I had the wildest-ass dream while I was taking a nap today. In it, I was lying in my bed in my actual room in the actual position I was in. It was as though I was half awake. My dead Granny Mabel started visiting me. It seemed as though she came to me multiple times over the course of several days, always while I was lying in bed. I was on my side, and she would spoon next to me and put her arms around my shoulders. It was as though I were awake, and I could really feel the pressure of her arms. But not only that, her body was also ice cold which I could feel permeating my skin. It really felt like she was right there.
She said a bunch of crazy things. She said for both my physical and mental health that I should probably go to a Veterinarian. She said I should stop doing things the way I wanted to and that I should do everything that she wanted. She said she was going to make me into the young man that she always wanted me to be. For some reason she wanted to transform me into this smooth, dapper, suave gigolo type character who would romance and have sex with all her widower friends. Somehow I knew that she would inevitably get what she wanted, but I kept begging her to go away, and that she shouldn’t be here because she is dead.
Then, suddenly, I was in the lobby of a posh private Mental Institution. I had stupidly told someone about my Granny experience, and the Psychologist at the facility was adamant that I be admitted for treatment because I was hearing voices. I told them I didn’t want to. They said that I didn’t have a choice. I said bullshit, I know my rights, you can’t forcibly admit me unless I’m a danger to myself or others, and I was completely rational and calm. They begged to differ. I threw lots of insults at their facility: that they didn’t have any actual Doctors on staff and were a bunch of amateurs and didn’t know what they were talking about. They kept insisting I be admitted so I stormed out.
The Psychologist stopped me in the foyer and asked me why I didn’t want to be admitted. “Have you ever read an article titled ‘On Being Sane In Insane Places?'” I asked. The Psychologist answered no. “You should Google it.” He asked what it was about. “It’s a very insightful field experiment about the effectiveness of Mental Institutions.” He looked at me with scorn after I said this and I went out the automatic sliding doors. After they closed, I was afraid he would think I was a Scientologist (because of their hatred for Psychiatry) so I screamed back, “It’s not about Scientology!”
I met with Bill outside the Facility because he had driven me there and we headed for his car. Two Nurses bustled out of the building and started wheedling me to admit myself. I said, “The only way you are going to get me in there is to drag me.” The Nurses said that could be arranged, and in fact the Orderlies would be out to get me any second. “No way, you’re just a Private Institution, you don’t have the authority to do that.” They assured me they did. The whole time Bill had a concerned look on his face, like I was acting crazy. I turned to him and asked, “We’re going to have to push our way out of here; are you going to fight for me?”
He looked somewhat sorrowful and said, “Dude, I think you should admit yourself if these people think you should.” I felt utterly betrayed by him because he would abandon me to my fate. I woke up just as the Orderlies emerged behind me.
I told Bill about the dream after I woke up and asked him if he would fight his way through any Orderlies trying to put me in an Institution if I was obviously rational. He said, “I wouldn’t fight anybody because I would probably get arrested.” I was disappointed, but said, “That makes sense.” Then I asked him if he would at least be my Escape Driver. He kinda got this “no” look on his face but dissimulated and said, “I don’t know what I would do in that situation because I’ve never been put in it.” I got the impression he would do exactly what he did in the dream. Then I asked him if he thought I should be in an Institution. He said, “Not unless you were acting dangerously.” Finally I expressed the view that this dream probably means that, somewhere down in my soul, I truly believe there is nothing wrong with me. I asked him if he thought I had an illness. He said, “Aside from bouts of Paranoia, you are mostly normal.”
I think those bouts of Paranoia are symptomatic. I don’t know if Bill thinks this or not. Sometimes he tells me to go off my pills and get a damn job. Other times, when I’m ranting about helicopters or wiretapping or data collection by the government, he looks at me like I’m a complete loon.