Dreams are often said to explain things we don’t consciously acknowledge. I’m not sure if this explains the dream I referred to here, but maybe it does. Maybe even at a young age I was forced into self-honesty.
I discovered my fundamental difference in second grade. After that dream, I understood my other classmates did not feel the world the same as I did. They did not hunger for the same type of interaction with others.
It was simple and devastating. I accepted it because it was true. Because I awoke tingling and alive, ashamed to meet the eyes of the boy I dreamed of, wondering if he shared the same dream. Crushed he most likely did not.
the dream
I was standing in a department store near the top of the escalators. It was a familiar store, one my family had been in several times. I don’t know why I picked it, something about it fascinated me (probably the coin-operated horse around the other side of the escalator).
There were people going by because the store was open. I can’t remember if I was naked; probably.
A boy from school whom I liked (and still do) was with me. He bade me be still and went down in front of me, his mouth where my legs joined. He looked up at me and his face looked like a skull.
I was scared repulsed fascinated excited. The people passing by and looking at me were humiliating; the skull grinning up at me was terrifying; malice and decay behind his black eyes. I did not want to miss whatever it was he would do to me. I was in love.
and ever after
My lifelong push/pull of fear and desire, repulsion and thrall was consciously acknowledged that night. The dream served its purpose as a messenger.
At the time, I had no knowledge of sex. What I felt was much more basic, deeper, older and strangely pure – unfiltered by adult knowledge. Though my dreams intensified in violence and became more explicit, none of them had the effect of this one simple act.
My schoolmate’s grinning skull, preparing to perpetrate unsanctified acts, told me I was different.
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