The Maker Of Dreams

A well known definition of a dream would be; that it is a peculiar mechanism, that has been formed by the human brain. A series of thoughts, that transform into vivid images and sensations, during our sleep. But, what if i tell you that there is someone; who controls your dreams. Some kind of force, that takes on various shapes and personalities, and appears in your dreams. That force is me. I, John, am the god of dreams. Sounds pretty cool right? Well, its not. For starters, I can only get some entertainment when people are asleep. I can only mess with their minds, when they are unconscious. I can get them to believe in things that don't even exist. Right from pizza that doesn't make you fat, to cute girls they can never be with. So, my life has been quite entertaining. Ever since the time, I realised that I had these abilities, there hasn't been a single day where I didn't exploit it.

I was 16, when i had my first dream. Yes, I had never dreamt before that. I found that quite strange, because all the kids at my school had had so many dreams; by the time they were my age. But, it was worth the wait, because my first dream was something that changed my entire life. It started off, with me seeing my father; who I had never seen before and I wasn't even sure, if it was him. Until, I saw my mother beside him. They seemed to be having a very serious conversation. "He's only 14, we cannot burden him with such powers now" said my mother. "I know, but it’s only for a few years, I’m sure he can handle it. He’s a smart kid and I'll be back soon I promise" he replied. I don’t quite remember the rest of the dream as it was over in a flash, but, when I woke up I felt the same. Nothing around me seemed different at all. I groaned as I looked at my school bag which lay across the room. Most people like going to school and then there was me. I was a very awkward kid. I never really spoke to anyone. I did pay attention during class but, during recess when everyone else was out playing, I'd just sit in a corner and draw. I did have one friend though, and that was Luke. He was quite the opposite of me though. He was arguably the most popular guy at school. He was in the football team; and everyone loved him. Why he chose to be my friend? I guess, I’ll never know. But what I do know is that, without him, I would never have been able to accept these powers.

He was waiting for me that morning at the bus stop. We were running to catch our bus, when suddenly I felt like as if I was levitating. I felt like fainting, and as if I was in another dimension. I blinked, and when i opened my eyes, I was surrounded by darkness. I saw someone sleeping a few feet away from where i was standing. She was a small Asian girl. I didn’t even get a chance to analyse the situation; as I soon found myself in her dream. I was in Paris, I assumed, that was the last thing that she had been thinking of before she fell asleep. It occured to me that, I was controlling her dream. At first, I didn't know what to do. I, then saw a red dot in front of me. It was almost like a reflex, i touched it and started drawing. I made her dream a happy one. All I had to do, was draw all the things, I wanted in the air. I put her on top of the Eiffel Tower, and she got to ride all around it on a pink Unicorn. I even made her think that; she was eating cotton candy with her family in a carnival in france. It was fun, even for me, until I realised, that I don’t know how to get out of this dream of hers. I tried everything, I even placed myself on a unicorn and tried flying back to the bus stop where, I originally was with Luke but nothing worked. I thought that only if she wakes up, I can get out. So, I turned her fairytale into an absolute nightmare, I felt terrible, but I couldn't stay trapped in there forever. I drew rain clouds and a huge monster which, obviously disturbed her. She woke up with a start! and I took that opportunity to get out of the dream. I was back at the bus stop, everything around me had frozen.

Luke and I were still running to catch our bus. It was as if, time stood still for those few minutes in which I was in the girl's dream. Suddenly, everything came back into motion. Luke and I got on the bus, and reached school on time. He, obviously had no idea about this little adventure of mine. I felt a bit dazed and tired. I had trigonometry in the first period. I tried to concentrate but, I couldn’t stop thinking about what had just happened. It was too much to take in. My mother had told me nothing about this, and I couldn’t wait to go back home and interrogate her. No, amount of food made me feel less faint. What made me feel worse was the thought, that I could randomly slip into someone else's dream without my own consent. It was too much to handle. I ran home after I heard the bell for lunch break. I burst into the house, and ran straight to the kitchen. My mother, was busy making cream rolls for me and looked at me in surprise "Is everything okay? Why are you back so early from school?". "How could you not tell me! What am I? What was dad? Why am I like this?" To my surprise, she didn’t seem in the least bit perturbed. She looked at me calmly and said "Sit down, honey, what's wrong?" "What’s wrong? I was in someone’s dream! I went to Paris in her dream! it all felt like something from a science fiction novel!" My mother smiled, "You have finally got your powers." "What powers?" I asked bewildered. "Your father’s powers. He was a god, the god of dreams. It sounds unreal, I know, but he could control people's dreams and make them see, and feel whatever he wanted them to. This is a huge responsibility, he is banking on you till he gets a chance to come back home. You have to learn this art." I didn’t know how to react, I asked, "Why are dreams even important? Why does it matter so much?"

"Dreams represent our fears, desires, hopes, anxieties and more importantly, they make us happy. Your mind is the only place, where you can be whoever you are, and hope for anything. One can prefer dreams, more than reality because, it frees us of all worries and pain. It is also a place, where people realise their own flaws and mistakes. It’s a happy place; that is required for our mental well being, and now it is up to you to keep it that way" said my mother. I looked at her with uncertainty "But how am I supposed to go about this?" How?

Before I could complete my sentence, I had slipped into another dream and this time it was someone whom I knew, It was Luke. I saw him sleeping just like how, I had seen the girl sleeping earlier. He was sleeping on a desk. I figured, that he had fallen asleep during history class. I then reached the location of his dream, which was the football field. This time, I was a little more prepared than the last time. I found the little red dot and started drawing. My imagination ran wild. Luke had always wanted to be the best player in a football tournament. He did practice football everyday but when it came to matches, he was always so nervous that he'd mess up. So, I drew a scene, in which he was lifting a trophy with his name on it that said, 'best player' he was smiling, and I knew he was smiling in his sleep as well. I felt satisfied. I then realised that I had to get out of his dream somehow. this time I decided to just call out my father's name and see if it worked. It did! I was out of Luke's dream and back in the kitchen with my mom. time unfroze again and she was looking at me with concern in her eyes. "Does this mean that i have to be a part of every dream in the world?" I asked. "No! Only the ones you want to be a part of. You're a god now. You may randomly slip into other people's dreams, but that will happen only till you gain control over yourself. When you feel yourself going into the dark room, resist it. You can go into anyone's dreams and do anything you want whenever you want but just be careful, this is not something that you can play with, its other people's lives." I nodded, and went up to my room.I thought about all of this. Would I be able to do this? How can I do something that I cannot fully comprehend? I sat down on my bed and felt myself slipping away again. I, immediately switched my thoughts to something else.I called out my father’s name in my head multiple times until I felt myself coming back to reality. I couldn't believe, that i had done it! I was already getting used to this. I decided to lie down for a while when I suddenly, saw a girl sitting on my nightstand. I shrieked! "Oh I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to give you a start. I’m morphine, I’m supposed to help you get used to this whole thing. Your mother told me, that you needed some help.

My job is to tell you about the dreams, that you have to be a part of." I looked at her unbelievingly. "What do you mean?" I asked cautiously. "Sometimes some people need help getting on with their lives and dreams are a way of helping them. People like serial killers, depression patients etc. need help in any way possible; and we can help them together". I didn’t know whether to take all of this seriously. All of this felt like a dream in itself. "So when is my first lesson?" I asked. "We could begin right now" she replied. She showed me a list of names of people who needed some attention urgently, and chose one name. We slipped into his dream. She showed me how I could control it, without even drawing. I could just think of an object and concentrate on it in my head and it would appear before me, and get placed in his dream; the person whose dream we were in was a depressed college student who could not cope up with his studies. We made him see himself as a successful businessman. We made him feel that all of his struggles were just temporary and that it would be worth it in the end. It was at that moment, when I realised that we were boosting his self confidence by just being a part of something make believe. It did feel good. When we were to exit the dream, I told her that I knew how to do it. She was quite surprised to see that, I had figured that part out on my own. We were soon back in my room. "Do you think you could get used to this?" she asked. I nodded slowly. "Good. I’ll see you tomorrow then." she snapped and disappeared into thin air.

It’s been a year since that day and I am so happy I have these powers. People around me seem happier, and Luke won his first player of the tournament award, after explaining his dream to me every single day. What first seemed like a burden, now seems like a blessing. I even have my own palace in my head, of course!. Whenever, I was bored, I would get into someones head and try to make them feel better. Sometimes, I mess with people's heads. I made a murderer think, that his victim's was haunting him. I frightened him so much that, he finally surrendered. I also play around with people's thoughts for no reason. I make them see things, that would never really happen. I made my science teacher think, that if he didn’t tell us the questions that were going to come for the exam, he would get fired. But then of course, morphine stepped in, and erased that dream from his memory. So, if you ever feel like you had a dream, but you just can’t remember what it was, it was probably created by me.

Morphine and I got pretty close for obvious reasons. She was my first real friend. Of course, I had Luke, but he was so different from me and she was just like me. She loved drawing and playing video games, just like I did. For the first time, in my life I felt like as if I had someone apart from my mother, who genuinely cared about me and looked out for me. We sat on the couch all day and played video games when suddenly, I felt myself slipping into a dream again. By now, I had always known how to deal with it, but this time I just couldn't stop myself. I blinked, and when i opened my eyes I saw my father.

“Wow!! What a great time for him to just show up this way” I thought to myself. He was smiling, and looking down at me. "Hi son, I’m back now. I’m so proud of the way, you have handled things in my absence but I can take it from here now". Before I could even reply, reality kicked in. You would think that I'd be back sitting on the couch with Morphine, but I wasn’t. I was in my room, lying down on my bed. I sat up with a start! and looked around. I looked just like how I had looked a year ago. The first question that arose in my mind was, where is Morphine? I ran down the stairs, frantically searching for her all over the house. My mother saw me and asked me, what had happened. "Where is Morphine?" I asked impatiently. "Morphine? That’s a kind of drug that.." I didn’t allow her to finish her sentence. I called out my father's name multiple times to see if that will help in any way but it didn’t. It took a while, but it eventually dawned on me that, all that I thought that, I had experienced in that one year was actually not true. None of those incidents had happened. I had one year worth of memories, all of which were not true. I didn’t understand how this had even occurred, but, what made me even more sad was that, I actually didn’t have the abilities that I thought I had. I wasn’t actually a god in reality, but that also meant that, there was a god of dreams, the one who crafted my dream out. Was it my father? I guess I’ll never know.

It took a week for me to get over all that had happened. Everything in school was so normal. Luke, still hadn’t won the best player of the tournament award and Morphine didn’t exist. I was quite sad but, I then realised, how important dreams actually are. That dream made me happy, it gave me the confidence and made me believe, that I can be anything that I fancy. That’s what dreams are for! I learnt to take it all in my stride, and move on with life. I haven’t had another dream ever since, but I definitely have made many more friends. I, no longer sit in the corner during recess. I go out and play, just like the other kids do. I’m even on the football team with Luke, and my dream had a huge role to play in my life. I’m no longer the under confident, awkward teenager I used to be. I did miss morphine though, but I had a feeling that I'd meet her again someday!. Would be in a dream or in reality? Well, I'll just have to wait and see.