Wild Dreaming

Some say it’s the darkest before the dawn…the stormiest before the calm…

Domicile disarray abounds around, but I’m feeling introspective and only slightly sentimental on this rainy afternoon. The organizational demands are just going to have to be patient a little while longer, for alas, the writing mode strikes whenever it fancies. Follow me away into…

…a maze of greenery. And a tangled up enchanted opal apple orchard. It’s a wonder one could ever find one’s way out. A last dance in the moonlight with that dashingly handsome man. There’s something about the way he looked that evening. Wild daydream blue eyes. His voice and smile were so familiar, like I’d known him half my life. Enraptured distant memories came to the forefront of my mind, as the large clock on the castle wall sounded an alarmingly loud alarm. Midnight! And it was just getting good. My heart beat swiftly as he kissed my red lips, brushed my hair back from my rosy cheek, and whispered in my ear, “I’ll see you again.” I made it to the door a fraction before the twelfth stroke. Pulling at the heavy handle, I heard a knock on the other side. Walking outside the castle wall, I realized the world was…upside down? Slow motion grasping for bearings whilst gravity was trying to take me down…or up?

Oh look, a wizard. “How are you on this fine midnight hour?” He didn’t wait for my reply. Rude. “I’ve come to whisk you away to a dream.” Pardon? I was under the impression this castle scene was the dream. “Ah-ah, ha! That was just the beginning. Much more awaits you.” Ok, well I just have one request… Again he didn’t listen, and without warning pushed me down a slide into the next town as I waved goodbye to the setting sun burning up the dark midnight sky. Because of course, all of that makes perfect sense…while you’re dreaming.

Sleep was running down the hallway, but I was running faster whilst those two ocular wonders of viewing pleasure were slowly feeling the heaviness of the day’s ponderments taking a toll. The rustle of my puffy blue dress was loud amongst the noiselessness that was present. I brushed past a crystal chandelier ever so gently…running on ceilings tends to present a few obstacles. A fragmented mirror caught my eye. An ensuing staring contest with hindsight itself. It was me, but it was also…somehow not me. My cat-like curiosity drew me in. Quite literally. And the next thing I was aware of was falling into the city of L.A., into a library with spinning spiraling staircases and literally all the answers to life’s questions found within one multi-level room. “This feels so real. It has to be real.” But it was difficult walking down those stairs, as the banister was going in the opposite direction. But why wouldn’t it be? I tried to wake myself up from this now all-night dream state.

Monotonous micro layers of hypnagogic subconscious activity with a slow samba loop setting a mood of calm. What a bizarre dichotomous atmosphere. Sub zero temperatures resulting in busted water pipes and frozen fractals of glass covering the floor. Really, glass? Maybe from that previous fragmented mirror! Incessant cat memes blowing up my phone. Why? Asking my dog a question and she oddly answered in a familiar sound…my sister’s voice. Wasn’t expecting that. I tried to wake myself up, for about the twenty-fourth time.  Heaven can’t help me…this might just last forever. Driving down a gravel road, the windshield turning into paper that was divided into four different pastel colors of transparent watercolor folds. My subconscious imagination interpreted this to mean I had four more layers to go through before I reached the end of this now ridiculous dream journey of which I was stuck in the middle. At that point it was the hardest to stop. And yet it wasn’t. While I’m typically curious about dreams, I simply couldn’t take it any longer. I forced the horse off my chest and in desperation woke up.

It happened. A tangled up dream within a dream within a dream…And at the time, it all felt more vivid than life itself. The impression was that of twenty four hours, but twenty four minutes sounds more reasonable. My intuition said it was real whilst also knowing it was all pretend. Because that’s just how dreams operate. Two conflicting realities manifesting as true at the exact same time. Conversations can happen in reverse. Why not? The end can be so easily seen before the beginning. And within a dream state, love so wonderfully never goes out of style.

Maybe I drank my coffee way too late yesterday. Maybe I’ve been thinking excessively about Inception. Perhaps I was doom-scrolling for far too long late at night. Or perhaps my obsession for the fantastical is the cause of my rollercoaster dreaming condition. Or…perhaps I just dare to dream that real life can be more magical than it typically presents itself to be. Indeed. This is me, pondering life and the universe, and giving a nod to first chances and no regrets. A midnight connection…it’s a dance with a stranger you remember from another lifetime. A mirror with someone else’s face looking back at you. If someday I do find someone else staring back in the mirror at me (the last request I’ll ever make), I dare say I would never sleep again. The ensuing reality could either be horrifying or the finest fantasy ever concocted.

The best gift of all is a mind to dream in…