I dreamt of madness.
I dreamt of a dark, unknowing, overwhelming cosmos, vast and bleak, all-consuming and ever-surrounding.
All alone. Cold, yet unfeeling. Unaware of who I was and what it means to be.
Maybe there was no “being” anymore.
On a vast plane, observed from this perspective, the world and all its glory seemed nothing more than a meaningless tinge of light in an incomprehensibly large veil which light cannot pierce.
Was this what it’s like, to be beyond life? Was this… Even a dream, or had I been transported early to that which is… of nothing?
Maybe there was no “being” anymore.
Nothing had any value, this far out. Mortal concerns… Family, wealth, power… It seemed like a practical joke.
What did I really live for? Kindness? Fulfillment? …Nothing at all?
Fear of this. It irked me so, and yet… I could not shake it.
What had I done, really?
I yelled out into the shapeless void, and awaited the cry back, but no one came.
There was nothing else to it.
There was no “being” anymore.
What was this endless nightmare I endured? Was this punishment for everything else? I doubted it so.
Blindness. Soundless. Devoid of feeling and presence, I was…
There was no “being” anymore.
Light was a distant concept. I had since forgotten what it meant.
Togetherness and kindness shared the same fate soon after.
What did it mean to be alive, human? It didn’t matter.
I wasn’t.
Truth.
Light.
Awake.
It all faded away in a moment, a joyful instant which I remembered in a cathartic moment what it felt to be alive and awake once more.
But I never shook the feeling.
Even now, I can’t forget the dream.
I dreamt not of madness, but of absolution.
That was four years ago.
Two days ago. Two days ago I was transported to that ethereal, haunting realm once more, and once again…
There was nothing.
This time, though, I was…
Peaceful.
It was strange, to feel so calm in the face of the infinite dark, but… I couldn’t help it.
It was an old friend now. Another familiar face, one that would greet me again some day. Did I look forward to that day?
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t slightly impatient.
I needed to know.
I needed to understand, to learn why and what this is, to learn who did this to me… and why?
I needed to…
I needed to…
That was five months ago.
After extensive therapy and a visit to a psych ward, I still think about it sometimes.
Funny… my very first therapist, he described the very void I did, having seen it in his dreams. Maybe I wasn’t so alone.
A flash of light. It was storming again. I saw his face.
That therapist… I had seen him before. Two months before the dream, I saw him at a diner, and…
The other patients at the ward also reported having the dream.
I’m not alone.
I checked my room before I left last week.
He was… He was…
He was gone.
Two nights ago, I dreamt of an absolution once more.
And it was beautiful.