I didn't understand the assignment.

Last night, Paul woke me up from a nightmare. “You were screaming in your sleep.”

“What was I saying?” I asked, as if I didn’t know.

He either couldn’t understand my words or lied. “Fuck, I don’t know… does it matter?” No, I guess not—but I know what I was yelling.

In my dream, I was looking at my own reflection in a mirrored dinner plate, screaming and crying, “I hate myself so fucking much. I want to die,” and so on and so forth. Drew Carey and fewer than ten but more than five other people watched. I wanted one of them to intervene. So I got louder, more vile, more hateful toward myself—but none of them cared.

How did I get to that point? Would you believe that this posturing of self-destruction was actually a big manipulative ploy? Let me begin at the beginning of the dream—at least the parts I remember.

Drew Carey was giving instructions to a group of us. I guess it was an assignment for a class, and I was half listening. That’s my modus operandi: half listening, half reading, half absorbing. Most of my life, I’ve been able to logically fill in the blanks. After all, school is a formula. I know 1 + 1 = 2, so even a blank can be statistically, reliably filled in: 1 + _ = 2. That’s clearly 1. It’s not hard. Even if you don’t get it 100% right, 95% is still an A. Flourish the gaps with bullshit.

I half listened as Drew Carey showed us clothes on hangers and listed things. I figured I could totally do this. Plus, I was with a group of people—just see what they did.

It fell apart quickly. Horribly.

My peers scattered in different directions. They went to thrift stores and Lowe's. The items they picked up made no sense to me. I was lost. When it was time to share with the group, they had piles of things to present, and I had nothing but a piece of paper and a pencil. I scribbled down ideas as they presented.

One by one, they presented their “goods.” The assignment had been to pick something that represented your heart, something that represented your future, and so on. When it was my turn, I tried to bullshit. I remember saying that my mother represented my heart, but I couldn’t buy her at the store. For my future, I said my whole biological family was dead but my mother, who had cancer, and that my future was loneliness—which I also couldn’t get at the store.

(Worth mentioning: this wasn’t true in life. My mom died of cancer before my grandmother and aunt, but the general milieu is true—my whole biological family is dead aside from a biological father I don’t speak to. Loneliness was indeed my fate....at least biologically.)

When it became clear that my project was falling flat and the sympathy angle wasn’t working, I began to berate them. I started lecturing the group about how purchasing items was capitalist and superficial and that they should be ashamed.

This wasn’t received well. They seemed to see me as a sore loser—which I was. So then I put on a “constructive criticism” hat. I started making suggestions to Drew Carey about how to clarify expectations and improve access for the assignment. But every suggestion was rejected, and ultimately it was clear that everyone else had understood the assignment just fine. I was the problem.

By this point, I was spinning. I wanted to manipulate the situation so I could still get a good grade, even though I hadn’t listened or followed the directions. I went nuclear.

I picked up a mirrored dinner plate from another person’s pile of representative objects, looked at my reflection, and screamed at myself—about how much I hated myself, how I wanted to die a horrible death, how I was too disgusting and vile to breathe.

I glanced at the group, then at Drew, to see if there was any effect. There wasn’t. So I increased the intensity—the volume, the crying—until Paul woke me up.

Is this a nightmare? I guess if it is, the nightmare is myself. My actions set it in motion. I could have spared myself all that deceptive trouble if I had listened to Drew in the first place—or, more honestly, if I had simply admitted that I didn’t listen. Accepted that my project wasn’t good. Taken the grade I had earned.

It was fighting and trying to bend reality. It was was lying that got me in the end.

You can say it was just a dream. But I have been with me every morning, noon, and night, every day of my life. I assure you...I know the real me and she was in my dream.