Dreams of the Beach

The first dream was emptiness and the sound of waves. There may have been more to the dream while I slept but in the waking world I could only remember the waves. For a week, whenever I had a moment between thoughts the sound would come back to my mind's ear. Something was off about it. Isn't the sound of the water supposed to be so soothing you can sleep to it? One day I pulled up a few relaxation videos and apps to compare my waves to their waves.
The relaxation recordings had waves hitting the shore at almost regular intervals, but not perfectly so. Each instance sounded unique, or at least different from the one before it. The waves from my dream were uniform. I guess I could say it was a single wave hitting the shore of my consciousness over and over again. The sound and the interval never varied perceptibly. For a while I let it go. I figured there's no sense in letting a dream with such little substance occupy my attention.
Some time later, at least a few weeks later, I dreamed of the waves again. This time it came with the sensation of sand. I didn't just feel sand beneath my feet - I felt it all over me. Little grains of grit in every crevice of my body shifted with every move I made in bed. It was a surreal and frankly annoying experience. I made a concerted effort to wake up so this feeling could end, but I've always had trouble breaking out of a dream. You would think realizing I'm dreaming would make it easy, but it's as if the realization itself traps my in my head. I end up with some kind of sleep paralysis where I just open and close my eyes and feel like I'm bobbing around in zero gravity. The sandy dream only stayed with me for a day or so. I brushed my teeth an extra few times because I imagined a crunching on the sand whenever I happened to clench my jaw.
Over time my other senses joined the party. There was a smell of a vast body of water with seaweed and fish. I tasted salt and I felt wind. All of these sensations made themselves known before I could remember seeing anything but the backs of my eyelids as I dreamed. It screwed with me, actually, to have this vivid recurring dream sprinkled between all of my normal ones. The Beach, as I started to call it, didn't come to me every night. It hid in the back of my brain just long enough that I would start to forget about it, then pounce on me with a new layer on top.
One night, the Beach finally came with a semblance of sight. It was incredibly dim at first and sort of vignetted, like I was squinting. The blurs of color were at least colors I expected. There was deep blue green for water and sandy brown for, well, sand. Reflecting on it while I was awake, it reminded me of some rocks I had in my collection as a kid. Apache Tears are these little black stones, and when you hold them up to the light you can sort of see through them. The Beach as I first saw it was cloudy colored light that seemed far away.
The image gradually cleared. It felt like it took weeks, but time is just screwy in dreams like that. For "weeks" I just stood there, unmoving, feeling the scene and becoming intimately acquainted with the details it allowed me to grasp. When the Beach finally came into focus, I felt that I was allowed to move, but when I tried to turn my head, I snapped back into consciousness. Why would my dreams tease me like this?
Over the next several months the Beach entered my dreams about once a week. Each new instance mirrored that long dream: I felt the sensations, waited until I was allowed to move, tried to move in some way, and was forced awake. I tried moving different directions and with different parts of my body. The result was always the same. I would jolt back to life without getting any closer to understanding the dream.
Doing the same thing and expecting different results is what they call the "definition of insanity," right? So one night I resolved to wait. As usual I could feel the moment when I gained control of my body, but I continued to stand still. More than that, I stared unblinkingly. I made no attempt to look around. I didn't even breathe. Who needs oxygen in a dream? I waited there for years, the only thing alive among the salt air and monotonous wave-song.
I began to descend. I had assumed my feet were on the ground to begin with because I could feel the sand, but apparently not. Eventually I felt the ground press up against the soles of my feet. Micrometers at a time, I was sinking into the sand. The sand was cold. I've never been to a beach on a cold day before. For sand to be anything other than scorching was a novel sensation. On and on, slowly, for several lifetimes, the sand enveloped me.
It was easier to be still when I was cocooned in the sand. The sand filled my ears but the vibration of the waves still reached me. The ebb carried away my thoughts and an almost tangible nothingness flowed back into me. I didn't care if I ever woke up again. I'd be perfectly content to be one with my Beach for eternity.
Then, all at once, something changed. My mind was present again, and every fiber of my being screamed that I was in danger. I felt an urge to breathe for the first time in decades, but by this point I must have been a mile away from open air. I clawed my way out of the sand in a blind panic. Pain and adrenaline caused me to forget that I was dreaming. For hours, all I could feel was grit in my throat and in my lungs.
Finally, I burst through the surface and flopped onto my side. I took some time to breathe. My eyes learned to understand light again. Thankfully the sun wasn't bright. Actually, a fog had settled. The familiar colors of the Beach were muddy and dull despite the clarity of my vision. All of that vivid sensory input I had experienced in every dream before was gone, but at least I could see. Able to move freely for the first time, I stood and surveyed my surroundings.
There were dozens of prints in the sand, but no living thing in sight. As far as the eye could see in every direction there was only fog. No sights, sounds or smells to suggest civilization. The air was dense and damp despite the cold. It was the kind of biting cold that comes on a wind, except the air was still. The water was clearly visible for the first time, and it behaved just like it sounded. Infinitely in either direction the waves broke identically with each renewed motion and the swash came in and receded as one giant mechanical mass.
I took one step, and then another. With the sea to my left, I began a hesitant stroll along the Beach. The exaggerated sense of time that usually pervaded the dream had disappeared. I felt present, now. As I walked, some sense of urgency began to perk up in my brain. At some point I noticed there were no longer other footprints in the sand. It was imperative that I reach "the end", whatever that meant. Hopefully, I would know it when I saw it. I waded through the fog, on and on.
I have no idea how long I walked, or thought I had walked, before there was any change. The rigid swash lapped at my feet now and again. I honestly couldn't tell whether the tide was coming in or if I simply veered toward the water from time to time. Were the waves reaching for me? Or was I drawn to them? I paused a moment to watch the water rush around my ankles and my feet began to sink into the dark sand. The song of the waves was so familiar to me now, it was like a friend calling my name.
A moment after that crossed my mind, I did hear my name. There was a voice in the distance. The voice was crisp. It blew away my returning stupor. Noticing the water level was rising around me, I jumped and splashed my way to firmer sand. The water continued to creep closer and seemed to be gaining speed. The waves were no longer lapping, but gnashing, and the once gentle rhythm was rising into a roar. The sand, the water, the fog, everything was converging on me.
It was time to run. I heard the voice a second time. I strained to push all other sensations from my mind to pinpoint the direction of the sound. The world was in chaos, and so was I. Leaping, stumbling, splashing, gasping, blinking, groping—
And then I was laid out on my bedroom carpet, staring into my sister's face. She had been crying, but for the moment allowed herself a smile of relief. Someone was on the phone in the other room. I was drenched in sweat— at least, I hoped it was only sweat.
Over the next few days, I was diagnosed with a seizure disorder. Apparently it doesn't only happen to children and old people. Any person at any age can just, poof, start to experience alarming brain malfunctions. That's definitely a fact that I didn't want to know, so naturally, you need to know it too. Fortunately, my particular brand of brain disease is easily treatable with medication. I haven't dreamed of the Beach even once since then.
But I can't shake the idea that I had an extremely close call during that infinite dream that felt more tangible than reality. I felt its presence long before any physical symptoms arose. Looking back, when I finally gave myself to the Beach, I get the feeling that I was playing into its hands. As much as I wanted to experience more of the dream, the Beach wanted to touch more of me. What lay beyond that fog or across that water? What force dragged me down deep beneath the sand? The only things that brought me back were my sister's voice and the human instinct of self-preservation. Without that intervention, and without that fear, would anything have kept me from becoming one with the waves?
Category:Liminal Spaces 2022
Category:Dreams/Sleep