I AM THE CAMERA. I AM THE VIEWER.

I am watching a black-and-white dream, a ’50s or ’60s TV show (Hitchcock, Twilight Zone). It is in effect full-screen: the entire dreamscape. A family—husband, wife, two kids—are traveling in a car. The man has told his wife that, when they reach their destination, he must travel on to Las Vegas for business. He will be taking someone there. Then he’ll return to them. 

Now another woman appears in the car, a passenger they are helping. She is very blond (not tacky platinum) with some allure. She is sitting in the front seat, alone with the husband, and I see her from the back, an occasional profile, as though I’m sitting in the back seat. I, though, am not in the car. I am the camera and the television viewer.

The woman, speaking to the man, says, “We might as well drive straight through to Las Vegas.” Hearing this, his wife realizes that the blond is the reason her husband is driving to Las Vegas. He wants to drop the family and go on alone with her. The passenger has made a slip but seems unaware. Either she thinks she wasn’t heard or, more likely, is somehow oblivious. The wife says nothing but is devastated. 

I say to someone watching the show with me, “I know how it will turn out.” I’m pleased, as if I’m a jump ahead. I think the wife, without letting on to her husband that she knows, will work it out that the whole family goes to Las Vegas, or that she does, so that her husband and the woman can’t be alone. He’ll be stymied. 

But I am wrong. When it is night, late, they come to the family’s destination, their new home, I think. It’s a country house, no neighbors visible. The man parks away from the house, across a large yard. The blond has come into the house with them. Apparently she will stay the night, or she and the man will rest before driving on. 

Cross cut: The wife has set her husband’s car—a new, white, very fine automobile—on fire by pouring gasoline over it. The blaze is spectacular. Everyone rushes outside. The man is frenzied; the others amazed. The wife has been gripped with fury. Unrepentant. The fire and burning car are in color.

Now a dream jump; I have never experienced this before or since. The scene begins again, the second time with new details. We watch the wife pour the gasoline, carefully and methodically, and light it, though with some difficulty—as when a candle wick is slow to burn. When the blaze is full, the actions and reactions are the same, with one new visual. The final shot is a grandmother, white-haired, looking out of the screen door in shock.
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The only color in the dream is the conflagration. 2011