waking dreams

i'm still not exactly sure what was the dream and what was reality. i know i yelled, loudly, and several times. but i am only certain it was out loud because my throat burned as i leapt out of bed throwing the covers off of me at the same time. all the while, i kept my eyes completely focused on the spider perched on the edge of my bed just a foot or so from where my sleeping head had been. my eyes, my whole body in fact, was trained on the spider as i moved around the corner of my bed closer to the thing, heart beating madly, terrified but determined to rid my life of this too-big-for-comfort-spider so inconsiderately shaking me from sleep. but as i got closer, the spider faded suddenly into nothing as i reached out, disbelief and my hand touching the empty sheets at the same time.

i know it didn't scamper up over the edge and into my blankets. i know it didn't drop down the side of my bed when it saw me coming with all eight of its non-existent eyes. i know it with complete certainty because i have never been so singly focused on one thing in my entire life.

i stood for a few moments staring at the unoffending sheets, lavender {as usual}, lit by the candles i had chosen to leave burning when i had turned in for the night {not usual}. i turned on the light by my bed to make sure i wasn't completely crazy and to give myself some time for my heart to reluctantly return to a more normal speed.

i would blame the candles, a trick of the light, but a whole day later, i am just not sure. somehow it feels like the lines between waking and dreaming were blurred. but i wasn't sleep walking, i was aware of it all, every moment, every decision, every ounce of focus on the spider. yet as it disappeared, as the space its 2 1/2 inch body had occupied on my bed revealed itself to merely be an unconvincing line of fabric, i felt myself surfacing, as though in that moment my consciousness shifted from one thing to the next as tangibly as a soft breath air on my face.

this has only happened one other time about 12 years ago. my year in australia was coming to a close and i had come back early from a night out, content to be alone and reflective on one of my last days in the country rather than dancing about town with some folks i didn't really know. the girls in the house i was crashing at woke me up about an hour or so after i turned in {similar to last night} and when i returned to bed, the celestial print on my bed sheets was rippling like water. i stood in amazement looking down on my bed that look like a stream was superimposed upon it. and somehow, it felt like the water was rippling across my eyes at the same time. i looked away, at some other object in the room, and satisfied the whole world wasn't liquifying, i turned back to my sheets, watched it for several moments and then started narrating exactly what i was seeing and feeling for my friend who was crashing with me in the room. i spoke out the entire phenomena to my half asleep companion, affirming more to myself than to her exactly what was happening. then someone switched on a light in the hallway. the spell was broken and the sheets returned to their usual static design.

really, i'll take rippling stars and suns and moons any day to a med-large house spider perched at the edge of my bed. either way, hopefully it'll be another decade before i straddle the line so tangibly between the two worlds of my consciousness, or at least if the next one features a phobia again.

and tonight, i'm exhausted.
and jumping a bit at shadows.