During the pandemic, I find that I wake up later in the morning. After all, when the world's going to shit, who wouldn't just want to lie down and sleep till it is all over? I still put on my mask and walk around the parks in my community, but overall, I find that I don't have the motivation to do any of the activities I promised myself I would do during my deployment.
Lately, I've been cataloguing the various dreams I've been having in a dream journal. I find that some of them are pretty interesting and I want to see whether by taking down dream notes, I can eventually learn how to lucid dream. I mean, I've heard that this technique can help you, I don't actually know whether this works or not. My therapist gave me this journal, and I might as well use it for its purpose.
Some of my dreams are pretty standard, like falling off a building or drowning in the ocean. Others are deeply personal, involving people I have already tried to forget. Most of them involve various internet media and games I've been playing in my offtime. However, they were pretty unmemorable for me, as they didn't really stick to me after I went to the bathroom and ate some breakfast. One of the dreams I've been having isn't like the others, though.
I don't remember the dream much. All dreams disappear once I drink a cup of coffee and I have to go to work. I only remember bits and pieces, something about having a good time in my dreams. Sounds cliché, but I took the offer. After all, it's just a dream. Dreams are temporary.
I go to sleep. I am a soldier in some kind of war, surrounded by books and shelves. Holding a gun, I slowly crouch down an aisle, when a large lantern-holding… thing blocks my way. I shoot at it to no avail. I get captured by the lantern being, and before I can know what happens to me, I wake up. Sweat runs down my cold body, and I drink another cup of coffee to remove the memory.
While riding the train, I accidentally fell asleep. I wake up to the scent of the sea. I am some sort of soldier, ready to engage in another operation. I look up, and the sun is blocked by a giant tower of flesh that roars. My heart goes out of my mouth as I get ready to shoot at the beast, but before I do, I get woken up by the train attendant, telling me I've reached the end of the station. The sky is dark. I quickly ran to the nearest coffee shop.
After the funeral, I collapse on the bed, and I see him beside me, holding my hand as the sun sets over the bay. Someone calls me over for some ice cream, and I walk over to him, prosthetic arm on my right, as his smile is the last thing I see before waking up to a wet spot on my pillow. I bring out our whiskey to forget his face.
I find myself being more tired than usual. Sometimes I drink a lot of coffee to stave off the exhaustion, but that never works out. Oftentimes I find myself sleeping more often, and every single time I always see his face in my dreams. Every time I try to reach out, I wake up, and every time I wake up I take that bottle of whiskey and start remembering our time together.
Sometimes I see him by my side as we break into a broken house, as space warps and bends around us while I hold his hand, and as we walk through it my heart flutters as his face melts around me and merges with the floors and walls.
Other times I see his face at the end of my gun as I shoot him per orders of some people over the comms. His face reforms and contorts with relief or pain as I am told to shoot over and over again. I follow the orders.
One time I found myself dressed in front of a priest and a bloody altar with his body exposed for me to know as I consummate his body and tears run down my eyes while blood runs down my chin and his body inside my mouth, his smile the only one that remains in my mind as I wake up. I haven't touched the bottle for a few weeks, but I feel like this is an exception, like yesterday, and the day before that, and three days ago.
Multiple talks to the shrink about my dreams later and after showing her my dream journals, I am recommended medicine and told to keep the alcohol out of my life. As I walk through the subway back to my home, I see his face in the crowd. I try to chase after him, but he is nowhere to be found. I board the train as his face keeps popping up in my mind.
I walk towards dreamland as I am besieged with sandstorms and gunshots while I hold his bleeding body and a symbol I barely recognize touches him and brings him back to life and I keep filling his holes with bullets but he just won't die, crying and laughing and screaming in pain as the bullets keep shooting yet his screams keep echoing and eventually he stops, but his promise to me that we would be together after this mission still whispers in my mind and I reach over to his flask taking a swig of his favorite drink with his blood covering my face and my tears making the drink salty while screaming for all of this to stop and I wake up covered in sweat, covered in tears, and covered in regret.
I started taking sleep meds since I can't sleep that well. I also fixed up my resumé and started finding a job after I was laid off. Sometimes I see his face in my dreams, sometimes I don't. Other times I find myself taking a lot more sleep meds than I need just to have a chance to see his face. And, when I go home and see our last picture together, I wonder — am I still dreaming?