The two plots of the night face up

n "The Night Face Up," Cortázar once again hones in on a moment of magical transition. This time, the moment is not a transfer of body like in "Axolotl," or a crossover from novel to reality or photograph to reality like in "Continuity of Parks" and "Blow-Up," respectively, but a transfer in time over hundreds of years. Cortázar's conception of these two competing dream spaces in "The Night Face Up" ascribe the same potential for consequences to dreams as it does to reality. Throughout the story, Cortázar braids these two spaces—the modern-day and the Aztec Empire—so that by the time the reader reaches the explicit switch at the end, the reader has spent almost equal amounts of time in both spaces. Cortázar leaves clues to suggest that perhaps this dream is more than a dream, like the fact that the dreamer can smell when, in dreams, he usually cannot.