text: MY stomach drops, I’m falling. I can see myself through my body! I’m a ghost witnessing my own death. My eyes are glued open and I see my cream white skin getting pale. I can feel my stomach and my lungs bursting, but I can’t grab the pain. I’m dying. My eyes open wide again, and I feel the air as it trickles into my lungs feeling like a feather. “Dan, you really have us worrying.” A miniature-sized lady says. Her voice sounds like honey. She looks at me up and down. I look down to find myself drenched in my own sweat. Eww. It slaps me in the face, I had been dying! I feel it again, the surge of my twisted stomach, and diving for air desperately but, can’t find a single breath. I see my dying body crashing down hard, but never hitting the ground. I look up and see the sun explode and then the earth explodes with a firing heap. My body still falls over the exploding earth and no matter how much I want to move my body and try to run or float, I’m stuck. I can’t move and I can’t breathe. My dying body, stomach, and the exploding earth drift away as if I’m trying to find that dream with the miniature-sized woman. She called me... what was it again? Dan? This time I see a dude, he has black hair and freckles. He’s tall and buff, “Daniel, you have us worrying. Are you feeling alright?” I look at my hands, they look hard and stiff. I look at the man’s facial features and find some sort of calmness. Again, the sweat all over gives me a shiver. No, never shall I think about my reality while I’m at ease in my dreams. Back to the twistedness of my life. I’m in a different scene. I’m watching myself in a bathroom with people who look like teenagers, we’re singing in the bathtub. I can’t breathe and my guts tighten. The tub is filled with drugs and alcohol. What are we singing? Well, you would’ve never known, it’s the wheels on the bus. I find the music that we’re singing cringe and giving me a worse sensation of unease just to add with the air that never seems to come. The wheels on the bus song fizzle into nothing so does the view of the drugs and alcohol killing my body, and mind. What did that freckled guy call me? Daniel? I feel the air in my lungs and the sweat trickling down my spine again. I’m in a new room, with a new set of people hovering over me. 3 boys and 2 girls. “He’s here, quick! Before he’s out again!” a muscled man orders. “Dan, do you know where you are? Who you are?” The blonde-haired dude says. This is a strange dream. Of course, I know where I am, I’m in my dream, dude. “No! He’s losing us!” The ordering guy yelps. “Sorry Gracey, we don’t know if your brother is going to make it. This medical condition is serious. He might never wake up.” I wake from that weird dream and I find it mixing with my thoughts. Gracey? Who’s that? I didn’t even notice the girl he was talking to. As always my pipe hole closes and I no longer have the ability to breathe. I’m falling again, not just falling this time. I hit the ground with a thud. Pain aches throughout my body and I’m drenched with sweat here too! It’s burning where I landed and there’s no moving away to feel the coolness of the air that I can’t breathe. Medical condition? Never wake up? Huh, wouldn’t that be amazing? Be able to breathe forever. Amazing! “Dan? Buddy? I know you’re awake. And I know you can hear us. You were mumbling stuff I said a few years ago, now. I’m here to explain,” The same ordering dude says. We’re in a different room and there’s no one else hovering over. “There’s no easy way to say this but, you have Psychosis... It’s described as a loss of reality or a break from reality because it makes you experience things or believe things that aren't real. It can change the way you think, act, feel or sense things.” “Thus...is..a....dream.” I say, but my words break up, the words are cracking and hard to spit out. “No Daniel, this isn’t a dream, this is help to pull you back into reality.” Back in the desert laying there, helpless. I watch my body lay and start to blister. POP! OUCH!!! It stings my skin and as much as I want to scream. I have no life. I am dying, and soon I’ll be dead. I get dizzy and my body spins on the ground. My head surges with pain. Everything that my life contains, is pain. There is no freedom. Except for the weird dreams that keep happening. Psychosis? Loss of reality? Controls the way I think, act, feel, and sense? What if this is true. The weird dreams are pulling me away from my unpleasant reality? That makes lots of sense. “Dan? It’s me... again,” The guy who told me about Psychosis was saying. “We have made these pills, but you need to be here for longer than usual and swallow it.” I understand. But Psychosis is pulling me away from my pain. Hmm? Should I listen to this man? I’ll try if I can. The man leaves the room in a rush and grabs pills. He gets back and basically shoved the pill down my throat with water. Ahh water, I’ve never seemed to feel the sensation of the cool water washing away the bitter feelings of my life. Back in the desert. I’m guessing I didn’t have water? My throat is dry and bitter. I can’t swallow and my lungs just can’t reach the air. My stomach rumbles and twists. “We are evil! You fell for it and you’ll never dream again! Haha!” The Psychosis man sneers as he’s towering over my rigid body. No that’s just wrong! How? Why would he do such a thing? I...trusted him. I sit upright and breathe heavily. I’m fine. Uh oh! The Psychosis man is standing right there. Somehow my body manages to fly backward away from the man. “Hold up Daniel. Why so jumpy? We cured you for the most part. All you have to do is take these pills a few times a day and do some self-care exercises. We’ll get back to you on which exercises are most necessary to do.” I don’t trust him, but I do. I always thought my reality was in that awful (still very real) place. People don’t know what I saw. It’s not proved what I saw was true. My leap of faith was believing everything that I saw in my “dream” and I still can’t prove if it was real or not, but whether I have to deal with either place. I can handle it.