Man Who Fell to Earth syndrome

 

There are mornings when I look at a tee-shirt as if I’ve never seen one before, uncertain whether to put my head or an arm through first, and I find it hard to match the buttons on my shirt to the right button holes. I don't remember which way the medicine cabinet in the bathroom opens, or which side the light switch is on, and I can’t find the question mark on the keyboard.

These may, of course, be signs of senility. I think they are symptoms of what I call The Man Who Fell to Earth syndrome. You come back to the body suddenly from the other world you were visiting in a dream, maybe because someone or something pulled you back - a car backfiring in the street, a cat jumping on your belly to demand breakfast, a drunk howling at the moon. You may land with a thud. Sometimes I feel I have fallen through the bedframe and the mattress to the floor.

When you come back to the body like that, you may find you have left part of yourself still out there, needing time to catch up - and maybe not too keen on returning to a world that is crazier than your dreams. How big a part? Many indigenous and ancient peoples, from the Iroquois to the Vikings, might say you have left behind one of your souls. I'm pretty sure the soul loss, this time, is temporary. I will let it pass, like jet lag. Already I can report that I figured out how to put on a tee-shirt and find the question mark on my keyboard. I'm working on the buttons.

"Man Who Fell to Earrh" Journal drawing (c) Robert Moss

On leaving a dream

When I leave a dream, I often feel that I step from one room into another. It's a "just so" feeling. I was there, and now I am here.
    When I exit a dream, I avoid saying "I woke up." That is such a boring way to end a dream narrative. And it's entirely possible that when I open my eyes in one reality, I have fallen asleep in another world that is no less real. When I finish recounting a dream adventure, I may say. "then I left that scene" or, “then I came back to my bedroom”.
     Sometimes the dream stays with me, and I am in both locations - the bedroom and that other room - in a state of dual consciousness after I come back to my body.

Very early this morning, at an hour many would call the middle of the night, I came back to the body in my bed from an excursion. In my dream I was at an airport where a woman from an Islamic country needed my help to find a place where she could get halal camel meat.
     This felt like an entirely literal experience, taking place in an alternate reality. I do not rule out the possibility that I will meet that woman at an airport in the future, since I often return from a dream with  memories of the future.
    My ability to help her will be greater now that I have consulted Auntie Google about halal camel meat. I now understand that camel meat is not only halal ("allowed") for Muslims but is available in restaurants and butcher shops all over the Middle East and Central Asia. I will also reflect on the possible symbolism here. It may have something to do with taking on the strength to cross a desert while carrying your own water - quite relevant for a writer embarking on a new book project. A dream adventure can be literal, symbolic and an experience of another reality all at once.
     My gentle return from my dream outing allowed me to see the airport - a very modern one, with sweeping architectural features I did not recognize, and the strong, dark features of the woman (no headscarf, I confirmed) - as I made a note.

Other times, however, I don't so much come back from a dream as fall out of it, in a mode reminiscent of the David Bowie character in The Man Who Fell to Earth. One night I fell back into my body so hard that I thought that I had broken the bed. I made a drawing of that bumpy return. Coming back so hard and fast cost me the memories of where I had just been.

Journal drawing: "Man Who Fell to Earth" by Robert Moss