A Bad Dream

Lying on a couch with the remote in his palm to flip through five hundred channels is Laxman’s favorite activity. But he was not facing the big screen TV; he was in the clinic of Dr. Mac, a psychoanalyst known all over the continent for his interpretation of dreams. Laxman was fortunate to get this appointment. Actually the fortune was in having Sophia for a wife who had many strings to her bow, one of them connected to Dr. Mac.

Sophia had a problem with Laxman which was getting worse by the day. In fact, she had two problems. First, Laxman did not concentrate when she talked to him. Not only did his eyes wander, even when there were no pretty faces around, he tapped pencil on the table, clicked his tongue, hummed some rotten Indian melody or made other disturbing sounds. The consequence was that he bought meat at the grocery store when she had asked him to buy milk and drove over to the hardware store at the other end of town to buy nails when she wanted him to pick up the mail. Second problem was his speech. He spoke to her facing away as if mumbling and the strange accent was not bad enough and then sulked when she complained. It had got to the point that Sophia was losing patience with him every hour of the day and even their sex life, never great at the best of times, had hit a new bottom.

Then came the last straw; the dream. Laxman had frequent dreams of being at his college in India. In these dreams he was having problems like not finding the wash room, shower running out of water, long line up for meals and losing large sums in the games of bridge. He would wake up sweating all over as if from a nightmare and describe it in great detail. Sophia listened patiently and patted him back to sleep as she had done with their sons when they were babies. But this new dream shook her up; she had read in a magazine article that older men in early stages of senility start craving for what they were fond of in their childhood and wish to return to places they loved then. She wondered if her husband of forty years was, in addition to becoming partially deaf and inattentive, also suffering from some mental disorder. After Laxman had gone back to sleep she made a note in her bedside memo pad to investigate the issue. She let it simmer in her head for a couple of days before discussing it with a few of her friends knowledgeable in such matters. On their unanimous advice she arranged an appointment for Laxman with Dr. Mac a month after the nightmare although the waiting list of the celebrated dream surgeon was known to be longer than nine months.

Dr. Mac’s opening gambit in the examination surprised Laxman. “Are you comfortable? Does the headrest need adjustment?” the famous doctor asked.
“Thanks you for your concern, sir. I am so comfortable I am afraid I might fall asleep,” Laxman replied.
“Please don’t do that. I might think you are considering a reply to my query and time will be wasted. My time is precious although I only charge five dollars a minute. Now let us get down to business. Am I right in thinking that you had a dream recently that has your wife worried about the soundness of your mind?”
“Yes, that is true although I do not really see it that way. I have often had dreams of my old haunts in India which wake me up because I don’t really have any pleasant memories from those days. This new dream sends me back to earlier days but there is nothing particularly creepy about it.”
“Interesting, very interesting. Goes back to earlier days. How early?
“The frequent dreams are from my late teen years in college. This dream is from preteen days.”
“Interesting. Before we go into the dream itself, have you had it again?”
“Yes, several times. It scares Sophia every time.”
“And not you?”
“Not really. It does wake me up and I am happy to realize that it was but a dream. Unfortunately, Sophia wakes up too and she insists on knowing what disturbed my sleep. I happily go back to sleep after the episode.”
“And Sophia doesn’t. Interesting. Does it appear again when you have returned to slumber land?”
“No it doesn’t. In fact the sleep is unusually sound, no dreams whatever.”
“It is like letting the steam out. Once it is gone you can relax.”
“I never looked at it this way. This is also true about my scary dreams of teenage years.”
“Interesting. Now you can describe the bad dream, or the nightmare, whatever you call it, in its most usual form?”
“First a preamble. I was born in the foothills of Nilgiris in a then small town called Anmora. Tall peaks dominated the view in the South, white in the winter, grayish blue in the summer. An hour by bus, about 30 kilometers is a famous summer holiday town called Sensous where the rich families of south India spend the summer to avoid the scorching heat of the plains. I was never impressed by Sensous even when I was a child. It seemed too pretentious somehow. The hill town that I loved was Rotipur, about a hundred kilometers from Anmora on a narrow road which looked from the top like a winding ribbon lying on the side of mountain. It took three hours and every passenger on the bus was sick at the end of the journey. But what a view once you got there. I was there only once and only for a week when I was ten. But the memory of the majestic mountains all around me at the glorious sunrise in the East or the fantastic colours of the sunset in the West; and yes the rainbow after the noon drizzle. It was as if a great artist had taken his pallet and brush and drawn an arc of seven distinct colours in the bright blue sky. It is perfectly possible that the time has improved what I saw, but this is what I remember. I felt throughout my teens and twenties that I was born to live at Rotipur. Not like a poor boy that I was then but like a rich man of independent means with maids and servants to look after my every whim. Strange thing is that the prospective family never made an appearance when I day dreamed of this life – no wife, no children. However, Rotipur receded from view when I migrated to Canada and married Sophia, only to reappear a month ago.”
“Interesting, very interesting. Carry on.”
“As I said in the beginning, the dreams of late teenage life at college persisted, mainly reminding me of the struggles in those days. In the dream that Sophia suspects is indicative of approaching senility, I am standing on the balcony of my palatial home on a hill top looking into the distance. Sometimes I have a glass of red wine in my right hand, sometimes a cup of steaming tea but most often nothing. My appearance is similar to what it was twenty years ago, in my fifties. Mountain peaks are without doubt Rotipur peaks. I look right; I see the sun rising slowly from behind the peaks, the sky becoming brighter as the white disc rises above the horizon. Then I turn left and see the sun going down behind the peaks in the West, sky becoming darker as it grows pink. There are no clouds, no rainbow and of course no stars. Then the sun sets completely and everything goes dark. The curtain falls on the dream and I wake up.”
“Very interesting. The dreams as vivid as yours have some meaning. We have to work together to find out what it could be. One thing it is not. It is not the onset of senility. You said you look in the dream as you did in your fifties. Can you tell me what was happening in your life around that time?”
“Those were the good years. Our two sons were at colleges in Toronto and Montreal. Sophia had her business under control and I had enough time for afternoons at the club most days, golf or bridge, depending on the weather. Perhaps it was the best time of our lives.”
“How is your life now? How do you get on with Sophia?”
“Sophia has two distinct personalities. She is an angel when she is relaxed, you would not find a better person anywhere. She makes every body around her feel good. She makes me look a great father and a good person altogether which in itself is a miracle. But when under stress she becomes temperamental and has outbursts worse than a cannon fire. That is why our life together has its ups and downs, more downs than ups in recent years. We are from very different cultures and have never been a homogeneous couple like many of our fortunate friends. Over last twenty years we have been growing further apart because our interests have been diverging further. We do things together on occasions but it is more to be obliging on part of one or the other than out of his or her personal interest. Sometimes it works, other times it adds to the stresses.”
“Interesting. Is this divergence the only source of stress or there are others too.”
“Illness of a son and the grandson, the marriage break-up of the son and the illness of Sophia have all contributed. They continue to stress Sophia and it adds to difficulties between us because I want to detach myself from situations where I can’t help. Sophia has deep emotional roots and she frets when her interventions are misinterpreted.”
“How do these stresses impact on you?”
“It is not the events themselves; it is the reaction of Sophia to them. She gets upset with sons or the daughter-in-law, becomes tense and takes her anger out on me. I understand what is going on but feel pretty depressed all the same. I am not willing or able to stand up to Sophia and fight when she is being unreasonable. I take her snapping and bullying without protest – in fact I try to appease her. But it does hurt and I wonder why I stay in that situation.”
“Why do you appease her rather than stand up for yourself?”
“There are several reasons. First, I think her temper tantrums are more extreme due the almost fatal disease she had five years ago and the effect of drugs prescribed for it. Second, she has been very kind to me in our first few years together. She helped me settle in the West by helping me when I needed it. Not only that, she uprooted herself to move when my career was helped by it. Third, she was an excellent mother to the children and a great role model to them. Fourth, she showed great concern as if her world was falling apart whenever I was ill. There is so much gratitude I owe her I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“This is an interesting angle. Nothing you have said so far gave the idea that you were sensitive enough to have such feelings.”
“I am often told that I need to be sensitive to others and I have been trying.”
“You have had some success. Any thing more to add?”
“I have been thinking of late that there may be some truth in what she often says when she is angry – she would be better off without me; a butler would be cheaper and better in every way. If that is indeed true I would be doing her a favour by leaving. If she is indeed better it would offset some of the burden of gratitude that I carry.”
“Yes, one could look at it that way.”
“Then the old American saying – Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Should we be making each other’s present and future miserable because of the past kindnesses?”
“You have a point. A relationship can be great at one stage of life and a misery at another. While raising the family, couples work out how they share the load. As they start wilting in old age one may start to feel burdened by the other not doing his share.”
“What you say is frightening. What happens to the notions of love and understanding in such cases?”
“Love is an abstraction and understanding is fleeting. Practicalities and burdens of daily life are always the first consideration.”
“Social implications of what you just said are immense. Marriage is for raising children, not for life. After kids grow up each is on his own.”
“Not always. In old days people did not live long and this was rarely an issue. These days many couples adjust to new realities and carry on. Not because they love each other more but because adaptation is easier than the complications of a break up. Some struggle but carry on regardless. Separation and new relationships may be better when both are driving each other mad. No one can tell you where you stand and what the best course is for you. That is for you alone to consider. Anything else!”
“I think I have said all there is to say on this issue.”
“Then let us move on. Do you have any financial stresses?”
“I wish we did. Then divergence in temperament and hobbies would probably take the back seat. We have ample funds for our retirement in our separate accounts for all foreseeable needs.”
“Interesting. Well, I can have you in that couch for several consultations and charge you a bundle. But I won’t because I do not have time to waste. I will tell you my interpretation of your dreams. After you have given my summary some thought we can meet again if you wish.
“Your dreams of late teen college days are expressing your fears of returning to India and reverting to being single. I am certain you had them after unpleasantness in the family and when you were wondering ‘what am I doing here’. Those dreams encouraged you to work at pleasing Sophia in spite of poor results. A month or so ago you concluded that your relationship with Sophia is beyond repair and your future happiness lies in being single. This is why your dreams carry you to an earlier happy period. They show the idea down deep in your mind. Yet, you are not certain what to do. That is why you look to the right and the left and not straight at the rainbow. To help you in making a decision is another issue and I am not in the right profession to help you with that.”
“It is not far from what I was thinking. How to present it to Sophia is indeed a problem. I need to give that some thought too.”
“Sophia is no fool. She has her suspicions and she arranged this visit is to confirm them. Tell her the good news that senility has not touched you yet. Then discuss the issues between you. As I indicated I am not qualified to tell you how to do it. In any event, my next patient has been waiting for ten minutes and I must say good bye.”

Dr. Mac opened the door with left hand and offered Laxman the right for a handshake. Laxman accepted it with a wry smile. He stood still outside of the door, not knowing whether to go to the right or the left, East or West.