I open my eyes to murky light filtering in from a window at the end of the room. The walls look misty and distant, the sheets seem gray. The only color is an orange number on a lightly buzzing machine. A man arrives, I know because of his title that his stiff coat must be white but it looks like he is wearing a jacket of brushed metal, even his name conjures metal: Dr. Pierce.

Don’t abandon yourself.

These quiet words echo in my mind. I feel dreadful. My husband is quietly eating his dinner unaware of my distress. I want to get up from the table, and do anything but sit here with my feelings. Anything.

My bare feet absorb the warm, honey glow of the wood floor. My arms hover in front of me as if I were hugging a beach ball. But I’m not, there’s nothing in my arms and they are beginning to quiver a bit from the effort. I am exactly mirroring the teacher at the front of the room. Knees slightly bent, spine straight. Or at least I think I am. He moves his arms over his head, I do too. It takes me a minute to register his words.

I am hurtling through blackness backwards, free falling, my limbs askew above me. My belly overflows with terror as I plummet, I can’t see anything, or change position as gravity grips me tightly. Fear fills me, and I am utterly powerless.

And then I have a thought.

“I’m dreaming.”