“Together Dream”
by Michael C. Denysenko
It was my usual routine. Stay up until close to two in the morning, make sure my journal is on my nightstand, listen to some music before bed, and drift asleep. Usually because it’s so late, I immediately fall asleep and begin lucid dreaming. Tonight was different though; my heart was keeping me up. I’ve had a crush on a girl I met through some friends a while back, and I always wanted to tell her about it, but for whatever reason, I held off. I kept tossing and turning, trying to clear my head and fall asleep so I didn’t destroy my sleep schedule any more than it already was.
Eventually, I drifted off to sleep. Usually when I have a lucid dream, I end up in this strange city. I’ve visited the dream city for a few years now, and came to know its layout like the back of my hand, exploring the crowded streets, vast rooftops, and back down to the tiniest indescript bodegas. The cityscape itself is pretty similar in layout to New York City. The buildings are strange; skyscrapers for sure, but white and almost alien in construction, extending into the sky like giant blob-like pillars.
Tonight was by far my strangest visit to the city. It was business as usual. Shadowy, nondescript travelers and a few actual people on the streets, intermittent cars here-and-there, and so on. It was nighttime in the city, which was pretty rare. The buildings were lit from the inside, with the outside of the building illuminated by some kind of light bluish energy lines (think TRON: Legacy). Since it was a lucid dream, I tended to prefer flying through the city, just to get around faster. As I hovered through the streets, I slammed into someone walking by, who got spooked and jumped backwards. Typically, the “people” walking through the streets are ghost-like with no tangible form. As soon as I hit the person walking, I knew something was very wrong. Someone else was in the dream that I thought I had full control over.
“Oh, uh… sorry about that. I didn’t mean to scare you.” I said, slowly landing back on my feet, not processing who it was I hit. “No, its fine… I should have watched where I was going.” they responded. My brain finally fully processed who I was looking at. It was the girl I was just thinking about before I fell asleep. “I’ve never dreamed about a place like this before, It’s really pretty.” she said. “Yeah, it’s uh… it’s real nice at night like this.” I said with a tinge of confusion, “Did you… want a tour of the place? I come here pretty often.” “Yeah,” she began, “Where are we, though?” “To tell you the truth, I’m not really sure. It’s a city in my dreams, that’s about it.” I responded, “C’mon, I’ll show you around.” I began to slowly lift off the ground and held out my hand. She grabbed my hand, and even though I didn’t feel anything, my heart began racing. From there, it was like a scene from Peter Pan, I flew through the different boroughs and introduced her to every inch of the city.
Eventually, we landed in a park area, laid on our backs, and began to do some stargazing. “What did you think?” I asked, slightly nervously. “This place is beautiful, I wish I could come here every night…” she said, “I wish I could do this with the real you, I’d be way too nervous to actually ask though…” I tilted my head slightly to face hers. “Maybe… the real me is… also nervous…?” I said hesitantly. “I doubt it…” she said. “Well, it couldn’t hurt to ask-” I began. I was soon snatched out of my dream by my alarm clock, shrieking its usual raspy series of beeps before receiving a fist to the “snooze” button (which more than likely broke it). To this day, I’m still not sure if the girl in my dream was really the same one I had a crush on, or if she was just a part of my imagination. I’ve been too nervous to ask her if she had a similar dream to mine. Despite that though, something tells me I should talk to her about it some time.
