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The first minute
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Stay exactly as you are when you wake, because the position you slept in seems to hold the thing, and rolling over is usually enough to tip it out.
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Then say it in one plain line before you reach for anything, since picking up a phone wakes the part of you that wants to be sensible, and the feeling goes out with it.
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Put the feeling down before the story, because you can rebuild a corridor from the words I was frightened and could not stop, while no list of events will give you the fear back.
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None of that is difficult, though all of it has to happen before your feet touch the floor.
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Keeping them
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Paper beats a phone for one dull reason, which is that paper does not light up, and light at that hour ends the whole business before you have written a word.
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Write it as though it is still happening, so that you stay inside it a little longer, and save the last line for whatever you cannot explain, the coat, the slippers, the room you had forgotten was in the house.
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Give it a fortnight before you judge it, since recall builds slowly and the first mornings are mostly blank, mine included.
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✦ WRITE BACK
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Two things keep a dream, staying still and writing it down, and I would like to know which of them does the work for you.
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TELL ME WHICH ONE
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My notebook goes back on the floor by the bed tonight, where it lived for years before I got clever and bought a nice one that sits on a shelf and stays empty.
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| Sleep well, |
| Dream Signs |
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P.S. My neighbour, who has never read a word of this, told me on the stairs that she writes hers on the back of her hand when she cannot find a pen, then washes it off in the shower before she has read it. Tell me where you write yours. She did not seem to think this was a problem.
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