2nd/Dreams I find my own dreams utterly impenetrable. As a long-time sufferer of insomnia, I sleep little, and even when I do I rarely remember my dreams. The ones I do recall fall under two equally peculiar categories: either they are as #lifelike as my mind can make them, occasionally causing me great consternation when I wake up, having 'lived' an entire day in my dreams, only to find that a day in the real world is just waiting for me. My other dreams are something different altogether. Surreal and vivid, they always manifest themselves from odd thoughts conjured in the back of my mind. When I was a child I was plagued by a recurring nightmare in which a creature I could never describe would attempt to steal the last letter of my name, upon which I would chase it through a field of grass and eggs until I woke up. Most recently, I was deeply troubled by a curious dream that felt, having woken, to have lasted for weeks; I could remember important sections of time that felt spaced, like looking back on a week from several months ago. In this dream, a girl who I have long been good friends with suddenly contracted a rare form a cancer. I can remember sitting by her bedside, bringing a television to her hospital room so that we could see together in the dark and watch her favourite anime together for hours. I gathered some of our friends and we raised a great amount of money from sponsored events and charity collections, eventually six of us swimming across the English Channel to raise more money for her treatment. I remember running in to the ocean and coming out the other side, walking in my wetsuit up a French beach. I took the girl out of hospital when she was well enough, and together we went skydiving, jetskiing, we learned a martial art and fought each other until she was too tired to go on. Her head was shaven. I watched her being tested, fed into machines with doctors swarming over her. Holding her hand. And then, at the end of it all, I sat alone in the reception of Pembury hospital as a doctor came and told me that she had died in the night; the one night I had not stayed and slept on the floor by her side. I left, got on a bus and went home, sat in my room when no-one was around and I cried. I rarely cry about anything, let alone emotional turmoil, but I know now that if I lost her, it would destroy me. I woke up. It was strange, dropping back into consciousness. Getting up, out of bed. Seeing her the very next day, saying 'hi' and 'how was your weekend?' as though it mattered to her. I was scared by this dream. Did it mean something? Nothing? Everything? I didn't tell her, didn't let it change anything between us. Sometimes I wonder if I should have. But a dream is just that: a dream. And our dreams should stay within our minds, so we can live out real lives amidst this crazy world.
