I’m not even sure how to write this, but here goes. I really hope someone can help me out here …
I’m having a terrible problem with a client of mine. I’ll just call him Richard.
Richard always had one major problem in life. He had to find a way to stop dreaming. It wasn’t that he had particularly bad dreams, it was just that they were too vivid and tired him out and therefore defeated the whole purpose of going to sleep at all.
So Richard, getting tired of feeling tired, had set out to find a solution. He did the rounds, seeing medico types, spiritual types, psychics and psychologists, scarcely distinguishing between any of them, just going from one to other in a mechanical sort of way. That was the way he did everything. His only real life was in his neverending, highly coloured, unsettling dreams, and that kind of life was tiring him out too much by now.
Finally, he came to me. I always like to think of myself as a kind of engaging mix of all the afore-mentioned types, as I take great care not to be pigeonholed in any way. I’m a dream expert anyhow, not to mention a people expert. I took one look at Richard and I could see that he was just the type to have bad dreams: the pale, watery-looking, indeterminate type.
‘They’re not bad dreams, not what you’d call nightmares, anyhow,’ he explained to me in that specially weary lifeless way of his. ‘They’re just too vivid. They tire me out. I want them to stop.’
‘So, they are bad dreams really,’ I remarked, but he wasn’t particularly impressed with this bit of wisdom.
‘They told me the usual, you know’ – ‘they’, I assumed, were the usual bunch of charlatans, which he’d already seen. ‘Don’t eat a heavy meal in the evening, or drink alcohol or caffeine. But you see, I can’t give up doing those things,’ he explained carefully, ‘because I don’t do them anyway.’
I could believe that. He didn’t look as though he took any sustenance at all, over and beyond the minimum needed to stay alive.
‘And then – they told me to relax, wind down, stop worrying about things. But I can’t really do that either. I don’t worry about anything as it is.’
‘Apart from the dreams,’ I cut in.
He looked as though I’d sprung a peculiarly unpleasant surprise on him.
‘Well, yes, I suppose you could say that.’
I put on my knowing look.’ And of course, it’s that apprehension that makes you worry just before you go to sleep. And your fears are fulfilled every night. It’s become a vicious circle, don’t you see?’
He didn’t give any indication that he did, but at least it looked like he was pondering it.
I began to expatiate, and he sat back and took it, albeit in his usual listless manner. I found myself wondering whether he’d ever been the least bit lively in his entire life. Even as a little kid. I doubted he’d ever been one.
I finished my spiel and waited. He seemed to be reflecting.
‘I’ve heard it all before,’ he said.
‘I daresay you have,’ I replied rather tautly.
‘At least you don’t recommend a soothing CD,’ he added. ‘Sounds of the ocean and whale songs, that kind of thing.’
This sounded like praise, so I didn’t attempt to gainsay it.
‘Thing is,’ I began again, trying not to be unsettled by the glassy stare which he raised to me, ‘we really do have to deal with this holistically, you know. It’s a matter of taking the broad view,’ I went on brightly. ‘Your dreams aren’t just the result of stress or … They aren’t just one aspect of you. Your dreams are you. To change your dreams you have to change you.’
I suppose that makes sense,’ he replied. I was secretly pleased at this unlooked-for approval on his part. I hadn’t even thought he was listening.
‘So, to put a stop to those dreams, you have to put a stop to -‘ I was beginning, when he suddenly leapt up from his seat with unexpected animation – totally unexpected on my part, anyway. In fact, so much so that I had to suppress a gasp.
‘That’s it!’ he almost shouted.
My professional demeanour failed me almost completely at this point. ‘What?’
He sat down again, with a new disconcerting gleam in his eye.
‘No-one else ever put it so clearly as you’ve just done,’ he said. And with that he had left the little shabby room that I liked to call my office.
He left me in a state of bewilderment, I have to admit it. Somehow I’d managed to get across to him, but I had no idea how.
Well, I did manage to cure him of his nightly dreams – in a way. In fact, this was one of the few consultations I ever gave which had a positive result. That is, positive in the sense that it made the client actively do something to change his life. Only, of course, he went a little too far. He changed it by putting an end to it.
Or - maybe I’m being a little too judgemental. Maybe it wasn’t suicide. I just worry that it was – barely a week after he left me – and the confounded coroner certainly didn’t help ease my mind by bringing in a verdict of unexplained death. Anyway, whether or not he actively killed himself, he’d certainly contrived one way or another, to end up dead practically after leaving my office.
And the real trouble is, of course, he’s bequeathed bad dreams to me. At least, I dream of him nightly now, lamenting and cursing. Cursing me for having given him such bad advice. ‘I wouldn’t have minded dying if it had been worth it,’ he rages at me every night, ‘ but it wasn’t! I could only have got rid of those dreams if I’d got rid of my consciousness. But that didn’t happen! My consciousness is stuck here on some godforsaken lower astral plane. Goddammit, I’m so stuck!’
I can hardly remember just what I said to him to set him off like that. All I said was, your dreams are you, so to stop your dreams you have to put a stop to - I suppose the fool thought I meant ‘you have to put a stop to yourself,’ or something. And rushed off to do it literally.
Am I to blame for him putting the wrong construction on my words? It’s far worse than him suing me. Now it seems he’s stuck eternally in my head. In my dreams.
Any suggestions on what I should do? Is it just my guilty conscience or what? I’ll genuinely be grateful for advice (I’ll also do my best not to pass on any bad dreams ….)