Gately, the wraith, and the figurants (Dreams)

The city’s aggregate nighttime lights lightened the sky through the room’s window to the same dark rose shade you see when you close your eyes, adding to the dream-of-dream-type ambiguity. Gately in the dream tried the test of pretending to lose consciousness so the wraith would go away, and then somewhere during the pretense lost consciousness and really did sleep, for a bit, in the dream, because the tiny pocked Oriental woman was back and looking wordlessly down at him, plus the creepy rigid dog. And then the sedated patient in the next bed woke Gately back up, in the original dream, with some kind of narcotized gurgle or snore, and the so-called wraith-figure was still there and visible, only now it was standing on top of the railing at the side of Gately’s bed, looking down at him now from a towering railing-plus-original-tallness height, having to exaggerate his shoulders’ natural slump in order to clear the ceiling. […] There was a degree of, what, specificness about this figure in this dream that Gately found troubling. Much less having the unpleasant old-Oriental-woman dream inside this dream right here.