The Drinking Dream

Last night I dreamt that a deathly thirst came suddenly upon me and subdued me, not unlike the grip of a noose upon the throat of a dusty and trail-blazed outlaw. I hurriedly poured a glass of ice water and hastily downed it. After emptying the vessel, I was still every bit as dry so I poured another and drank that one down as well. I continued in this manner, only to find that my unrelenting need for liquids persisted even after quaffing 14-15 large glasses of chilled H2O within a couple of minutes.

Strangely, I wasn’t troubled, but was, instead, feeling rather impressed with myself for an astounding feat, thinking, "Wow. It's a good thing I started hydrating when I did. Otherwise, I might've collapsed! I've never known anyone to drink 2 gallons of water in such a short duration and yet remain thirsty. I must have been close to death!"

I imagined myself almost proudly relaying the story later to others at the next office water-cooler gathering. I could foresee the heavy expressions of shocked unease and concern for my well-being. An attentive crowd offering an array of genuine remarks like, “Wow, @m, you sure are blessed to be alive!”

“Oh, yeah, I know,” I’d say heavily, fully relishing their caring attention, “Very lucky.”

Just then, I awoke, and sure enough, I was parched like never before. To give you an indication of how thirsty I was: I got right out of bed without hesitation; something I have not done since the Christmas morning of ’79.

I usually argue sleepily with myself, negotiating my way out of getting up. I do this even as my insides are in pain from a bladder, full far beyond recommended capacity, pushing on its neighbor organs. I usually try to hold out by repositioning myself and thereby distributing the pressure of the bladder more evenly among the other organs and therefore slightly decreasing the pain. Yes, shamefully, I often am willing to withstand actual pain in order to avoid getting out of bed.

So anyway, that’s how terribly in need of water I was. I went directly to the kitchen and just like in my dream I poured a glass of water, only I was too thirsty to care about adding ice like in the dream. The big disappointing letdown was that, after one and a half glasses of water, I was pretty much quenched.

I felt so suckered by that dream, like the dream itself was laughing at the trick it had played on me; like I’d been had; made the fool; like I was all worked up over nothing. Nothing exciting happened at all; I didn’t almost die; I didn’t drink 2 gallons of water in world record time; I didn’t even have a good story to tell.