Lucidity

At least 20 times a day, I ask myself the same question: Am I awake, or am I dreaming? I note my surroundings. I run through my memories. I feel the texture of something near me, like a wall or chair. And I ask it again, trying to become as aware as possible.
      It's not because I think reality is a dream. If you want to know whether or not you're awake, the answer should be obvious. Can you look at an object and describe it in detail? Do you remember things that happened earlier today? Can you pinch yourself without waking up? If so, then you're awake.
      I ask myself this question because it's how I'm able to control my dreams. If I ask myself the question enough times when I'm awake, then I'll ask myself the question as I sleep. If I do it right, I can rule a dimension that is completely my own.

      I was walking through hallways made of glass. I was smiling at aging faces that showed slight signs of recognition. The outside world seemed to watch me, like I was in a container. The sky was so foggy it looked like a blank sheet of white paper.
      Was I awake, or was I dreaming?
      There was a middle-aged man with a name badge, playing the piano so beautifully it almost seemed unreal. I saw a cafeteria beneath a ceiling made of glass, and I circled it as I walked by rooms that were arranged in perfect symmetry. There seemed to be no time here, or no concept of time.

      I found the room where my grandfather resided, but he apparently wasn't there. I asked a nurse where he was and she showed me to the chair he sat in. There was no view and there were no activities taking place. He seemed to be staring blankly ahead, lost in some separate place. I greeted him but he didn't remember me.
      I was awake and I was not dreaming.
      I looked at him closely. He was a short, small man with a very thin layer of gray hair. His skin was dark and dotted with freckles. He spoke in a voice that was deep and a little raspy, but familiar. I wanted to remember him as well as I possibly could.
      Because he came from another country, there was sometimes a cultural divide between us. But we crossed that divide. We learned about each other. We understood each other.
      Now that divide kept us worlds apart. He forgot who I was. He forgot who he was. He forgot most of his English. I tried to start a conversation with him, knowing that his galantamine tablets sometimes gave him moments of lucidity. This, clearly, was not one of those moments.
      So I gave up and went home.

      Before I went to sleep that night, I took a little bit of galantamine myself. No one thought anything was unsafe about it back then. It helped the memory. It gave dreams clarity. They even made it so that it could sometimes provide users with lucid dreams, without any nasty side-effects.
      I drifted off...
      Was I awake, or was I dreaming?
      I was back at the nursing home, just as I had left it, but something seemed unreal about it.  I tried to think about what it was, but I realized I could not carry out a complete thought.  That's how I realized I was dreaming.
      The building maintained some of its features, but everything about its layout was surreal.  A few other places were melded into it.  Whole rooms were missing.
      I found my grandfather outside, in the garden, where he never was.  When he saw me his eyes glowed in recognition.
      "Hi, Sam," he said.  I didn't respond because it's never necessary to use a greeting in a dream.  Conversations don't have any formalities or trivialities...they just have sharp points and urgencies.
      "I'm not going to be around for much longer, but there's something I need you to do.  There's a library where all of my memories are stored, but I'm too old to get there myself.  I need you to find my memories and bring them to me."
      As usual, nothing surprised me or seemed out of place.  I didn't ask myself logical questions, like how I would get there or why the trip was necessary.  I just etched his words out in memory, knowing how faulty dream memory is.
      "She'll help you get there," he said, directing me to a girl who looked like she was my age.  I couldn't recall exactly how she looked.  The only thing I noticed was her dark brown hair and how she looked like a young woman in spite of the fact that she wasn't very tall.
      She skipped the greeting.  She said she knew who I was.  She asked me if I'd ever looked at the moon or tasted the rain and then she laughed.  I knew my mind was taking this from some story but I couldn't remember which.  Everything just kind of happened, in a scattered sort of way.  But I don't remember the rest.

      It was the first day of my sophomore year in high school and the possibilities were endless.  I could work hard this year.  I could pick any hobby and make it my new talent.  I could find myself, but if I didn't like what I found I could just start over and become someone else.  Nothing was restricted or out of reach.
      Every adult in my life told me I had to sit down and focus.  I daydreamed in class.  I rarely did my homework.  I seemed to live in my own fantasy world, my teachers told me, and I needed to bring my grades up.  They were probably right, but was it possible to enjoy life and still maintain perfect grades, or meet every deadline, or follow someone else's example?  Were these people who guided me happy?
      That's what I was daydreaming about on this first day of math class, as I watched this old teacher with thick glasses and long, gray hair writing things with a piece of chalk that made absolutely no sense.  She had already yelled at someone for speaking out of turn and humiliated a few people for not being able to answer her questions.  I was thinking about her.  Had she ever been in love?  Had she ever taken the time to watch a beautiful sunset?  When she was younger, had she dreamed of seeing the great cities of the world and...
      Shoot.  Everyone was doing something and she was walking around the room.  There were problems on the board, but they made no sense.
      I turned around, surprised to see that the girl from my dream was sitting right behind me.  Or...at least...it could have been her.  I tried to memorize her features as she looked down at her work, for the sake of recognition.  She was short and had the same dark brown hair, but was her face the same?  Her eyes were a shiny sort of brown.  Her nose was tall and a little broad...Italian?  But her skin was sort of dark, like she had a little Mexican or Asian blood.  But I couldn't remember what the face was like, so...
      The teacher was gradually coming around.  It was now or never.
    "Hey," I whispered to her, "how do you do this?"
      She looked up at me and her annoyance was clearly written on her face.  "Were you paying any attention at all?"
      Was I paying any attention?  I guess not, but...
      "I guess not," she said, and resumed her work.
      I only learned by looking at the attendance sheet that her name was Clarisse.

      Things ran smoothly with or without her.  I met new people.  I joined two clubs. I found out my schedule consisted of three teachers I really liked.  The pace of work was still slow, so I was a good student for the time being.
      Arrive.  Talk.  Go through the motions.  This pattern continued for weeks.
      But a huge part of me was focused on Clarisse.  I tried to talk to her a few times, but every unsuccessful attempt just made me feel worse.  Discouraged.  Like giving up.
      And every night I would take a dose of galantamine.  Galantamine.  Gal-ant-a-mine.  Take me away, galantamine.  Lead me to a better place, galantamine.
      And every dream, while thinking about how I didn't know the real Clarisse at all, I would see this Clarisse and get to know her a little better.  The first time, she confirmed that they were the same person and teased me for not paying attention to the teacher.  The second time, she took me swimming through the endless ocean and it felt like flying.  On the...I can't remember which...we ate, and she showed me how you could enjoy eating while dreaming.  We talked about lots of things and we always listened to each other.  I guess I knew she was just something I created, but I wanted to believe that she and the real Clarisse were the same person.
      The real Clarisse was uptight, competitive, intelligent, and 100% focused on school.  Everything she did seemed related, in some way, to her grades.  I couldn't offer her any sort of help, so she just ignored me and never offered me any favors that I couldn't return.
      And it was just this, and this, and this.  The same endless circle, two strangers destined to remain that way.  A week without making eye contact.  A week of almost forgetting her, except when she met me in my own world.  And we were in the same place, but that physical measurement meant nothing.  We might as well have lived in two different times.  We never spoke to each other at all.
   
      Until, by some miraculous occurrence, my English teacher put is in the same discussion group.
      By now I had fallen back into old habits.  I let myself fall a day or two behind, but that distance between me and my classes kept increasing.  I would think, do we really need to learn any of the things they teach us here?  Would I ever need to divide polynomials, or describe every step of photosynthesis, or memorize the dates of key battles in World War II?  One day I would look back at my high school years with nostalgia.  Did I want to remember studying these useless things, wondering why I didn't spend time doing things I had wanted to do?
      But for the sake of Clarisse, I suddenly devoted all of my free time to studying English class topics.  I read the text and I thought about the questions before answering them.  I even went the extra mile and memorized some of the writers' words, playing them back to myself and thinking about them.   
      This was currently the only class I worked for, but she was juggling six classes at once.  At first she paid me no attention, but my efforts prevailed.  She grew interested in the things I had to say, knowing that they would be of use to her in our graded class discussions.  And one time, I remember, we actually had a full conversation. 
      "What did you think of this poem?" she asked me.  I was surprised she bothered to ask.
      "I liked it very much."
      "Why?"
      I thought for a moment.  "Because it doesn't speak like the character would speak.  It speaks like his mind speaks.  The other people probably think he's boring, or maybe a little awkward.  But his mind perfectly captures all of his fears and insecurities.  His mind voices his doubt and makes profound insights about why he's afraid.  The scary part is, he can't hear his own mind.  It's like there's a break between his thoughts and himself, and it would be so nice if he could bring the two together."
      "That's really interesting," she said.  She looked thoughtful as she copied my thoughts down onto her notebook.  And maybe it was that thoughtful expression that fooled me into thinking she really cared about how I felt, or about what my opinion was.  It wasn't until I looked back on everything that I realized she was just using me for her own personal goals.  I was her temporary tool, and every tool is replaceable.

      As usual, I was spending this hour before I slept thinking about my problems.  My parents were fighting again.  My sibling was away at college.  My friends seemed like they were drifting away.  And I really felt like there wasn't a single thing I was good at.  What is it you do, some of my friends would ask, as they teased me.  I obviously didn't study.  I didn't play an instrument.  I seemed to have interesting thoughts, but I couldn't put these thoughts into words.  I was talentless in their eyes, redeemed only by my patience and my ability to listen.
      Well, what did I do?  I liked to go walking for long lengths of time.  I liked to listen to music.  But, above all, I liked to imagine things.  I would imagine myself in another world.  I know I should have outgrown it, but it was my favorite hobby.
      I had been thinking a lot these days.  My counselor told me that if I didn't pull myself together I would have to go to summer school.  I guess that what I had to do, more than anything, was to wake up.  But what did it mean to be awake?  My mind would always drift to a week we spent two summers ago.  We would talk to each other about nothing and everything.  We would relax and listen to music, or watch movies, or dance and sing.  When we were hungry we ate and when we were tired we slept.  Basically, that week was like a break...or a time when we were asleep.  So why did it feel like that week was the only time in my life when I was awake?
   
      There's a place in the center of everything.  Anyone, no matter how young or old or intelligent or dumb, can find the Center of Everything.  And anyone who gets there can do anything, because the Center of Everything has every talent, every truth, and every revolutionary idea stored inside it.
      I swear it's true.
      Clarisse was my guide, but I couldn't control it.  I could just ask her things.  So tonight I asked that she take me to the Center of Everything.  That was my request as I drifted to sleep.
      We were standing outside of a small pond.  The sun was shining and there was green, green grass.  She told me to reach into the pond.  The water was warm and inviting.  I could feel a fish brush my hand.  I reached deeper in, only to realize that it was just a few feet before I touched bottom.
      "This pond will take you to the Center of Everything, where your grandfather's memories are stored.  But you have to unlock the bottom, first."
      "How do I do that?" I asked.
      Now the scene changed.  We were walking through an endless hallway with lots of doorways and tons and tons of people.  Too many faces to recall.
      "They say simple minds discuss people and great minds discuss ideas.  But you love discussing people, don't you?"
      "People are everything," I said.  "I think that only lonely minds discuss ideas.  Figure out people and you've figured out life."
      "Watch this," she said.  A few faces changed into familiar faces and I recognized them.  I saw my grandfather, and my parents, and a girl I had a crush on in middle school, and a few of my best friends.  They all made eye contact with me, but they kept right on walking.
      "Each person here has somewhere to go," she said, and I noticed that most of them disappeared into doorways.  "In order to get to the place you're supposed to go to, you have to forget all of them.  Everything about them."
      I was surprised at how easy it was.  They all started to disappear until all I saw was an empty hallway.  I walked on.  I looked behind me and saw that Clarisse was fading in the distance.
      Now I was back at the pond.  I immediately jumped in and the water was warm.  I swam down through an underwater tunnel and didn't question how I was able to breathe.  I swam on and on, looking at beautiful fishes that passed me.  I kept swimming and swimming, so I knew that I was going far away from everyone I had ever known.  Then I found a tunnel, like the one I had entered in, and I swam upward toward a bright, bright light.
      I was in the Center of Everything.  There were books everywhere and the sky was golden.  Beyond me were infinite stretches of open space.  In the distance I could see a house built of memories, my memories, but I knew my time was short and I had a task to complete.
      I searched through the books and found my grandfather's memories.  I couldn't read a single page but I knew it belonged to my grandfather.  I swam out of the Center of Everything and found a bright light that took me back to where my grandfather was sitting.
      I showed it to him and let him hold it in his hands.
      "Thank you, Sam."
      He looked content.  I knew he was content.  He held the book next to his heart and it glowed and merged itself into him.
      And then he closed his eyes and...
      Died.

      I went back to the nursing home and found my grandfather there.  As usual, he was just staring blankly ahead into nothing.  He didn't remember me, but he didn't even speak when I said his name.
      I know that everyone has plans.  They plan out their whole lives and think about what they're going to be or who they're going to marry or where they're going to live.  That's fine, but I hope that one day they see it the way I see it.  I hope they see how some things mean the world and some things just don't.  Maybe their minds are trapped in the world of monotony, or of meaningless pursuits and some mad quest for power.
      But anyone, with the slightest misfortune, can end up living in a dream away from reality.  Anyone can get a head injury, or have a stroke, or catch a brain disease, or just age.  And then everything blurs.
      Not that I would wish it on anyone.  I just hope that they realize that it could happen, at any time, to anyone.

      I was back in the Center of Everything.  I was reading through my memories.  I was exploring my Memory House.
      Then I stumbled on a biography with my name written on it.  I opened it and read through the pages.
      The funny thing is, I can't remember what I read.  I can't remember if I ended up being successful or where I ended up living.  All I remember is that it seemed boring, and tedious, and meaningless.  Like nothing jumped off the page.
      So I burned it, and it was beautiful.  Fires of freedom.  They glowed and they were perfect and warming and divine.  And with that one simple act, I realized that I could do anything I had ever dreamed of doing.  I was free.  Free.

      After a few months of a brief friendship, Clarisse cut me off.
      It was a painless friendship, I suppose.  It was a friendship that consisted solely of online chats and five-minute phone conversations.  I would ask some questions.  She would ask some questions.  We would answer and compare notes.
      But then we started a new unit of English that I couldn't understand at all.  She realized I couldn't help her, so she cut me off.  Just like that.  Blocked me online and ignored me in real life.
      I was angry, of course.  Angry about everything.  But in time I learned to let it go and just looked for her in my dreams.
      What really hurt is that, even in my dreams, I never saw her again.

      I was no longer just in for the ride.  I could change any scene with the wave of a hand.  I could move oceans.  I could build mountains out of nothing.  I could summon any person or I could talk to my past and future self at any time.
      So, when I realized there was nothing else that interested me in the Center of Everything, I left it behind and resolved to return at another time.  There was truth and talent and capability in the Center of Everything, but I just couldn't tap into it.  Not yet.  Only when the need arose.
      So I moved on and built my own world.  I built cities and painted skies and reached new heights every night.
      This was my world, a world where I was the master.
      I breathed in the clean air, absorbed the beauty of this awesome place, and set out as its new king.