Woke up at dawn. With diurnal part of brain still in dream gear. "That's it!" I thought grimly as I sat up and saw that in the space between bed and window, TWO guillotines, facing each other, had already been set ("That's the way they do it, of course--in one's bedroom"). Vertical and horizontal shadows in the barred and broken twilight, that I can never get accustomed to, kept imitating the horrible machines for at least five seconds. I had even time to wonder if V[era] in the adjacent bedroom was being prepared to join me. I should get thick curtains but I don't like to wait for sleep in total darkness.

NOTE

I thought this delusion tottering on the razor edge between waking and sleep was intriguing for its simultaneous clarity and irrationality, not to mention its persistence. This isn't a hypnogogic flash, but quite a long eyes-open half-dream, in which external sights get misinterpreted as wildly as if Nabokov were still in deep REM. You sympathize but have to laugh.

--Chris Wayan

SOURCE: Insomniac Dreams: Experiments with Time by Vladimir Nabokov (2018), compiled, edited & with commentaries by Gennady Barabtarlo; pp.106.

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