He was on his bed when he woke up. His bedroom was ordered, everything was where it was supposed to be, everything was as he remembered. It all seemed to be fine, except for one thing, that sensation, small but so disturbing. It felt like a vacuum in his head, like an empty space where, surely, once there was something. He didn’t know why he was so sure about it, he just was. Still disturbed he stood up, feeling somehow light, and shuffled to the bathroom’s mirror in order to calm that anxiety of something missing in him. When he looked at the mirror his heart stopped for a moment, he felt a knot squeezing his throat so hard that he almost couldn’t breathe… yes, something was missing there: him.
“This is a dream, it shouldn’t be long until I wake up”, was his first thought. But it wasn’t long until he realized that, even if it was a dream, he wouldn’t wake up that easy. He tried everything, punched his head, closed his eyes, tried to sleep again, even pinched his arm, but nothing worked. After some sort of time, he decided to do something about it, he wasn’t going to stand in front of the mirror his whole life just knowing he wasn’t really there. So, not knowing the hell why, he undressed himself and flew out of the room. Flying? Was he flying? And naked! Was he really flying naked? The hell, he was. But even worse, why did he feel nothing about that fact? Neither shame, nor regret. Nothing. Definitely it had to be a dream.
Brian flew over Kansas City, his hometown, for almost half an hour, until he decided it was time for a beer, or maybe two. He landed a couple of blocks away from the liquor store on purpose, to have the opportunity to walk and observe the people’s reaction. As he started walking, he realized that other people could perceive him, they drew aside in order to let him pass; he wasn’t invisible, or, at least, not at all. He was visible but, strangely, those same people didn’t seem to perceive his nakedness. They were just passing by without any sign of being offended or upset. There were too many weird things for the same day, or for the same dream.
Brian drank almost twenty beers, or maybe more, but he felt the same as if he hadn’t drunk any. The feeling of something missing right there where it must be was still there and neither he felt uninhibited, nor euphoric. In that moment, and for no reason, he felt like throwing the beer bottle to the lady in the counter. And so he did. The bottle hit right in the head. The lady stumbled and fell to the floor unconscious. Nobody in the store seemed to be indignant, not even him with such a terrible action. For two days, Brian Meagher did what he had always wanted to do, feeling like those were the best moments in his life.
Those two days passed and he noticed that, little by little, he was starting to feel younger. One more day passed and the sensation grew, as he wanted to do more and more irrational things. He began to worry. How the hell was he supposed to know what was happening to him? And then, for the first time in three days, he really tried to remember how he got to that point. All of a sudden, a room appeared in front of him, in the middle of the street. Instinctively, he opened the white door with a gold “M” stuck and entered an even whiter room.
“Brian, really? My Gog, I never thought I was working for such a bad-looking guy. Look at you, you look like a beggar”, a voice came from the other side of the room.
“I know. The terrible thing is that I don’t care. I’ve been having some quite active days. Drinking, you know. Who are you? What is happening to me?”, answered Brian as he turned around to find an old wrinkled white man with an smarty appearance talking to him.
“You’re living your dream Brian, doesn’t it feel good?”
"What do you mean with that? And no, it doesn’t”.
"Well, it is simple, your super-ego is gone. Your id is bombarding your ego with irrational and instinctive impulses and, by the way, I don’t know if it is going to resist too much longer”.
“Simple? How do you know so much? Again, who are you? You look a little bit old, by the way”.
“Thanks for the compliment”, the old man smiled. “Every time you storage a remembrance I get older. I am your memory. Didn’t you saw the “M” in the front door? Everything I tell you, you’ve read or inferred it from somewhere, somehow”.
“Oh, how couldn’t I imagine it?”, Brian sounded sarcastic now. “So, lets see Mr. Memory, can you explain me this thing you were telling me about that ego and the superhero?”.
Brian sat on the floor, like a little child would do.
“My God! It’s Freud, don’t you remember it? Beyond the Pleasure Principle, by Sigmund Freud, not even a little bit?”, Brian shook his head. “I never thought you had such a bad mem… No, no. What am I saying, those might be side effects. Well, where to begin? The super-ego is the moral component of the psyche, which takes into account no special circumstances in which the morally right thing may not be right for a given situation…”
“Wait!”, Brian interrupted, “Wait, please. Speak in english”
“Sorry. Ok, simpler. According to Freud, our psyche is divided in three parts. The first two are the unconscious ones: id and super-ego. They are like the two sides of a balance, id represents our deepest longings, it’s impulsive, primary, hedonist, antediluvian…”
“Ok, I got the point”.
The old man coughed to clear his throat and continued. “… and super-ego is the other extreme, it works with social prejudices, moral, it makes you feel ashamed, represses yourself. Ego comes to be the conscious part, like the guy that measures the balance and cares that it is perfectly stable for the required situation”.
“Uhh, so that’s why I don’t feel ashamed of being naked? But why can I fly?”
“Because you are in a dream: your dream. Dreams are the expression of the relaxing of the super-ego barriers because of fatigue. The same occurs with some kind of substances, like alcohol, they break those barriers”.
“And why didn’t I see myself in the mirror?”
“Ease again, son. The way you see yourself depends on how you want the other people to see you, it’s a social prejudice. No super-ego, no appearance in the mirror”.
“And how in the fucking hell do I wake up?”, Brian was beginning to irritate, tantrum style. “I mean, it’s a dream. Now I want to be in the real world!”
“Reality is an abstract concept, introduction to philosophy in college remember? You can’t define what it reality is. And quoting one of your favorite books: Life is a Dream, by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, rememb…”
“Yeah, yeah”, Brian now was scared. “You are telling me I’m trapped in my own dream!? That I’ll never be able to return to…”
“You are right and you should really be worrying. Your ego isn’t resisting too much time and you would be controlled by your impulsive id”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“That you aren’t only staying in this dream, but you are also going to become a baby, maybe then a monkey, and who knows what else after that, more irrational organisms”.
Brian grabbed the old man by the neck and backed him against the wall. “Look old man, you’re going to find some kind of solution to my problem. Otherwise, you’re going to know what a really irrational person is”.
The old man’s face turned whiter than it was before. “Ok, ok. I think there is a memory, but it has a lot of blanks. Ok, ok, don’t shake me. Chemistry class, remember? There is only one substance that can cause the super-ego barriers to relax as much as necessary to put you in this situation. It’s some kind of radiation. It can only be reversed by…”
“By what!?”, Brian was desperate.
“…Ultraviolet radiation, I think”.
Brian released the old man. “How am I going to get an ultraviolet radiation machine now?”
“Wish it, it is your dream”, the old man started to vanish.
“Why am I able to wish that and I can’t just wish to wake up?”
“I don’t know, you never read that part of the lesson…”, the old man was gone.
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