What Does It Mean To Be Free?

Chapter 6 - The Epic Dream

            About six or seven years ago, I had a crazy epic dream that I am still able to remember very clearly and vividly to this day. That dream dealt with, for some totally bizarre reason, how I was afraid of putting on an animal costume and joking around and just having a good time in the outfit. The story of that fantasy goes like this: I was at what seemed like an island with three different sides. The side on the right led to some thorny and spikey plants which had a road that went up to the apartment that I live in in real life. The side that was directly in front of me had what I could make out to be another island, and the side on the left contained a white building. I proceeded to go into the white building and, all of a sudden, I saw my friends, including Bryan and this guy name Tommy, who I knew from high school. All of the parts in the building and the edifice itself were painted white. I said hello to my comrades and I took a seat and I ultimately wondered what I was doing here. My pondering about what was going to happen was answered when, out of nowhere, a talking dolphin appeared and was getting ready to speak at the podium. The dolphin then said welcome and that all of the people in this room are here so that we can learn to be silly and worry-free by dressing up in animal costumes and goofing off. I got nervous the moment that the dolphin ended his message because I knew for a fact that this wouldn't be an easy activity for me to do at all. The first session of putting on an animal suit had commenced shortly thereafter the speech by the dolphin, and as I saw other people go out onto the stage and dance in elephant, rabbit, and tiger costumes, I started to panic badly because I desperately wanted to get out of there. Apparently, the dolphin had saved the best for last and brought me backstage so that he and I could have a little pep talk. The costume that was chosen a horse outfit, and I didn't want to get into it at all. The talk with the dolphin got me to go out onto the stage with the horse costume on, but when I got there, I just went back down to the ground and began to cry and I told the porpoise that I just couldn't do it. Then the dolphin again took me backstage and I took off the costume and told the orca that I was sorry. The sea creature then said that it was okay and that he and I will work on getting me out in the animal suit. I then said thanks to the dolphin and I walked out of the architecture. There was no way in the world I was going to make it through the whole week of being on this isle, and I tried a lot of methods to attempt to escape the archipelago.

            I tried to get away from the island when opportunities allowed me to. I ran up the road that ended with the home that I live in in actual life, I swam across to the other island, I tried to purposely miss class time in the white building, and I even pretended that I wasn't on the enclave. But, alas, none of what ways I experimented with, I was still stuck on the islet with nothing to do except to face my fear head on. It was the last day on the archipelago, and as I entered into the white building for one last time, I knew that something was going to happen. The second that I was completely inside of the structure, the porpoise had turned on an electric fence on each window and the doors that were a part of the abode. That was when I realized that this time, there is no way that I am getting out, so I might as well do what I have been avoiding this whole time. I then accepted that I was going to put on costumes that are of different animals, and I did end up going through with it. In the end, I had donned about twelve outfits to make up for all of the other times that I didn't make a fool of myself and after it was all done, I was on the floor laughing my head off because I had such a great time. The dolphin then told me that I had accomplished why he had brought me to the island, that I had done an excellent job of overcoming my resistance to really let go, and that I was free to go. I then packed up my belongings and headed back home. When I woke up from the dream, I was astonished at what I had just dreamt about and, sure I still had to go to school that day, but the only thing that I could think about was my dream. As it turned out a couple years later, that imagination that formed in my head when I was asleep one night around the time when I was a freshman in high school would become reality.