Life gets a bit depressing when even my dreams stray into parasocial-relating territory. I'm not talking about dreaming of hanging out with Buffy. I love those dreams. I had a dream about a real person that was so realistic it could have been real, except it wasn't. Does that make sense?
It was a beautiful day, in my dream. I could feel the warm sun on my face, see the blue sky arching over me and the rather impressive buildings that surround my law school. Normally in my dreams places are altered so that even in the dream you kind of know that it's not real. Not this one. Just this once my mind recreated my everyday surroundings immaculately. I had finished my lecture and was whiling away some time in the mall. I ran into my current romantic interest, my THAT person from posts gone by. Lets call them Tayler for shorthand. So Tayler and I met in the mall and the unusual thing about this dream was it in no way went the route of wishful thinking. It was completely realistic to my real interactions with Tayler.
This meant that instead of remarkably quickly declaring undying love for each other, we chatted. We went to a cafe that actually exists in real life and we talked. I felt just like I do when I'm with Tayler in real life. In the end it did go into a little bit of wishful thinking. The conversation turned to relationships and the conversation got a bit flirty and involved some prolonged-eye-contact moments. But it was so believable.
In Inception, Cobb warns Ellen Page's character to never make dream worlds out of places you actually know, because you might not be able to tell what's real anymore. He was very, very right.
When I woke up, it didn't feel like: "That was a nice dream but yeah, right, like that's ever going to really happen." It wasn't even: "Wow, how realistic was that."
It was massive happiness for a short-but-definetely-awake period, that my dreams had come true. And then this odd feeling that something didn't feel right, that I hadn't even been in the city yesterday. 'When was that again?' I thought. 'It couldn't have been a dream. It wasn't...oh my god it was a dream.' It was like a kick in the stomach. I had to remember that Tayler is seeing someone and that it is highly improbable that my feelings will ever be returned.
So in the end it was just hyper-wish-fulfillment. I guess I want this so badly I couldn't even dream it in any way that would seem like it couldn't happen.
Or maybe I was being Incepted. Maybe Leonardo Dicaprio and Ellen Page put electrodes on my head and while my dream self was flirting over coffee with Tayler they implanted an idea so deep in my mind that right now it is growing, shaping my future, and I don't even know that I didn't think of it.
I prefer the second explanation. At least it involves Ellen Page. Who doesn't love Ellen Page?
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