Young Writers Society

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.” Personally to me, this quote shows me that life does indeed move at a very quick rate, but sometimes it can feel as if life is actually moving slow. I remember at my darkest moments I wanted life to just move faster so I could just forget about all of that despair that I had encountered. I lost all hope, I gave up on my dreams, I felt like I lost everything. My heart, my soul, even my memories began to fade away like a tear in the rain. But then I pondered, I pondered, and pondered, and pondered even more. I sat down, looked into myself, I looked into who I truly was as a person. I then realized after looking within me, I was forcing all of these dark emotions in me, it wasn’t who I am. It was a shadow of me, a dark shade that harassed my mind day in and day out. I wanted to break away from all of these… dark feelings inside me, but… I couldn’t. So I sat down once again and thought… Sitting on the cold yet comforting sheets laid out for me on top of the softest of luxuries, the bed, I began to ponder once more. Then I slipped away into a deep sleep. Not just any kind of sleep though, this was truly a REM sleep. For those who don’t know REM sleep is another word for Rapid Eye Movement. When this occurs to begin to have lucid dreams, which just means that I was aware that I was dreaming… yet I couldn’t stop or even end it. I knew that the world I currently thought I was in couldn’t be my reality. But in that dream I saw myself… but a brighter version of me. Not the me I am now. I saw the me I wanted to become. The me that had a clear mind, the me that always had a smile on his face, the me that always gave it their all no matter what anyone would say. It felt as if time itself had stopped, like I was in my own utopia… or maybe dystopia. I didn’t know what I was experiencing so I tried to approach myself, but every time I would take a step forward, it would take one step back, as if it was mocking me. But it kept that smile on its face, and never changing that expression. I was getting pretty irritated so I began backing up, and then it would take one step forward. At this point I was like “What the heck is going on here?” Me trying to figure out the cause of this just eventually ended up standing there just staring at the figure for a little while. I don’t remember all the details clearly though, as the dream was pretty vivid. Even though I assumed it was me, I couldn’t even be sure of that. And the fact that I knew I was dreaming, yet still couldn’t subconsciously control my actions, it felt like I was a character in a videogame or something along those lines. I tried to scream for help, but nothing was heard, I tried to even cry a bit, but no tears fell. I even tried to beg to be released from this mocking world I was in, but no… I wasn’t released. It felt as if I was chained up against a wall, yet I wasn’t. So what was I supposed to do, just wait there? And then I remembered the last thing I was doing was... pondering… but is this situation similar to that? I tried to think of this as something symbolic, as if I were trying to ponder myself within myself, if that makes any sense. Ponder at a deeper level than what is usual known… “REM Sleep.” No matter what I tried to do I could never truly catch up to myself… maybe it was because I was moving too fast… maybe that was why I was in the state I was currently in. Not because it was mocking me, but because I lacked one very important quality in life: Patience. I was too busy trying to look at myself, looking at my flaws, looking deeper into my own fears and hopelessness. Worrying day after day when hurtful comments were said to me, even though I knew not to let them bother me… that made it bother me even more. Maybe it was because I was pushing away how I truly felt to fit what society wanted for me. But I can’t prove that either… maybe I was just an idiot, maybe i was just arrogant or selfish. But either way, I wanted to escape this dream. I didn’t want to stay here any longer. I wanted to escape, I wanted to break free. But I thought if I didn’t actually look around at all and just looked at what was in front of me or on the surface, how would I ever actually find out why things truly happen? How would I figure how the people around me truly felt? Would I just make blind assumptions like usual? Or would I finally look around? Even though my static face turnt around and scanned what was around them, I still felt as if I weren't the one in control. I felt I was just along for the ride, as I do with a lot of things… but I didn’t want to here. I wanted to be there, I wanted to make my own decisions, not have someone do them for me. I wanted to be more independent, you know? Was that so much to ask for? So why couldn’t I have independence in my own mind? Then the me in the vivid image of my mind transformed into some sort of white egg. After further examination of the egg, it definitely couldn’t have been an chicken egg, no it was far too large. What was it? Why did I even care? Then right at that moment a thought drove right into my mind. The thought said “What if that egg is the chance at rebirth? Yes… The Egg of Rebirth within the soggy dream of REM Sleep.” And with that thought another one came crashing right in. “What if I cleared my mind? What if I just… slowed down and analyzed everything a bit?” What if I didn’t make countless assumptions and actually attempted to figure out what I was thinking with action.” Was my own mind teaching me how to… find myself? Was it telling me this was a chance at rebirth? Or was it just another fading memory? Memory… of what? Who I was in the past? Who I will be in the future? I didn’t know. But I felt like it was neither of those, it was a memory of who I was in the present time. Were these just several different personas I had carried so life would just become “easier”? But no, I’m getting off of track. The person in front of me… no… no longer a person, but rather an white egg. I approached the egg with no hesitation with dozens of thoughts dashing through my mind. But… I ignored them? At least I think, I definitely wasn’t reacting to it, well… I wasn’t in control of my body either. I finally was standing in the eggs shadow, with its looming white figure overhead. It had to be at least two times my size. I placed my hand onto it without fear. I had no hesitation, only hope. The polar opposite of what I was actually feeling… despair. The absence of hope. And then all of a sudden the egg cracked, leaking out a black liquid. It was… all of the overwhelming fears and dark thoughts that built up in me. It splashed all over my pale face, leaving nothing but darkness upon it. I then opened my eyes and thought I had awoken from the dream… but no, I didn’t. It was definitely a dream… right? The world for some reason felt brighter, like I had resetted or something. Like when you’re playing a video game and press new game after you had already beaten it once before. I awoke on my bed, still on top of it’s comforting sheets. And then I saw something in front of me… it was like… a huge white light in the shape of an egg. But then I quickly realized that it was just the moon lingering overhead. “Maybe… what people say about dreams are true.” I thought to myself. “You could only have dreams of what you have already seen in your reality.” So what if my reality was said dream? What if this whole world was just a vast dream, and we were all asleep right now? I eventually cut out the thoughts and got up. I stared at the moon for a bit, wondering about the dream that I had just had. But then I all of those memories started to slowly fade away until a point I didn’t remember it at all. But even so… I definitely felt a kind of rebirth. And life sure does move pretty fast in the real world. But it definitely sits still in the dream world. But what really, what is the difference? What if I felt as if this world was a dream and what I originally thought was my reality, was truly a dream? Who knows? But I do know this, “If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you definitely could miss everything...