My Brain Builds a Maze Every Night
I never get out of it
Yesterday, I dreamt of a giant hallway with probably infinite stairs… Remember the one in Hogwarts which shifts all the time? Annoyingly, the ones in Harry Potter were cool; these were not.
Stairs and ladders surrounded me, countless and overwhelming, and I freaked out. I desperately tried to choose one that would lead me out of this maze. But, no matter how hard I tried to remember, I couldn’t recall making a choice. I screamed and woke up with a jerk, as if I had seen a ghost. A strange kind of helplessness consumed me; I pondered all the possible ways of escape, but I couldn’t make myself move.
Today, it was a different kind of stairs. I felt like I was falling — no, more like gliding — through never-ending stairs.
Some days ago, I found myself on a bicycle, pedaling through the narrow alleyways of the market close to midnight and I was pacing through the narrow alleyways of the market. It made me nauseous. I was at the Crossroad of what seemed like my neighborhood yet, I was going round in circles trying to find my way back home.
Lucid dreams are annoying. I try to force myself to reach the destination, but even then, I don’t feel at ease. I attempt to use rationality during the dream, doing everything I can to stay calm and find the closest path home. Most times, I fail. Sometimes, nothing works, and I keep going round in circles, even passing the destination a million times. The bicycle doesn’t stop at my wish.
My dreams have been intriguing. In one of them, I found myself in an architectural plaza filled with carvings, sandstone walls, fountains, lakes, and countless other marvels. It was like a never-ending maze of wonders.
The buildings were brilliant architecturally (or at least they looked that way to me). I admired each one until I lost my way, and then it hit me — it was a maze. The same buildings kept repeating in a sequence, and I felt like I would pass out. Nausea struck again. I kept telling myself to wake up repeatedly, and the next moment, I woke up, horrified and anxious. I wish I could draw; I would have sketched the most incredible architectural designs for this world. One of them lingers vaguely in my memory, haunting me from time to time. A grand palace in the middle of a lake, accessible only through a bridge — I stood there, on the bridge, feeling numb, unable to reach either side. It was horror in disguise of beauty.
My dreams reflect my anxiety and fear of failure. Despite trying to apply rationality, it takes time to unlearn this anxiety and understand that we all fail, we all get up, and somehow we keep moving forward.
I don’t see any solutions so far…But I will keep trying.
I will have a new tale to tell tomorrow, a new maze, should I start writing a novel out of it? Maybe, maybe not!
Have you had nightmares? How do you cope with them?
