"The killer, we found out, is an expert levitator," detective glared at me with simmering disgust - he knew alright - and I had but a moment to brace myself for the gruesome revelation: "This is how the body parts were scattered great distances apart."
Ah, well, that's that.
Maybe I could tell them they've no authority to prosecute me in this dream, since it was in the previous one that the deed was done. The awakening was momentary, granted. Still, aren't we past the natural statute of limitation on this thing?
"He must've used some weapon to dissect the body.. a sword?" I suggested a red herring, stalling for time, eyes darting. There was a cop blocking the doorway. More were outside, in case I tried to ooze my way out through walls. My oozing technique is so so anyway. They would have had hard time fitting me into electric chair if I got stuck.
"A sword, yes. Not unlike ones over there," detective nodded, indicating something behind me.
"Huh?" I turned around and, damn it, there was a bulging row of sword racks lining up the wall. Was I some antique arms dealer in this dream? Thing is, I recognized the room: except for the weapons, it was identical to the one in my summer house out in the country. "They sure have chased me a long way from dream Odesa," I mentally remarked, exhaustion sinking in. I had been on the run for hours. I could stand being trapped in this sordid episode of Suspense no longer.
Wait a second.
They had already solved it, down to detail. Why were we entertaining this nonsense about swords then? "This implicates me no further," I realized. The dream was simply being contrarian. No matter what I did - it would thwart me. No matter what I said - it would try to refute me. Fighting it was like trying to outsmart a mirror.
Which, in a dream, you can.
It was with the understanding that the dream no longer had the logic on its side, that I grew confident protesting my innocence in an increasingly bullheaded manner: spinning tales about unlikely culprits armed with scimitars, roving about; and whatnot. Silly stuff, but it worked: at short the cops excused themselves out of the house, as if I had furnished them with a fresh lead on the killer. I was left alone and thus escaped trouble. The dream, on the other hand, was utterly embarrassed by its plot having been derailed so close to its resolution. It hobbled on to several more scenes before sheepishly fading out.
I woke up and reached for the notebook, wondering how much of a discredit did it form to a seasoned hypnonaut like me, to have preferred saving my imaginary self to maintaining a decent plot in a dream.