I love to dream. I am an active dreamer. I have had dreams that felt like a fantasy book. Occasionally there were the horror ones too. There is no fixed pattern as to which dream I would be having. Sometimes some of the elements I have come across the day do seep into my dreams. I see them here and there. Or they play an important part in it. Either way, I remember them the next day when I see them again or their memory comes to me.
For quite some time I have had really deep dreams when I am at my worksite. I don’t know why but I think the atmosphere there is conducive to it. You work for the whole day averaging near about twelve hours before calling it a day. The whole tiring day makes you instantly fall asleep. I don't need any kind of additive to make me go to bed and get a good night's sleep. Most days I have slept soundly and seen all kinds of dreams. Some of them I am able to recollect the next day. Others I can't, but I do know I have seen one. That feeling lingers in me.
When I sleep with her, I do wake up from time to time whenever she moves. I might not be in a state of deep sleep when this occurs. If I am then I won't even know if the world comes crashing down. Although I might wake up, my dream doesn’t lose its continuity if I can go back to sleep soon. I might be hardly awake for a few seconds before I go back to sleep and resume my dreams. This happens only in this kind of situation. If I have woken up and taken some time to go back to sleep, then resuming the dream is a very hard thing. I have tried it many times. The success rate is very less.
Sometimes I wake up and the dream hasn't ended. I know there is more to it and I desperately want to see it through. If it is at my workplace, I can't afford to go back to sleep again. Besides my multiple alarms will make sure that I don't fall asleep as soundly as I would like to. I usually do this when I am at my home. Here I have the luxury of sleeping in for an hour or more. But as I said, it hardly ever works. I fidget around in bed for most of that time, trying to recall the exact parameters at the point where the dream stopped. I never can get them. It seems that a part of the dream has been lost upon waking up. No matter how hard I try, I will be losing out on some parameter or the other. On very few occasions have those come back to me later during the day. But by then they are useless. The dream is done and dusted.
I wish I could share my dreams with her. Like how you see in the movie Inception. I want to be with her in a shared dream. Maybe mine or maybe hers, I don't care. I want to see how it feels to wake up knowing that you were sharing a dream and were a part of it.
But there is a catch to it. What if the dream we are sharing is very private, a secret thing or thought that only we are aware of and never want to share with anyone? We all have gone through a lot of stuff in our lives which has inadvertently left all these marks and scars we might not be comfortable sharing. When we are in a relationship we do share a lot of them. But a few can remain untold. The deepest darkest secrets of them all. Would anyone want to encounter them in their sleep and let their partner know? I think it is the way it is being presented that can be a problem.
When you take the courage to sit down and share the deepest secret in your life, you have taken an initiative. This does get you some brownie points. Also, you are controlling the narrative, your conscious mind. You get to choose the words you want to use to describe it. You can once again omit stuff or modify them to suit your needs. You can completely overturn the events and create a new one that might resemble what the truth is and present it. The other person will have to take it anyways.
But in a dream, you have lost control of the reins. In fact, there are no reins. You are new here, just like your partner. The story is being dictated by your subconscious, which as we all know is something we have no control over. It can be manipulated in ways we can never imagine. It can give textures and flavors that are far from reality. They seep as they are the experiences and emotions we had to go through in our lives. Here too the story might be very different. But here you are not telling the story. Your partner is left to decide what it all means, which could be a problem.
Still, I want to do it with her. I have my secrets and maybe they might be projected out in a way I don’t like to. But I think she will see it in the way it has to be seen and nothing more than that. I can only wish that she sees through it and gets it. The best thing that can happen from this is if she figures out what it means and why I wasn’t able to share it with her.
I can’t fall asleep. I tilt my left wrist to get a look at my fitness band. It doesn’t light up. I tap on it. It's been ten minutes since I hit the bed. Sleep seems far off. I look out through the open window. Silence and darkness have engulfed the whole city in its snare. Even a power cut couldn’t do this. At least there would have been some sort of sound coming from somewhere. The birds in the owner's house have stopped chirping. The dogs seem to have called it a day. The wind too seems distant.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
It is in times like these I go into a train of thoughts ranging from the obscurest to the deepest. If something has happened on the day and it has affected me somehow, it will be played back in repeat a hundred times in different settings. Most of them would be in which I come out victorious. That is how I process these thoughts. I modify the situation to suit my validation. Maybe this is how I cope with it. I don’t know if it is a healthy thing. I have been doing this for ages. It only lasts for that day in my head. I don't react to it. I play them in my head and that is it. I think I feel better knowing what I would have done in which manner. I can apply it if a similar situation arises in the future. I find my peace there.
One of the lingering thoughts that come and go is on the topic of life decisions. In it, I put myself in situations where I have a choice to make. I reject the ones I have made in real life and play out a fantasy of how life would have been otherwise. I don't think it can be called overthinking. I mean I do think about it when I am at my workplace. There when I find some free time and get to be all mind fucked I do think about it. I do entertain them and leave them there. I have never let them influence my current life. I know I will always think of how things would have been otherwise.
It comes into question presently right here right now. What if I had to take a decision that wouldn’t have resulted in my present situation, in this lonely state devoid of all human beings? Would I have made it?
Well, the thing is I am actually at peace with the life I have had. It has been a great life and if required, I can live it again without any changes in it. That is what Nietzsche was talking about in his eternal recurrence. I think I am for it because the life I have lived has been a beautiful one. It has seen its fair share of happiness and sadness, it has made me go through a lot of emotions and experiences that have made me what I am now. I feel the moment I decide to embark on a different story of myself, I cease to be what I am now. I don't think I need to explain that. You are an accumulation of all the experiences that you have had. Considering that, a different story means different experiences and thus, a different you.
Do I want to be a different me? Well, if I have to change, it should be for myself. I will change if there is a need for me to change. I will be doing it just for myself, not for anyone else. It will be my sole decision, one I will be taking wholeheartedly.
I can change now. But do I want to be a different me in a different story? I guess it is a no. I am happy being me. There is so much more to see ahead in my life. The day itself has taught me a lot of things. Maybe today is an important day in my life. Maybe when the day ends, when this whole situation is over and I go back to living a normal life, I will look back and draw out all the positives from it. I will also go through the negatives in it and work on them.
With so much life left ahead of me, I really want to be in the present. But this thing about living another life is being asked when you are done with this life. What if you are given a chance to live your life in any way after you die? Would you choose the same life? That is the question.
Having lived this life and having the full realization of it, I would want to live another life. Yes! I am pretty sure of it. I know what this life has been to me, what it means to me, and how it has made me. Knowing that I don't think I will be able to live the other life the way it is meant to be. There will always be comparisons that will take out the essence of living a life.
If my memory was wiped clean and I was given a chance then maybe I would be happy to live any life. I don't know what I have had. Anything given to me would be a fresh one. In that circumstance, I would be happy with anything. After all, I would be getting a second shot at life. I shouldn’t be complaining or demanding in any form.
She disagrees with this. She has her reasons for it. I know them and so I can't disagree with her. It is after all her choice and only hers.
She says I spend a lot of time in my past, that I still look back at the decisions I had not made and sulk about it. This is true. I sometimes do wish things had gone a certain way. What if I got admission to the college I had applied for four years back? What if I had been serious about my ability to draw and stuck with it when I was excited to take it back ten years ago?
There are a lot of what if’s in my life. Everyone has them. I just need to accept them for what they are - a new chapter in the book of life. I am here because of the choices I have made. They are done now. I cannot change them. I can only be conscious of the choices that lie ahead. Every moment in my life, I will have to choose. It means discarding away all the remaining ones and embracing this one decision that you take. That is life. The choices you have and the ones you take.
It is said that your destiny has already been written. You are just playing it out now. If everything is preordained, I would want to play it to the best of my abilities. I think I have the freedom to do that.
Shakespeare was bloody right!