The Rage Of Reichert
Level of Lucidity:
Level of Cohesiveness:
Lucid Intent? No
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This "dream" is one fresh from my mind, right a few moments ago as I dozed in the computer chair.
I was vaguely conscious as I dozed, and kept "waking up" briefly before drawing myself back down into sleep to continue with what I was doing. Sometime in here I came up with a new scenario for my stories. In my writing I have a detective character, Det. Reichert, who lived through the September 11th attacks after being buried in rubble; he's also been through a lot of other crap since transferring to another police department out of state, which may include (I have yet to decide) a mugging-type thing and/or a sexual assault of some kind (upon him, as the victim). Unsure. The other character in the scenario I decided to think up is Officer Silvertree, Reichert's kinda-boyfriend. I say "kinda" because Reichert is kind of messed up socially and his relationships tend not to last; so far Silvertree's been the most promising one so far.
My scenario was about a fit that Reichert would throw which would tip off others around him as to his deteriorating mental state. In real life long ago I read about a Vietnam veteran who awoke one night to find himself strangling his wife--he'd thought she was the enemy and wasn't even aware that he was trying to kill her. I've had plenty of characters with plenty of PTSD things going on but acting out in the middle of a flashback is somehow something I haven't done yet. I figured Reichert would be as good a place as any to start since he's messed up enough as it is.
In the scenario, Reichert and Silvertree would be sleeping in bed (that's all, just sleeping), and Silvertree would do something to wake Reichert up abruptly--probably roll over and accidentally put his hand or arm across his face or mouth, briefly interfering with his breathing. I decided that because Reichert's known traumatic situation didn't involve an attack on his person (unless he's been mugged/assaulted, which I have yet to decide)--it involved being buried alive and having trouble breathing--then being unable to breathe, even temporarily, would freak him out. (He already hates small spaces and airplanes.) So that would be the most likely catalyst. As soon as this would happen, Reichert would wake up and flip out, and start beating the crap out of Silvertree without even knowing what he's doing, because to him, he's just trying to survive. I haven't yet figured out why Reichert would BEAT SOMEBODY UP as a survival response (again, unless he's been mugged/assaulted!), but it was just a dream, and I just wanted to play out the aftermath, so that part's still hazy. The dream itself involved all the stuff that came AFTER the attack.
I was kind of roleplaying, and knew at various points that I was just sitting in the computer chair dozing, but I know now that it was a dream and not just thinking over story ideas because in various parts, things happened which couldn't happen in real life. I saw things and was in a place that isn't here! I played the part of Reichert, of the 911 operator he called, of the unconscious Silvertree, of the police and paramedics who showed up, and toward the end, of Det. Kristeva (ANOTHER PTSD sufferer of mine), who I decided had best step in. This is hard to describe or explain since it was like I kept revising it as I went along, and like I said, I kept shifting from the computer chair into the dream without any seeming loss of continuity so it was quite strange!
I'll first try to summarize how the BASIC plot of my scene went. This is a lot more coherent than it was in the dream, since in the dream, I kept deciding to go back and redo parts, or change them, etc. But this is the gist of it.
* In a scene which at first wasn't included in my roleplaying, since it wouldn't be remembered, Silvertree and Reichert are in bed, sleeping, and Silvertree does whatever it is that provokes Reichert's flashback. (This part, up to Reichert coming to, wasn't included at first in the act; I started focusing on it more toward the end of the dream.)
* Reichert "wakes up," but he isn't really awake yet, he's having a flashback. I was still working out the details of what happened but I'm guessing that he either grabs Silvertree's arm or strikes it away from him. Silvertree wakes up and asks him what he's doing; Reichert keeps lashing out, and Silvertree alternates between attempting to fight him off, and striking back, out of pure confusion and survival instinct. Reichert fights him out of bed and the spat turns into an all-out brawl, with Reichert landing the biggest number of punches and blows because he's literally out of his head. They slam into walls, upset furniture, crash into things, etc. Finally Reichert rams Silvertree into the wall, where he hits his head and at last passes out and slides down to the floor, Reichert going with him.
* Reichert comes to (this is where my first act picked up), sees Silvertree all bloody and beaten up, and is shocked and confused about what happened. His own bruised hands and the fact that he's the only one there soon make it clear that he did it, though he's not sure how or why. He checks Silvertree's pulse, and attempts to wake him up, without success. Panicking, he gets up and runs to call 911.
* The 911 operator picks up. "911, what is the nature of your emergency?" (I fiddled with this part, wondering if I should just have her say, "911," or add the second part too.) Reichert starts talking, in rapid panicked speech: "There's a man in here and he's beaten up; he's unconscious. He's in really bad shape." (I toyed with the idea of him saying, "He's a cop," to add more tension to the scene and make the paramedics and police hurry there faster, but never officially decided. I mulled very briefly over the phrase "officer down" before deciding that would not apply in this situation since Silvertree wasn't on duty.) The 911 operator promises to send help and Reichert vaguely says, "Okay..." and hangs up. (I wondered if he should stay on the line, then decided he shouldn't.) I seemed to be wandering near the utility room, where the freezer used to be (it might still have been there in the dream), in this part, pretending to be Reichert pacing back and forth. One discrepancy is that this seemed to be taking place in a nice apartment with white walls and carpeting and such; Reichert lives in a dingy skanky apartment like a flophouse, and I'm unclear on where Silvertree lives; but I didn't picture it being like that, and the two of them don't tend to spend the night together too often. Aha, as a matter of fact, I just remembered that I DO have a written scene where they're at Silvertree's place, and no, it's nothing like what I envisioned in my dream. And in this dream Reichert was acting more like this was HIS place (he might have said, "There's a man in my apartment...").
* There was a brief scene here which in the dream was more "reality" than playacting; I looked out a window of some sort, and saw, in the distance yet impossibly nearby, an ambulance pulling out of somewhere (a parking garage?) on a rooftop and driving away. This both was and wasn't related to what I was imagining. It's like it was real, so it couldn't be related to my play; yet I also "knew" that was the ambulance they were sending for Silvertree. "Neat, I can now see how long it'll take them to get here and just when they'll arrive," I thought. But I couldn't see the ambulance after it departed. (I was way high up in a building, to be seeing this; the ambulance was across a street or something, a few levels below me, but still on a rooftop.) I think I imagined the sound of sirens blaring as the ambulance approached.
* To get back to the scenario...the paramedics arrive at Reichert's place and he lets them in; they go to tend to Silvertree. I waffled here, not sure where I wanted Silvertree to be. Was he lying against the wall? Or had Reichert moved him? I started to have Reichert say, "I moved him...he was having trouble breathing" (or something like that), and Silvertree would be on the bed, but then I think I changed my mind and Silvertree was back where he'd been left. Both possibilities bugged me somewhat (would Reichert be stupid enough to move an injured man?--would he be callous enough to just let him lie where he fell?) but I couldn't decide on this point yet.
* Cops arrive. (I never decided the details of who called them, who they were, what precinct (they didn't seem to be from Reichert's station), etc.) There's at least one male detective looking into it. I never got to clarify, either, everything that they asked, and nobody ever seemed to question why Reichert was in the same apartment as Silvertree. I figured they would probably ask about that first off! But perhaps they would settle for just giving each other knowing looks. At first, Reichert is not a suspect whatsoever (which is odd, considering that he should be covered with blood and his hands should be all bruised); I did this to build suspense. Reichert never says outright that he did it because he's still dazed and worried mostly about Silvertree. Silvertree is put on a stretcher to be transported to the hospital and the cops look around vaguely. The dream gets mumbly and disordered here, so the rest of this is out of order, but in the proper order if this scenario had ended up as a final, finished product.
* Reichert is frazzled and incoherent. Det. Kristeva shows up (perhaps completely replacing the other male detective--remember that I was editing the dream) and tries to calm him down. As Silvertree is put on the stretcher, a tube is placed in his nose. I was sitting in front of the computer now, facing it and leaning toward it; as "Reichert," I had him say, "What's that they're doing to his nose--?" in an anxious voice. As "Kristeva," I calmly told him, "It's just a tube. To help him breathe," and tried calming him down and getting him to talk again. I was eating some sort of chocolate like Twix bars; it was a little melted, but very tasty.
* Silvertree is taken away and the questioning begins. Again, Reichert isn't even considered a suspect; somebody--Kristeva?--the other detective (who I think I brought back as a separate character)?--starts to ask how somebody got in and did this, since the locks and doors are intact. At that moment Reichert speaks up. I fiddled around with what exactly he would say: the dramatic, "I know who did it...it was me," or the more realistic, "Nobody broke in...it was me." Kristeva, the other detective, and whoever else was there would then slowly turn around to look at him, and that would be the big dramatic finish. Following that would be Kristeva's or the police's interview with Reichert in which he would outline what he remembers, and his PTSD would be revealed, but the dream didn't cover that much.
* Somewhere toward the end of this was another dream vision (like those of the ambulance, the utility room, and the chocolate bars--things that I never actually did or saw) of a lake with deep water. I started musing, unrelated to the plot, of how fearsome it would be to be submerged in deep dark water and you don't know what's beneath you. I started descending toward this water and perhaps even plunged beneath it, but then hurriedly got myself out and away from it. This is too unpleasant, I told myself. I'm NOT going to dream about plunging into dark scary water. I don't need a nightmare right now.
I slightly opened one eye and saw Ma's jacket hanging on the display cabinet in front of me, where I was dozing. Was it really there, I asked myself? Or was I still dreaming? "If I'm dreaming, then let something REALLY WEIRD happen to that jacket," I told myself, focusing on it and almost expecting a worm or something to shoot out of it toward me, but nothing did, so I knew it was real. I then felt a twinge of disappointment because I wanted to head back into the dream and complete the scene since I was so close! And I'd already been doing this several times--waking up, peeping at my surroundings, then dozing off again...something I usually can't do. I've never been able to pick up where a dream left off. I suspect I could do so this time only because 1. I was neither fully awake nor fully asleep, so both states blended together better; and 2. it wasn't so much a "dream" as it was an "imagining," with the real dream parts (the ambulance, lake, etc.) being mostly unrelated to the plot and hence unnecessary. But I felt I had better wake up and do some real typing.
Right before I could really wake myself up...I felt something grasp my left arm and squeeze it, and tug on it, as if trying to pull me toward the computer. I took in a sharp breath, feeling very tense now--what the hell was that?? I knew it was some sort of physical reaction to the dream, and not real, but it still felt so real that it scared me at first. Then it passed, I awoke, stared off into space for a few moments, and then decided to try typing this up...I hope I've at least partly succeeded, because it's just too confusing to put in linear terms. >_<
This dream was VERY weird because I know so much of it was conscious--the plot wouldn't have been NEARLY so coherent, and sensible, and I wouldn't have been able to focus on it so much, even after repeated interruptions, if it was all merely a dream. The odd nonlinear pattern of it is strange too; I usually don't have such trouble describing my dreams, because it's usually "This happened, then that happened," but here, I kept going back and forth in time, altering things, changing my mind, etc.--mental writing. I can't even be positive of parts of it because I kept editing it so much! (I even think I remember a bit I forgot earlier--yes, I do remember it now--in part I had the digital camera and was at the front door, attempting to take a photo of something at night...first it was an animal on the ground, turning and running away, then it was the moon itself, up in the south--I zoomed in on it and hoped it would turn out, then decided to change the dream and maybe put in an unexplained light to the right of the moon, then decided to scrap this idea since it was starting to scare me, similar to the lake!--I have NO CLUE what that had to do with Reichert!)
The strangest part of all and the part that convinced me to type up what otherwise mostly amounts to mental literary ramblings was the sensation in my arm. I've had something similar happen with my heart. I was dozing upright on the couch at that time, and toward the end, when I decided to wake up (I wasn't fully asleep), I kept feeling as if something were grasping my heart and trying to pull it out of my chest; I had to struggle against it, it would ease up, I would relax, then it would try again; this happened several times before either it gave up or I regained enough of my senses and finally dragged myself out of sleep. It hadn't hurt, but it was more like a feeling of pressure and urgency...and it was beyond weird. What happened here with my arm felt a lot similar--like something was attempting to pull me somewhere, and was applying pressure to my arm. I have no clue what either of those could have been. :/
Now all that remains is for me to write an actual scene out of all that!
