No question this horrid thing isn’t happening. Kyle Miller is aware of this on an intellectual level. But his dream life has achieved such an advanced state of lucidity that the gruesome imagery often seems more real than the world of his waking life. In the dream, he is in a stranger’s apartment. A skinny blonde girl in her early twenties is tied to the headboard of a king-sized bed. There’s a rag stuffed in her mouth and a strip of duct tape covers it. There is a knife in Kyle’s right hand. A big, gleaming knife with a nasty-sharp blade. The dream Kyle climbs onto the bed and begins the slow process of flaying every inch of flesh from the girl’s body. It is what he always does with his dream victims. There is no sexual component to this obsession. At least there is no bodily evidence of arousal. He does not rape his victims. Instead, the need that drives him to do these vile things is more esoteric. He needs to see what his victims look like without their flesh. Needs to bear witness to the truth beneath the flesh.
