Why Do We Dream?

Dreams — the wisps of visions arising from our reality, memory and imagination.

Why do we dream?

I am pretty sure researchers have joined their heads together and are doing all that they can to answer this question.

But right now, it is not my domain.

Why do we dream?

Sleepless, eyes wide open?

I am beginning to find it infuriating.

Why do we dream?

Why do I dream?

When all I have known is them dissolving into nothingness right in front of my eyes, every time I have dared to dream.

When all I have known is the stark difference between what I dreamt of and what is — the reality that I have to live with, that feels just a little more unbearable, unpalatable, unkind with every passing day?

That threatens to tear me apart with its sharp, steely, cold claws?

Why do I dream? What right do I have? Who gave me the freedom? Why do I still dare?

I think it has been a while since I haven’t, actually.

I gave up somewhere along the way. There were only so many times I could’ve gotten up after falling, gotten up and tried crawling.

My heart shrivelled up. Dreams scare me now. Wanting, wishing for something scares me. I can hardly imagine things going the right way. I have given into the monotony. Living just for the next second. Just getting by.

I can’t bring myself to dream. I wish there was a more eloquent, poetic, refined way to say this but the thing is — it just hurts. It hurts to dream. To dream and not have the means to reach it. To see it in all its beauty and to have to let it go. To live it a little and then spend the rest of your days to try and forget it and yet remember it wistfully from time to time. It just hurts.

To see different versions of yourself die along with the dreams.

It just hurts.

It hurts to acknowledge that little flame of hope that whispers about better days when you are living just this one day over and over again.

I don’t know when and where is respite. I don’t know if there is any.

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