Simo Sakari Aaltonen (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} simosakari) wrote,@ 2009-06-26 14:03:00 |
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Call back yesterday, bid time return
We were all crowding inside the church where they were about to show A Matter of Life and Death, the 1946 film on which I had just seen an article written by Oliver Sacks. Most people had already found their places on the pews; I was still in the foyer. They started rolling film, but I had to go to the bathroom. I walked to the other end of the foyer, entered the bathroom, and closed the door. I thought maybe a couple of minutes passed by.
But when I emerged back into the foyer, the film was over. Everyone was filing out of the church. I had lost almost two hours. I had no recollection whatsoever of what I could have been doing in that time. Later they found some bloody towels in the bathroom's laundry bin. Everyone was convinced I had murdered someone, and the worst of it was that I could not say for certain they were wrong.
This was my first experience of missing time, albeit in a dream. What makes the dream particularly interesting for me, apart from the possible symbolism with the church and the title of the film, is the chronology of events:
1. It is morning; I am sleeping; I experience the dream up to the point where I have closed the bathroom door and seated myself on the toilet. (Is this more symbolism? While everyone else sits on pews, watching a classic film, I "take my seat" in the toilet.)
2. I stir in my dream andcavefelem, already awake, asks if I want coffee. I say no, thank you, I really need to get some more sleep.
3. I fall back asleep; the dream picks up from the moment I exit the bathroom and find people filing out of the church. There follow long drawn-out suspicions of murder in the midst of some kind of hybrid schoolroom experience to which my subconscious is treating me; this I rather enjoy, since I get to flirt with some classmates I had a thing for (which particular flirting never happened in the waking world).
4. It is afternoon; I wake up. I reconstruct this chronology.
Admittedly I cannot be absolutely certain this was the sequence of events, since I was drifting in and out of sleep for much of it. But it was rather a relief to realise the whole episode involving missing time was a dream.
We were all crowding inside the church where they were about to show A Matter of Life and Death, the 1946 film on which I had just seen an article written by Oliver Sacks. Most people had already found their places on the pews; I was still in the foyer. They started rolling film, but I had to go to the bathroom. I walked to the other end of the foyer, entered the bathroom, and closed the door. I thought maybe a couple of minutes passed by.
But when I emerged back into the foyer, the film was over. Everyone was filing out of the church. I had lost almost two hours. I had no recollection whatsoever of what I could have been doing in that time. Later they found some bloody towels in the bathroom's laundry bin. Everyone was convinced I had murdered someone, and the worst of it was that I could not say for certain they were wrong.
This was my first experience of missing time, albeit in a dream. What makes the dream particularly interesting for me, apart from the possible symbolism with the church and the title of the film, is the chronology of events:
1. It is morning; I am sleeping; I experience the dream up to the point where I have closed the bathroom door and seated myself on the toilet. (Is this more symbolism? While everyone else sits on pews, watching a classic film, I "take my seat" in the toilet.)
2. I stir in my dream and
cavefelem, already awake, asks if I want coffee. I say no, thank you, I really need to get some more sleep.3. I fall back asleep; the dream picks up from the moment I exit the bathroom and find people filing out of the church. There follow long drawn-out suspicions of murder in the midst of some kind of hybrid schoolroom experience to which my subconscious is treating me; this I rather enjoy, since I get to flirt with some classmates I had a thing for (which particular flirting never happened in the waking world).
4. It is afternoon; I wake up. I reconstruct this chronology.
Admittedly I cannot be absolutely certain this was the sequence of events, since I was drifting in and out of sleep for much of it. But it was rather a relief to realise the whole episode involving missing time was a dream.
