What's in a Dream

As he sat at his computer, he chuckled to himself as he thought about his latest dream. Not for the first time did he wonder if other people knew about the wonders present in the realm of dreams. He wondered how many of them knew that they could do anything they wanted to if they only had the right frame of mind. For instance, take the dream that he had had recently.

He was in a large wooded area and was completely alone. Before the dream had gone very far, he decided that he wanted to levitate himself out of anyone’s reach. By will alone, he slowly began ascending high above the trees. He grinned to himself as he looked down upon the scene below him.

The trees looked like they had been planted around the time that his great-grandfather was a little boy. They were very tall and looked like noble sentries standing guard over their beautiful kingdom. They also seemed to be in excellent health. The needles were a lovely green color and their bark seemed to have not a trace of parasitic organisms on them.

It was a rather short dream, he thought, but it was just one of hundreds of similar dreams that he had had during his life. He leaned back in his chair and thought about some of his more interesting dreams. One in particular, that he had several years ago, was one of his favorites.

He was standing on the beach of some tropical island and was looking out over the water. He watched the distant horizon for a few moments, then turned his attention downward to the beautifully clear water. He marveled at its clarity and it reminded him of the commercials he had seen about the Bahamas, Jamaica, or some other popular vacation spot.

As he stood there, his thoughts drifted back to the superhuman powers he had learned to use when he was dreaming. He also thought about how strange it was that he almost always seemed to know when he was dreaming. He had heard people say that no one ever consciously knew when they were dreaming and that they never saw colors in their dreams. But, in nearly all of his dreams, he knew that he was dreaming. As for the colors, he had seen colors in his dreams for as far back as he could remember.

“Perhaps it has something to do with a person’s imagination,” he thought to himself. “It might be that only the people with highly developed imaginations are able to see colors in their dreams. And, maybe, it’s only that limited number of people who are able to do things in their dreams that they couldn’t do in real life.”

“That sounds like a pretty reasonable bit of logic, sir.” Someone or something said. “But I don’t think you’ve got all of it figured out just yet. There could be things that you haven’t thought of yet. Things that could help the vast majority of our brothers and sisters relieve the stress that they deal with in their everyday lives.”

He turned his head quickly, left to right, then spun around after hearing those words. There was no one even close to him who could’ve spoken to him. The closest person to him was a good distance down the beach. Perhaps more than two hundred yards from his current position. At that distance, they were barely more than a tiny silhouette to him. He could still discern their movements, but what they looked like was still a mystery to him.

He heard someone chuckle as he frantically searched for the speaker. When he looked again at the person in the distance, he noticed that they were looking in his direction. Within the next blink of his eyes, the person was right in front of him. His heart hammered painfully in his chest as he tried to speak in the face of his shocking development.

Fear flooded him as he felt that this person meant him great harm. But this person made not a move as they continued to study him with an almost blank expression on their face. He could see no emotions at all in this stranger’s visage.