Dream Pill

Dream Pill

It seemed like such a crazy idea when I first heard the advertisement on the radio. “Imagine. Your dreams are no longer random. Finally, you can gain control of your dreams. No more nightmares. No more replaying something nasty that happened during the day. You don’t have to be haunted by ghosts of the past, present or future. You can dream what you want. Take our amazing dream pill and you can direct your dream where you want it to go.                                

 I am 30 years old and divorced. I have few friends, and not many forms of entertainment. I like my job, but not much else in my life. So I went to the address of the local store that sold the dream pill. I didn’t want to wait to have it shipped.                      

The store had bright banners declaring the arrival that day of the dream pill. When I went inside, I was accosted by a professionally perky cheerleader for the newly-shelved product. She quoted the advertisement verbatim, adding, with emphasis “And your dream experience will be enhanced in all your senses.” She gave me a dramatized wink, a nod and a light punch to the shoulder. “Sweet dreams.”

Wednesday Night: The First Dream

For my first dream I wanted to try something safe, something that could not turn ugly or scary. So, I thought of one of my favourite things. Then I carefully read the instructions:  “First take the pill, which enhances the part of your brain that receives input to dreams. After you take the pill, say three times with your unspoken voice the subject of the dream that you want. That will help give your dream area focus your thoughts.”                                                                              So last night I took a pill and then said the words declaring my desire. I then waited for sleep. It wasn’t long in coming. The dream began. I was walking down a country road. There right in front of me on the side of the road was an ice cream stand. As I walked up to it I saw that they only had one flavour – chocolate. I stood in front of the person behind the counter in high anticipation. She said, “Because you are our first customer of the day, you will get all you can eat chocolate ice cream for the price of one small cone. And just in case you are wondering, this is low cal ice cream. It will not add any weight.”                                                                          

For the rest of the dream, I ate and ate. I don’t remember ever experiencing taste in a dream before, but the pill must have added that to my internal dream machine. My dream was enhanced in chocolaty splendor.

Thursday Night: The Second Dream

The second dream took me in a very different direction. When I was six years old my family had a cocker spaniel named Cindy (Cinderella) given to us by my father’s parents, much to my father’s lack of delight. We only had her for a short period of time before she was hit and killed by a car crossing the road to be with me in the school playground. I can barely remember doing much with her. I wanted to see her once again, and play with her as boy and dog, if only in a dream.                                                                                         

When I entered the dream state I was in our old house looking out the back window. The big willow stood large in the backyard as it did in those days. And underneath the swaying willow wands was Cindy. I rushed outside to be with her once more. She was crazy to see me. We played and played: fetch (a ball was in the backyard, handy to our use), tug-of-war with an old shirt that had fallen from the clothesline. If I had known I was asleep, I would have wanted never to wake up again. But I did awaken. There were tears all over my pillow and I felt a deep sadness. I could never choose a dream subject like that again. I needed to choose something much safer emotionally

Friday Night: The Third Dream

For the third dream, I had to experience something that would make me feel good, but not make me sad upon realizing its absence when I awakened. Then I had this wonderful thought. When I was 17, I met this girl at a dance. She was the first girl that I ever kissed. She was only 14. We were kind of boyfriend and girlfriend for a short time, but I was too immature, too inexperienced to know how to live such a relationship day-to-day. I regretted her loss for a while, but then my life moved on. Her name was Gay, not a name that would be given to a girl these days.  She would be a good subject for a dream pill.                                               

Three times I said it, “I want to dream of Gay. I want to dream of Gay. I want to dream of Gaye.” It took me awhile to get to sleep, as I was that excited by the prospects of what I would experience. Then the dream began.

I was standing on the pathway we were on that first night before we went to her house and kissed at her doorstep. I stood alone, but not for long. There she was approaching me, a big smile on her face, eyes brightly shining.

“There you are. I hoped I would see you. It’s been such a long time.”

I wondered at her words. When we were together, we were never apart for very long. But then, when you are a teenager, such time seems longer than it really is.

We hugged. I wonder whether I have ever felt so much emotion in just one hug. When we finally unclenched, she looked at me as if she was feeling exactly the same way I was. Then she said, much to my shock and surprise: “Boy, do these dream pills ever work. I am glad I took the chance and spoke this wish.” 

It seemed only natural for me to say in reply, “I took one too. You’re in my dream.”

We were both quite silent for a while. Then I got an idea. “If this is real, let’s meet at ten o’clock in the morning at the doughnut shop we used to hang at when we had no place better to go.. We hung out there lots of times in the past. What do you say to that?”

“I’ll be there,” was all she said.

Saturday Morning: Back in the Waking World

           Back in the waking world, I am sitting in the doughnut shop, nursing a coffee as I used to do long ago. As I am not a teenager now, I am not being stared at by the staff, eager to kick me out for loitering. It is 10:05. I am beginning to feel quite foolish. Only I would do something this crazy. Angry with myself,  I crash my fist onto the table in frustration, causing my jelly doughnut to fall off its close-to-the-edge resting place. I reach down to the floor to retrieve it, doing so sufficiently fast to come within the three second rule. When I get back up to the sitting position, I look around to see if anyone witnessed my doughnut retrieval. Then I see her. And she sees me. We share looks of surprise and joy. Our dream has come true.