Once Upon a Dream

Once Upon a Dream

There is a secret world within your dreams. One that is well hidden, one that only the most astute, the most perceptive of persons would notice. It can be dark and ominous place, detrimental to your health if you stay too long. It has magic within it, luring you in farther and farther until you have succumbed to all it has to offer. But what it offers, well, quite honestly, is nothing more than deception.

The Dream Walkers, they are there. Surviving in the black void between our world and the dream one. In the place where we pause for just a few moments before we enter our dreams. They linger there, waiting patiently for someone to take notice of them, someone to become aware. And if you do take notice of them, acknowledge they exist, you give them some power over you and your worlds. All of your worlds, the real one and the ones you create while you're sleeping.

It has been said that the Dream Walkers once were human just like us. They dwelt in this world, doing the same things we do, living a daily existence. But they were pulled into the dream world, captured by its false promises and deceitful pleasures. Gradually, they left our world, spending more and more time in a sleep state, until, after a time, they knew nothing else. They let their bodies fade, and took on a new form, one that is so abnormal, it is impossible to describe with human words.

I know all this to be true. For I have witnessed what they can do first hand. And, had it not been for a small moment of clarity, I would not be here to tell my tale.

I first noticed them in my dreams a few years ago. I have always been an lucid dreamer, being able to manipulate my dream world exactly how I wished it to be and remembering every detail of said dream once I woke up from it. So, at first, I would notice small things changed within my dreams. The color of a wall wasn't quite right. Where I had placed a door, there wasn't one. The sky wasn't as blue as it should be.

These are ways that The Dream Walkers start to get you to notice them. When they find someone who is capable of seeing them, they push you into thought by changing little things in your dreams. They can't make you see them, but they can make you question and explore the possibility of something else being there. This is how they do it, just give you enough to make you wonder, but not enough to remove all doubt.

After many nights of this, I started to explore the places that were changed in my dreams. They were always dark and creepy little recesses. An alleyway that wasn't there before, a streetlight that had blown out, leaving the area around it dark and dreary, a door that appeared out of nowhere, left slightly a jar. See? All these things are subtly telling you to come and check them out, telling you something is just not right and you should investigate.

And I did investigate, I went into all the places, explored all the nooks and crannies presented to me. At first, I saw nothing, just a few unusual spots that shouldn't be there. But after a time, I noticed things. Things like shadows on a wall in an unlit alleyway, dark figures moving up and down the sidewalk, a blurred movement out of the corner of my eye.

Continued...

It wasn't until a few months ago, that I viewed a Dream Walker head on. I was investigating one of the creepy places that appeared suddenly in my dream, when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. It was coming around from behind me, creeping up the side of the building, heading towards the roof. Still close enough that I could get to it though. I ran to the side of the building and, before it could get away, I grabbed a hold of its leg and pulled it hard down to the ground.

The thing screamed in frustration at having been captured. Struggling to right itself as I had caught it off guard, it wriggled and squirmed on the ground, and after a few minutes of finding its feet again, it stood up and turned around to face me.

At full upright position, the thing had to be about eight to ten feet tall. It loomed over me, bending down to place its face directly in front of mine. It's hands, long, sharp claws protruding from their fingertips, were kept at its side. And I noticed, as its mouth cracked open to what I believe was a smile, that the thing had sharp razor like teeth. But they weren't white like ours, they were dark as death, and black saliva was dripping off the top ones into the shallows of its mouth.

I was hypnotized by it. My body screamed for me to move, yet, I could not. Paralyzed with fear and a sick sense of curiosity, I stood there, waiting to see what it was going to do, helpless to take any action. It slowly raises one long, sharp clawed finger up to its lips, like it was telling me to be quiet, not to tell anyone.

Opening its mouth, it turns its finger around and licks the back of the claw. Raising it up to my face and slowly running it across the length of my forehead. Then it tilts its head back and lets out what could only be described as a laugh. Turning swiftly, it runs back to the wall and starts to climb it again.

I was marked, I just knew I was. And as I wiped off my forehead with the back of my sleeve, I was starting to get scared. Why would the thing tell me to keep quiet? Why did it just mark me instead of slicing me from limb to limb with its razor sharp claws? Why, why was I able to see the thing anyways?

So many unanswered questions. And I, I was determined to get the answers. Every spare moment I had was spent sleeping from that point on. I kept going back to that place, kept looking for them. Sleeping was all I wanted to do. I was driven by the questions. Determined to find the answers that I thought I needed.

I cared about nothing else. My lost my job, lost my home, lost all my friends and family. I would wake up just long enough to eat something and take another sleeping pill. Then I would spend the rest of the day in slumber. Searching, searching for the answers that in my heart I knew I would never find.

Every time I decided to give up on my quest, I would see one, a Dream Walker. He would turn towards me and put his finger to his lips. Smile and then carry on his way, as though he knew what I wanted and thought it was funny that I wasn't finding it. That would get me so upset that I would renew my determination to know.

I was becoming a vegetable in the real world. My body was rotting away, hair was falling out, teeth were decaying, I was nothing but a bag of bones. But I didn't care, I wanted to know...needed to know. And I was not thinking clearly enough to understand what was happening. All the pills that I had been taking to keep me asleep had kept me in a foggy state of mind.

It wasn't until I woke up in the hospital, on full life support, that I had a moment of clarity. My mother was sitting at my side and my family gathered around the bed. They had pumped out all the meds I had taken and my head, for the first time in ages, was clear. I was truly awake.

That was the moment I understood. The moment that I knew what The Dream Walker had done to me. I had been marked that night in my dream. But it wasn't because I had seen them. It was because I was supposed to become one of them. I had been marked to let the other Dream Walkers know that I would soon be assimilated into their ranks.

Do you understand now? Do you see what they do to you? They make you search, search for answers you will never find. Make you take pills and stop eating and stop thinking. In your real life, you become nothing more than a zombie, just going through the motions of living. While in the dream world, you are constantly looking to find the answers that will never be given.

The question is the answer, it is the fuel that feeds the fire. It is what they use to trap you. And if you are not careful, you will be assimilated into The Dream Walkers ranks, just as I almost was.




Thanks,
blend57

So good! ... licking the back of its claw, loved it, the torment

Nicely written my friend!

Heeey, nice, Alpha Moves on the groove, we are all connected through that little piece we call the all seeing eye. If you master it you might be able to control each and everyone one, through a little loophole called a thought.
Become a human, or become one with all.

Im just kidding, but i loved the story.

I like your poems and stories, they are captivating, expressing, thoughts and emotions through text, its parables at a distant, reaching out to see who grasps. The underlying message and the overtone, its philosophy at its finest.