hypnopompia

Rising through the last, viscous layers of sleep, the dreaming mind is deformed like a bubble of air pressed by water and gravity into a lens-shape. Something flits by, lights first on brow, then lip, then brow again, neck, jaw, lip again. The mind knows the difference, knows that there is a difference, but it cannot decide if the variation is spacial (are these different places?) or semantic (are they different words?) or one of form (perhaps they are different literary genres ...). It might be something else entirely.

The mind is still puzzling at this when the surface tension gives way, the film of the water ruptures, and the cool morning air shocks all things back into into the places they are accustomed to holding in the waking world. The books are in the case, the words are in the dictionary, and the features of the blinking face are distorted only for a moment by a luxurious waking yawn. Then they settle.