Dream Beings

Occasionally, I dream things before they happen. Prophesy? Or just good old fashion intuition? At other times, I am haunted continuously by the same images, pestered until I take them into consideration and realize their root.

When I awoke, the sky was its usual grey. For the fourth time in two weeks, I spent the night dreaming about the same scenario. The last time I failed to adhere to the blatant message of a recurring nightmare, i suffered through five long months of debilitating doubt. I wrote my first book in those months, but I also spent many days staring tearily at a computer screen, many evenings crying myself to sleep on the hardwood floor with an empty bottle and a blank canvas.

The first three times, I was certain the message was about the object of my dream. I felt compelled to contact him but had no words to say.

Waking up this morning in an unfamiliar bed (after a night of vampire movies), I was shocked at how dense I can be. The "he" in the dream means nothing; he is simply a catalyst, a metaphor for someone else: me.

Four times, I have been warned by the same man - whose lack of integrity I despise - that I have not changed, I cannot change, I never will change. Each night, I have fallen so familiarly into his arms as he told me lies. His tales, let's be honest, were enormous (taller, in fact, than Typhon); but whatever measure of skepticism I commonly employ around such characters was replaced by absolute naivety. I am him. I am the liar. I have found myself impressed lately by the willingness of others to take me at my word, as if my word were truthful.

If "dreaming ties all mankind together," then I am remotely connected to everyone I encounter; surely they will find their dreams warn them about my dishonesty if I continue at this rate.

One area in which my dreams have failed me is this: I am making, for perhaps the first time in my short life, an honest effort to be who I say I am, to live how I claim I do, to make no excuses and to only speak words that are genuine. I am haunted by the theory that effort alone is not enough; that I am the 34 year old man who lacks the ability to commit.