“I hope you can, because I really do need help.”
“Time’s up for today. We’ll have lots to talk about in the morning. Goodbye, Lauren.”
“Goodbye, Estella.”
***
“So, how’d it go?” Kyle, who had been sitting in the waiting area during her session, questioned as they walked to the car.
“It was fine. She didn’t hypnotize me today. We mainly talked about my normal sleeping habits. Then she told me the similarities I share with people who have brains like mine and a little about her practice. And we talked about my job, too.”
“What’d she say about her practice?” Kyle slowed his walking pace and turned to watch her.
“She told me her treatment is based on Carl Jung, who thought dreams were important.”
“You mean like dreams about sex and stuff?”
“No,” she giggled. “I don’t think so. Apparently Jung thought dreams came from not only our personal desires but also from a general collective or something.”
A frown quickly crossed Kyle’s face and then disappeared. “Do you think she’s worth your time? Do you really think she can help you?”
“For now, I guess. I know it seems strange, but talking to her—sometimes it’s like she seems so certain she can help me that I believe she can.”
“And by that you mean hypnotize you?”
“Yes. I’m willing to let her try and hypnotize me to see if it will work.”
“Okay. If you’re happy with her, then I am, too.” Now at the car, he opened the passenger’s door for her to get in. He then walked around to the driver’s side and entered the car. He spoke as he buckled up and began the drive home. “I want you to know that I support you and I trust that you’ll let me know if you want to try something different.”
“Thanks, babe. I feel so helpless right now. I don’t know what I’d do without your support.”
Lauren smiled in response to the smile on Kyle’s face. They rode in silence as he pulled out of the parking lot and into traffic. There, in the passenger’s seat, buckled in with her head on the seat’s headrest, she closed her eyes and tried to rest. She was more than tired. Her eyes were burning, and it was getting harder and harder to focus. The smooth hum of the car’s engine droned in the background. On occasion, the car stopped and started. Suddenly, Kyle touched her arm.
“We’re home.”
She opened her eyes and blinked them repeatedly. Lauren looked around, confused as to where she was. “Home?” she asked and turned to the driver’s seat. However, it was empty. She turned towards the door to their home and saw Kyle opening it. I missed the entire trip home?
As the haziness cleared, he approached her and opened her car door. “Are you okay?”
Her headache flared as she became more alert. “I need to eat, take my medicine, and rest or something,” Lauren mumbled as she walked inside and stood in the kitchen.
“Take a seat. I’ll get you something to eat,” he said, standing in front of the refrigerator.
She sat at the table, listening to him select something from the fridge and heat it in the microwave. Next, he poured her something to drink and then joined her at the table.
He took one pill from each of the three bottles that Dr. Jackson had prescribed for her and placed them on a napkin beside her plate.
“Eat first, then take your medicine.”
The microwave sounded, letting him know the food had completed its warming cycle. He spooned out leftover Chinese onto her plate and then onto his own. They said grace and then she blew on a fork full of food to cool it before shoving it into her mouth. After she had eaten about half of what he had prepared for her, she began taking the pills.
“It’s odd seeing you taking this much medicine. This must really be serious if you’re taking it without a fight,” Kyle said.
“I know. I definitely prefer home remedies to pharmaceuticals, so this should prove how desperate I am.”
They finished their meal and Kyle cleared the table. “Let’s see if this medicine has helped. Do you want to try going to bed?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” she replied, saluted, and walked towards the stairs.
“Oh, if you’re following orders like a good little soldier, I had better not waste my chance.” Kyle followed her to the bedroom.
“Sorry. See, you get one time every hundred years of our relationship to make an order that I follow without question, and you just used your one for this century. Only ninety-nine short years until you’re eligible again.”
“Somehow, this doesn’t feel fair to me.” He stood by the bedroom door as she changed for bed.
“I guess you should do a better job of reading the fine print of our relationship agreement next time.”
“Next time? What next time? Are you trying to tell me something?”
Half undressed, Lauren looked at him across the bedroom. Then it dawned on her what she was saying and she giggled. “Yeah,” she gasped between laughing fits, “this is my way of saying I want to break up.”
She knew the joke wasn’t that funny, but she couldn’t stop laughing. Then the laughter turned into tears, again. She had never been a crier before. In fact, crying made her feel uncomfortable. As a result, all of the tears she was shedding were only serving to make her feel worse.
As they ran down her face, wearing a bra and the jeans she hadn’t managed to remove, Lauren sat on their bed and buried her face in her hands.
“Hey, hey, hey.” Kyle wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her closer to his body. “We’re all right. You’re all right.”
“But I’m not. I’m not all right.” She twisted and cried into the crook of his neck. The tears kept coming until exhaustion would no longer allow her to shed more.
Once she was quiet, he stood beside her and lowered her body onto the bed. He slowly removed her pants and then tucked her in. Kyle then kissed her closed eyelids and left her to rest.
Please, please, please let me go to sleep, she prayed while she lay on her back in the somewhat darkened room. The blinds were closed and the curtains were drawn, but they still didn’t block out all the light from the setting sun. Time seemed to suspend or pass in fits and starts triggered by sound. When Kyle finally came to bed, she was still awake. She listened as he undressed and tiptoed around their room, preparing for bed in the dark. When he did finally crawl into bed, he was careful to remain on his side.
Though she guessed he was trying not to disturb her if she was asleep, it made her feel more afflicted and isolated. Still on her back, she allowed the warm tears to fall from her eyes, down the side of her face and into her ears. She just let them run, fearing any movement would let Kyle realize she was still awake and now crying. When she heard his soft snoring, she knew she no longer had to force herself to lie where she was.
She carefully got out of bed and walked into the den to relax on the sofa. She grabbed a few Kleenex to dry her eyes and to blow her nose. Then she wrapped up in her blanket she kept on the back of the sofa and laid on her back. As Lauren looked up at the ceiling, she tried some of the relaxation techniques she had read about when she first stopped sleeping. In rhythmic, controlled breaths, she began counting and breathing in rhythm with the numbers.
“One, two, three, and four, five, six, and seven, eight, nine. One, two, three, and four, five, six, and seven, eight, nine.”
She continued repeating this count like a mantra. Then, that on the verge of sleep feeling crept over her. Lauren closed her eyes but didn’t stop counting or allow herself to get too excited. She’d felt close to sleep before and nothing had happened. This time, however, began to seem different. This time, the weightless feeling she always felt as she was about to drift off to sleep began in her legs. Then it traveled up her body and spread to her arms. As the feeling spread, she began counting silently in her head, maintaining the same rhythmic breathing.
Now weightless, her body floated out of her makeshift bed into a dark shapeless
place. Fog seemed to swirl around her as she drifted in a strange void. A chair would really be nice, she thought.
Then, when she looked to her left, she saw a purple and green chair surrounded by light from an unknown source. The next moment, she was sitting in this chair. Lauren looked around, trying to see where she was, but beyond the mysterious light circle, there was nothing but blackness and fog. As time passed in this place, she heard beeps and voices talking somewhere around her, but couldn’t see the source of either. Now she was afraid.
Should I speak and let them know I’m here? she questioned to herself.
Just as she was about to take her chances with “them,” another voice spoke.
“No, do not let them know you are here.” The voice spoke in a low whisper but was crystal clear.
The speaker sounded as if she was nearby. Lauren didn’t know why, but the voice seemed familiar and felt like she was someone Lauren could trust, so she kept quiet.
“We will both be in trouble if they find you here. It is time for you to go,” the whispering unseen speaker continued.
“What do you—?”
The sensation of being blown away by a strong wind cut Lauren off mid-sentence. She opened her eyes and found herself staring at her ceiling. Lauren sat up, repositioning herself on the sofa, and looked around the room. She remembered she had come to the den when she saw the bright white numbers on the satellite box’s digital display. A smile spread across her face as she read the time, 3:18 AM. She lay back on the sofa’s cushion, still smiling.
I think I went to sleep, she thought.
Then she thought, If it happened once, it could happen again.
She wrapped herself in the blanket and snuggled into the cushions. She started counting and breathing just as she had before. But she was wrong. As she lay on the sofa, her feelings of happiness began to turn into jealousy. It wasn’t jealousy over Kyle sleeping while she couldn’t, but rather because she had lost the ability to do something that had always been a great source of joy for her. As a child, she hated shutting down and going to sleep. But when she finally did, her dreams were phenomenal. Since Lauren could remember, she had always had vivid dreams. She was well into grade school before she realized they weren’t real. And while this realization was initially disappointing, it was also liberating. This meant that now there were no boundaries to what she could do once she fell asleep. After a good night of sleep, she always felt refreshed, happy, and ready for the world. Now, without sleep, she felt lost, weak, and a bit scared.
She looked at the clock again. This time it said 4:37 AM. Lauren sat upright on the sofa, turned the television on, and began watching the early, early morning news.
CHAPTER 14
Lauren sat on the sofa in Estella’s office feeling terrible, her new usual. She was drinking coffee, hoping the caffeine would help burn away the fog settled in her brain. Today, even the eugeroics Dr. Jackson had prescribed weren’t helping her stay alert.
“How was your night, Lauren?” Both ladies settled into their seats from the previous day, Lauren on the sofa and Estella in the blue modern-styled chair facing it. Today, Estella had her e-tablet in her hand.
“I managed to sleep a little, I think. But it was weird.” Lauren yawned, pulled her knees up to her chest, and snuggled deeper into the corner of the plush sofa. It was comfortable and she was tired. Under different circumstances, she’d be able to fall fast asleep without any hesitation. But then again, under different circumstances, she wouldn’t be as tired as she was now, or sitting on this sofa.
“Really? Weird how?” Estella picked up the stylus and began tapping silently on her tablet.
“Well, it wasn’t a deep sleep. And I still feel exhausted. But I closed my eyes and I remember I had a sort of dream. Well, I say dream, but it was more like when I was meditating. I wasn’t quite asleep, but I wasn’t awake either. I even think the woman I’ve previously seen was there.”
“What happened in the dream from last night?”
Lauren closed her eyes and laid her head back on the sofa cushion. The office was quiet; no outside sounds seemed to penetrate the cocoon. There was a light scent of apples and vanilla in the air. It reminded her of the Christmas apple pies her grandmother would make when she was a child. She smiled and thought back to last night. “I was somewhere dark and foggy; it felt like I was just kind of floating in space. Then I saw a chair outlined in light in the middle of the dark.”
“Had you ever seen this chair before?” Estella asked. Her voice was soft and soothing. It was almost like she was whispering in Lauren’s ear.
“Yeah,” Lauren responded after thinking about it for a while. “It’s a chair I used to have in my bedroom when I was growing up. I loved it. My mom redecorated my room when I went to college and threw it out or gave it away.”
“Okay, continue.”
“Well, once I sat down I could hear voices, and I wanted to call out to them. That’s when ‘she’ spoke up and told me I had to be quiet or they’d find me. I can’t remember exactly, but it was like she was hiding and I had to hide with her. Then she kicked me out, and I woke up.”
“What do you mean, ‘kicked you out’?”
“Like this wind or some force hit me and pushed me out of the dream place and made me wake up.”
“Hmmm,” was all Estella said. “And was the chair the only thing you recognized in the dream?”
“Yup, that’s it.”
The ensuing silence caused Lauren to open her eyes and look at Estella. She saw the older woman using her stylus to make a series of selections on her tablet. When she finished, Estella looked up at Lauren and smiled.
“Well, I believe we are ready to get started. I would like to try to hypnotize you today. I don’t know if we’ll make much progress, but don’t worry, we’ll figure it out. Are you comfortable with this? Or do you have questions?”
Lauren shrugged and shook her head slightly. “Sure.” She let out a huge yawn and stretched. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. And I could use the sleep.”
“Well, hypnosis doesn’t really put you to sleep. What it does is put you in an altered state. This will help you to relax and focus on specific events. As the hypnotherapist, I guide your focus.”
“Guide my focus? Guide it to what?”
“I have no idea where you will be guided. Hypnotherapy is more of a give and take. I will help you to relax and you will share what’s playing out in your mind. Then, I’ll work with what you give me.”
“What if I don’t give you anything? Then what?”
“I seriously doubt that you’ll give me nothing. Your description of your meditation sessions and of what happened last night show me that your mind is accustomed to functioning in altered states.” Estella chuckled. “Once we get you into a hypnotic state, sometimes called a trance, your brain will become much more efficient at making connections. Actually, we often learn more when an unexpected association is made.”
“Trance? I’ll be in a trance?”
“Well, that’s only one name for it. I don’t like to use the word trance because it feeds into the ‘Las Vegas act’ stereotype. Think of it as being in an altered state of consciousness where distractions are minimized and your brain is allowed to work unfettered.”
Estella continued looking into her face as Lauren thought everything over. She was starting to feel nervous and she didn’t know why. Hypnotherapy was what she had agreed to. Why did the thought of being hypnotized now put her on edge?
“Okay. What do I need to do?” Without realizing it, Lauren had curled her knees into her chest and sat in a tight ball. Then she pushed further into the sofa’s corner.
“What you should do first is relax. I need you to not be balled up in the corner of the sofa as you are now.”
Lauren straightened her legs and placed her feet on the floor, then switched to sitting cross-legged. After sitting like that for several seconds, she finally decided to move to the chaise lounge at the other end of t
he sofa. Estella turned in her chair to face her as Lauren took off her shoes, positioned a few of the throw pillows so that she could rest her right arm on them, and sat down with her legs extended in front. Her fingers were interlocked and resting on her abdomen, waiting for her next instructions.
“Now, I need you to close your eyes and just listen to me talk. No matter what, just listen for now.”
Lauren nodded, then closed her eyes and laid her head on the chaise’s back cushion. Silence engulfed her again, and the scent of apples and vanilla seemed to get stronger. “This is session two with patient Lauren Wray. We are attempting our first hypnosis session.” After completing her notation, there was more silence.
“Lauren. I want you to take deep breaths by my count. Ready?” Estella instructed. Lauren nodded. “Innnnnnnnn. Ouuuuuuut. Innnnnnnnn. Ouuuuuuut. That’s right. Keep breathing at that pace. Good. Now, I need you to see yourself in an empty and dark room. It’s pitch black; you can’t see your hand in front of your face. But you aren’t afraid. Just keep breathing and let me know when you get there. Take your time.”
She kept breathing, trying to focus on an empty black room. However, Estella may as well have told her to focus on a purple monkey because she couldn’t empty her mind. Random thoughts like, This is stupid; This will never work; Is this a waste of time? kept running through Lauren’s brain. She raised her head and opened her eyes.
“This isn’t working. Am I doing something wrong?”
“No, if you’re relaxing and trying to visualize what I asked, you’re doing everything. Hypnosis isn’t about actions as much as it’s about just quieting yourself. You need to strip away all of the things that would otherwise distract you. If we can’t get you to the altered state today, it’s fine. In fact, it would be normal. Someone like you, whose brain is normally so active, would be difficult to hypnotize even under ordinary circumstances. But we have to try because the more we try, the sooner we’ll succeed. So just close your eyes, breathe according to the rhythm I set, and let’s try again. Don’t think of this as succeed or fail. Just think of it as something that’s happening sooner or later.”
The Heaviness of Knowing Page 10