A continuation from Blog Post 2.
An abrupt sensation, an overflow of stimuli; lucidity permeates my inner workings. I've been here before, many times in fact. She's not a stranger collapsed on my lawn but another embodiment of a recurring theme that has plagued my dreams since the dawn of the crisis.
Traumatic dreams are a common symptom of post-apocalyptic stress disorder. Lucidity is perhaps the only notable consequence of the condition. Even at that, it is only a seldom occurrence in the majority of PASD cases, and even at that, lucidity is still a rare feature in any dream, traumatic or not.
But now that I'm lucid I know I don't need to investigate the lady who has collapsed on my lawn. I know who she is and what she symbolizes. These are things that cannot be forgotten; things that cannot be unseen.
But dwelling on the mistakes we've made in the apocalypse doesn't get us any further than dwelling on whose fault it is.
As I do in many dreams, and occasionally in the waking state, I begin to contemplate the reason I'm still here, writing to you today. There was a time when I had convinced myself that my adoration of zombie literature, film, games, et cetera, not only predisposed me to a predicament of zombie apocalypse survival, but may have actually been a fulfillment of my subconscious (or not so subconscious) desire. Maybe this was the fruition of my yearning, the yen of my alter-ego.
As of late, I'm less and less certain of this pedagogy. The blaring difference between the literature of apocalypse and the actuality of survival is the "purpose." I can't help but feel like I don't have one. Maybe it's a certainty that I don't have one. Or if I do, I don't understand it yet. And what evidence is there to suggest that I ever will?
Even though the current state is a dream, dreams are not mere. This epiphany has been the most crucial of insights, post-apocalyptic, stress-disorder related (or not). Often the personalities in dreams interpolate wisdom from centuries past or centuries beyond. Sometimes they are quite external, not of the self the self. And when that is the case, I cannot imagine from where such sagacity has been derived. This particular dream is the point at which my boat is tipped.
Waking up brings me back to hopeless reality, the same apocalyptic reality each and every time. So today I choose to investigate the collapsed lady on my exceptionally green property in this vividly not-so-mere dreamscape. I approach the site, hole in the ground, rounder than previously assumed, collapsed individual, manhole and all. As is common in dreams, things are there, or simply are, and are suddenly not. The woman is gone, the hole is lined with a series of tiles, so to say, a granite well, like the sink of a fancy kitchen. It is deeper than expected, perhaps two meters depth, but the greater surprise is the gent sporting a white beard, white ponytail, and white tux staring back at me as I lean over the circumference of the circle.
The gentleman speaks: "Greetings, lad. You are lost and I must pose questions. Do you have a while to listen? That is, will you not abandon the premise until we can discuss, at length, the items on my list of inquiries?"
As mentioned, my boat is now tipped. Dream people do not ask questions. If they ever do, this isn't the kind of question they ask. Their role is to perpetuate the dream plot, particularly to not let onto the fact that a dream is a dream. This character is not only voiding the principle, but acknowledges that I am a lucid dreamer; he acknowledges that I can rouse myself from sleep on a whim.
This seems like a good time to wake myself up then, but I won't yet. I am not easily frightened but this brief confrontation is genuinely disturbing. The familiar sense of disturbing much alike my first encounter with a zombie. Or for most people, when they realized their own corruption was imminent, that they would inevitably turn into a zombie.
I'm at a loss for words but it doesn't matter.
"I do, of course, know what you are going to say; that is, what you are thinking. But this exercise is more effective under the guise of a conversation, wouldn't you say? The objective, after all, is the acquisition of purpose, recognition of why you should or should not be."
I'm still at a loss for words. I suppose this could have gone unsaid. The man is no longer in the hole. I didn't see him leave the hole, nor did I see the hole become covered. A tight-fit seal now rests where the ditch was. I take note of the egg engraved on the cover, simple and elegant. I haven't decided, at this point, whether I should respond to the question, or listen to his next one.
The man begins to walk toward the edge of the property, toward the forest that lies beyond. Before I realize it, I'm beside him and we're standing before a vast, cloudless blue sky and golden sand stretching to the horizon.
"The egg represents your predicament. I'm sure you understand the resemblance. The egg is unhatched and we do not know what it may contain, what its purpose may be. Analogous to it, is your self. You do not understand your purpose. Perhaps, your purpose can be anything that you wish?"
I know it isn't so straightforward. Before the crisis it could have been postulated that an individual's potential was limited only by their imagination and luck of the draw. It isn't that simple either, of course, but more unreasonable thoughts have been had.
I arrive at my first question. I hesitate to ask as I notice the scene has changed again. The sky is gray and the golden sand vibrates with magnificent color and radiance, it seems to have a life of its own.
The man is now seated in a throne, or a large chair. It's unclear what he's sitting on, things are sometimes blurry in dreams, as they are right now. But it's clear that he's sitting beside a statue of himself, seated upon the same roost. I have trouble distinguishing the individual from the statue.
"Why an egg?"
The man and the statue begin to respond as a pair, alternating by sentence. It is no longer a single voice, not even two. Many voices are resounding together.
"It may be anything. The fact that it may be, at all. It would seem that the possibilities for your purpose are not so limitless. Consider the greatest of life's potentials to the electrons of every molecule. They are not so distinct as it may seem. Nor is the ground upon which you walk from the foot with which you proceed. This can be said of nearly all things you can imagine- rather, comprehend."
The sense of externality that is standard to dream experiences is suddenly different. It has not been removed or replaced, it has not even expanded in any measurable sense. The words to convey the happenings do not exist. The externality has become, relatively, an internality.
"The purpose of your current self is considerably less important than I may have originally suggested. Your next self will be one that lived well before the time of "the crisis" as you know it. It may be one composed of fewer atoms, or perhaps many more, or perhaps just different ones. Maybe it will be one that is not of any sensible relation to this planet Earth. But again, they, the planets and the atoms that they are composed of, are less distinguishable from one another than it seems, as are the souls that inhabit the multi- or universe as you know it."
And it dawns upon me. "I'm going to be reincarnated? But, 'it's not that simple,' of course. I suppose I know this but now I need to hear it. This could have only been understood as a conversation after all."
"It's not that simple. The lessons of one life stay with you in an inaccessible part of your core. The core isn't anatomical or spiritual, so much as it simply, is. Again, it is not so distinct from the universe itself. Every interaction with every person, animal, plant, substrate or solvent, was an interaction with yourself and every other self as well."
"That's a mouthful. Anyway, how long ago…did I die?"
"It's not that simple, either. Time is a three-dimensional sensation. This is, again, beyond your comprehension. But if it will sate your curiosity before your next birth, your sister, the zombie of her self, ate your insides about seventy-two hours ago. You were comatose, slowly starving through the winter while your crops could not grow."
"I think I understand the egg now."
"You don't. It's not that simple, of course. Now, off you go."
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