He’s been at it again. Messing with my dreams.

It’s been another day of sleep and dreams and incoherence, but I won’t bore you by bitching about it for two days in a row.

I do, however, have to tell you about this one dream, because it was so messed up that it frankly kind of disturbed me and so I need to write it out of me.

It started with me noticing that I had a glass tube, stuck to my torso by its open end, about where my large disfiguring scar from my gall bladder removal begins. It had clearly been done by the old practice of just lighting a match inside the tube and letting it create a vacuum by burning up the air in there, and then just cupping the open end against the patient’s flesh, making it stick there via vacuum suction. ^[1]

I remember finding it amusing to find it there, and wondering hey, who would do that? I reached down and pulled it off with a soft popping sound, and examined the area underneath. It seemed considerably lighter in color than the surrounding skin, and had a little blood here and there and some scarring, but otherwise seemed perfectly fine, so I thought no more of it.

But shortly it began to itch, and so I lazily and unworriedly scratched at it… and then I felt something give and separate, like something that was holding me together gave way.

And that’s when I started to fall apart. My whole gut just fell in pieces on the floor, in big wet chunks, and soon I could see my flash and entrails just sitting there unprotected.

I began to scream. Help, help, I am falling apart, I need medical assistance right now, I need an ambulance.

I think, for some odd reason, that I was in a movie theater at the time. I sat there, afraid to move a muscle in case more of me fell off and came apart, and while I was frozen there, I felt someone sneak under the seats and…. kind of macrame me back together a little by taking my loose and hanging intestines and braiding them into a sort of basket which would keep everything in till I got help.

I never saw this person, but I felt it all happening. I immediately relaxed somewhat, feeling much better now that I knew I would not fall apart right away. I was ridiculously grateful to this mysterious person, and wondered why they did this in secret.

Then, I was heading to a nearby medical clinic that I knew about, surrounded by a concerned and helpful throng of movie patrons, who were also helping me to walk. ^[2]

We arrived at the clinic, which was not even a block away, and I noticed that they seemed to have expanded the cafeteria section of the clinic since I had been there last. Everywhere, there were people dining, and they seemed to be looking at us with amusement, like I was just some amusing freak they felt comfortable mocking to one another.

I ranged through the clinic, horror dawning as I came to realize that it wasn’t even a clinic any more. The whole place had been turned into a sort of indoor mini mall. I cried out in anger and frustration, and the diners seemed to find that especially amusing. So I screamed “Well my guts are falling out, so FUCK YOU!” and gave them the finger (which I found hard to do, because my hands didn’t seem to be working right and it took a little while to get the right configuration of fingers) while my supporters lead me away.

I don’t remember what happened after that. I vaguely recall getting in and out of some vehicles and ending up at some sort of hospital. But that’s it.

Luckily, there was enough dream-time between the falling open and waking up so that I did not wake up super freaked out thinking my guts were hanging out of me. I had a little while to wake up and then the remnants of the dream came back to me in a way that just made me go “What a fucked up dream!”.

Let’s take a crack at interpreting it, as it seems pretty simple : all that gross Cronenberg stuff is just a metaphor for falling apart and becoming vulnerable psychologically. Something in my life has made me feel like that is a possibility lately, and the dream was part of my dealing with this idea.

And well, the mocking crowd must represent the deep feeling I have that me and my pain are never taken seriously, and that nobody gives a shit about me really, and that I am just a pathetic unfunny joke.

But my mysterious intestinal tailor and the crowds from the theater supporting me suggests that, at long last, that feeling is breaking down, and part of me, at least, can believe that people do truly care about me and would be there for me in a crisis.

That, to me, represents real progress. I have very deep problems, and there is a lot of psychological dead tissue in me, and I won’t progress without a process to shed it and let healthy flesh replace it.

So take that, Cronenberg.