Dream no.8

I and My Village, Marc Chagall

6am.

The instant my alarm clock went off the dream had just faded into daylight.

I dismissed the buzzing and decided to stay in bed for five more harmless minutes. As I got up and dragged myself to the washroom, my mother told me T8 is on. I was in such a hazy trance that I was for a moment lost and wasn't sure what to feel and what to do next. I turned on the television to make sure, and it was sure. Surprised - I was asleep even more peacefully despite the howling of the winds, so it didn't occur to me that the tropical cyclone is one with such intensity. The next thing I did was to text one of my friends at school and inform her of the news so that she wouldn't have left home without knowing.

Then I went straight to bed in the hope of going back to the dream, which has already been the third  of the same kind in September. As I rested my head on the pillow, I began to rummage through the details. They kept reaching out for me with such immediate vividness in spite of the disruption in between. 

I remembered there was rain. Quiet, untroubled rain. Holding a black umbrella, I was setting foot in a strange, elaborate landscape vastly mapped out in front of me.  I wasn't afraid and I  vaguely believed it's going to lead me somewhere. The raindrops were clear and transparent as they dripped from the eaves; leaves of the potted plants swayed gently in the breeze. I saw my reflection in the mirror-like water in the pond. Every creature looked so real as if they had a life of their own, and they'd been living in a world of their own undisturbed until I came.

I travelled through the corridors and halls and at last I found you awaiting me. It's now your room I found myself in. It didn't look quite the same as the one you really have, but that's how it manifested itself to be. And you're not quite the same person as you really are, but that's how the dream had you to be. I didn't find it strange though, instead I found it perfectly natural and comfortable as if we're meant to be there, together with each other. You talked to me with your usual countenance, and made a joke about hiding me here away from the rest of the world. You said this with an easy manner, and I laughed at it, with a swell of warmth inside, a feeling pressed into my heart. We stayed this way for a length of time. From the walls there were eyes watching, but non of us cared.

That's all of the remains I could recall. With my head still rolling sideways on the pillow, I could not find my way back to sleep. Somehow I knew that when it's over, it's over.  But I reviewed at the dream and was bewildered more than ever. I couldn't help believing that everything was real. It's the texture of the dream.  It's not only vision, but even the temperature, the people around, the layout of the surroundings, the way you speak, my way of thinking, it's like they are alive with sophistication, and have altogether built a world out there, where they'd let you in if they like, but  would shut you out for most of the time.

Sometimes it feels so real that it's leaking into my consciousness, that when I wake up at day, I would think that things did happen, and it would take me a while to finally realize that no, it didn't. But it isn't imaginary either. It's just dreams that have come uninvited, unintended.

On such a day with such weather outside, I am pleased to find myself feeling calm and serene, reminiscing about such a dream.