I could tell I’d arrived early at the office this morning by the fact that there were very few cars on the carpark. Normally I arrive much later and struggle to find a space. I couldn’t remember why I’d decided to get in so early, but it’s as well I did because I discovered they’d been moving the desks around over the weekend, and it was going to take me a while to get settled in again. The desks were new – a lot smaller than we were used to – a bit like those old school desks. I presumed it was so they could fit more desks into the limited space. But the reorganisation had gone much further, eliminating such a thing as personal desks altogether and had embraced instead a full blown policy of hot-desking.
Everything’s on the machine these days anyway – no bits of paper to speak of, and anything that’s left lying around on desks is mostly junk and can be binned. It was a bit odd at first, settling down on a particular desk, doing a little work, then nipping to the gents and coming back to find someone else sitting there. People didn’t like it and there was a lot of grumbling. It was unsettling for sure; a queer, impersonal way of working to never be permitted your own sense of familiar personal space, but I decided I could weather it for the few years remaining to my retirement.
I remember it was about mid morning and I was chatting to a colleague about the shake-up, when I glanced at my watch and felt a moment of serious disorientation. I didn’t recognise the watch at all. Sure, I’d been looking at a watch like that one on Amazon the night before, but I’d not bought it yet. Had I?
No! It was not my watch.
It was a classic trigger, a jolt of inconsistency that made me realise the whole day, so far, had been a dream.
Dreams, it seems, are convincing liars.
On the upside, this was one of those rare occasions when I found myself becoming conscious that I was dreaming – entering the so called lucid dream state. On the downside, I was disappointed in myself because I realised I’d been taken in by distinctly third rate scenery and a very poor plot-line; this was not my office at all, nor were these my colleagues, and only in my dreams am I anywhere near retirement.
I’ve made a study of the lucid dream-state, am fascinated by it, and use it more often than I should as a plot device, but here I was experiencing a rare awakening inside one of my own dreams, and feeling distinctly underwhelmed by it.
After the initial realisation, I fancied the dream was fading, so I focused on my hands, and on that unfamiliar wristwatch. The observation served to steady things and I was able to hang on for a while longer. Then I did what I said I’d never do if I found myself inside a waking dream: I imagined myself becoming lighter than air, and floating upwards. Sure enough, up I went. Then the dream popped, and I was wide awake at 5:00 am, thinking to myself: now that was interesting!
I drove to work (again) feeling rather groggy this time. The carpark was reassuringly full and my desk was in its familiar place. I was just settling in with coffee when a colleague came up to me and said he’d been thinking of buying a new watch from Amazon and someone had told him I’d bought a nice little automatic from there recently. He wondered if he could take a look at it. I looked down at my wrist,…
And hesitated.
Now that was even more interesting!
Sweet dreams
The Rivendale Review 