January 31, 2009

  • Dreams

    I slipped in and out of my dreams last night. I usually do; there's always a point when I realize that the things I am seeing and touching and feeling exist somewhere else than the place I wake up to. But I've never thought that they weren't real. Things happen in my dreams that are as real wherever they take place as the things that occur when I am "awake".  I've written stories based on my dreams, and to be perfectly honest I'm not convinced that they were just images, just the imagination of my brain. There are, afterall, things about the world we don't understand. We are not simply flesh and bone.

    I slipped in and out of my dreams last night, where I met an old love of mine. It wasn't a memory because he didn't look the same. In my dream he looked older, taller, broader. He looked much more like a man, much different than the person with boyish features playing about his face. Different than I remember. I met him in my dream while walking uphill. He was walking downhill, and when he saw me he smiled widely and moved closer to me. My heart felt light. Our relationship had not exactly ended on the best of terms. He was wearing a yellow sweater and a pair of black glasses. I had seen him wear neither during my waking hours, years ago. His hair was a bit longer and curlier, darker even than I remember. We got close and he was still smiling that smile I remember. The smile hadn't changed. He was talking now and I could hear him say "I was looking for you!" He hugged me tight. I smiled. He was looking for me. I wasn't forgotten. I'm certain I woke up then, slipped away from him for a few minutes, minutes where I considered what had just happened. Then I slipped back and the setting was different and I knew things had changed. We weren't alone anymore, and something was wrong. The dream ended with me running away from his house through the woods at night, and it felt different than when I first met him in the yellow sweater with that big smile. When he touched me. This part was a dream certainly. Maybe a nightmare, but that first part was...different. We had met again, said we were sorry without words. Touched.

    I wonder what really happens when we dream...