Entry 1: The Significance of a Dream

There have been many minds much greater than my own to draft theories on where our dreams come from. I do not proclaim to be all-knowing, but I will say this: that I have seen first-hand the place in our minds where all dreams are born. I know this place intimately, as this has been my own mind's permanent dwelling place for many long years.

There are more than a few, I am sure, who will dismiss my telling as the fanatical ramblings of a madman. I do insist, however, that you, my dear reader, take what I have to say with an open mind, for the words you are about to behold are in fact the truth, and nothing but.

Allow me to start from the beginning, then. My name is Daniel DeLorez. My story begins with a childhood ailment of sorts. At around twelve years old, I suddenly became susceptible to fainting for no apparent reason. One minute I would be a fine, healthy child, going about his child-like business in a child-like manner, and the next I would be found lying motionless on the floor.

There was something strange about it, however, that defied all earthly logic. You see, during these spouts, I couldn't move, I couldn't hear, and I couldn't see, but I could still think like a perfectly conscious human being. There's something terrifying about lying helplessly on a floor, trapped in a paralyzed body while your mind continues to race.

In the beginning, these occurrences would only last for a few short minutes. Through the months, however, they gradually became longer and more terrifying. Eventually, it got to the point where my parents were forced to send me to a specialist for an evaluation. He, too, failed to pinpoint the cause. "Drink more water," he said. "And stay away from soda."

So, life went on for awhile as normal. Following the doctor's advice, I quit drinking soda altogether and upped my daily intake of water, but the fainting never stopped. I think my parents had fallen into the assumption that perhaps this ailment would simply go away with time; that so long as I stayed away from the soda and kept drinking healthy amounts of water I would just get better.

One day, however, it all ended with a sudden bang. I was in my room alone when it happened. I fainted, and there was no one there to notice. All that night I lay there, mind racing, until the morning when it was time to get ready for school.

Understand that as I could not hear or feel anything that was going on around me, I am reciting only the things that I was told, and not all that I know undoubtedly to be true.

My mother had found me that morning, sprawled out on my belly, drool hanging from my cheek, and after a few rigorous shakes rushed me to the local hospital. It was there that I lay for three straight weeks, lost in the darkest corners of my own mind, until at long last I woke a cured man.

So concludes the story of my childhood ailment as far as anyone who knows me is concerned. The part that you need to understand, however, is what happened in my mind over the course of those three weeks.

I am sure you can imagine the damage that one may incur on one's mind having been trapped alone in it for an extended period of time, but would you believe me if I told you that I had lost mine entirely and walked away unharmed? Or, more accurately, that I had walked away a much more enlightened individual? I cannot recall specifically when it happened, but somewhere within the course of those three long weeks my mind wandered so far astray that it lost its way, never to return.

Before I go any further, allow me to address something that I'm sure many of you are thinking: I am not insane. There is a fine line, I will admit, between the things of which I speak and the utter loss of one's sanity, but I can assure you that my thoughts are perfectly sound. I wish that I could explain to you in greater detail the difference between insanity and brilliance, but this is a concept that will require a great deal of writing, so I'll choose to enlighten you in the near future.

Now, I want you to think of an ant. This is not, mind you, the only suitable example on Earth, but in my opinion it is the most simple and relatable. On its own, an ant is nothing more than a mindless wanderer with no purpose in life. An ant has no mind as an individual; it has no personality. Together, however, a group of ants has one singular consciousness. They think and act as one, all serving one another and working in the interest of the colony as a whole. This is, for all intensive purposes, the "hive mind" concept.

What if I told you that this concept applied to mankind as well? Would you think me a fool? If this is a concept that you cannot grasp, I must urge you to set this text aside, as it will prove for you a waste of time.

What I speak of is the truth. The only difference between us and the ants is the ability to think as individuals, or to put it another way, the existence of a personality. Take that away and all you have is the thoughts of those around you.

This is precisely what happened to me. My mind being lost forever, I found my personality gone with it. Everything I ever was or stood for reduced to nothing. I was a blank canvas, waiting to be filled but lacking the necessary tools to do it myself.

I started feeling strange things around other people. I instinctively knew when someone wanted something, or vice versa, and I used this instinct to my advantage. On my own, however, my thoughts would drift and I would find myself reduced to uselessness.

In time, I learned to hone in on thoughts over great distances, or sometimes fictional thoughts from fictional characters on the television screen or in the pages of a good book, and uselessness became productiveness. I found myself drifting through life with no purpose of my own, but it didn't matter because I served the whole of humanity, a much grander purpose.

I learned to live again, and I did it in such a manner that no one even noticed the change. I cut ties with most of my family, because such bonds seemed menial in the grand scheme of things.

There is only one moment that I recall feeling compelled back toward the person I once was. My grandpa, who was like a father to me. He died out of nowhere. The doctors say he suffered a heart murmur, and by some divine miracle managed to land his head on a pile of bricks. I'll spare you the details, but when I saw him lying there in that hospital bed, my entire childhood seemed to flash before my eyes, bringing me helplessly to my knees.

I did recover, however, with time. I found solace in writing and managed to kill the pain entirely by distancing myself from reality. It sounds drastic, I know, but this is a natural human response to suffering. A few months later I found myself falling back into my regular routine.

And then the dreams started happening.

First, they were all about my grandpa. I wasn't sure what to make of them, but they were far too vivid to be a natural occurrence. It didn't take long for me to realize that these were the actual fading thoughts of the man himself, mingled with my own in sometimes terrifying ways.

I would dream of visiting him, crying on his lap, begging for his forgiveness for unresolved disputes. I would dream of going to sit at the dinner table with my grandma and finding him there, preparing for dinner as if he had never left this world. I would dream of getting attacked at his house and having to defend my grandparents, armed with a shotgun, lying in the closet and blowing the legs off the assailants as they walked past.

Nonsensical, terrifying dreams. But oh so significant, nonetheless.

You see, these were the moments that brought me to realize what a dream really is. When you sleep, the part of your brain that contains your personality shuts down. Your brain is then invaded by the thoughts of others, near or far; from our world or from another.

Most people would never remember the latter, but I am the exception. The state of dreams being my own mind's permanent dwelling place, I remember them all. I've seen a multitude of worlds. I've communed with the creators of them. I've lived in the shoes of thousands of other beings, human and otherwise. But, these are tales for another day. Today, I speak only of the significance of one's dreams. I have had many dreams over the course of my life, and I remember each one of them, but I feel the need now to tell you of one in particular.

I was in love, once. With a girl. My first true love, that one that never quite fades away, no matter how much distance you put between each other and no matter how many years pass you by. We had a fight shortly before my grandpa passed, and we parted ways. She was one that I confided in when I felt lost. Now that I think of it, I believe that my changing and the disappearance of my mind played an integral role in our separation.

Anyways, I had a dream about her one night. I was approaching a ruined old temple of sorts. I could see a row of tall pillars, like something you might find in the ancient city of Rome, overgrown with weeds and vines that wound about like thorny crowns. I remember the air here had an odd green glow to it, and I could see a faint sun piercing through on the horizon, illuminating the scene before me with an awe inspiring radiance.

And there she was, my one-time lover, but a few yards before me, dancing in the surreal glow of the sun. I stood frozen to the spot, wanting with all my heart to approach and share this glorious moment with the woman I loved so dearly, but for all my will I could not find the strength to move.

This is where the dream ended, and I woke with a sickening feeling of regret, one that I had grown familiar with over the passing of time between us, knowing that I had forsaken the love of my life.

A few hours passed as I went about my day, and then the phone rang. It was her.

You must understand that we hadn't spoken in many months prior to this phone call. The fact that I had dreamt of her just that night should speak volumes on the significance of one's dreams.

She said she wanted to meet me. She said she had been thinking about me. I never told her about the dream. Sometimes, it's best to keep these things to one's self for a time, until all hope is faded and you've nothing left to lose. For me, now is my time to confide in you, my dear reader, the accounts of my life.