This wasn't a Dream in Dreams

because I was awake

I wonder how much of my childhood I spent in that state. Dreaming, sort of, but not really, because I’m not actually sleeping. I endured a lot of sleep trauma as a child. I hardly slept. And when I did, my dreams would not let me alone. They were full of terror, cruel-eyed monsters, uncontrolled violence… they were nightmares.

It took a long time for the intensity of my dreams to subside. I still have some of those, from time to time. But mostly my dreams now, and for the last… 2 years? have been far more mild. And informative. It’s almost like I have come to be on my own side.

This wasn’t a dream, though. I was conscious for all of it. Someone showed up.