Interpreting the Dream

I couldn't sleep after that. I lay awake watching the sky outside shift from black to grey to blue. Ever since I heard Ruoli murmur in her sleep — "Give me some water" — I hadn't been able to close my eyes again.

In the morning, Ruoli got up. Xiaobao got up. I went through the motions of washing and leaving for work — but I didn't go to the office. I took a personal sick day. Maybe the near-death experiences in my dreams had made me braver in the real world: now I could not only leave on time, I could call in sick. If that makes you laugh, congratulations — you've probably never worked in a so-called "wolf culture" company.

Taking a sick day was not an excuse to sleep in. I genuinely felt that something was wrong with me. A chain of impossible events had landed on me one after another, and I needed someone to help me make sense of them. I contacted a friend who recommended a psychologist named Dr. Xu. As luck had it, she had a slot free that morning.

The clinic occupied a floor in an undistinguished low-rise office building, the exterior a little worn but the interior unexpectedly modern. I took the elevator up and stepped out into a lobby where the back wall carried "KANGPING PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC" in large characters. To the left of the name, a cluster of sinuous curved lines formed the shape of a heart. Heart shapes made me instinctively think of the heart-shaped leaves from the dream now.

At the reception desk, a woman in a white uniform handed me a form asking for personal information and medical history. I bent over it, and out of the corner of my eye I noticed the same heart-shaped logo printed in the upper right corner. The overhead fan sent the paper trembling, and with each flutter of its edge the wavy heart seemed to shift and crawl. I was becoming hypersensitive, overwrought. I genuinely needed this appointment.

I hadn't waited long when the receptionist called my name and led me into an inner room. It held a bed, two chairs, and a desk. Behind the desk sat a woman who appeared to be in her early thirties — long hair, a white professional suit, a black-framed pair of glasses, and a surgical mask. The mask covered most of her face, but something alert and perceptive was visible in her eyes.

"Hello, I'm Xu Mo. Tell me what brings you here." Her voice was clear and measured, carrying a quiet sense of safety. I felt as though I had grabbed a lifeline. I had so much pent up, and at last there was someone to hear it. I sat down and immediately began: "Dr. Xu, recently I've been experiencing some highly abnormal things. I have no idea what's happening. Could something be wrong with my mind?" I stopped there. My mouth was trembling too hard to go on. I am a writer; narrating events is the simplest thing in the world for me. But at that moment I couldn't produce a single word.

Dr. Xu raised one palm to ask me to pause, then reached below the desk and set a device on the surface. I had never seen anything like it: two parts, upper and lower. On top, an inverted bottle full of water; below, a model of a human hand; between them, thin curved tubing. Dr. Xu pressed a switch. Water began dripping from the bottle's narrow neck into the "palm" below. At the back of the model hand, tubing drew the water back up to the bottle, completing the cycle.

She adjusted a dial beside the switch until the dripping settled into a gentle, measured cadence — drip, drip. Then she looked up at me.

"Take your time. You don't need to be anxious. Generally speaking, anyone who can walk in here on their own doesn't have anything too serious."

Her voice was clear as water. Paired with the rhythmic dripping, I felt something in me dissolve, the way you dissolve into nature on a quiet afternoon. Her method was working. I matched my breathing to the drips, composed myself, and began to speak.

Dr. Xu listened, her hands resting on the keyboard in front of her, seldom typing. Her eyes stayed on me, expressionless. Only when I described the beggar in the underground tunnel who looked exactly like Wu Wei did she briefly furrow her brow — but she did not interrupt. When I had finished, she spoke in her unhurried way: "Let me help you sort out what's been happening. From what you've described, I can identify three possibilities.

"The first: on the afternoon of February 21st, you fell asleep at your office desk, dreamed you attended the meeting and worked overtime, dreamed you went home, and while sleeping at home dreamed a second dream — the cave.

"The second: you went home after work on February 21st, went to sleep at night, and dreamed the cave, then dreamed you had traveled back to that afternoon, then dreamed you hadn't slept all night and came to see me for therapy.

"The third: you are actually in the cave right now, and your city life over the past two days has all been a dream."

She paused. "So — can you be certain you're not dreaming at this moment?"

I looked around. The wall's slightly uneven plaster held a few of Dr. Xu's certificates of achievement. Through the window, bare branches on a tree swayed without pattern. Scattered on the ground below were a few dead leaves and scraps of coloured plastic packaging. I looked back at Dr. Xu: eye shadow, foundation, brushed lashes. Every detail was impeccable.

"I'm certain I'm not dreaming."

Dr. Xu gave a small, approving nod. "Good. Then you have no major problems. You only need to rest more carefully. I'll prescribe something to help you sleep."

Those words loosened something in my chest.

She continued: "Now, let's talk about the content of your dreams. You said you saw someone in the underground tunnel who looked like your companion Wu Wei from the cave — yet Wu Wei is a character you invented for your novel, and shouldn't exist in reality. Could you try to draw this Wu Wei?"

She took a sheet of A4 paper from a drawer and slid it across with a pencil.

I took up the pencil and, recalling Wu Wei's face from the dream, began to draw. His face came quickly. I was satisfied with the result: every detail in place, lifelike as a black-and-white photograph.

I lifted the paper to show Dr. Xu — and at once felt a wave of discomfort, and set it back down. Because the moment I raised the page in both hands, something flashed through my mind: my grandfather's funeral, and the way I had held his portrait on the way to the burial. My posture just now had been identical.

Dr. Xu picked the page up and studied it. One eyebrow rose slightly. "Are you in an artistic field?"

"No. I work in the finance department."

"Remarkably talented, then." Her compliment pleased me, but before I could enjoy it she continued: "Characters in dreams don't normally have precise, recognisable faces. That you can draw him accurately means this person must exist in your real life."

Exists in my real life? I searched my memory. Aside from the beggar on the overpass, no one looked like Wu Wei. I thought and thought and came up with nothing. Who was he?

Dr. Xu seemed to read my confusion. She put down the page and said quietly, "You don't need to fixate on who he is. He may simply be someone you noticed once as a child, someone who made no impression at the time. As long as this doesn't affect your daily life, you can let it go. Do things that make you happy right now. Rest well, take the medication, and you'll be back to normal soon."

The session was apparently drawing to a close. I was already at the door when a question occurred to me.

"Dr. Xu — how can I tell whether I'm in a dream or not?"

"You don't need to tell. If it's a dream, you'll wake up eventually. When you do, you'll know."