Chapter 7

The second step is reality testing.

You have to perform a reality check throughout the day. Every hour, you ask yourself, “Am I dreaming?” Keep doing it and soon you’ll start doing it while you’re sleeping. The tough part is answering it in a dream.

“Am I dreaming now?”

You need to recondition your mind and your body. You have to reprogram yourself. You have to question the world. You have to not accept everything that is put in front of you, as real. If you do this while you’re awake, you’ll do this while you’re asleep.

You have to learn to recognize your dream signs. Device failure. That’s what they call it when a light switch doesn’t work or a TV doesn’t turn on. Or a key doesn’t open a lock.

If your microwave doesn’t turn on, you might be dreaming.

Every time a light bulb burns out, “Am I dreaming now?”

Every time the batteries die in your remote control, “Am I dreaming now?”

Another dream sign is inconsistency. Words or numbers that appear in your dreams are unstable. You have to try to read them, look away, and see if they’re still there. Billboards, papers, watches. You have to double-check everything. If you do it while you’re conscious, you will do it while you’re dreaming.

They recommend wearing a digital watch with an alarm set for every hour. It’s 3 p.m. Time to do a double take. Is it really 3 p.m.? “Am I dreaming now?”

My face is oily and full of stubble. My hair is shiny. My fingers appear to have smears of blood, but they taste like chocolate. My hands are covered with little nicks and cuts. Where have I been the last few days? My clothes are wrinkled and I smell like too much of me.

My nostrils sting with the smell of smoke. I can feel molecules of nicotine tingling throughout my bloodstream, shooting down my capillaries. But I haven’t smoked in years.

Am I dreaming?

If you had to guess how many boring people there are in the world, what would you say? It’s probably over 50%. Around here, maybe 9 out of 10. But the exact number isn’t important. The point is, it’s a lot.

And that leads me to the realization that I’m barely coming to grips with.

What if I’m boring?

What if everything that I think about and care about and stress out about, what if it doesn’t matter? What if I’m just another blip on a radar screen that no one’s watching?

I’m born. Blip. I die. Blip. That’s it.

Or maybe I’m just way too tired.

My toast just popped up. I pull it out of the slot and see that it’s just as soft and white as it was two minutes ago.

I bite into my uncrunchy toast and glance at the newspaper headline: Contaminated Water Spreads Through US. I take another bite of my refined white flour bread and set my plate back down on the newspaper. The headline now reads: Giant Pandas Spend Week At Space Camp. The second step is reality testing.

I’m out of toilet paper. I won’t have time to go to the store until Wednesday.

Today is Monday.

Is that going to be a problem?

I start scrounging for napkins, Kleenex, paper towels. I have a stack of Burger King napkins in a cupboard…maybe I don’t ever need to pay for toilet paper again. Just go through the drive-thru, ask for extra napkins. Might as well get packets of ketchup and Sweet n’ Low while I’m there.

Can you flush a shitty Burger King napkin? It’s just like toilet paper, right? I’ve always been too scared to flush a condom.

You’ll learn a lot of things in college, but the things that stick are the things that you learn outside of class. The most important lesson I learned is that girls don’t want to fuck a vegetarian. Sure, they want to cuddle. They want to make love. They want to kiss and hold hands and give and receive back massages all day. But they’ll never want to just fuck. Not a vegetarian.

When they want to get pounded, they want a carnivore. They want to feel thick, meaty flesh bending them over a dirty couch. When they want to get a hard fucking, they crave meat.

They’ll tell all their friends how they think vegetarians are so noble, so caring. And sure they’ll go down on you. But it’s not a blowjob. It’s oral sex.

When you just order a salad, they see us as tree huggers, not fuck buddies.

And if you’re vegan, just forget about it. Don’t expect anything more than a hand job. Maybe all you’ll get is a dry hump, that’s it.

The last thing I need is my plumber with the unibrow to have to fix my clogged toilet and find a full condom and a bunch of shit-stained Burger King napkins.

Maybe I’ll stop by the store tomorrow.

Am I dreaming?

I smell toast.

I’m definitely in my bed, but it’s awfully bright for 4 am.

Am I dreaming?

If I am, how would I know?

Is this it?

Is this my dreamscape?

Is this my heaven?

I’m too tired for this to be it.

I’m playing basketball in a driveway. I’m in the middle of a storm but my clothes aren’t getting wet.

Focus.

Why aren’t my clothes getting wet?

Think.

Try and turn on a light switch.

I’m outside.

Try and read your watch.

I don’t have one.

Think harder.

A phone is ringing.

A hip-hop song is ending. The morning DJ transitions into the news and weather. I turn off my alarm.

I’m checking my watch three times in an elevator. I’m reading every newspaper, every bus stop ad, every TV sidebar, twice. I’m asking myself: Am I awake? Am I dreaming?

To the outside world, I probably look delusional, schizophrenic. I probably look like I’m losing my grip on reality.

Things couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m tightening my grip on reality. I’m blurring the distinction between being aware while awake and being aware while asleep.

I’m on the verge of gaining 8 additional hours of life every day. But not just any sort of life. A new life, an alternate version of life where I can do whatever I want. At least, that’s the dream.

I’m standing at a train station, in the middle of a green countryside. A bullet train whooshes by without stopping. I guess it wasn’t my train.

I look up at the signs to figure out what stop I am at. The signs are in German, I think. Perhaps, some Eastern European language that I don’t know. The sign tells me that I’m at Altstadt Spandau. Fair enough. I try to find the words Altstadt Spandau on the map. Though I’m not sure where I’m going, or what I’m supposed to be doing.

I am holding a briefcase, so I figure that I’m supposed to be heading to the center of the map. Though I’m not sure which stop.

I study the map and find that I’m on a blue line. I guess this is not the Blue Line to O’Hare. Ding dong. Doors open on your left at Altstadt Spandau. Ding dong. Doors closing.

I look back at the sign telling me what stop I am at. It no longer says Altstadt Spandau. It says La Courneuve Aubervilliers. So now I’m in France.

Maybe.

I look back at the map. It hasn’t changed.

I look back at the station sign. It says Cockfosters. I don’t even know what country this is.

I look back at the map trying to find Cockfosters. The map is no longer a map. It’s a colored pencil sketch of two gorillas fucking.

I really don’t know where I’m supposed to be going, but at least I have a briefcase. I check my watch.

It’s flashing 12:00.

The second step is reality testing. I know this. Somewhere in the back of my little pea brain, I know this.

Focus. Check your watch again.

It says 1:23.

Stop. Think.

Device failure. What you see isn’t real.

Am I dreaming? Am I awake?

Check your watch. It says 9:11.

Open your briefcase.

It’s locked.

Stop. Think.

This isn’t real. I must be dreaming. I’m certainly not awake.

Calm down. If I’m not awake, then I must be dreaming. If I’m dreaming I can control my environment. I can control everything.

Open your briefcase.

It’s locked.

But if I’m dreaming and I say my code is 5446, then the code is 5446.

I turn the dials to 5446.

My briefcase flies open, the contents sprawl across the train station. Scattered across the Cockfosters concrete are a bunch of loose papers and a set of colored pencils with blunt tips.

Pop.

And just like that, I’m back in my bed in Chicago. It’s 3:53 a.m. Central Daylight Time. And I’m most certainly awake now.