Morpheus and the Dreamers

“You take the blue pill... the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill... you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” — Laurence Fishburne, The Matrix

***

“Row, row, row, your boat…” Morpheus, the god of dreams, hummed absently as he puttered around his Mount Olympus penthouse. It was one of those tunes that got stuck in his head when he was thinking about nothing, but he didn’t mind, it was a tune with a good message after all. 

A knock sounded on his finely carved door. He swung the loose end of his toga over his arm and gracefully strode to answer. Perhaps it was Iris coming with a mission from Zeus!

  Morpheus was surprised to find not a goddess, but two mortal children. Both girls, one blonde, the other brunette. They wore identical blue dresses, though one had accented her outfit with a crisp white pinafore, while the other had chosen to carry a basket with a small dog.

“Yes?” Morpheus intoned, always skeptical of any mortals allowed into Olympus. 

“You don’t recognize us?” The one in the pinafore said.

Morpheus crouched down to eye level, careful to hold his excess toga off the floor.

“Dear me, you’re that child I sent chasing the white rabbit aren’t you?” 

“Yes I am. Alice in case you forgot.” Alice replied.

“Of course!” Morpheus shifted his gaze to the second child, then tapped an open palm to his forehead, “Oh I should have known, but without the red slippers it was hard to recognize you. Dorcus, isn’t it?”

“Dorothy.” Dorothy glared.

“Right, well, Dorothy, Alice, what can I do for you today?”

“We would like to have a talk about our dreams.” Dorothy said.

“Dear me, yes, well, a lot of people like to talk about their dreams. But I’m not really that kind of god you see. It’s in the small print. No refunds and that kind of thing.” 

“We don’t want refunds.” Alice said, “We just want answers.”

“I am sorry, but I have an allergy to dogs, you know…”

“Toto has hair, not fur, so he’s hypoallergenic.” Dorothy pushed past the draping toga, and Alice followed her into the main room, where they placed themselves rather firmly on Morpheus’s favorite divan.

“Alright then, what kind of questions are we dealing with here?” Morpheus said hesitantly, one hand still holding the door open.

“We should wait for the others I think.” Alice said.

“Others?” 

“They aren’t far behind us, though I am not sure there’s room for everyone in here.” Dorothy said.

Just then a man stumbled up to the door. His difficulty walking was caused by a paper mache donkey’s head obscuring his view. 

“This the place where the dreamers are meeting?” The man’s voice echoed hollowly inside the donkey’s head.

“No.” Morpheus said.

“Yes.” Alice and Dorothy chorused.

“Name’s Bottom. Nick Bottom.” Nick Bottom extended a hand not quite in Morpheus’s direction. 

“Should I know you?” Morpheus arched an eyebrow as he grasped the proffered hand between his own thumb and forefinger.

“Well, sir,” Bottom struggled for a moment with his donkey’s head, finally removing it from his shoulders, “truth be told, that’s sort of the question I’m here to ask. But I can wait my turn.” Nick Bottom placed his donkey head under his arm and flopped down into a pouf.

Morpheus began to close the door, but a shined leather shoe inserted itself in the opening, preventing him from doing so. Morpheus sighed. This time, it was a venerable looking gentleman dressed in a fine three piece suit, his gray beard neatly trimmed beneath round spectacles.

“My name is Sigmund. I am sure you have heard of me by now. Thanks for inviting me to this discussion.” The man hung his felt hat on the wall, then reclined on Morpheus’s other good divan, taking the whole thing for himself.

“May I ask who called for this meeting?” Morpheus inquired, abandoning the door to swing ajar.

“The director. He’ll be coming too.” Alice said.

Morpheus looked expectantly at the doorway. A man with fading red hair strode up, hands in the pockets of a tuxedo. Morpheus’s eyes lit up with recognition. “Ah, Mr. Nolan! Big fan you know, though to be honest I still am not sure about the ending of—”

“It’s Sir Nolan now.” Sir Nolan interrupted. 

“Of course…” Morpheus trailed off as he noticed the perspiration on Sir Nolan’s brow, the fidgetiness of the hands in his pockets, and the slight bulge of the man’s eyes as they roved around the room, “Are you feeling well, Mr—I mean Sir Nolan? Would you like to sit down?”

Morpheus shot a meaningful look towards Sigmund, but Sigmund maintained full length possession of the divan. Sir Nolan didn’t seem to mind however. He took a seat on the floor, back against the wall, knees against his chest, arms wrapped around them. As Morpheus watched in stunned silence, Sir Nolan took a small metal top from his pocket and spun it on the floor. Quite an ingenious little device, as it took only a simple twist of the fingers to send it spinning and spinning and spinning. 

“This should be enough to get started.” Alice said, “you can close the door now.”

Morpheus did so, feeling the eyes of the unwanted guests boring into him. This was very uncomfortable.

Morpheus had an idea.

“Who likes cupcakes?” He said brightly. “I just happened to have whipped up a batch of blue ones! I’ll just pop into the kitchen and—”

“No, my friend,” Sigmund said, “Questions first, refreshments later.”

Morpheus deflated. 

“I’ll start,” Dorothy said. “I want to know: Why was home still monochrome? I'm not complaining too much about the dream itself. But if I was supposed to learn so much, why was everything still black and white when I woke up?”

Morpheus tried to remember. Something about a tornado and tiny people with large lollipops. Morpheus felt a little embarrassed as the memory came clearer. His special effects had come a long way since then. “Umm, are you saying Kansas isn’t monochrome?”

“It is now, thanks to your dream.”

“Listen, I don’t think I actually have control over that kind of—.”

“What was the point of my dream?” Alice interrupted, “I mean, at least with Dorothy, things correlated when she woke up. But what was I supposed to learn? I mean should a seven year old even have that kind of stuff in her head?”

Morpheus folded his arms across his chest. He did remember that dream pretty well. Some of the best nonsense he’d ever done. Kids were supposed to like that sort of thing. “Listen, dreams are you know, well, they just sort of come to me. Like I said, the small print and everything. I am sorry if you were dissatisfied.”

Alice and Dorothy looked at each other then Dorothy said. “It is not the dreams that were dissatisfying. It was the waking up. I made tons of good friends in Oz, but it was awkward that the help on the farm couldn’t remember all the stuff we did together.”

“I agree,” said Alice, “I mean, at face value it was good I woke before my head was taken off, but let’s be honest, in that place it probably wouldn’t have mattered that much right? Just go find some glue and stick it back on or something, then keep going.”

“Am I to understand that you two wish your original dreams hadn’t ended?” Morpheus felt a little flattered.

Dorothy and Alice nodded.

“Well, there are always sequels aren’t there?”

“Sequels suck.” Alice said.

“Yeah,” Dorothy agreed. “They never have the same magic. We want to go back into our original dreams.”

“I suppose that’s a possibility…but you do know dreams aren’t real, right?”

“Now that's getting close to my question,” Nick Bottom declared with a projecting voice, “Are dreams real? Because I had a doozy, and I have been wondering ever since if it actually happened you know?”

Morpheus narrowed his eyes at the man. He was really drawing a blank. “I am sorry, which dream was yours?”

“You know, the midsummer one with everyone falling in love. I’m a little torn because it seems like I was at my best and worst. I guess I had an ass’s head, which really doesn’t seem that great, but for some reason this one dame was really into it. Then it was all over just like a dream. But sometimes I’m like, 'was it?'”

Morpheus gave his head a little shake. It sounded like something he might do to someone, but he couldn’t recall exactly. “Are you saying you imagined having a dream, but really had real life?”

“That's the thing I am asking,” Bottom said, “I mean, what if you did something horrible, or awesome, but then just wiped it away by saying ‘it must’ve been a dream,’ but then it wasn't really a dream at all? That’s where I’m at.” He stroked the paper mache donkey ears.

“I think the question of reality is not the most salient," Sigmund cut in. He was staring up at the ceiling, his head propped up by a pillow, his fingers knitted over his stomach. “I think we should all be less concerned about whether or not a dream is real and more concerned about what its meaning might be.”

“Meaning?” Morpheus groaned.

“Yes, meaning. Dreams take place in the subconscious, do they not?”

Morpheus shrugged.

“So they should mean something, should they not? Because, well, because the subconscious would really like it if it could have important meaning sometimes, instead of always playing second fiddle to the regular-conscious.”

Morpheus straightened his toga and stood up a little taller. “Now see here Mr. Sigmund. I am an artist. Art for art's sake. You just muddy things trying to assign meaning. Meaning adulterates the pure aesthetics—”

“There you go! Adultery. That’s a meaning isn’t it? Maybe Nick here had an ass’s head because his mother committed adultery with an—”

“Alright, there are children present!” Morpheus said, “enough questions. I’ll just run and get those blue cupcakes.”

“Reality is the only question.” Morpheus almost didn’t recognize Sir Nolan’s voice. For some reason it had become deep and raspy. Sir Nolan didn’t look up from his spinning top as he spoke. “Are we in reality now? Or is this just a dream within a dream within a dream without us knowing it? And if you can dream without knowing it, how can you be sure there even is reality? Maybe the subconscious is the only conscious, and it just makes us dream that there is the regular-conscious so we don’t know that the subconscious is really in charge.”

Morpheus rubbed his forehead. Not this. Not today. Not any day. Dreams were supposed to be fun. Sometimes scary maybe, or a little bizarre. But fun. Artsy and fun.

“Or, maybe Lovecraft was right,” Sir Nolan’s voice continued to grate, “and we are all just figments of a great god’s dream and will wink out when he awakes!”

“No, no,” Morpheus said, “I am a god myself, the god of dreams. I can attest we are not figments.”

“But have you seen this reddit thread?” Sir Nolan held up a phone screen.

“La la la la la,” Morpheus said loudly, putting his hands over his ears and running for the kitchen. He would be needing one of those blue cupcakes himself.

***

 Morpheus felt warm sunshine on his closed eyelids. It must be morning. He took a deep breath and snuggled a little deeper into his pillow. What would he do today? A few bars of his favorite empty-head song passed through his mind. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a—.” Morpheus sat up with a jolt. What did that song mean? Confound that Sigmund. What a horrible nightmare. Sir Nolan, I'd see you to Hades myself if you were real. All a dream indeed.

Morpheus slid his feet into his white bunny slippers and shuffled to his bedroom door. He needed a cuppa. 

“Good morning,” a gravelly voice said. Morpheus froze. His living room was still full of guests. Alice, Dorothy, Nick, Sigmund, Sir Nolan, and several others he didn’t remember letting in. His stomach dropped. They each held plates with cupcakes in various stages of consumption. All the cupcakes were red.