The Awakening

Awake!

Photo: Vitaliy Piltser/Getty Images

Where have I been all these years? It seems I am awakening out of a slumber, the kind of slumber described by Dr. Adesina (Jingo) in Phil 101 class to be a dream within a dream, a reality within a dream.

Wake up! Yes, you.
“I am awake”, you say.
“You are not”, I reply.
“How can this be”? You ask me
“Prove it”, you charge me.
“Alright”, I say.

Do you know what it feels like to dream? To be caught in a situation where you want to scream but words don’t come out of your mouth. You want to move, probably run, but your legs seem to be frozen. You know you’re supposed to jump but the air is heavy. You cannot help yourself because it’s all a dream. The dream state is a state of helplessness. Your hands are tied, your voice cannot be heard, your opinion does not matter and whatever you do will not change a thing. You need to wake up!

This is just one of the many sides to the coin of dreams. Sometimes you have it all good: your ideal job, home, friends, and family [The (wo) man of your dreams and even your little cuties if you know how to do it so well]. You see all that you could ever want coming to life before your very eyes and just when you want to open your mouth to give thanks, you are jolted out of your sleep by the ringing of the alarm clock. You open your eyes instead to see that it’s some minutes to 6:00 am. It’s time to get up.

All that you see or imagine as the case may be in your dream state will remain there, in your dreams, if you do not wake up.

The sweetest form of illusion perhaps is daydreaming. You know you’re dreaming against every common sense that reality offers but you’re enjoying it because you’re the scriptwriter. You don’t want to wake up, especially when your wake-up destination is the latest shit-hole in town.

But then, you have to wake up.

You have dreams, I have them too.

Your imaginations are crazy, mine are wild.

Your dreams will never see the light of day if you don’t see the light first by awakening. So, wake up and get to work so that your dreams come true.

Life is made up of dreams within dreams. To truly live is to keep waking up.

© Ruth Nzere