Nightdreams

Why must we retread the paths of old in nightdreams?

Again and again things happen to us in dreams that once happened to us in life. Of course the shapes might be different; there will be walls where there were no walls and doors where there were no doors.

Old traumas play again and again; forgotten monsters arise, dripping, from the muck.

And the structures of our memory collide with one another, morphing and reforming into hybrid places. One school becomes every school, every school becomes your living room, your living room becomes a dark pit of despair.

If there is a light it is the light of morning sneaking in from under the blinds. If there is a way out it is by following the sound of your alarm clock.

Alarm clock; morning; awake; alive.

Sit up in bed and be thankful. Let the dreams fall away like the bed covers.

Dreams evaporate like drops of water on hot cement. That is the rule–they cannot follow you. Only a certain amount of a dream is allowed into the “real world” and it is not very much.