No Spectators in Dreams

Suppose there is a dream like this.

I return to a classroom. The desks are in the wrong places. Outside the window is another city. Still, I know this is the room I remember. Someone is waiting for me to hand something in. I cannot remember what it is, only that it is very late. I search my bag. Everything inside has nothing to do with what I need.

Nobody explains the rules. I do not find this strange. I only feel ashamed.

After waking, an explanation is easy to find. There has been too much to do lately. Perhaps it is anxiety, or some unfinished task. There is nothing necessarily wrong with that account. But every time I put the dream away under a word, the classroom seems to have been hastily cleaned. The floor is clear. Whatever troubled me has disappeared with the mess.

Why was I so certain I owed something? Why did I hurry to search when nobody was urging me on? What would happen if I failed to find it? The dream did not tell me. I did not ask.

My interest in dreams often rests with these unasked questions. Awake, I can laugh at the absurdity. It is harder to explain why, while I was there, I cooperated so readily. Not even an out-of-place desk made me suspicious. My own lack of preparation, meanwhile, seemed entirely reasonable.

In telling the dream, I naturally begin repairing it. “Later” follows “at first.” Whoever stood at the door, whoever watched me, is assigned a clear position. I have forgotten some parts, but a vague impression fills the gap and the story continues.

The dream someone else hears is therefore more dreamlike than the one I had. It has atmosphere, suggestions, even an ending suitable for interpretation. The person searching through the bag has finally become a character we can discuss.

I like this distance. From the narrator’s position I can choose details, call the whole thing ridiculous, move lightly past a moment when someone starts taking it seriously. I no longer have to admit that I was frightened in that place where nobody explained the rules.

But the person inside the dream had no such position. If I could not find something, I had to keep searching. Even standing outside the classroom, watching another version of myself sit there, might not release me. I would still care whether that person managed to hand it in. I would still feel embarrassed for them.

This is roughly what I mean by “no spectators.” I am trying to describe the feeling of being unable to get away from myself. Once awake, the dream is already distant. A little of its shame can remain, without my even remembering what caused it.

For now, I want to keep the record simple. The desks, the window, the thing I could not find. The fact that I knew I was late without knowing what I was late for. What it means can wait.

I worry that an explanation arriving too soon will clean the classroom all over again.