Dreams

What are dreams? According to Wikipedia a dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Dreams are a lot more than that. Sometimes they can be a complete nightmare.

Dreams are usually an escape from reality but what happens when your dreams terrify you? When you wake up more exhausted than you did before you went to bed? A succession of images, ideas and emotions they say. Can a person really be so sad that even your imagination doesn’t offer you the simple courtesy of happiness? Of hope?

Exhaustion is one way our body tells us it is tired. It needs rest and what you need is sleep. You might be having an uneventful week or even a barely eventful life. Surely you can make up for the lack of endorphins in the activities that happen in your dream. But what happens when these activities terrify you?

You’re locked in another realm where you can barely get out. Some days you’re aware that it’s nothing but an alternate reality. Other days you go too far into your nightmare, you do not realize all you have to do is wake up.

Waking up they say seems easy but it is as though you’re trapped in a glass box. You can see that the outside exists but you can’t exactly get to it. Your anxiety, your depression, everything you’ve categorized as your flaws haunt you in this glass box. All you need to do is open the box and set yourself free.

But what you don’t know is that this box is filled with water. You’re not wet, you’re just drowning in your own emotions, Your own fears and you barely even make out time for your own happiness. All things considered, you do not even know what that is. Perhaps you’ve been circumvent of your true emotions when you’re awake and wandering the earth. Trying to keep up with your schedules and function just like every other person. So you do the only judicious thing you can do. You bury your feelings and hope they go away.

You bury how miserable and alone you are. How the last time someone talked to you because they cared was the last time you thought you were physically dying or it was your birthday. That’s the thing about dying emotionally. Mentally. People can’t see it and you can’t exactly explain the overpowering sensation of why you can’t find a silver lining.

When you’re physically dying, people know. People can see. Your diagnosis doesn’t seem like it’s from the land of Narnia. People take that seriously. And for the briefest moment, you feel people care about you. And most importantly, you feel like you care about you.

But everyday you sink into this abyss of nothingness and you do not care to address it. You disregard your problems even when they come as a facer and now you’re too scared to sleep at night. It’s like you’re going crazy but putting it mildly. You’re going insane and this isn’t a conundrum because as long as you’re awake, you’ll be just fine, right?

Wrong.

You go about your daily activities like a zombie. Almost lifeless but you’re getting your job done. That’s good. People would never know. Now you’re hearing voices in your head and keeping in touch with reality is slowly but definitely becoming like your dreams. They came looking for you since you forsook them as much as you’re forsaking your body.

Sleeping is like going into a battle field. Knowing you could see anything but your main goal is to make sure you wake up. Your eyes drift close and you start counting sheep. Hoping your body knows that you’re trying to get into REM 3. The first stage is you counting, steadying your breath and hoping it’s not as difficult as the last time.

The next stage is you in between the human world and the alternate universe where you fight for your life. Not like you don’t in the real world. But there, it’s physical. Here, you do not have the luxury of making a choice. You are a game character placed in the middle of the battle field. Doing your best but apparently not running fast enough.

In the real world it’s okay to pretend you don’t care the person you love does not love you back. That your life is not falling apart and you spend your free time staring at the wall, overanalyzing your next move. You spend so much time planning days and weeks ahead, you forget to actually live in the moment. That’s the good thing about that realm. You can pretend.

But in your dreams, your feelings are the monsters that are after you. Playing with what’s left of your sanity. Your loneliness, your depression, your anxiety. Everything now isn’t just a feeling. Now it’s something you stare eye to eye. And you know you must fight a little longer so your body can get the rest it deserves. So you wait and you fight. And sooner than later you feel more drawn in. Like they are trying to ensure you stay with them forever. At least here you’re acknowledging their existence.

You know it’s time to leave and you start hitting the glass box. If you don’t leave now, you might never leave again. But you have to leave because even if you’re sad in the other world, you have a chance. And maybe when you fix it, you fix this world too. So you fight with all you strength to wake up. You hit the glass box and then your eyes fling open. You have a nasty headache now but it’s okay. Your body gets the rest it deserves. Chugging down a glass of water helps so you do just that.

And yet again the idea of sleep is so terrifying to you. You wouldn’t sleep again until you absolutely had to. And even then, you know you have to be ready to fight this succession of images, ideas, emotions and sensations. Because even in your dream, you’re plagued by the nightmare that is yourself.