About dreams

   This time, I really thought I was living my dream. Everything looked so real, the people and their concerns. They didn’t seem to be following whatever I wanted them to do; they actually seemed to be doing what they wanted. The places looked so authentic, real and well crafted. I have no idea how my brain created that place I was in just some minutes ago but I think I wouldn’t mind going back some day. The difficult thing is that I have to be really tired and not being able to sleep a lot in order to go so deep into my dreams.

 Waking up gets so much harder like that… I would love to be able to choose everything inside a dream. Not only who appears and how, but also the setting and the story and, of course, the length of it all. They are some delicious dreams that make you believe you are on top of the world and, often, they only last a few minutes or at least feel like it. I would love to be able to choose everything because dreams are the best doors to access when the eyes are getting closed and resting is the prime objective of the evening. I love when it happens.

 Thankfully, I haven’t had a bad dream in a very long time. I actually don’t remember when that happened and I think it’s better if I don’t try to recall that event. Nightmares are awful and populated by the most disgusting creatures our mind could ever control. Nightmares are chaotic and that feeling of not being able to get hold of anything is the one that really makes us wake up sweating or screaming. Is not what actually happens, which we know is false, but rather the sense that we are not safe anywhere, even inside our heads.

 But yeah, nightmares have been off the table for a while or at least the ones that are openly awful. I have had dreams that are strange and difficult to understand. Even there, in the middle of the dream, I know that nothing is real but at the same time I know that there’s nothing that makes sense and that makes it worse somehow. Knowing that you are dreaming makes everything a little bit more real, for the better or for worse. But I think I prefer it most of the time, it kind of gives me the idea that I am a little bit more in control.

 Right now, my body hurts a little bit but that’s because I didn’t slept a right amount of time. I push myself to do things no one is asking me to do and they have this negative effects on me. Feeling like crap when I wake up is nothing really knew for me but it’s even harder and more painful when I push too hard and when there’s a dream involved. I feel I slept during a movie and now I will never know the end because it was a one time in my life kind of thing.

 What I like about dreams is that, if your head is up to it, anything can happen. You might have one of those dreams in which you fall and fall and fall through a various array of holes but you could also meet someone you haven’t seen for many years. I think the brain creates whatever is better for us at that moment: if we need a hug, it will create someone that can give it to us. If we want to feel smart, our brain will go back to a moment we felt exceedingly brilliant. Of course, things can be a lot more complex than that. Just like in real life.

 I believe that in every single dream, you have the capacity to intervene and make it yours. Many people thing they are passive subjects when they dream, having to go through some determined events in order to get to the final part of the dream where you may have some kind of revelation or maybe just wake up thinking nothing at all. I do think you can use your mind to affect the outcome of any dream and I even think you can decide when it should end, all of this in the right sleeping conditions, as they are not all ideal.

 For me, dreams are the base of what I try to do. I have been creating things out of them for a long time and if it wasn’t for that subconscious part of my brain, I wouldn’t have as many ideas as I have. I’m not saying that they are all amazing ideas that have to go somewhere but I do like that my brain keeps creating, even if just changing a little bit of some ideas that I have had before or even twisting stories that I have read or heard about. I have to admit that I am probably not one hundred percent original at all times. It would be very hard.

 What I don’t like about waking up from a not satisfying night of sleeping is that, for the rest of the day, I feel like there’s something missing and I’m right. Because what I miss is rest and what I have is an unfulfilling dream and there is nothing in the world that can make that feeling go away. That feeling of being tired and not fulfilled by anything. In those cases, dreaming come too close to actual living and, I have to say, I don’t care about that one bit. If dreams become as heavy as life, then the magic is lifted and everything goes to dust.

 I already have a real life and, although it’s fun when dreams imitate life, I know how to tell apart the imitation from the actual thing. If they both become the same thing, a very essential way to cope disappears into the world. It’s scary to think that we might, one day, not be able to dream again. Some people actively try to eliminate that experience from the nights because they think it makes them feel weak, because it scares them. They don’t want to face themselves and they hide behind any possibility in order not to do it.

 I think it makes us very human, although it also makes us a little bit paranoid from time to time but I do not think that’s always something wrong. I think it’s great when there’s something in life that can shake us so much. And who better to do that than ourselves. We are the ones creating those dreams after all and we cannot be afraid of our own selves. It is simply ridiculous to hide away from who we really are, whoever that person might be. People have to stop living in fear and embrace whatever character may lurk in the darkness.

 Of course, the word “darkness” doesn’t mean that everything buried deep inside us has to be bad or anything. There can be very good things in the dark too but we will never find out if we don’t dare to take a look. And the perfect place to do it is in a dream, where nothing can really hurt us. We have to learn to be scared and to cry and even to scream. We have to accept that some parts of life are more difficult than others. We have to learn how to look at ourselves in the mirror, without any fear but with our eyes wide open.

 All of this sounds so weird, so insane. But anyone that has ever dreamed can easily understand what I’m saying. It is a world of wonder but also a place where we can learn so much about who we really are. We don’t find out about that going to the other end of the world but just hearing and watching what our brain is telling us, all those things buried below the surface of our own personalities. Everything that we area is there, waiting to be able to surface or at least the be represented in some capacity in the real world.

 We all have bad thing and good things. No one is saying that we are going to like every single thing about our personality that we find deep inside our subconscious. But we have to acknowledge its existence in order to be able to handle it correctly. If life gives us the possibility of learning more and maybe improve in some areas of our lives, I think the smart choice is to take that chance and exploit it as much as we can. Knowledge has never really been a curse, only for the ignorant and the ones that live in fear but not for the brave.

 And brave we shall be. Yes, even when we go to bed and close our eyes or when we open them and realize we are in a brand new day. No matter where we are sleeping or who is next to us. We have to be brave in order to accept who we are and dreams are made of us. Their fabric is our life and our thoughts, so we have to learn to embrace it in order to have a stable mind and heart. No one says dreaming is easy, it never is. But it’s the first step to greater things.

She won't come back

Laura wanted so much more of life. She was a nice person, dedicated, humble and worked hard when things had to be done.

But things had not gone her way. The world required to much effort, unrewarded work and suffering that made no sense. When she came back from work, she always thought it wasn't what she  had dreamt to do in life. She couldn't be thankful for the money as the pay was not very good.

To make things worst, she did not considered herself a typical post college girl. She wasn't eager for anything in particular anymore. Her dreams and old drive had died rapidly after she had attempted, for years, to find a job. And she finally got one, she realized how empty everything was.

She did not make friends with anyone at work. It made no sense talking to people that she didn't care in meeting. Chatting and making friends with everyone made no sense to her, as she thought that as a human, she had every right not to like someone or something.

Most of the others, if not all, were her exact opposite: they loved to go to every party the company made, they wore costumes in Halloween and played secret valentine and gave meaningless presents in Christmas.

Laura tried to be "sick" at home all those days. She hated people being a bit more fake than any other day. It was unnerving for her.

And that happened for almost three years. Work and work and work and then some holidays when Laura visited her family. She felt as if the past had come back after her. Everything reminded her of, what she once thought, were good times. They weren't. It was just a bit easier back then but also nightmarish in different ways.

She was happy sometimes but not often and always because of the little things that no one really payed attention to.

It wasn't surprising when, the following march, Laura was found dead in her apartment. She had taken a lot of different pills at once and then waited for the end. Her mother and brother (her father had died years ago from a heart attack) came to pick up her remains. She was cremated and then the ashes were scattered on a lake they all used to visit as a family. It was one of those really happy places for her and had always wanted to go back to.

Her mother was affected by her death in many ways, specially because she lived alone. At first, she felt guilty because she felt the relationship she had with Laura had not been the best. She never bothered in really knowing her, what she liked or disliked.

It was up to Ellen, Laura's mom, to go to her daughter's place and clean it up, pick the things that she wanted to keep and throw away the rest. She had a whole day and had asked her son to join her but he was now a busy doctor and couldn't afford to leave his patients.

The woman arrived early and brought with her a few boxes. She couldn't help it: Ellen cried when she entered Laura's room. It hit her, again, hard. She knew her daughter would never come back and she would never again hear her voice.

By midday, she had already finished. Laura did not have much to pack or sort. Mostly work related stuff and books and so on. Ellen decided to keep only two things: a dress she had always looked beautiful in and Laura's computer. She wanted to check it out before disposing of it or giving it away to some one who may need it.

The rest of her things was donated or thrown away. The week after Laura's death, Ellen received a letter from the company. She threw it to the garbage without seeing it. It was such an impersonal and stupid thing to do. "What do they care", she thought.

Days passed until she finally decided to call a technician to help her look up her daughter's computer. They help her break the password and then gave her a card, if she needed help selling the item.

Laura loved clothes or so it seemed by the sites she visited. Furthermore, Ellen found various drawings she had apparently done with some sort of program on the computer. They were really beautiful, all in a folder called "Four Seasons", probably because of the various colors and styles.

Ellen also found some porn sites (which she decided no to go through), cooking blogs and then she got to her email accounts. They were all filled with work related stuff. Laura got, at least, six emails from her boss and then there were more form other people working around. Ellen could see they demanded a lot from her.

The last thing she found was a blog. It was poetry or so it seemed. Laura did not write very often. Ellen read some pages of it and realized how frustrated her daughter was. It was impossible not to cry over it, not to feel sorry for someone she loved so much and had no chance of really knowing.

To be honest, Ellen thought parents were there not to be friends but rather like tutors. She probably needed to have done a bit of both to make her daughter com closer and confide in her.

But it was too late, and now the woman was crying over her dead daughter's computer. She was dead an no one could change that or the fact Ellen thought she had failed in many ways.

The next day, she called the technician again and asked him to take the computer. Just like that, no money, no transactions, nothing.

Months later, Ellen pressured Ronald, her son, to come for Christmas to her home. He brought his soon-to-be wife, who happened to be pregnant. Ellen knew about it, but was surprised when she saw the young woman enter her house.

The day after their arrival, they all went to the lake and left a few flowers on the edge. Ellen cried in silence and asked Laura for help and peace. On the way back home, she told Ronald to be the best father he could be, as she didn't wanted him to feel as destroyed as she felt right then.