Beware the light of the full moon

If your dreams tend toward the illogically insane, or worse, the horror-filled, I implore you: make haste to the nearest hardware store to buy shutters or block out curtains or pieces of wood to nail across your bedroom window lest the moon shine upon you while you sleep. There is a reason why people speak of the man in the moon – and why most old houses had shutters on their windows. Why living quarters were once caves and then tents made of opaque materials. It has been so long since men were at one with nature that we have forgotten. But we have not been forgotten.

I have been fortunate to learn that of which I speak vicariously, from my best friend Jake.

We had gone camping. The weather was perfect, the sky so clear, the moon so bright, we forwent the tent, and let the night sky be our cover.

That was a mistake.

Exhausted after our day-long hike, we crawled into our bags very soon after we ate and I suspect I slept instantly. I awakened to hear Jake screaming in his sleep so I shook him.

“Jake, wake up, you’re dreaming,” I said.

“No!” he screamed, still thrashing in the throes of a nightmare.

“Jake?” I said, shaking his shoulder lightly. I snatched my hand back, having touched something wet. I looked at my hand. In the light of the moon, I saw red. I looked back at Jake. As I watched, open wounds began to appear on his face and neck. His t-shirt was sticking to his shoulders and chest where, clearly, he was bleeding.

“Jake!” I screamed again. He opened his eyes, looking around wildly.

He shook his head and said, “Wow! What a nightmare! It seemed so real. I mean, I still feel the pain of those crazy-ass ninjas slicing into me. I had some bodacious Bruce Lee moves, though,” he laughed.

“Um, Jake? You’re bleeding.”

“What?” He looked down and then back at me. “What the hell?” he yelled, jumping up.

“I don’t know!” I said, jumping up, too. “I watched it happen. You were screaming and then you started bleeding.”

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” he started pacing. “It’s what that Siksika dude was mumbling about. I didn’t believe it. I thought he was just crazy or else trying to get campers to rent tipis.” He stopped pacing. “We have to put up the tent, now!” He picked it up from where we had left it before going to sleep.

“Okay, “ I said, grabbing an end to help. “But, why? And what did he say? And shouldn’t we do something about the bleeding?”

“Oh, yea. As long as we’re awake, we should be good.” He dropped his side of the tent.

“I’ll get the first aid kit.”

When I turned around, he had taken off his shirt and I almost passed out. His chest was crisscrossed with slices that were no longer bleeding but still open.

“Jake, what is going on?” I whispered, dropping the kit. I picked it up and walked over to him.

“If I remember right, it’s the full moon,” he said as I used alcohol pads to clean his face and chest. “That hurts,” he said, grimacing.

“Sorry. You don’t want to get infected,” I replied.

“Crazy shit. Infected by dream-inflicted sword wounds,” he shook his head, dumbfounded.

“How is this possible?” I asked, putting antibiotic ointment on the wounds.

“According to the guy I thought was bat-shit crazy or a conman, every full moon, the rays are brighter because they are full of…some kind of life force. Or something. Maybe aliens. Who knows. Whatever. He said that the light penetrates into the mind of the sleeping and suddenly, the dreamer is living, really living, the dream.”

“What if you had got stabbed and died?” I shuddered.

He looked at me. “Let’s not find out,” he said as he pulled on a clean t-shirt and started putting up the tent.

His explanation, odd though it may seem to you who read this without the benefit of seeing what I saw, is the only thing that makes sense. So, once again, I implore you: Don’t sleep in the light of a full moon. You many not live to regret it.