Overlap

Chapter 3: Mirrored Details

<08/14/2009 - 6:11 | 559 Motion Street, Austell, GA, USA>

As I just concluded a moment ago, that dream I just experienced had me going mad inside. I still stuck to my routine, but during all of breakfast and oatmeal, I could not shake my mind from pondering the dream so much. I hated it, despised it, my anger growing the more I was forced to remember.

Of course, under normal circumstances, nobody would be so upset to have that dream in the first place, or to wake up from its surroundings. The situation I was in during that dream was not ideal, but I could tell it wasn't entirely me in there either.

Ever hear of something called lucid dreams? Well I have. They're basically situations where you retain or regain your conscious awareness during your own dream state, without waking up from that realization immediately after. I've had several dreams where I realized I was dreaming, but the consequence for it was the immediate end of that dream and a shocking yet disappointing awakening. But sometimes one does not awaken from their own dream when retaining that consciousness. They say that if you lucid dream, you get to control all of your own actions and thoughts within the dream, as well as all of the details, actions, events, and other aspects of your own dream; a master of that reality - at least until it ends. Sometimes, someone can be lucid dreaming without actually realizing they are lucid dreaming in the first place, at least for a short time.

The reason I brought it up? When I came back to this crappy world again, my first thought was that it was a lucid dream. But upon further reflection, I realized it was not. I acted like my real self, at least for the first half of the moment anyway, but I could tell that I was not actually the one having all of those thoughts. My real consciousness was totally shut down in that moment; I was truly asleep. So why then did that environment have such heavy excruciating levels of detail?

This in fact was the reason I was still so upset about it. I've had several dreams before. The more abstract dreams or the dreams where I act less like my real self - have less detail to them, darkened as if all available light were being absorbed halfway. Perhaps that is only how I remember them, but not this time. I'm certain that if I were fully aware of myself in that dream, physically speaking, I would never be able to tell the difference between the real world and the fake one...

My fingers rubbed the top of my arm, trying to remember that gentle moist brush of damp grass and dew squished against my skin. Why couldn't I appreciate such realism in the moment? For a non-lucid dream, that still felt way too real. There are moments of the real world that don't even feel that stimulating. It's as if I had some kind of hidden understanding or something during the moment. That is why I'm so pissed off. I became so attached to the vivid levels of that world and did not want to leave it. Having those other classmates in there with me was strange, but not out of the ordinary for a dream.

Still, I can't believe that even in that dream, my obsession with the world outside of Earth carried over... How much of a dork do I have to be anyway? When am I going to get some real friends to get my mind off this mess? It sure isn't likely to happen at school. It's only been three days, and I have to go again today as well.

But making friends there seems just as hopeless as it was last year, and the years before that. Ignoring my internal personal problems, I decided to just get another day over with. I prepared my book bag, grabbed the lunch my mother set out for me, and woke everyone else up to be ready walking me to the bus stop.

<08/14/2009 - 08:00 | Saffrin Middle School, Austell, GA, USA>

Despite how upset I got about it earlier, I really miss the world my mind leased to me already. Upon walking inside of the school full of loud noise from all the social groups buzzing around the halls just before the start of homeroom, I was quickly reminded how much I hate it here. On some levels, it wasn't as bad here as it was at Robins Elementary School, but it was far less interesting than I dared to hope for. This place is super boring when I have nobody to talk to and no friends to hang out with. But seeing everyone else all buddied up only drove the point home, one hundred times over, again and again without end. At least it's the only reason for my boredom here.