Scattered Dreams & Dragonflies

Elena's gray dagger

Love is a powerful thing. To some, it is the very source of purpose and vitality, a clear water spring of everlasting well-being as we traverse this terrestrial plane of blissful imperfection and finite existence. To others, it is a source of weakness, the very embodiment of vulnerability and codependency in all its splendor. Whichever it becomes, we embrace it fully, slowly morphing it into the very interpretation of our desires, manifested in the one thing we direct our devotion to.

This story is a small instance within a dream I have recollected. At times, our dreams come to us in a certain way, blindsiding us at any moment. To some, dreams bear no weight on life, no significance; as one opens their eyes, these dreams dissipate rather quickly. Ultimately, we return to our daily lives unchanged, unaltered. To others, dreams are a spiritual manifestation, a symbolic resonance of varied sounds and colors brought to life within our subconscious. I truly believe that even as I feel that I am grasping at straws dissecting and recording such dreams, there is something worth interpreting within them.

When we sleep, we briefly disconnect from our awareness as beings in order to recuperate our vitality, ultimately to face another day of tasks. However, our mind continues on, as does our whole body with its functions. These inner workings continue their never-ending routine, extending our existence, and our mind does as well. Our mind, as we rest, is lifted from the chains created by our common sense, which in turn anchors our thoughts to our awareness, thus binding them to our needs in the moment, to our wants in the near future, to our regrets in long-past memories. Our dreams are then set free as unadulterated manifestations of our mind exploring its freedom, who we truly are behind the covers, without direction, thoughts pure and unadulterated by logic and structure. Our dreams are where we truly are free.

Given this, here is a dream that remained in my mind from years ago. I remember coming to my senses in my entirety in a room. It was not my room, the one I had slept in all through my earlier years, but an unrecognizable location. Everything, as I could recall, was smothered in different tones of white, alternating from beige to snowish white. At my feet, not too far away, I could see a cabinet, also in a different shade of white. None of what I could see bothered my eyesight but instead added to the coherence and elegance within the confined space. Simple, yet beautiful, I might say. The bed I lay in was also a shade of white, the color matching the fluidity of the room. The relaxing silence and ambiance created harmonized perfectly, manifesting a wave of relaxation. I could also remember the comfiness of the bed as I lay on my back, looking upwards. The very embodiment of peace could be found amongst the covers of this strange yet unknown bed I found myself in. It was a new environment, and yet, no red flags were lifted within my mind. My guard was lowered, my mind was at ease. I found myself in a place filled with tranquility and warmth, a place where I could, in conclusion, just relax.

A few moments passed, and I remained looking up at the ceiling of the room. Not before long, in my dream, my head voluntarily tilted to the side. I remember seeing the figure of a woman. Her shape slowly took form, and with every second, her image became more and more recognizable to me. Soon, I realized that beside me on the bed was one of my past lovers.

It was odd to me that, after all these years, she would still be one of the fragments anchored to my uncontrolled subconscious. Regardless of what I felt or how it happened, it was the way the dream manifested itself. Some have mentioned their awareness being a factor in their dreams, tales of people being aware of what they could do within their dream escapades, making themselves move and act in a way where they could manipulate what happened at any moment in time. Those thoughts, as far as I can remember, never arrived from me. Instead, I had been at the mercy of my dream as it created itself from within my freed inner waves of subconscious. That is my way of saying that whatever happened in this dream was in no way part of what I either wanted or expected. I do, however, remember feeling some of what happened in my dreams. A feeling all too real and scary, to be exact, but control handed to me in a way was never really something I have experienced.