text: I lie there in silence. It slowly starts to come back to me. I know I should be dreaming but I am truly awake. I feel an enormous weight on my heart. I know all the good, all the bad. I am aware that I am a small part of something much greater. Next to me is my friends and family. Quiet, breathing softly. Drifting away in another world, soft asleep. I am the first one to wake up. I have ‘that feeling’ that this has happened before. I remember much, but not everything. There is still much that I do not know or understand. I lie there thinking about this, blinking my eyes lazily, while looking up at the star covered night. I tell myself that I am not going to wake anyone this time. I tell myself that I am just going to lay there in peace, or just go back to sleep. No need to get up and leave. No need to wake anyone else up. I feel a tad fidgety and take in a deep breath. It is nice, the night sky, the air, calm. It is nice. I feel my upper body rises up, with the curve of the oncoming wave. The sudden upsurge reveals a smile on my face. My legs rise up as my chest sinks back down. I can always sit up and look at the waves that are going to come but it is more fun to be surprised. Another wave is coming, I can feel it. I slowly look over to the corner of my eye, to get a look at my sister’s face. She smiles while the wave takes her up, then becomes sad as the wave brings her back down. I understand what is happening, but it is hard to explain. I think back to the terms and lingo I used in my last dream. I want to simplify it. I want to describe it in a similar way. I think to myself, “It is like being on a waterbed. A really big one. We are all laying down on it together. Something in the center creates big waves on the waterbed by jumping up and down or something. These waves move over the whole thing. Over to all that are laying on it. They feel the waves together.” That is part of the reason I do not want to get up, I don’t want to make any ripples. It is not as simple as that. It is a lot more complex and elegant. Much like explaining to a bee why and how art theory makes a flower beautiful. The bee cannot understand, nor would it care. The bee is only interested in the flower for nectar for the hive. The bee doesn’t care about if or why the flower is beautiful. But in the end it is all the same Beauty, nectar, fuel, resources, it is all the same. Thinking about all of this really makes me question it’s validity. This kind of reasoning makes little sense in my last dream. How do I know that I am not dreaming right now? A subtle nervousness builds inside of me. Perhaps, this is just a lucid dream. Or perhaps, this is the reality. Maybe if I sit up I can see the oncoming ways. Maybe I can check to see if there are any major ones or any big surprises. Then I can go back to the dream and warn everyone.. Maybe, maybe. Perhaps, perhaps. I let out a deep sigh. I want to look around. I want to see if I can recognise any other faces around me. I want to know if any trouble is coming our way. I want to sit up, but I can’t. I feel almost immobilized. I know I can sit up if I really want to, but I do not want to create any ripples. I do not want to create a disturbance for anyone around me. I do not want to wake anyone else up. I want to remember. I want to fully understand everything. But I can’t for the life of me. I know I should just close my eyes and go back to sleep. Ride the waves and enjoy the highs and lows of an unexpected journey. I want to remain calm, but curiosity continues to burn inside of me. I want to sit up. I want to walk around. I want to see where the waves are coming from. I want to run away. I want to explore, but I know that I would be lonely. I also know that I would loose my spot if I left. I know I should just lie here and ride the wave. Go back to sleep, enjoy it, and ride the wave. I try to calm myself by repeating that phrase, ride the wave. Just ride the wave. I cannot take it any longer. I have to at least sit up. I look around, making sure that everyone is still asleep. I slowly and carefully sit up. I sit there quiet and think to myself, “See, that wasn’t so bad” I slowly start to turn my head, to look behind me, when I feel a gentle touch on my shoulder. It is my friend. He softly says, “Don’t look, it only makes it worse” I lie back down and close my eyes, as if I am going back to sleep. I didn’t really need to look. I did not really need to see what was the cause of the waves. I wanted to fall asleep. I wanted to go back to the dream. I probably would have if I had not already seen ‘it’ from the corner of my eye, moments before my friend tried to stop me. What I had seen, just, ruined me. I feel a torrent of fear and anger, twisting and billowing inside of me. I am mortified at the monstrosity my eyes had behold. I am livid at myself for breaking my own rule, a rule I had forgotten. Never gaze at the man behind the curtain. My moment of frustration was overtaken by a new onset panic. What if it saw me. What if it knew I looked. That horrible abominable creature, what fate should befall me and my loved ones if it knew I looked. I made a big mistake. A mistake that knew I would surely be paid for, when I go back into the dream. I have surely brought a terrible fate upon myself and those I love. Oh God, please forgive me for looking upon your glory. It is impossible to know if ‘it’ knew I had looked or not. It is impossible to fall asleep now knowing what I know. I just have to somehow relax and go back to sleep, ride the wave. The cosmic deity I have sinned against, by gazing upon, what horrors will it inflict on my as payment for my sins? That terrible malformed monster. A mere glance of it drives my mind to madness and back. I am sickened by the idea of its very existence, let alone it’s purpose. That thing, is the culmination of every person’s fear, hope, desire, passion, love, and hate. All of those raw feelings, mashed together in bastardised brown mush of horror. It is the physical manifestation of what everyone has and will ever feel. It feeds off our dreams. It sustains like a parasite of emotions that the people feel. In return, it creates their dreams and keeps them guessing. It creates a reality that we all share. That thing, is God as well as Satan. It gives us heaven, as well as hell. That repugnant thing is all there is. There is nothing I can do. They want it this way. If they rely and trust it, they are rewarded with good dreams. They are all willful puppets. We are all prisoners to fate in the cosmic dance. There is nothing that can done. I am but a flea on the back of a boar. I cannot stop it, I cannot help it. I can only ride the wave. A tear runs down the side of my face while I try to force out, of my mind, all that I had just discovered. I have to forget. I have to go back to sleep. I have to escape anyway I can. I murmur a phrase to myself. Something to focus my mind on, something to distract myself with. “Ride the wave, just ride the wave.” The wave is unpredictable, and can surprise you if you let it. Just go with the flow. Just ride the wave. That’s all I can do. That is all that anyone can do. Just ride the wave. Brain idea I lie on the rippling water bed. Timothy jumps up and down. I close my eyes and embrace the wildness of the wave. My torso rises up with the oncoming wave. My rump begins to rise as my chest sinks back down. I smile. “Oh my gosh, it is like floating in the ocean. I love it!” Timothy smiles and jumped again, sending another wave my way.