I seldom remember much about my dreams, apart from the dim sense that something is wrong--a world where the edges are too sharp, the surfaces too rough, where nothing fits. This is nothing new; but every now and then the border between the dream world and the waking world weakens until that pervasive sense of wrongness is everywhere, until the cruelty and darkness of the waking world are just a obvious as they are in my dreams. And just as in the dreams, reality starts to fade from my memory and I drift through it like a wraith.
If I can no longer tell when I'm dreaming, it hardly makes a difference. Neither world makes sense; in both, the only thing I can do is try to help where I can, pray to a creator I don't believe in that I'm not making things any worse. And perhaps people smile in a way they think is kind when I do something strange because my mind can't quite accept that a world this dark is not the dream world--fine. I will do my best to help all the same, come hell.
Sometimes I dream of something so bright it hurts to look at, and I wake up with an ache in my heart as I realize that even at its kindest this world can never be so kind, nor so beautiful at its most beautiful. Now and again the dreams remind me that for all the darkness of my dreams, at least when I awake they are gone.
But today I woke up weeping at a dream so beautiful all I can remember is how overwhelming it all was, but something felt different. I felt confident and powerful, like I could bend the gossamer fabric of this dreamlike world to my whim. I can build that brighter future. Today I am lucid for what may be the first time.
No comments:
Post a Comment