Dream

Berlioz attempted suicide at twenty-three over the agony of unrequited love, and survived to write the Symphonie Fantastique. I, on the other hand, had my sleep interrupted by a single dream.

I dreamed of some people, as if gathered in a classroom, sitting together watching a movie. Everyone’s face was stern and cold. I saw “myself” asleep, face down on the desk, yet I clearly knew that “I” was crying in the dream. I looked into her eyes — so close, and yet so unreal. We faced each other in silence. Perhaps I couldn’t bear the oppressive weight of that gathering any longer, and I woke up. A flood of words gathered at the bottom of my heart, and I didn’t know what to call any of it.

The past can be like this sometimes — interesting, able to take on any shape it pleases. It arrives without asking my permission, leaving me room to look back. I suppose it should be good to be able to look back — human instinct drives us to forget the unhappy things, so what we see when we look back tends to be the happy parts. But sometimes I find myself confused: is the dream an exit from reality, or is reality an exit from the dream?

I know that within that embrace in the dream, “I” was dreaming.