Conscious Sleep

My body felt heavy. A deep, inconceivable heaviness I had never experienced. Not in sickness. Not in exhaustion. A weight with a pull so powerful that it had to be killing me. My limbs sank into my mattress with such significant pressure I thought they would bore straight through. It felt as though lead had bloomed over my skin like lichen, covering my body from head to toe in an immobilizing force. My organs too had grown impossibly dense, painful but preserved, coated in thick cement, pressing, and scraping against the thin line of delicate flesh left beneath the armor formed over my skin. I was in agony. All these sensations were felt with a new kind of awareness. Every cell of my body felt overstimulated and raw. Though I had never felt more conscious of my physical body I was not experiencing this turmoil from within it. Instead, I was looking down at myself from above.

I knew the room was dark, I’d made sure of it before I’d fallen asleep, but the contour of my body was still visible in unrestrained detail. My hair ran across my face and down my pillow in thin, dark rivulets, twisted and tangled from restless sleep. My legs had slipped out from beneath my blanket and what little moonlight had collected in the room reflected off the dark skin of my knees, distorting them into a satin blur. I could make out my hands, my fingers forcefully clenched inward towards my palms.

As I was fixated on my figure, I began to feel some sort of presence developing beside me. My current state prevented any sort of movement, and I was unable to turn my head to get a better look. Unease rose up quickly in my stomach, seemingly immune to the force paralyzing me. This new rush of anxiety forced my heartbeat to quicken, the strain of it stealing every last bit of energy reserved for my lungs. A burning pain set in as I struggled for air. Blotchy spores of black crept along the edges of my vision. I was drowning without water. Despite the pain, I was still deliberately straining my neck, desperately trying to make out the shape beside me. Was it her? Could it be? When the last bit of air was forced from my lungs, seconds from losing all awareness, the spell finally broke. My muscles gave way. My jaw was forced open, and I gasped for air. The hold on my neck was released and for a split second I was able to bring the presence into focus. Though the features were marred by the blurriness that still washed across my vision it was clearly the silhouette of a man. I tried to call out to him, but my words were lost as I was pulled back to consciousness.

I woke up gasping, my lungs filling with sharp, cool air. A thin strip of sunlight crept into my room from beneath my drawn curtains, struggling to illuminate my bedroom unaided. The soft glow slowly brought my surroundings into focus, calming my frayed nerves. I was alive. I was safe in my bed. It took me a moment to realize that my alarm was going off. The angry, bleating noise emitting from my phone must have been what jarred me awake. I grabbed it, switching off the alarm and enjoying the feeling of holding on to something tangible. I kept it gripped tightly between my fingers as I stood up and walked across the room to my bathroom. My legs felt weak from the residual anxiety that remained latched onto the pit of my stomach. I didn’t switch on the bathroom light after shutting the door behind me. Instead, I sat down on the toilet in total darkness, resting my forehead on the wall and allowing the cool tile to calm my breathing. Whatever I’d just experienced had scared me like nothing ever had before. Had it been sleep paralysis? I’d read about it before, but it’d never been described like that. My whole existence felt altered in a way I couldn’t quite place.

I only forced myself to stand up when I felt my foot begin to fall asleep. I flipped on the light, trying my best to shake the static from my toes. The harsh fluorescents blinded me and my eyes snapped shut in protest. I leaned against the sink until the discomfort passed. When I opened my eyes, I was face to face with my reflection in the mirror. My skin, normally bold as obsidian, had paled to a muddy brown. I heard a light knock on my bedroom door, followed by my mother’s voice echoing from the hall.

“Imani! Are you going to visit your sister today?”

“Yes, mom,” I called back, slightly exasperated with the intrusion.

“Good, when? Now? Are you going tomorrow too? Or is it your brother?” my mother demanded in quick succession.

“Isiah is, I have class. And yes now. As soon as you leave me alone to freaking think,” I replied, muttering the last bit to myself.

“Good, good. I’ll be there after my shift, so you only have to stick around until 3,”

“Yep,” I replied, peeling my body weight off the sink with a heavy sigh.

I walked out of the bathroom stopping in front of the antique wooden bureau that sat next to my bed. My mother had found it at a flea market downtown. It was covered in dated but endearing rose onlays that fit well with the rest of my décor. A bit of convenience was sacrificed for the sake of beauty. It was short and the drawers were stubborn, so I sank to my knees to wrestle some clothes out. I chose something soft and comfortable, I had no one to impress but a handful of nurses. I stood back up slowly, my knees as stiff and creaky as the dresser drawers. After slipping on the new clothes, I pulled a small tote bag off the top of the bureau. It contained nothing but a single hardback book which my phone bounced heavily against as I dropped it inside. On my way out the door I caught my reflection in the full-length mirror that rested lightly against my wall. The color had returned to my cheeks. My skin was the kind of smooth, deep black that glowed from the inside out, as if the sun itself had been captured and stored away inside my melanin. I smiled at myself and though some uneasiness remained, a small bit of hope had blossomed deep inside me, cultivated by a sense of excitement.

The hospital was quiet, even for a Thursday morning. My footsteps echoed dully against the linoleum, the sound especially loud without the usual throngs of people around to catch the noise. My steps cut off abruptly as I stopped in front of room seven twenty-nine. The thick, wooden door was shut tightly so I knocked. I didn’t want to interfere with any sort of treatment my sister might be receiving. There was no response, so I gripped the door handle and pushed my way through.

Serena lay motionless in her bed as usual, eyes closed, her chest rising and falling rhythmically with the help of a ventilator. One of the nurses had twisted her curls into short locs, a style I knew she would have protested had she had the voice to do so. She had been growing her natural curls out, long, and full like our mother had worn hers when she was our age. Though she looked much like she always had since the accident, something felt off about her appearance today. It took me a moment to pinpoint the root of my unease. Then it hit me. Her body mirrored how mine had looked last night during my bizarre bout of sleep. Her hands, like most of her extremities, were clenched inward, muscles contracted and atrophied from lack of use. Her skin was a sickly pale color, a direct result of the inadequate amount of sunlight that managed to find its way into her room. The soft cotton hospital sheets had even slipped away from her bony knees, exposing them to the cool air. The similarities were too eerie for me to handle, and I quickly stepped up to her bedside, determined to fix things. I gave the sheets a hard shake, watching them parachute up into the air before settling evenly across her lower body. I then moved on to her fingers, doing my best to massage them into a different position. When I’d accomplished all I could, I stepped back to survey the situation. Her face still looked just like mine. That couldn’t be helped. We had always looked alike, both of us taking after our father. Our similarities didn’t stop at our looks either. Being with her was like looking into a mirror of my soul. Our personalities were so alike that my mother often joked she’d gotten one daughter for the price of two. We had fought our whole lives to be unique from one another. I had taken for granted the comfort of falling back into stride with someone who could relate to me so well. I missed my sister horribly. There were so many things I wanted to say to her. So many apologies I’d left unspoken.

I made my way to the pair of thin windows that lined the wall farthest to Serena’s left. My mother had set a potted marigold on one of the windowsills in an effort to brighten up the room. She had chosen a perennial variety and as fall quickly approached the petals had begun to brown. They crumbled beneath my touch as I plucked them away. I opened the shades as far as possible, trying to coax as much sunlight as I could into the room. I then took a seat on the vinyl sofa that rested beneath the windows.

“I think I made some progress last night,” I called to Serena “it was really exciting but also kind of scary,”

I wasn’t delusional enough to expect a response but from what I’d read about coma patients talking to them seemed to be a good thing. Many people described being in a coma like being in a dream state. They could hear those around them but couldn’t respond, as if they were processing their surroundings while they slept. Uncovering this bit of information was actually what started the formation of my plan.

I slipped down the sofa into a lying position and slid the tote that still dangled off my shoulder to the floor. Reaching down, I pulled the solitary book out from inside of the bag. The Greenwerd Guide to Lucid Dreaming, the title read.

“I actually saw someone last night! It was a man I think, but I couldn’t move or anything. It was so bizarre,” I continued.

I hadn’t told a soul about what I was trying to do, except for Serena. My mother, a god-fearing woman, would have called it “hoodoo bullshit”. As for Isiah, he would have laughed in my face, or worse, pitied me. Maybe I was delusional, but my idea made enough desperate sense to me that I had to try. Lucid dreaming was a real thing. People studied tirelessly to control their subconscious as they slept. Whole books were dedicated to learning how to master the skill. If Serena was stuck in some sort of dream state and I could learn how to lucid dream, I could find her. I could speak to her again. I could hold her. At the very least I had to try, if not for her sake then for my own.