Three Nightmares
Last night I had three terrible dreams in a row. What was more terrifying than the dreams themselves was that I remembered all three of them with perfect clarity, and after waking could recount every last detail to my wife.
The Graveyard in the Backyard
After dinner, Xiaobao said she wanted to play in the yard for a while. I said all right, ten minutes. The little girl went out skipping and bouncing with delight. Ten minutes later I called for Xiaobao, but there was no answer at all from the yard. I hurried to pull open the yard gate and drew in a breath of cold air — what met my eyes was not the little yard I knew, but a graveyard, exactly the graveyard Harry and Cedric stumbled into after seizing the Triwizard Cup. Shouting my wife’s name, telling her to come out at once, I fumbled frantically with my shoes. In my panic they would not go on, so I simply grabbed them and, barefoot, rushed outside, reckless of everything. A few steps out I saw shadows shifting ahead; I hurled a shoe with all my strength and seemed to hit something. Then I shouted Xiaobao’s name at the top of my lungs, only to find I could not make a sound — as if a hand were clamped around my throat, letting out nothing but ah-ah, ah-ah.
My wife shook me awake. She asked whether I was having a nightmare, making those ah-ah noises. Coming back to myself, my hands were still trembling.
The Hound Beneath the Window
After coaxing Xiaobao to sleep, I went back to the bedroom, lay down on the bed and read. Suddenly I noticed a crowd of heads jostling outside my window. I was startled — impossible! My home (in the dream) was high up in a skyscraper shaped like the China World Hotel, glass curtain walls on every side. I hurried to the window to look. Somehow an illegal rooftop terrace had been built below my home, half a story high, and on it stood a great many strange men in suits; standing on tiptoe, they could peer straight into my bedroom. Then a huge, vicious dog, blood frothing at its jaws — well, perhaps like the Hound of the Baskervilles in the Sherlock Holmes stories — caught sight of me and lunged savagely upward. I had not expected the curtain-wall window to be a sliding one; after a couple of lunges the beast actually forced open a gap and hung its two forepaws in it, groping left and right. I pressed the window shut with all my might and hammered at the dog’s forepaws with my elbow, all to no avail. Then I spotted the curtain rod on the table, snatched it up, and slashed furiously at the beast’s forepaws; with a whimper it fell back. I hurried to shut the window and lock it, only to find that the latch was some pneumatic valve I had never seen before — I pressed it again and again and could not secure the window. Suddenly I sensed someone behind me; turning, I saw three men in suits who had climbed in through the side window, closing in on me. Their eyes were hollow, clots of long-dried blood clung to their faces, and they gave off the reeking stench of formalin. I pressed hard against the window while the hound below glared, still unwilling to give up, and the three men came nearer and nearer… I shut my eyes, shook my head, and shouted: This is a dream! This isn’t real! I opened my eyes and found myself lying safe and sound in bed. I ran to the window: beyond the great floor-to-ceiling glass the night was picturesque, and in a sapphire-blue sky hung a moon far larger than usual. Below there was no terrace, no vicious dog, no zombie-like men in suits. Then a terrible thought leapt into my mind: This is not my home! I am still dreaming!
I woke up again.
The Strange Island
I seemed to be aboard a starship under attack; it felt a little like a carrier from StarCraft, sending out a wave of small fighters every so often to meet the enemy. After a long while the captain gravely announced that all the fighters had been lost, and that the only hope was to send out all four remaining sub-ships for one final gamble, or the entire ship would perish. My family and I (which made no sense) were assigned to one of the sub-ships. We threw ourselves into the assault, tragic but effective — the enemy’s power system was destroyed and it could no longer pursue us, while we sub-ships, battered and scarred, could not return to the carrier for repairs. My sub-ship had no choice but to crash-land on the green island of a blue planet. When we stepped out of the cabin, the emerald sea, the blue sky, and the fine white sand beneath our feet made the bloody battle that had just taken place seem utterly unreal. My wife and child were quickly captivated by the scenery and ran about playing, while the others busied themselves setting up a defensive perimeter and sending out distress signals. Then Xiaobao saw that in the middle of the island many people had gathered around a bonfire, singing and dancing as if celebrating some festival, and so she and her mother skipped over to explore; many other passengers from the ship also drifted curiously toward the center. I followed behind, puzzling all the way: why would a planet we had crash-landed on by chance happen to have a little island with people on it? The islanders had been utterly indifferent to the enormous commotion of our landing — so why start singing and dancing now?
Just as everyone was running toward the island’s center, a scream came from up ahead. Those who reached the celebration site first discovered that the so-called dancing “people” were in fact holographic illusions, one and all, and that the bonfire they encircled was the phosphorescent glow of piles of burning bones. Just as everyone scattered in terror, the island abruptly began to shake violently; the center collapsed and the two ends tilted upward, and amid piercing shrieks, all the people and everything else plunged downward together.
As described in Inception, a sudden fall or impact jolts a person awake from a dream. And so I woke up once more.
