The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: The Dream Summary & Analysis

Bauby has found that the dreams of the December before his stroke are “etch[ed]” in his memory. One such dream he remembers in particularly stark detail. In it, he and a friend, are walking through a thick snow, trying to get back to France from an Italian resort. A strikers’ picket line interrupts their journey at the border. The men walk over a concrete bridge to meet with an “influential Italian businessman,” who has installed an office in a high-voltage room beneath the overpass. Inside is Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian Serbs, who performs a tracheotomy on Bauby before bringing him to a bar where a beautiful hostess plies him with alcohol. Bauby loses consciousness, and wakes to a loud noise. The hostess tells him the police are coming. As Bauby tries to run away, through the snow, though, he finds himself paralyzed and “unable to utter a word.”