He laughed. They were attuned as ever.
But consider what I am about to say as a thought experiment. You say the wardrobe nightmare is back, but that it is less intense than before.
Years ago, my father ran a series of essays on the ancient Greeks. I can’t say they were overwhelmingly popular, and he only ran three installments in a planned six-part series. I had a niggling sense that there was something in one of them about dreaming. I went into the archives and sure enough, there was this quote from Aristotle:
“Often when one is asleep, there is something in consciousness which declares that what then presents itself is but a dream.”
And that book I told you about, the one from which I learned my flame-visualizing exercise, makes mention of the ancient practice of Yoga nidra, which, as far as I understand it—which admittedly isn’t very far—is the cultivation of a state of consciousness between waking and sleeping.
Here we have two suggestions, from disparate places and cultures, that it might be possible for a dreamer to be aware that he is dreaming.
I wonder, could control follow awareness?
In other words, is there a way for you to realize that you’re dreaming while you’re dreaming, and if so, can you then change the outcome of said dream? Could you, say, open the wardrobe from the inside and simply walk out? Remove yourself to somewhere calming. Perhaps go for a swim (for this incident took place at your family’s country estate, yes?).
Again, I realize I probably sound daft. But one of the lovely things about you is that I can say anything to you.
He set the letter down again, astounded by its contents.
Could he do as she suggested?
Well, he could certainly try. How, though? He returned to reading.
The question is, how would one attempt to enter into a dream with awareness that one was dreaming?
Another laugh, at how alike they remained in their thinking.
I haven’t the faintest idea. I tried for myself, thinking that perhaps if I made an attempt, I might be better positioned to advise you. I have been dreaming of my father since Brighton. I haven’t told you this, and I’m not sure why, apart from the fact that I am inexplicably sheepish about it. Then in turn annoyed, for what, I ask myself, is there to be sheepish about? It would seem a perfectly ordinary thing for a person to dream of one’s beloved departed father.
I have been having the same dream almost nightly, and it manages to be both extraordinary and mundane at the same time. In it, I arrive at the office in the morning to find my father there, just as he used to be, although in those days we would have traveled together from our shared home. We used to have desks pushed up against each other so that when we sat in them, we faced each other. I still have those two desks, but after Father passed, I moved his to a corner of the room. It hurt too much to have it in my direct line of vision, to have to perpetually be reminded of his absence.
In the dream, he is at his desk in the old spot carrying out routine tasks related to the magazine. In one dream, he will be marking up a story. In another, he is bent over the accounts. So in that sense, the dream differs night to night.
What does not differ is that I am overwhelmed with sentiment to see him. I call his name. He looks up, and I realize he is the same age as when he died a decade ago. I have aged, but he has not. We are still father and daughter, but not in the same way as before. I have gained on him, which is a rather uncanny sensation.
He smiles at me. We are happy to see each other. I go to him, exclaiming, but I can’t quite reach his side. Something invisible stops me. He seems to know what it is and opens his mouth, presumably to explain, but no sound comes out. He seems surprised by his muteness and tries again, to the same (lack of) effect.
The dream takes a sinister turn then as he keeps attempting and failing to speak. I, however, can speak, and I begin to question him. How are you here? What are you trying to say? I bombard him, even though I know my queries, and his inability to answer, are distressing him.
Last night, after I blew out my candle, I closed my eyes and tried to see an awake version of the dream. I pretended I was mounting a stage play and Dream Julianna was an actress I could direct. In my dream play, Dream Julianna sat down across from her father and greeted him calmly. Then he told Dream Julianna whatever it was he’d been trying to say.
I fell asleep, and I had the dream again, but it didn’t follow the script I’d “written” while awake. Perhaps you shall have better luck than I.
Effie put down the letter, overcome—by the recounted dream, by the fact that she had shared it so readily, by her attempt to influence it so she could help him withhisdreams.
He would try her method, he decided.
* * *
The second curious thing that happened was that Effie went to a ball.
It was an annual late-October soiree of some renown held by the Duchess of Edenshire. Sarah had written him from Italy—an unusual occurrence, as the siblings didn’t generally correspond—and begged him to attend. She had planned to go herself, but Mother and Father had decided they were staying on in Italy for at least an extra fortnight. Since Sarah could not go, she entreated Effie, would he please do so and report back? Would he pay particular attention to the following gentlemen? What did they wear, with whom did they dance, that sort of thing.
Effie had no desire to attend the ball, but how could he say no? Sarah, quite a bit younger than he, was heading into her second Season, and he could appreciate that she was, to use her words, “stuck in Italy with our parents, and one can eat only so many olives and see so many ruins before one goes slightly mad.”
“This is only the second ball I’ve attended in months,” Effie remarked when they were en route in Archie’s coach. Clementine, having learned Effie was bound for the same ball she, Archie, and Olive were attending, insisted he ride with them. He resolved not to repeat the mistakes he had made last time. No dancing with any lady more than once. No playing cards with Mr. Lansing. In fact, he would avoid the game rooms altogether.
“I know, and I am told that’s very out of character for you,” Clementine said. “By all accounts, you used to be a lover of parties and spectacles and what have you.”
