epiphany #7

about 3 hours after waking up, i suddenly remembered this awful dream i was having.

i was queueing up for some strange photo-taking session - i think it was for some admin stuff, like for some club or something - and i was getting quite bored. talking to the others in line only amplified that desolate sense of boredom. i was rapidly getting vapid and drowsy (yes, it was weird), and i imagined myself to be dreaming. or daydreaming.

next, i was in this swimming pool with the people i was queueing with. ostensibly, i had daydreamed myself through the queueing process, or i was actually dreaming this - while dreaming of queueing up. yes, it felt like a dream in a dream. i was getting even more repulsed by the people around me... they were insipid and merely lazing around in the pool. realising that this was a dream in a dream, i suddenly felt this awkward sense of power. i conjured a weapon - it was a knife, i think - and began surrealistically stabbing everyone in the pool. as the water turned a slightly more delightful shade of red, i could imagine the facial impressions of each victim - many were nonchalantly surprised.

and suddenly i had a doubt. what if i hadan't been dreaming? a tinge of horror pinched my throat, which halted the imminent nausea. i started running, and found myself dressed in military fatigues, escaping from some kind of SWAT team (even tho i was doubting the dream in the dream, i was still dreaming overall). i dreamily realised that i had killed some 30 people in that odd oneiric stupor while queueing up for something that didn't seem to matter. but this realisation was drowned out by the megaphone-commands from the cops - "FREEZE OR WE'LL SHOOT" - i began ducking bullets like in a Die Hard movie.

last thing i remember, i was confessing. to who? i had thought it was to some policeman who had poofed beside me, but that didn't seem too plausible - it would've deformed the action sequence. so i thought/dreamt that it was like a flashback thing.

"i thought i was dreaming! it was all so unreal... the sun's rays frolicking on the scarlet pool, the floating faces with their accusing upturned lips, the knife's handle didn't even evoke a feeling in my dreamy hand. how could i have killed anyone? i was queueing... indoors... in some quaint cinema... or was it a waiting room? it was simultaneously dark and bright. i couldn't remember. isn't that a hallmark of dreamdom? a delusional illusion hatched in the back of a brain which was registering alpha-wave activity? the indeterminate nonplussed scene-change - boy, that had to be imagined! it was REM! i'm guilty of REM!"

and then i woke up. or so i believed.

what if i had lost my suspension of belief? what if i had doubted the overarching dream itself? would i awake in the dream? or would i awake in this so-called "real world"? was that even a dream in a dream, or just one single-layered dream? would there be any difference at all?

so i made this conclusion. the suspension of belief keeps reality intact. faith keeps one sane. even if faith proves to be unbelievable.