Lucid Dreams

I walked into my room and looked at the bed. Between the graveyard shifts and my classes I had barely slept since the breakup. And I was starting to feel some serious contempt for the word “breakup.” The word seemed so casual. I was betrayed by my best friend, the only person who knew me better than anyone else in the world. I had lost my soulmate. I didn’t really know who I was without him. I could no longer envision my future. Whenever I thought about my future there was a black hole, so empty that just thinking about it made me want to give up on life entirely. That was what he had done. He had taken from me my will to live. And yet, that’s what it was, a breakup.

I got myself ready for bed and climbed in. I glanced over at the laptop that sat on my nightstand so that I could stream my shows while in bed. But I was too tired to watch anything tonight, so I shut the laptop and pulled the covers up. I was too exhausted to cry. I fell asleep almost immediately.

I dreamt about that weekend. Our last weekend together. One of the best times of my life. We were so happy, and so in love. We knew that our physical time together wouldn’t last since we both had to fly back to school the next day. Two separate schools. But the long distance part of the relationship was almost over, and then we could really be together. I dreamt about the last conversation we had. The one where he told me that we needed to end things. He had texted me while I was on my flight back. He had said that he wanted to talk to me about something important. I didn’t think much of it. We were so close that most of the time we knew what the other was thinking before the words were spoken. After spending the weekend together I was flying home with a renewed hope in our relationship. Knowing that we had spent every moment over the last few days in pure bliss meant that if just made it through the next year and half we could spend all of our days just like that. Forever.

When I answered the skype call, I could tell that something was wrong. I could from the way he wouldn’t look directly at me that he had something to say that wasn’t good.

“Why?” I asked. Too dumbfounded to even believe that this was really happening to me. To us.

“Because when we are together we are too happy, that being apart had become too painful.”

And that was it. We agreed that it would be better if we didn’t talk at all. Being friends wasn’t an option for us, we both knew.

I felt my phone vibrate. I checked the messages and saw that he had texted me. But we had agreed not to talk? I read the message that asked me if we could talk on the phone. So I called him and we talked. For hours. It was just like old times.

Of course he was sorry about what he said. Of course he didn’t mean it. Of course he couldn’t handle the thought of us not being together.

And then I woke up.

I blinked a couple of times. I instinctively pulled my phone out from under my pillow. I hit the phone icon and searched his name. Right before I pressed the call button, I realized that it hadn’t been real. I opened the messages up on my phone and checked under his name. Nothing new. It had been a dream. I had had lucid dreams for most of my life. At some point during the dream I would think I was awake. Everything felt real, but I could also control the outcome of the dream to be whatever I wanted. I was mortified by what I had done, by what my mind had almost made me do. I almost called him. I would’ve acted like nothing had ever happened. He would’ve thought I was crazy.

I jumped out of bed and stalked to the bathroom. I was so upset with myself that the anxiety hadn’t hit me quite yet. I decided to get some food in my stomach before the nausea came back. I climbed back into bed with a full stomach, turned my laptop on, and put on my favorite show. I spent the day in bed, escaping from reality as best I could and living vicariously through the characters on my screen.

As night approached, I started thinking about the dream from this morning. Would it happen again? I had been so exhausted last night, maybe that was what had led to the lucid dreaming. Or maybe it was just my mind trying to find a way to help pull me out of the deep depression that I had fallen into. A little solace in my sleep to make being awake a little less painful.

It hadn’t worked. In fact, I was terrified of falling asleep again. Waking up thinking that everything had gone back to normal just to relive the pain of losing him was too much to bear. So I would stay awake. I’d fight falling asleep as long as I could. I’ve never been able to sleep while my shows were on. When I stayed in a hotel room with my mom I’d always have to wait for her to fall asleep, then I’d shut off the television and only then could I fall asleep myself. If I kept the laptop on with my show streaming, I should be able to stay awake.

But of course, I didn’t. I managed to stay up for hours. I had to click the button to keep the streaming service from asking me if I was “still watching.” But eventually, I drifted off. I had the dream again, the same dream. Only this time, it changed partway through.

We were talking on the phone, but the words he was saying made no sense to me. However, they seemed oddly familiar. It dawned on me after a few minutes. The words weren’t his, they belonged to a character from my show. In that instant, I realized that I was still dreaming. When I woke, there was no false hope waiting to greet me, because I had realized that the dream wasn’t reality. When the noise from the show penetrated my subconscious, it prevented me from taking control of it. I woke up feeling more refreshed, and relieved.

I did the same thing the next night. And was greeted in my dreams by the characters in my show. Every time my dreams started to feel real, I could be pulled out by the familiarity of the words coming from my nightstand. Over time, the dreams no longer haunted me, but the sound of a familiar show had become my own personal lullaby.

Seven years later, I lay in bed with my husband dozing off beside me. My iPad sits on the headboard, waiting patiently for me to turn it on and lull me to sleep. My husband rolls over, and wraps me in his arms.

“Are you going to turn your show on?” he asks.

“Not yet.” I’m not quite ready to sleep.

“You know, before I met you, I couldn’t fall asleep with the sound of the television playing. Now, I can’t fall asleep without it.”

I reach above me and press play. Then I close my eyes and drift off with my future laying by my side.