thought that it’s time to go to sleep actually waking me up?
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​Then my full bladder preempts the thoughts about sleep and brings me to an awakened and embodied reality. I stumble to my feet, ankles feeling loose, unhinged, for the first few steps as I stagger to the bathroom. I peer at the alarm clock when I return to bed. It’s now three-twenty AM and still too early to get up, but the physical effort of walking to the bathroom, washing my hands, and getting a drink of water on my way through the kitchen has me in a clearer, more awake mental state. Will I be able to go back to sleep. Please, I beg whatever deity rules over slumber.
 
I pull the harness over my head, reattach the CPAP mask and hose, and try a deep breathing activity that I read was “guaranteed to put you to sleep in less than five minutes.” Breathe in to a count of five, hold it for a count of seven, then release the breath slowly to a count of nine. “Repeat this four or five times and you will fall asleep,” the author said. I do this twice and then my attention wanders to a book I am reading. The book is about walking in the Presidio, once a military base, now a large park in the northern part of the city. I mentally review my calendar to find a time to walk there today or tomorrow. Oh, yeah, it’s the pandemic and I’m semi-retired. I have time to walk almost every day. I plot a possible route in my head. Then I see myself walking along the Woodline. Wait, was that a memory or a dream? Then I remember that I’m trying to use the breathing exercise to go back to sleep and start it again. Why? It has never worked before, why do I think it will put me to sleep today? I guess I feel the need to try something, even if it has never once worked in the past year. But the thought/dream of the Woodline has set my mind to whispering the name of its creator Andy Goldsworthy, Andy Goldsworthy.
 
Oh, three AM, why am I cursed to visit you night after night? What is it about that time of the night that often launches me into that twilight state between asleep and awake? If it’s a bewitching hour, it’s a very strange kind of haunting where I focus on impossibly large purses and English muffins and walks in the park and ghostly voices singing Safeway by the Sea. I can’t tell if I’m dreaming or thinking. I blame Proust.
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​​Mickey Eliason is a recently retired faculty member from San Francisco State University with a background in nursing, psychology, and public health. She harkens originally from Iowa and spent twenty-five years on faculty at the University of Iowa. She was propelled to San Francisco in 2005 by a midlife crisis, and transitioned from land-locked stoic midwestern to California beach bum. After a lifetime of academic writing, she is experimenting with different writing genres, but mostly to creative nonfiction. She has self-published two volumes of humor writing: a parody of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual outlining unique lesbian pathologies (The Dyke Dykignostic Manual) and short stories written recently (Pandemic Procrastination and Ponderings). Both are available on Amazon.
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Vistas & Byways Review is the semiannual journal of fiction, nonfiction and poetry by members of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at San Francisco State University​.​
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