Every Night I Fall

I have watched enough crime shows to have heard the adage that everyone screams when they fall. More than one mystery has been started with a detective puzzled by the lack of a scream from an apparent jumper. According to the cinema detectives, even a jumper will show a moment of remorse and scream in terror as they fall. I had never questioned this wisdom until I began having the dream.

The first few nights I barely noticed it. I went to bed at the usual time and just as I was drifting off I had a sensation of weightlessness followed by me flailing my arms in an attempt to regain the sensation of gravity. I awoke gasping but was able to quickly settle in for a regular night’s sleep.

After a few week of this I noticed that the time I spent having the sensation was increasing each night. It had started at a few seconds, but by now it was at nearly a minute. Eventually one night I was able to begin dreaming without waking with a start.

A dark, still night enveloped me. As my eyes adjusted I was eventually able to make out a sparse skyline. Massive skyscrapers rose like islands from out of a void. If any of them were firmly planted on solid ground I could not see their origin. The most that squinting would allow me to make would were what appeared to be humanoid figures on their rooftops.

As I was watching, one of the figures suddenly jumped off the building it had been standing on. Helplessly, I watched as it fell until I could no longer distinguish the figure from the surrounding blackness. When I bent my neck in a vain attempt to find some salvation for the figure I suddenly saw the ledge that I was standing on. My foot slid off the ledge with a knowing curiosity. And I woke up, having been dreaming for exactly one minute.

No therapist, sleep study, or prescription was able to change how my night went for the next two months. Each night it was always the same dream. And, each night I explored the endless, rushing chasm for just one more minute.

While experts had failed me, I could almost have lived with things as they were. After all, how long is one minute in cosmic terms? What foolish optimism I had until I awoke on the night when the dream lasted for two hours, instead of the expected sixty-one minutes. My existential crisis was apparently somehow also exponential. Seconds became minutes became hours. My mind shuddered at the mathematical implications.

I tried not sleeping. My blood coursed with everything from caffeine to prescription stimulants and still I blacked out every night. After waking, one morning, on my tiled kitchen floor surrounded by a cold coffee puddle and mug shards it just seemed safer to make sure I was in bed when the dream began.

I am no longer sure of how long the dream lasts. The last few times I awoke it was in a hospital surrounded by medical staff and relatives. The salted beard my father wore brought tears to my eyes. I am an uncle now.

The worst part of the dream is that my thoughts are my only cellmate during the constant plunge. I pray, I remember, I reflect. Anything is better than asking myself questions.

Why is this happening? Is this entire experience real or just a nightmare? Am I in a semi-lucid coma? Am I a jumper whose mind is battling between protecting me from the truth and facing the consequences of my actions? If I am falling, why can’t I see the ground? If I am dreaming, why can’t I wake up? If I am awake, why can’t I scream?

Author Notes:
Stupid insomnia + creative impulse. Let me know of any errors, I'll double check after I get some sleep.