J.D.

12.12.2010

This Couldn't Be a Dream (DILD)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

I had lived out a whole day chronologically. Been to the shops to get food, met my friends for a beer in the student's union building and gone shopping for clothes. Being in a dream was pretty far from my thoughts.

It was in the clothes shop in the evening that I began to get frustrated with the inconsistencies I was encountering. I was walking around shelves with my brother Michael. He was playing a game on his phone and not really paying attention to any of the clothes. I spotted a t-shirt I liked the look of on one of the higher shelves. It was a bit out of reach, so I went to look for something to stand on, or a shop assistant who could help. It was getting a bit dark outside, and nobody had switched on the lights in the shop, so I took it upon myself and flicked a switch beside the door. The lights flickered on. With no shop assistants in sight, I went back to the t-shirt. The shelf it was on had become a magazine rack. I screwed up my face into a "WTF" expression and turned around to find Michael where I had left him.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Wha? I dunno," he replied without looking up. I shook my head and tried to find FHM among the magazines. I thought I caught a glimpse of it, but when I did a double-take it was gone. Suddenly I wasn't sure whether I was indoors or outoors. The light had diminished, and there seemed to be woodland at the opposite end of the shop. It was getting a bit too weird. I said to my brother,
"This is exactly the sort of situation I would suspect is a dream, what the hell's going on?" After looking around a bit more I thought it couldn't hurt to reality-check. Six fingers. "Nooo way," I thought. I couldn't believe I'd been wandering around all day, going about my business and getting things done- and none of it was real. I double checked. There were now an indeterminate number of fingers on my hand.

I asked Michael how many fingers he saw on my hand, but he refused to give a decent answer. We exited the shop through the automatic door at the front, and found ourselves in an underground tube station. There was a train on the platform, which I jumped and glided over to the far side. I paused then, to try and remember some of the tasks of the year. The only one I could recall at the time was the end of the world- which I'd already done. I'm not sure what happened next, I may have woken up.