The Face In The Floor nightmare (p. 63)
And then you wake like that, quivering like a struck drum, lying there awake and quivering, summoning courage and spit, roll to the right just as in the dream for the nametagged flashlight on the floor by the bed just in case, lie there on your shank and side, shining the light all over, just as in the dream. Lie there panning, looking, all ribs and elbows and dilated eyes. […] the floor neutral, faceless, you cannot see any face in the floor, awake, lying there, faceless, blank, dilated, playing beam over floor again and again, not sure all night forever unsure you’re not missing something that’s right there: you lie there, awake and almost twelve, believing with all your might.
Context
Waking replays the dream move for move — same roll to the right, same flashlight, same panning — which is the thesis sentence (p. 61) made flesh: the nightmare's sensation "can be felt asleep or awake." Carlisle's readings (recorded): the post-dream ritual repeating the in-dream ritual is compulsive looking, cf. the attaché; and Hal's Hamlet inheritance — "were it not that I have bad dreams" (II.ii).