Dreams Within Dreams

 Taken From If Only Suomi ISBN : ‎ 978-1916310773

Most books are considered to be fiction or non-fiction or a combination, written before or after the events therein. Those are either historical, which can include a lot of speculation and guesswork; simply made up, futuristic, speculative, prophecies or wishful thinking. This book is all of that. It’s questionable when exactly it was written. It is clearly written after events in the author’s life, but both before and after the present day. in 2020, on our calendars.

It includes memories and dreams, prophecies and wishful thinking. In fact, some sort of time travel. If only in the mind.

So what is the difference between dreams and memories?

We can have memories of dreams and dreams of memories.

We can have dreams within dreams.

What is the difference between reality and illusions or imagination? Dreams can seem very real and what we normally call reality can often seem unreal.

Ancient religions tell us that the world is nothing but an illusion, just at twinkle in the eye of the Creator, a cutting from the fingernail of Krishna, ‘Maya’.

“All the world's a stage. And all the men and women merely players.” wrote William Shakespeare.

As children we sang

“Row, row, row your boat,

Gently down the stream,

Merrily merrily, merrily, merrily,

Life is but a dream.”

Modern-day scientists may tell us that the whole Universe and everything around us, even our own bodies, is made of subatomic particles, too small to see with the naked eye, and waves, that sometimes it may be a particle and sometimes a wave, wave-particle duality and, according to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, we can never say exactly when and where a particle is. They say that it is mostly space and that it is our senses and brains that put it all together so we can live in it. In other words; an illusion.

Others even say that technically it is all holographic! We are not actually here at all!

And some religious folk who believe in an all-powerful God may say that it was all made not so long ago, to look like it is much older, like a film set or a game of Dungeons and Dragons.

Then there are dreams within dreams.

The Arrival 1972

Al found himself naked in a strange bed, in a strange room, alone

As he rubbed his eyes, trying to escape from the nightmare and deal with this new reality, he felt lost. He had no idea where he was or even when he was. Yet somehow he felt sort of younger.

He looked around the small room, seeking out his clothes and his phone. Nowhere to be seen. Strangely enough he saw a pair of spectacles on the bedside table. They reminded him of the heavy glass dark-rimmed ones he used to wear. He put them on. He could see through them clearly!

He spotted an open wardrobe and grabbed himself a clean pair of jeans and shirt, underwear and socks. It fitted well. He’d lost a lot of weight. Several stone in fact. Probably all that climbing he thought, but no, wait a minute, that was just a dream.

He left the room and quickly found a toilet where he emptied his now bursting bladder and then his bowels. That made him feel better and sort of brought him more back to reality. Then he looked in the mirror over a sink. He saw himself and was shocked! His hair was long and dark again as was his beard. His face was thinner and he looked, well he looked like a 21 year-old again, not the 78-year-old man he had been. Surely another dream.

Al wondered how he could wake himself up again and where he would find himself. His last memory, although vague and unreal in itself, was of 2028 in Leeds. What had he been trying to do. He had been with the wheelchair-bound Daniel, a man in his 80’s and his elderly but beautiful wife, Rachel or was it Rebecca? Something about Daniel wanting to be healed. Something about a car crash. Something about a new life for the couple, before they died, Daniel had said.

Al left the bathroom, feeling very unsure and shaky about what was happening and went down the stairs towards the music and voices he could hear. It sounded like Pink Floyd.

As he entered the kitchen dining room he saw three people, two young men and a pretty young woman with long red hair.