In my dream, though most of it is very foggy now that I’m awake, I remember the entire process of meeting and courting a woman. She had beautiful blonde hair, breathtaking eyes and a contagious smile and the feeling her face evoked is honestly the only thing that remains etched in my mind. I remember brief moments in time of us together, in the mall, with friends, sharing intimate moments, visiting faraway places and countries I’m sure don’t exist. We were so in love and perfectly happy. I remember a feeling of absolute bliss. I’m actually crying as I write this now because the emotions are still there. I had all these memories as clear as if it was a full life actually lived.
Then, inevitably as every dream does, this one had to come to an end. But it was like we both knew it had to be over. We hunched down against a wall, I can’t remember where or why, and I told her I was waking up. She nodded and just held me and I started to cry so hard because I knew I was going to lose her. I held her so tight because I knew these were our last moments. I could feel myself drifting back into this world, and every single memory we had together of the life we lived was being wrenched from my mind into oblivion. It was like I was losing pieces of my soul, and watching my soulmate vanish in front of me piece by piece. I kissed her as long as I could and held her tight. I started screaming in anguish, tears streaming down my face, and feeling a pain as real as if my closest companion was actually dying before my very eyes. My deafening screams settled into quiet whimpers and I awoke alone and covered in sweat. I still felt the pain though. I felt the absence – something missing.
But here is where it gets truly bizarre. At some point last night, I went back. I’m not sure if I awoke in this world and then went back to sleep. Or if the dream of my lover had been itself, within a dream. I say this because in the second part I remember (within the dream), I forced myself to lie down and fall asleep. In this dream I had total control of everything that occurred. It was as if somehow, because I was already asleep, the boundaries of reality no longer applied and I could shape the thoughts and images I saw. In this ‘dream within a dream’ I went back to look for her. Because this dream is so many layers deep, I cannot remember the details of it, but I remember the objective clear as day, to make her real again. I remember thinking of exotic places and they appeared. Dreaming of terrible dragons and creatures and they appeared. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t bring her back. I couldn’t create the image of her because I simply could no longer remember what she looked like. I brought countless women to life before my eyes but none of them were her.
Then, in frustration and deeply depressed, I awoke. I tossed and turned and had several more short dreams after which I cannot remember, but none so profound. This morning, I awoke and went about my daily activities. But then somehow, it all came back like a tidal wave washing over me. The sadness, the longing for a person that I couldn’t even recreate in my head. I felt again the pain that had brought me screaming back to the surface sometime in the middle of the night. Here, in front of the bathroom mirror, I cried deeply again.
So, it’s things like this that make me wonder about my subconscious. Make me think about the strange possibilities. Did my subconscious cross paths with another’s last night and fall wildly in love? Did I experience deep, buried memories of a past life? Did I experience a brief shadow of my life in an alternate universe, on a path not taken, before being pulled back into my own?
I honestly think I will never know, but this was one of the most bizarre and profound emotional experiences I’ve ever had. Being asleep but fully awake, and being within a dream with the power to shape my own reality. Mind-boggling...
I know one thing though. There’s still a tiny part of me that hopes, despite my inherent skepticism, that maybe someday, somewhere, I’ll see her again on the street or in a dream, and even though we have never spoken, both of us will know.
-JB
