Dream Within A Dream

I am a fan of impressionism, more importantly, Salvador Dali, even though this is a pedestrian way of saying it. He paints the subconscious mind. He paints dreams. Sometimes I wonder if I came up with an idea, or Salvador Dali came up with it for me. I dream of elephants, though they are not quite the creatures of Dali’s Temptation of Saint Anthony. Still, they are not quite like normal elephants either. They’re skin is like a movie screen. Not that they’re skin is colored or moving, but acting as a giant projector screen. I watch them from a distance the closer I get the more their size frightened me. Not that my size, or the size of a real elephant matters, these elephants are much, much bigger. One gets too close, to the point where I can feel his rough skin against my cheek. I don’t dare reach out and touch him; I just take a step back to see the pictures on his side. They are of me, moving memories of my childhood. Or I assume it’s me, I can see myself, but I can’t remember the memories being played. Things like bath times, and storybooks, car trips and theme parks. Being projected from nowhere. I can see the light of the projector coming from nowhere. I’m not sure if it is out of fear, or love of the unknown that I stay, unmoved. I sit in the sand and watch the elephants pass as my life, literally flashes before my eyes. I watch in awe, not only of the creatures, but myself, and that moment I realize I was in fact, dreaming. It breaks my heart to know I can’t stay here, but I’m not sure I want to. It’s a conflicting bittersweet feeling. Then I wake up. Like I always do. If you knew me, you wouldn’t be surprised to hear I dream of, what I consider, my favorite animal, but I don’t usually dream about animals. Strange, considering that I practically grew up in an animal shelter. The only reason I bring up Dali, is because that’s how my dreams feel to me, at least some of the time. Sometimes they feel real. Almost ridiculously so, almost to the point where I couldn’t tell if I were awake or not anymore, which makes real life, reality, all the harder to bear. I am in some way, I think, afraid of reality. Reality is work, while dreams are easy, even when they’re not, because you always wake up.