Books can do that

Mr. Sandman's been having a bit of fun with me lately.

The previous nights had me dreaming such bizzare dreams that, for a few consecutive mornings now, I've been texting H, "I've had another veird dream!" (And no, that's not a typo. It's part of our vocab to substitute w's with v's. Strange but vhatever.) I think last night's was the strangest yet, perhaps the most complex that I've ever had in my life.

Time wasn't linear, in that it didn't have a past, present, or future. It was like everything was happening at once, and believe me, it's weirder experiencing it than it is reading about it! It reminded me of my first year CL classes when our bedimpled seminarian-teacher tried to explain how God is "omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent." The last bit was something our adolescent minds had an incredibly difficult time trying to grasp, and not a few parents were scandalized by all the "radical" ideas we were getting from CL (this was one of many). We had to write some paper about what we learned and I came up with a brilliant one (if I do say so myself. A pat on the back for me)--at least brilliant as far as 14-year-olds go--submitted to some board which was conducting an inquiry. I think they, at the behest of some parents, had to review whether 14-year-olds did have the capacity to grasp such concepts, and tried to prove that we weren't being "corrupted" after all. (I'm cyber-babbling here. Just got caught up in an unearthed memory.)

It was most certainly the after-effects of having read One Hundred Years of Solitude, but I never imagined it was possible to dream in such a way. I remember sitting with someone on a sled--which wasn't quite a sled, but more of a big broken-off piece of plastic, rough edges and all--atop packed snow, on a warm day. We came from somewhere, and were supposed to be moving forward, but since past, present, and future were all happening at once, we ended up staying in one place, stuck in that moment, with echoes of other moments pulling me in different directions. It would have been an incredibly profound dream had it not been for the part where P. Diddy made an appearance. I kid you not.

The rest of the dream is a mix of pajamas, the Poveda waiting room, slippery slippers, and shawarma and nachos for lunch. Mmm nachos. Well, so much for profound.

I think the book continued to have an impact on me hours after I finished it, penetrating my subconscious and falling onto Sandman's lap. Right after I finished reading it, I honestly had to pause for a bit, wondering "What does it all mean?" and thinking that I was lacking in depth and totally missing the point. It was only later that it struck me just how utterly brilliant that book was. So much so that I found my subconscious celebrating with shawarma and nachos.

So I'm done with book number one for the month. While I wanted to process it all a bit more before diving into a new one, I was just too excited to get started on a book I've been longing to read: Kate Atkinson's Case Histories. I sped through the first hundred pages. I do have a reading debt of two books, having only read one each for March (The Remains of the Day, so, so sad) and April (The Bourne Identity, so, so different from the movie), so I might have to read three this month.

I think I should avoid reading anything gory, as my subconscious has proven to be quite absorbent. It has not only succeeded in carrying a book's theme into dreamland, but it has also brought about an intense craving for nachos today.