Sarail's Dream Land 2
Tuesday, 16 August 2016
Do you have colourfully vivid dreams when falling asleep? If so, are they frightening or bring distress to your subconscious thoughts outwardly to your physical self? Or do your dreams put you into a state of wonder and relaxed amazement?
I rarely have dreams. But when one does occur, it's usually on the extreme boundary of imaginative thought — on either end of the spectrum.
Within my mind, therein lies this one particular reoccurring dream that takes place in a thunderstorm. Wait wait...let's backpedal for a second. The dream begins in the hometown I was raised in, in Brookland. It's a tiny town north of Jonesboro, and my parents' house sat in the older part of Brookland's residential beginnings — a block layout structure of streets and homes unlike the rest of Brookland. So, back to this dream...I would wake up in a cold sweat upon hearing this clamorous, emphatic roar of thunder and snapping of lightning in the early hours of the morning.
Minutes later, after scurrying around in my home to make sure my family were safe and sound, an alarm would fire across the entirety of the town. But it's like no one else in the town could hear it go off — as if all of the residents, excluding my family, had ceased to exist. What was this alarm or siren even for? Well, it not only signalled the threat of an appearing destructive and monstrous tornado, but there was a discourse of militarised rebelling taking place on one side of the town...we just didn't know which side, though we could hear the gunfire coming from the distance.
As anxiety fills up our mental capacities, disabling all rational thought, my brother, my childhood friend, Matt, and I all run outside in the downpour of torrential rain. We analysed the landscape of the town, trying to figure out which direction the tornado was coming from using the lightning as it lit up the terrorised night sky. We then sprinted in the opposite direction, running across town, to what we thought was safety on the outskirts of town heading toward Jonesboro.
But a tornado and rebelling military personnel weren't our only imminent threat...
As we began running for our lives, and crossing intersection after intersection, came this horrifying and repulsively disgusting gorilla stampeding toward us. It wanted us dead. You could see the blood-filled rage in its eyes as it clenched its hands forward at us. We ran harder. The beast was catching up to us. The deluge of rain in our eyes was making it difficult to see our steps as we ran for our safety toward the main highway leading out of town.
We were getting closer to the city limits. Passing over the first small bridge leading out of town, all three of us were yelling at the top of our lungs at each other, checking in to see if we were each okay. We knew we were getting closer to that second and final bridge leading out to the city. As we arrived, our hope was shattered like that of a crystal glass being dropped on the floor. The bridge had been destroyed by the mob of angry military rebels, and they were waiting to kill us once we passed over the creek that now stood in our way. But then suddenly, out of nowhere, a vine appeared to grant us passage over the bridge.
This twisted and sturdy vine was hanging from nothing out of the sky, and we had a vicious, enraged monster on our heels that wanted nothing more than to destroy our livelihood. Let's not forget the tornado that had just demolished the area of town we ran from minutes ago. Everything, gone. With nightmarish fear in our collective eyes, we grabbed the leafy vine and swung across — one at a time.
My brother went first, then Matt, and lastly...me. As I landed swiftly on the ground, we could see the enraged monster fuming...waiting for the vine to swing back...so it could grasp on and finish its intent. We turned back toward the road, toward the tanks, guns, and other weaponry aimed in our direction, and began running.
And as the murderous gorilla grabs the vine and begins to swing forward...this is when I awake from my nightmare. Always. It's always at this point that I wake up in a cold sweat from my subconscious torturing me. I don't understand why. I have had this dream so many times throughout my lifetime, and every single time, I wake up at this point in the dream. What does it mean? What does it represent in my life?
In one of my college design courses, we had to create one of our dreams or nightmares using what techniques we had developed thus far using any design application we wanted. And so I took this specific dream sequence, and I turned it into a cartoon/comic of sorts.
 |
| I quite enjoyed creating this piece. I use it in my portfolio now, too. |
So, what dreams create your subconscious? What envelopes your mindscape? What keeps coming back to cause instability in your sleeping patterns? Let me know by hitting up the "Contact" link above on my site, or by replying via any of the social media platforms this story is shared on.
See you in dream land...
