Of which I ramble about dumb stuff for 1100 words

I don't usually place much stock or store in dreams. As boring as it may sound, I've taken a grounded view on then as nothing more than the subconscious mind mulling over information or playing fanciful sequences to stay entertained throughout the night. At best, we dream of what's been on our thoughts lately, with worries and close friends bubbling up to the surface as we think of them even during our sleep. There's no mysticism to it, no supernatural meaning or hidden secrets - just a mental review of our concerns, and home movies cobbled together from our imagination. We forget what we see by the morning, having served their purpose.


Sometimes they persist, though, and we keep scraps of these tapestries clinging to us throughout the day. I've found that I remember them the best if something interrupts my sleep, like an early alarm or someone using a vacuum in a nearby room. I guess that they were cut off so abruptly that even my waking mind held onto their tattered ends. Even then, there's the impression that I only have glimpses of a much grander story, and I spend the rest of my day in a fey mood, reality being so much duller than what I experienced during my night. There was a sense of immersion, that my experiences were so vivid and full-bodied that I'm genuinely confused as to how I can forget them so easily.


I never said I didn't like my dreams, just that I don't ascribe to them some spiritual significance.


Last night, if you couldn't tell, was one such dream. Whatever kind of movies my subconscious puts together, it certainly knows what I like. Much of my day has been my waking mind contemplating what my sleeping thoughts created, and worrying that even something so fantastical could be forgotten, washed away by the grey tides of mundanity. Some of them have persisted across the years, and while I know they're barely a fraction of what the original must have been I still remember them fondly. Even what nightmares I remember, I try to keep with me. The years have bled them dry of their raw fear, and now all that remains is a faint sense of dread alongside a peculiar whimsy. Part of why I'm writing this is to keep the details of last night's adventure, so hopefully it becomes embedded in my mind with the others.


It was a tomb, but didn't contain bodies. A temple with no religion, and a tower that I'm pretty sure was mostly underground. Stone, mostly, but with as morphic and arbitrary as these dreams can be, I'm pretty sure parts were metal and glass as well. Despite the topographical inconsistencies, the entire structure had an Egyptian feel to it, of lost wonder and ancient secrets from beyond time. The important part, however, was the immense amount of interconnected puzzles and mysteries within these walls. Every door, every stone, every viewing glass set into a wall, was party of some grander shifting scheme of moving parts and hidden chambers. In this dream I spent hours wandering about, delighting with every successful secret I pried from the structure, each one revealing some new puzzle or insight into the larger picture of the whole. Truth be told, I don't remember what kind of treasures actually lay inside it. There's no memories of gold or artifacts hidden behind fake walls or inside secret chambers. There was even a moment where turning a wheel made the entire structure change in shape, reconfiguring itself into something more, and I realized I needed to find another such wheel to finish the alterations and travel deeper within. Part of me treated it like a video game, part of me searching through simply because that's what I was supposed to do. But there was a very real sense of wonder and excitement that I cherish.


The dream shifted at one point. It was still within the twisting walls of the labyrinth, but also separate. I was still finding secrets within secrets within secrets, but this was above and beyond but also within. It was a society, an organization of people and entities from all corners of everywhere. This group from across a multitude of worlds and universes, and oversaw their well-being. And now I was their newest member. Logic dictates that this was my reward for plumbing the depths of their hideaway, and that may very well have been the truth. Either way, I was the acolyte for this group, even if I was looked down upon slightly as a nobody from a backwater, unimportant universe.


My mentor was of the same opinion. She was angry, had a short temper, a sharp tongue, and was quick to remind me of my inexperience in the grand scheme of things. I loved her instantly. Despite her impatience and low tolerance for mistakes, she was quick to take me under her proverbial wing and show me around. Granted, much if this was to consistently remind me that they looked after multiple world's and how I needed to broaden my horizon, but still. She was strong and determined, her passion an inferno.


My first real assignment was a doozy. Some grave instability had stuck a works of stone and concrete, and we were investigating the matter, as it represented the beginnings of some greater threat to all the worlds. Fire raced across it, melting the stone and worrying the rock giants that lived there. Now, this sounds like the opening to some grand story, a great adventure across the cosmos and between worldss-and it is. That's one of the things that made me truly entranced by this dream, more than any other nonsensical ramblings my brain gives me at night. It felt real, a complete setting, lucid and fleshed out. That's why I'm writing this down, because even as I was dreaming it I knew I wouldn't want to lose this feeling of wonder and adventure.


Unfortunately, that's where it ends. An alarm kicked me out of this dream, and I vividly remember the feeling of despair as it shattered with the morning light. There was that moment that comes with all wonderful dreams ending where I realized I've lost the thread, and even if I went back to a deep slumber immediately I would never have that particular dream again in the same way, not to continue it as it left off. It's left me with a feeling of melancholy all day now, of that wonder that I lost when my alarm went off.


Maybe I'm just rambling now, who knows. I needed to get that off my chest and hopefully keep the sense of awe it brought me. Maybe I'll see that labyrinth again when I close my eyes tonight, whether or not I remember it in the morning. A very unlikely chance, that is.


But a guy can dream.