A Theory In Dissociation Treatment

By Elise Truchan
It begins in darkness. Slow, unending darkness. It is the space between being fast asleep
and the beginning of waking. The middle where reality and dream merge into an unnamable
dimension.
Something suddenly flashes, and she jolts awake by this image that has no meaning…yet.
As she slowly emerges from the space between, she is lost in thought of what or who it
could have been, but dreams are fleeting. Memories are even harder to grasp.
Her mind may still be caught but she realizes her body cannot be. She has a life in this
world, this dimension. It is time to be a part of reality today.
She moves, we do not. We wait for her because we are not interested in her life on the
outside. We are here to see her in between.
As night comes again, she goes to sleep with no memory or care of what woke her from
her sleep this morning. The inbetween is stronger tonight, it is growing and grasping her mind
even more.
Images of this thing come to her. This time she is barely able to escape. She wrenches
herself from the middle as she comes back to reality once again. The memories of this night are
not as fleeting as before.
She moves through the day, her mind in body in two spaces.
When night comes again she is wary. Can she face what she finds in her dreams? Maybe
it was a fluke, maybe this thing won’t come to haunt her again, maybe…
Both her mind and her body are grasped by the in between. She cannot escape. The
flashes of colors, lights, water, things overwhelm her. Water pours out of its mouth. She is
choking, is that water coming from her mouth or this image inside her head?
It takes all her will to yank her mind and body from its grasp… and she wakes up…in the
shower with water pouring over her. She tries to breathe in but coughs, finding water pouring out
of her mouth. She lies, stunned, putting the pieces of her mind back together.
Tonight she will not sleep, she cannot. She sits in front of her laptop in the darkness
doing anything to keep herself awake, to keep her mind out of that place.
*Slam*, she finds herself on the ground next to her desk, swearing. Forcing her mind to
stay awake won’t work. She has to figure out what is happening in her mind.
 Tarot cards lie before her. She methodically shuffles, chooses, and sets them in front of
her. She takes a deep breath, readying herself for what she might reveal. She flips the cards over
one by one, and hesitates on the last as she reveals the card. She is scared of what it tells her. She
has to stay awake as long as possible lest her mind and body become permanently trapped… or
has the in between found its way into the cracks in her mind already?
As the days go by she resists the tug of sleep, of the middle, but she cannot stay this way
for long. Is it her lack of sleep or the middle grasping her mind more firmly as she sees things,
images, flashes? Is she in reality or asleep? She cannot tell.
Her reality and her dreams collide more frantically. What is real, what is not?
Hands, hands grab her and drag her under, back to the space between. She cannot fight it.
She reaches out for anything that could help her.
Her hand grasps a knife, but it is already dripping. Her hand drips with the same
substance. It drips onto the floor, drips down the eye that she saw the first time she got caught in
the inbetween. It is her eye. There is no way out.