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Oneirophobia

By Todd Keisling

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The fluorescent lights here in the basement of St. Joseph’s are noisy by design. You wouldn’t think it of lights, the kind of noise they put off, but the ones down here have a hum that digs into your ears like a gnat. You don’t think you hear them, but you do, and now that I’ve told you about them, all you’re going to hear for the next hour is that lifeless drone.

Mmmmmm.

That’s the sound of this room. It’s the sound buzzing away in the background of the world, an involuntary reaction to existence that goes on and on in its tiring way, leeching time from you, stealing life. For many, the noise is the sound of bureaucracy, consumerism, corporate toil; but down here, one floor away from all those Hail Marys, it’s the sound of consciousness. The dull buzz of being awake.

Like I said: by design. The folks who come down here to our little meetings twice a week do so with the expectation of avoiding sleep. It’s why you won’t find any cots, quilts, or pillows left over from when this place was used as a shelter. It’s why all we have are these rusty metal chairs that squeak when you unfold them and a couple of card tables near the entrance for carafes of coffee and other goodies.

Anyway, hello. Come on in. Help yourself to some refreshments. The coffee is good and strong. No decaf here. There may even be a few pastries left if you’re lucky. I hope you’re not diabetic or have a heart condition. Nothing but sugar and caffeine on that table, believe me. Oh, and the theater masks. I’ll get to them in a minute.

I’m getting ahead of myself. Where are my manners? Let me welcome you. I’ll take your coat. When you’re ready, please take a seat in the center of the circle.

Huh? Everyone else? Don’t mind them. I promise they aren’t being rude. Facing away from the circle is how we do things down here. As long as you’re in the center—like you are now—no one will look at you, and no one will interrupt. It’s a precaution, just like the masks. Did you take one from the table? You’ll need one—but don’t put it on yet. Not until we’re done.

It’s one of the rules, see? You come in, take your coffee and treats if it pleases you, take a mask, and take a seat. If you’re new, or it’s your turn to share, you sit in the center. Everyone else faces away from you in masked silence. You don’t put on your mask until it’s no longer your turn to speak.

And since it’s your first time here, well, you get to speak. But not yet. I’m not done explaining things yet.

So, the odds are good you know why you’re here and what we do down here. It’s no secret. You probably saw the flyer on the community board upstairs, or maybe you saw it downtown at the YMCA. Maybe your doctor or therapist sent you here, just to try things out, see if it helps.

We do help, in our own way. We’re all here for the same reason, after all.

I can see you’re anxious, uncomfortable—that’s the idea, remember—so how about I start, show you what we do?

We’re all here because we see the Face in our dreams.

Yes. A face. The Face.

This face, it could belong to anyone you know, or it could be someone you’ve never met. Most of the time, it’s a face with which you’re all too familiar. The mug you see staring back at you in the mirror every day. Yes, sometimes this Face looks just like you or me, but wrong somehow.

You know that game you used to play as a kid? The one where you stand in a dark bathroom, stare at your reflection, and say “Blood Mary” three times. Ever do that when you were a kid? The point was, you’d freak yourself out because your face would appear to shift or change in the mirror. Just slightly off, a grin too wide, or cheeks that sag a little more than they should.

That’s the kind of wrongness I’m talking about. We’ve all seen the Face staring back at us in our dreams. A smile too wide. Eyes too far apart. Features just out of focus. But always there, sometimes in the background, sometimes right in front of us.

So, the masks—yeah, you get it. Hiding our faces keeps us from manifesting others in our dreams. One less face, one less person to dream about, limits the possible archetypes in which our mystery person might appear. I could go into Jungian dream concepts, but that would probably put us both to sleep, and that’s the last thing we want, isn’t it?

Right. We’re at risk of dreaming about every person we’ve ever known or met or seen. Worse, we’re at risk of dreaming people who don’t even exist, conjuring them out of the ether of the collective unconscious. And no matter who we meet in our dreams, no matter how they appear or manifest, we must remember they are always suspect. We must remember it is always us or them.

Which leads me to the purpose of our little group. Contrary to what you may be thinking, we aren’t here to avoid sleep—that is impossible and altogether unhealthy—but to better understand the nature of our dreams.

See, most people regard the Face as another dream presence or concoction of the subconscious mind, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The Face is an interloper in the natural course of our sleep cycle, and it exists solely to kill us in our dreams.

No, not like that horror movie. This is worse.

The Face isn’t an external factor. It comes from within. It is, to some degree, a part of all of us—but its purpose is far more sinister. The Face, however it chooses to appear, is the part of us that has yet to be.

Yes, exactly right: It is us. The us of tomorrow. And the Face’s sole purpose is to become us. To take our place. Every night we die and awaken as someone new. Every sleep is a “little slice of death,” as often misattributed to Poe.

The Face is who we become, if we allow it to have its way. Every night we are murdered and every day we become a copy of our former selves, but changed. Diluted. Sometimes drastically and sometimes barely at all, but the fact remains: we aren’t who we were before we went to sleep.

We’re someone else.

Someone wearing the Face. And every Face you see is someone else trying to murder you in your sleep. The last time you dreamed and saw the Face, odds are good that who you are now isn’t the same person you were before you fell asleep. Just like me and everyone else here.

We’ve come to identify the “Face” as the one who will steal our lives and take our places in the waking world. Our dreams have become a game of cat and mouse. Jungian espionage, if you will.

And you’re here because you’ve seen the Face. Maybe you’ve avoided it, but it’s more likely you haven’t. None of us have. Not all the time. And the sad irony is that even when the Face is victorious, another Face will be waiting to take its place. As if life isn’t difficult enough, our dreams are a battleground, and we must do everything we can to remain who we are for as long as possible.

And to do that, I come here twice a week and lead the group. We talk about our dreams, the many forms the Face will take or has taken, and how we can prepare for its coming. Maybe you don’t see it every night, in every dream. Hell, maybe you don’t remember, which is an even scarier prospect.

My first time? Yeah, I remember it. I don’t think anyone forgets the first time they noticed the Face. Me, I was still a young man in college. In my dream, I was back home in my childhood room, curled up in bed. Right away there was a faint sense of familiarity and foreboding, like I’d been told a terrible secret that I can’t remember, a horrible something on the tip of my tongue if I could only recall the words to speak it. And there, right there in front of me, was the real reason for my terror.

The Face sat across from my bed, and it looked just like me. Like I was staring into a mirror of hairline fractures just small enough to distort the image slightly. No expression. No words. Just staring and staring, into me and through me, an almost perfect clone or doppelganger. Good twin or evil twin, I wasn’t sure. I’m still not.

I tried to scream, but the Face was faster and fell upon me in an instant. It shoved its hand—my hand—into my mouth, and I suffocated on the pressure and pain of its arm reaching deeper down my throat. The last thing I remember is the terror of dying. Panic and adrenaline flooding my body as fire burned my lungs, the sensation of neurons sparking into nothingness, and the blistering cold of a vast sea of darkness crashing over me.

When I awoke the next morning, I felt different, looked different. My body was a foreign entity and felt like driving someone else’s car or wearing their shoes, one size too big. The light was harsher, the sun brighter, and everything hurt just a little more. Some would say I’d become aware of entropy, that I’d just grown a day older and somehow felt the change, and maybe they’re right. Maybe that’s what the Face is, in a Jungian sense—an archetype representing the death and rebirth of ourselves.

Apologies. I’m rambling. Any questions so far? Why do we resist the Face?

Great question. An argument is to be made that the Face is simply a part of the natural order of things. Maybe we’re supposed to die every night. Maybe the point of life is death and rebirth. That very well could be true, you know.

But…think about the last time you saw the Face in your dreams. You were repulsed by it, weren’t you? Its not-quite-right features, its thin and knowing smile, the blank stare it gave you from across a room or street or crowd—everything about it looked familiar and wrong.

Maybe you woke up in a cold sweat, reeling from a simple dream that was far more terrifying than anything you could call a nightmare. At least with a nightmare you know it isn’t real, but when you see the Face, its existence feels possible. That dread you feel when you awaken is the knowledge that this uncanny thing wants to step inside your skin and wear you—become you.

That chilling fear you feel is the pure, heart-stopping knowledge that if the Face takes over, who you are will cease to be. Who you are will be a facsimile of who you were, ad nauseum. Death of the self in perpetuity.

Death of yourself, over and over again, every night into every day. You are here because of your innate sense of self-preservation. Just like the rest of us. You would rather fight to exist than to be overcome.

How, then, do we fight when we are in our most vulnerable state?

Many of us have trained ourselves in the ways of lucid dreaming to control our actions and better prepare ourselves should the Face make an appearance. That’s one such skill we develop here in the group. It could prove useful to you if you haven’t learned it already.

How? Mnemonic induction, rehearsal of a phrase as you fall sleep, can train your brain to recognize when you are dreaming. Think of it like training yourself for meditation. You’re teaching yourself a trigger to reach a mental state on command.

A word or phrase is common, but some of us utilize a sound.

A click of the tongue, snap of the fingers, or a gentle hum.

Mmmmmm.

This takes practice and doesn’t always work. Sometimes we go into our dreams believing we’re in control when it is the Face who has the upper hand. You know the falling dream? The one you have where you’re always falling is one of the Face’s most effective traps. It’s sudden, you never know how or why you’re falling, and the rush of primal fear as the ground fast approaches is all-encompassing. That’s a dream you can’t control. The same goes for the dream where you’re late to a final exam for a class you can’t remember attending, or when you have to give a presentation on a topic you know nothing about. Classic Face scenarios. We’ve all fallen prey to them.

But a lucid dream where you’re in control? You have the upper hand by default. The setting, the rules, the scenario—you determine everything. All you have to do is wait for the Face to appear and spring a trap of your own making.

An example?

Well, it could be anything, but enclosed spaces work best. Kind of like a wasp trap, where the victim can enter but can’t leave. A classroom, for instance, or maybe a burning house or crashing airplane. It’s always fun to turn the Face’s scenarios around and use them against it. The point is to create a space that doesn’t look suspect. You’d never want to use a police station or a jail, for example. Too obvious, and too easily used against you if things get out of hand.

No, you want something inviting and familiar. Even if the space isn’t warm, the premise should be—like a therapist’s office, or maybe a church. And once the Face arrives, make it feel at home. Welcome it with open arms. Be friendly. Don’t let it know that you know what it is and why it’s there. By the time the Face realizes what’s happening, it’s likely too late. There’s no escape from this place you’ve created. Remember, it’s trapped in here with you, not the other way around.

Unlike the Face, you’ll want to give it a reason for being there. It’s your dream, but the less it feels like one, the better your odds of success. Context and premise go a long way here. Rather than imitate the Face’s scenarios that dump dreamers into the thick of things with little time to react, you want to flesh things out, make everything seem plausible. Ground your dream in reality and give yourself a reason for being there. If your trap is a doctor’s office, for example, then maybe you’re the doctor or nurse, and the Face is the patient. Of course, you’ll have better success if you approach the Face from a position of authority.

Oh, there is one thing I left out. Your mnemonic trigger can give you away if you aren’t careful. The people who fail at this often rely on actual words for their mantra. It’s the repetition, I think. The Face isn’t just an impulse; it has sentience, to a degree, and with that comes a sense of self-preservation. You must still have your wits about you and be ready to improvise if the need arises.

Personally, this is why I rely on a sound for my trigger. Something that easily conforms to the scene. White noise, like from an oscillating fan or a refrigerator. A mechanical drone that’s always there, and because it’s always there, you barely notice it. Even when it’s pointed out, you might hear it for a moment before it slips back under your radar.

It’s why I hum.

Sounds just like electricity in the lights, doesn’t it? Fits perfectly here in a church basement.

Do you need to top off your coffee? I think there’s a pastry or two left on the table. Please, help yourself.

Oh, do be careful—

Were you born with two left feet? Ah, now see what you’ve done? I knew I should’ve done a better job of tying those bodies to their chairs. And the mask is off, isn’t it?

Yes, you’re right. Those people are dead. And they all look the same. Just like you. Do keep the mask, though. It’s how I hide your face when another Face inevitably strolls in here, looking for me.

Why? Haven’t I explained myself? You know, there was a moment when I thought you’d figured me out. Just after you arrived, while you were standing in the doorway looking around the room, I’d swear you caught on. Was it the bodies? The masks? Fine, be that way. Doesn’t matter if you tell me or not.

I have to say, though, there was a point when I thought I had convinced you of the evil inherent in your being. When I was explaining everything like you were one of me, another terrified soul looking for answers and a way to defeat their dreams.

Oh, don’t try to run. Where are you going to go? The door isn’t there anymore. It hasn’t been for quite some time—

Easy there. Steady. Coffee’s got a hell of a kick, doesn’t it? Made it myself. Worked great for these other iterations of you. Go on, take a load off. No pillows or blankets, I’m afraid, but that mask in your hand does a great job of blocking out the light.

Want some more coffee? It’ll speed things along, get you to where you’re going a lot faster.

No? Sure? All right.

I’ll see you when you come around again, Face. You can put on the mask now. Close your eyes. Focus on the sound and dream a little slice of death.

Mmmmmm.

Mmmmmm.

Mmmmmm.

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Host Commentary

PseudoPod, Episode 943 for October 18th, 2024.

Oneirophobia , by Todd Keisling

Narrated by Jon Bell; hosted by Scott Campbell audio by Chelsea Davis

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Hey everyone, hope you’re all doing okay. I’m Scott, Assistant Editor at PseudoPod, your host for this week, and I’m excited to tell you that for this week we have Oneirophobia , by Todd Keisling. This story first appeared in NEVER WAKE: A DREAM HORROR ANTHOLOGY, edited by Kenneth W. Cain and Tim Meyer, and published by Crystal Lake Publishing on 9/8/23

Author bio:
TODD KEISLING is a writer and designer of the horrific and strange. His books include Devil’s Creek (2020 Bram Stoker Award finalist for Superior Achievement in a Novel) Scanlines, and most recently, Cold, Black & Infinite: Stories of the Horrific & Strange. A pair of his earlier works were recipients of the University of Kentucky’s Oswald Research & Creativity Prize for Creative Writing (2002 and 2005), and his second novel, The Liminal Man, was an Indie Book Award finalist in Horror & Suspense (2013). He lives in Pennsylvania with his family.

Narrator bio:
John Bell is a former radio guy who has extensive experience in writing/voicing/producing commercials, audiobooks, video game characters, and so on. Currently, he writes/voices/produces the comedy podcast, “Bell’s in the Batfry“, available at iTunes, various other sources, and at http://thebatfry.com.

And now grab some coffee, take a seat and get ready to hear our story and we promise you, it’s true

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ENDCAP

Well done, you’ve survived another story. What did you think of Oneirophobia by Todd Keisling? If you’re a Patreon subscriber, we encourage you to pop over to our Discord channel and tell us.

This story, like dreams, is open to interpretation. You can look at it as a tale about the horror of survival. Most stories of survival have the protagonist cutting away friends, family, and even their own humanity to overcome some impossible threat. Sometimes they cut so much that what’s left is the void they created and we all know what happens when you look at that void. Dreams and nightmares are portrayed as flights of fantasy, bound only by your own experiences and imagination. Now, because of some impossible threat, you have to curtail your dreamscape to a single room of ordinaryness. That threat is lulled into a false sense of security so you have a chance to stop it. Not even vanquish it, merely stop it. We already limit so much of ourselves to live, now you have to limit your dreams to survive. This dream is horror.

Or is it? Our protagonist is awfully proud of his innocuous little dream trap. He’s awfully proud of the other dead Faces he has around, almost like trophies. He’s awfully proud he almost got the current Face to believe that it was evil. You don’t get desperation or even resignation, you get exultation. You get someone who enjoys the hunt, enjoys the kills, enjoys another notch on the headboard. He isn’t doing this because he has to, he’s doing it because he likes to. This dream is horror.

 

Onto the subject of subscribing and support: PseudoPod is funded by you, our listeners, and we’re formally a non-profit. One-time donations are gratefully received and much appreciated, but what really makes a difference is subscribing. A $5 monthly Patreon donation gives us more than just money; it gives us stability, reliability, dependability and a well-maintained tower from which to operate, and trust us, you want that as much as we do.

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If you can’t afford to support us financially, then please consider leaving reviews of our episodes, or generally talking about them on whichever form of social media you… can’t stay away from this week. We now have a Bluesky account and we’d love to see you there: find us at @pseudopod.org. If you like merch, you can also support us by buying hoodies, t-shirts and other bits and pieces from the Escape Artists Voidmerch store. The link is in various places, including our pinned tweet.

 

PseudoPod is part of the Escape Artists Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, and this episode is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license. Download and listen to the episode on any device you like, but don’t change it or sell it. Theme music is by permission of Anders Manga.

 

And finally, PseudoPod, and John Irving, know…. Of all the things you choose in life, you don’t get to choose your nightmares. You don’t pick them; they pick you.

See you soon, folks, take care, stay safe.