Twenty-Five Hours

Date: 10/18/2025

I’d gone to bed listening to a sleep hypnosis track for lucid dreaming — one of those calm, velvety voices that promises to guide you deeper into your subconscious. A visual journey. Starting with entering an elevator (or, as we Brits call it, a lift) and stopping at different levels of the dream state. Last stop: lucidity. It doesn’t take long before I’m under. The voice still hums faintly through my headphones as my body begins to vibrate — softly at first, then stronger — like a phone buzzing beneath the bedsheet. Then, I lift. I rise out of myself, weightless, a whisper of skin and light. Hovering above the bed, I take in the dark shapes of my room — the outline of my sleeping body, the hush of the night. Not much to see here, really. So I float upward, through the ceiling, into a sky thick with stars. And then — fracture. My consciousness splinters like glass under pressure, shards scattering in all directions. Yet somehow, impossibly, I’m aware of every piece at once. ⸻ In one layer, I’m still in bed, half-asleep, listening to builders outside chatting far too loudly for this ungodly hour. They think I can’t hear them, but I can — word for word — and apparently, I’m the topic of conversation. They’re saying I’ll never manage a lucid dream. How bloody dare they. In another shard, I’m back in the lift. It’s old, rickety, breathing in metallic sighs. Classical music plays on a loop — some hollow concerto — but it only makes the anxiety worse. The lights flicker. The floor trembles. I’m certain it’s about to drop. Then, in another strand of myself, I’m following a woman down a cobbled street. A nurse in a pinstriped uniform — the old-fashioned kind. She walks briskly, purposefully, and I just know she’s important. I try to reach her, but she’s always three steps ahead, darting into shadows, reappearing in another form. Different face, same uniform. Always out of reach. Meanwhile, in another flicker of dream, I’m floating through outer space — vast, endless darkness all around. I’m searching for extraterrestrial life, though I don’t know what I’d do if I found it. Shapes move in the distance: alien creatures that look like deep-sea beings — translucent, tentacled, with glowing eyes and too many teeth. I’m both startled and fascinated. And then, somewhere else entirely, another version of me lies tangled in the sheets, body pulsing with pleasure. Naughty dream-self, indulging in sensations that feel too real, too vivid. The moans catch in my throat. I flicker between realities — chasing the nurse, exploring the void, touching myself into awareness. Through it all, the voice continues to hum softly in my ears: Descending deeper now. You are safe. You are lucid. But I’m not safe. And I’m not lucid. Not anymore. ⸻ I can feel myself slipping, the edges of the dream fraying. And, cruelly, I’m not even close to orgasm. Too late. The light snaps on. My husband stands in the doorway, ready for bed. I freeze. I’m on top of the covers — completely naked. Worse still, my body looks wrong. Distorted. Swollen in places that shouldn’t swell. For one horrifying moment, it’s as if parts of me have fallen outside of myself. I panic silently, stuffing everything back where it belongs, quick as a butcher packing sausage skin. Miraculously, he doesn’t notice. When I finally wake for real, my heart’s hammering. I reach down, check — everything’s intact. Relief floods through me like a shock of adrenaline. The lucid track is still playing in my ears. “You have reached the basement level,” the voice says. Lucidity. But it’s gone. ⸻ Now I’m out delivering parcels. I approach a house with its front door wide open. “Hello?” I call, hesitating in the doorway. Silence. It’s a signed-for parcel, of course. Always the bloody way. As I reach for my red slip, a man appears. Bohemian, wide-eyed, dressed in a colourful robe. “Helloooo,” he says in a camp, lilting tone. “Let me make you a cup of tea!” Before I can refuse, the kettle’s already screaming. He returns with a tray of tea and homemade cake, eyes shining with the joy of company. “Go on,” he says, “it’s rude to say no to cake.” He’s right. I stay. I take a bite. Then, just as suddenly, the scene evaporates — dissolving like steam from the kettle. ⸻ I’m back at my old job at the hair salon. The air thick with hairspray and quiet bitchiness. Stylists bent over their clients, scissors whispering. Hormones and gossip buzz in the air. I’ve been given a broom. My only task: sweep up the hair. The seconds crawl. I glance at the clock, longing for home. “When can I go?” I ask. The receptionist looks down at her list, shuffles it, and says, “In twenty-five hours.” My heart sinks. “But there’s only twenty-four in a day,” I murmur. And that’s when I realise. ⸻ I never left the lift. Every scene — the nurse, the builders, the aliens, the tea, the naked panic — each was a floor on the way down. Every version of me chasing something: control, connection, understanding, escape. But the basement isn’t lucidity at all. It’s what waits beneath it — the quiet recognition that all of these selves are me. The restless fragments I keep trying to tidy, sweep, and piece together. Lucidity isn’t control. It’s acceptance. It’s seeing yourself in every version of your own chaos — the dreamer, the lover, the wanderer, the cleaner — and realising they all breathe the same air. And somewhere between the nurse’s shadow and the stars, I finally understand: I was never trying to wake up. I was trying to remember who was dreaming.