Overlap

Chapter 21: First Encounters

<10/01/2010 - ??:?? | Unknown Location>

When I first started having the dreams, I was scared, fearful about all I didn't yet understand. Over the past few weeks, I found myself dreaming of strange things, while weird flashes of a place that seemed like an endless frozen wasteland filled my head. There were random details I understood about the area, though without understanding how I knew it. Lately, I've missed that bit of mystery, even though all logic dictated that I avoid the subject entirely.

That's why when I woke up to another alien world, surprised as I was, I managed to suppress those fears. It didn't take long to come to, but I realized that after falling asleep in my bedroom, I somehow woke up here in the brisk outdoors. It looked like a massive blizzard swept through, painting the ground with thick blankets of snow, and all of the snow-covered trees were too distant to walk to. Whatever winter storm was here was long gone however. The night had turned into fresh daylight with a bright star in the sky, tinted blue ever so slightly. I could not stare directly into its brilliance.

The freezing cold air around me sure made it difficult to exist here, especially when wearing a thin long-sleeve and basketball pants, the same clothes I wore to sleep. The snow from the air was absent, but the singing wind brought my mind to full alertness faster. As I realized with certainty that I was stuck in the middle of nowhere on what could be another world, my chain of thoughts rampantly analyzed my surroundings, while I rubbed my arms with my hands to try and warm up a little. Despite knowing I have never been here before, something about this place was more familiar than it should have been, as if I remembered living here before.

There wasn't a single sign of life around me, not even a bird. So the only noise in my area was that of the wind, which was still slow but constant. Being here in this place, it reminded me of how I felt with the associations I was forced to make about the cold and snowy weather. I knew that I loved places like this and the sensation of the freezing cold, even though it was currently making me uncomfortable. But I still didn't know why. I felt so strongly about it before that the very presence of the cold could hypnotize me the same way the sight of the stars in the sky could...

But something was different about it right now. I didn't feel totally hypnotized like before. If anything, the dampness to that effect allowed me to behave and react to my most rational self, unhappy that I was stuck out here in a place with no life, no direction, no warmth, and no purpose... Of course, as I thought about that, the memory of everything before this moment and right now synchronized together, giving me the chance to make the quick and ultimate conclusion; this is but a dream.

It isn't the first time I've been able to realize I was dreaming while inside my own dream. The act forces me to become consciousness of myself on top of all details of the dream in real time. Since this also has the process of waking the mind, the next thing that happens before I react is, I wake up.

However, after a few more seconds to accept the circumstances that I was dreaming, becoming certain of it based on what made sense to me, I didn't wake back up. For the first time in my life, inside a dream so foreign and vivid, I realized that I was inside my own dream without waking back up. I waited a bit more, certain that I would, becoming more nervous with each second I remained here. There was something pretty scary about being unable to wake myself up from my own dream. Even considering the off chance that this was real, it wouldn't make any sense for how I got here in the first place.

So... This is what it's like to lucid dream... Not that I was ever obsessed with the idea of it, but I have at least heard what it would be like from rumor. Because of that information, I came to another epiphany, trying to accelerate my thinking from the growing discomfort of the cold around me. All I really wanted to do was to go back to my real home in my real warm bed. However, there is another way to make this all better without waking up. Actually, there are two ways, but the second involves getting myself killed. Since I've never died before in a lucid dream, I won't be trying that strategy.