snapcarve

I dream in third person. It's a weird, yet necessary effect. Although we spend the majority of our lives living in first person, it is easier to watch a story when one is looking in from the outside. In my dreams, I watch myself living a life, one not entirely mine, yet featuring me. I'm aware that it is me, yet I do not see it with my own eyes.
I feel in first person. When the dream me hurts, I feel it. When the dream me is sad, I too am sad. I'm outside of my body yet my body is inside of me. That is how I dream.

In my dream, we are playing a game. Randy is there, as is Adrian, as well as other assorted people I know. And to my left (although I see it as my right) is Holly.
It doesn't take much for me to know that this is a dream. Many things strike me quickly. First is the fact that we're apparently gambling, yet I'm the only one old enough to be in Vegas doing it legally, and it's obvious that Randy and Adrian are playing as well. Second, we're playing craps, which is a game I don't know the rules for. And third, and most striking to our humble narrator is the fact that in this dream, Holly is all up on me, flirting with me, hugging me. I can see it, and I can feel her warmth. Yet, this is what tells me it is a dream, because Holly does not nor will she ever feel that way about me.
I learned a long time ago how to control my dreams. I can't do anything too out of the ordinary; I cannot fly for instance. However, if I want the story to go in to a certain direction, I can will it so. I can also force myself awake if I don't want to dream anymore. In that split moment, I go from being in whatever dream world I am to my bed, eyes open, waking state.
In this dream, I do not wake up. I keep watching, stuck in the moment yet unstuck in reality. So I play with things. The first thing I do is change the game that we're playing into poker. Poker is a game much more my tastes, one that I could realistically play and do ok at. And so, over time, we begin holding cards. Everyone is smiling, happy, having a good time. And Holly continues to drift close to me.
Over time, everything drifts away. It's as if time speeds up, approaching infinity, yet the picture in the center, the focus, stays clear. The focus is Holly and I, me playing my game, her with her arms around me. So as the rest of the world speeds up and blurs together (although I assume I continue to win at the cards) the focal point of the story becomes this unattainable dream of closeness to a girl I can't have. And soon, even she starts to speed up as well. Her outfit changes. Her hair changes. And then, in a moment of extreme clarity, my view shifts.
I dream in first person. And there in my vision, like an angel yet tragically real, sits Holly. Her hair is up, her eyes are magnetic, and for some reason, she's wearing a dark blue shirt. A shade of blue that I could just sink in to and never return, not because it held me down, but because it would hurt too much to leave.
And in that moment, I feel happiness.
And all of a sudden, in the back of my mind, I start to hate. Not her. Not myself. Just hate for the situation. Hate with the knowledge that no matter how great it all looks and how happy I feel, the truth is that it's not real, nor could it ever be real. And in those moments, between the clicks of a clock, a battle rages across my brain. The want to hold on to the happiness versus the hate of how I know it's not real.

Later that night, I found myself sitting across the table from Holly eating ice cream. In my active mind, the dream has been forgotten. I'm talk to a girl about random things: school, family life, the ice cream we're eating. And yet in the back of my mind the dream rests, stored away on a shelf in library that represents the collective knowledge of my life and its memories.
And so we talk for a bit and eat our ice cream, and all the emotions that I had felt earlier are no more than an afterthought. Less than that really. An afterthought 20 thoughts back, buried under a pile of questions such as "is it cold enough to wear my hoodie?" and "what topping do I want with my ice cream?"
And so we talk, and eventually she drops me off back at my dorm. And as how it always is, she isn't interested in me at all.

I got so angry with my dream that I forced myself awake. I was angry that I was happy. Somehow I managed to feel both emotions while I was dreaming, yet once I awoke, all I could feel was hate. I looked around the room, and it was dark save for the light coming in through the bottom of the door and the glow of my roommates computer.
I stumbled over to my own computer and turned on my monitor. And as I sat there, reality started to fade in on me. Sometimes I find my dreams so strong that I have memory echoes of it in the real world. ANd in time, as I go about my business, the dream washes itself away, and once again, I'm back in the real world.

Dreams are a tricky fish. For those who have flights of fancy, and an active mind, they can be liberating and quite enjoyable. Sometimes, however, the dreams cut to close to home. They tease senses that are otherwise too sensative to be touched. It's a double edged sword.
Sometimes the genie comes up to you and offers you your wish. Sometimes you make that wish and you get the things you want. Sometimes what you think you want hurts more than the reality of the situations.
Dreams, like memories, eventually get filed away, and if they're unimportant enough, they get lost and fade away. To the ages are some of the greatest adventure stories ever dreamt up, the most tragic of tragedies, and the funniest comedies, never told to anyone other than the single solitary soul that lives them. In time, I'm sure this dream will fade to nothing, and the time will come when the name Holly will mean little more than another girl that I had a crush on.

I continue to dream in third person.
I've yet to dream that dream again.
I think that it's better that way.