Sweet Dreams
I cry a lot in my sleep, I always have. In the mornings, my pillowcases have tiny water stains on them, stamped impressions of the curvature of my eye. It’s not something I can explain or control, but whenever I’ve had a roommate, it’s given them more than a little scare.
Because I’m the sort of person who remembers, journals her dreams, I know for a fact that my nighttime crying isn’t nightmare-linked. Once, I had a dream which was wonderful to the point of being boring. In it, I was simply walking down a night market, eating an ice lolly, bouncing change in my pocket. Peering at the oden stores, buying sticks of fried cheese tofu. The night market went on and on, it spilled from one street to the next. Besides food stands, there were game stalls, where you could throw a ball into a hoop to win a prize, or use a colourful fishing rod to hook a floating toy from an inflated baby pool. I’ve always loved night markets, and so even though I became aware at some point that it was a dream, I didn’t mind, I was happy to stay in it. When I woke, my pillow was soaked through.
The degree of crying varies from night to night. Sometimes it’s a single tear seeping out, sometimes it’s full-on sobbing. But that’s quite rare. Usually, it hovers around a slow drip — enough to leave a stain, not so much as to cause worry. One time, though, I fell asleep on an airplane, the Phantom of the Opera’s soundtrack playing on my headphones. The stewardess was passing by for meal service; she helpfully shook me awake, and let out a little yelp when she saw my face. The tears, they were streaming. I had to assure her that I was okay, that this was one of those weird biological things, that I was used to it. From the headphones around my neck, the Phantom’s revenge melody leaked softly.
The easiest explanation, I think, is that I have trouble fully closing my eyes when I sleep, and prolonged exposure to the air irritates my eyes, causing them to tear. Forcing my eyes to close properly isn’t really something I can control either — I can shut them tight, but once I fall into deep sleep, my lids begin to slide open. Beyond being a little embarrassing and inconvenient, I actually don’t mind it that much. There are worse nighttime terrors — I used to sleepwalk, apparently, as a child, but I don’t do it anymore.
But perhaps, as a result, I’m interested in sleep. The way people do it, the unconscious habits that surface when one feels they’re in a safe space. My sister, for example, sleep-talks. The direct line of causation for her is clear: whatever occupies her daily conversation reappears in her sleep. We share a room, and when she was cramming for the A levels, I would hear her muttering math equations in the middle of the night. During lockdown, we got into a zombie monster series together, and one night when I was up late reading, she bolted straight up in bed, looked towards the window, and told the giant hairy eyeball hovering outside to go away. The next morning, upon hearing my account of the night’s events, she giggled.
Ew, she said, I’m so weird.
Like me, she is used to it. We were raised to see harmless aberration as texture, as colour. The strange things that happen in our sleep, they’re accepted as something to tease, to laugh about. I don’t mind her seeing me cry, she’s accustomed to my videotaping her nighttime rambles for a morning laugh. The confidence we have in sleep, it’s not something we’ve ever had to question, come what may.
But that, too, is a privilege. A month ago, a news story about two university students rocked the country. You couldn’t go anywhere without hearing about them; at some point, everyone was discussing the case, dissecting the details, comparing notes on what they felt the two students did right and wrong.
They were studying together on campus, overnight, a common practice locally. As the night progressed, the male student claimed that the intimacies they exchanged were consensual, little kisses, caresses here and there. At some point they took a nap in the study room. At 6:30am on January 8th, 2019, the female student was woken by his hands on her body, his penis on her chest. Stop, she said, and later in court, the male student stood up in front of a judge, and testified that he honestly believed she didn’t mean it. As part of his testimony, he mentioned being glad to see that she was still asleep beside him when he woke from his nap, she had not left, which presumably, she was to do via sleepwalking. He did not stop. In less than ten seconds it was over, she was jumping up and wiping her face, the police was called, the rest, everyone knows.
Because the local newspapers had no compunction about publishing every minute detail regarding their interactions — right down to the fact that the female student had a boyfriend who was not her study partner, leaving out only the female student’s name by gag order decree —the country had all the facts on hand, it was happy to debate fault and causation. Let me be clear. However you feel about the ethics of circumstance, I believe that people shouldn’t come on others without expressed consent, indeed, they should not do it when the other party is barely conscious. But, but, but, people said. But.
Although the female student had her fair share of defenders, there’s no denying that her relationship status was repeatedly raised, her intentions questioned, her testimony mocked. I don’t know this student, I have no clue as to her actual identity. I can guess at, but not confirm, what must be running through her mind. How much turmoil has bloomed, from the events of a short nap.
