In Dreams
by Erica Damon (SECOND PLACE - Flash Fiction Contest 2024)
They say if you die in your dreams, you die in real life. Which sounds ridiculous, but everyone I talked to—they’ve all heard it, too. And they all believe it. Why?
I try to focus in class, but it’s impossible. How is there this huge thing that everyone agrees on? No evidence, no studies—only folklore and rumors. How is that enough?
They’ve never had a dream where they died. So, maybe that tracks. Maybe no one dies in their dreams because they haven’t experienced death personally? But then, why can we dream about riding dragons?
I’m falling too far down the rabbit hole. Getting too wrapped up in this psychological conspiracy to see past my own paranoia. You see, the thing that set me on this whole tirade about death and dreams—I died in my dream last week.
Dead. Done. Gone.
It wasn’t a normal nightmare. I’ve had my fair share of those, waking at three a.m. and panicking in the pitch-blackness of my dorm room. This was different. I can’t quite describe it.
Well, I could. I can replay exactly what happened in detail, but there’s something else I can’t put my finger on. Something about the lights seemed... wrong somehow. The final moments gleam in bright white, all detail lost. It itches under my skin as I try to go about my day-to-day life. I have to find someone who knows what I am talking about, what I’ve been through.
I didn’t wake up right after it happened. Usually, I sense myself slipping from my dream state, trying to catch the last fleeting moments of the fairy tale playing out as reality forces its way back. But that night was different. I died, and then...
There wasn't nothingness. It wasn’t the midnight void I would expect to wake up to in times of terror. I didn’t wake up, and I didn’t keep dreaming. There was just…
I let my head fall to the desk. It’s been six days and fourteen hours since that dream. Something shifted. The world was different, but I couldn’t tell how. Still can’t, and it’s driving me insane.
I also can’t sleep. Not. At. All.
Not since that morning when my alarm went off screeching that it was time to get ready for class. My roommate didn’t look at me any differently. She should have; should’ve known something was wrong.
Nobody sees the change in me. They treat me like I’m the same as I was last week. I question their dream-realities. “When you dream you’re falling, do you ever hit the ground?” “What happens right before you wake up?” They answer vaguely thinking it’s some research project. I am a psych major, after all. It makes sense.
But not to me, never to me. I shouldn’t still be functioning. No sleep. I’m not lying. None. Six days and fourteen hours. That’s impossible. All the articles and research agree on that point. The brain can’t handle it.
I’m fine though; focused. I keep going to class even though I can’t understand how or why. What good does it do to sit and stare while the words ring in my ears like a foreign language? Their meaning lost to me, unimportant in my new world order.
Each day begins with my breath fogging the windowpane as the winter sun rises outside the dorms. I go through the motions. “Hi.” “Hello.” “Good, thanks.” All the right things to say when someone greets me. Someone who doesn't see beyond my fake smile or the fog in my eyes. Eyes that are distant when I look in the mirror, but to everyone else, look normal. I’m pretending. But for whom?
Pretending isn’t helping.
I spent all of Tuesday out by the campus pond, staring at the thin layer of ice. I spend sleepless nights pouring through Reddit. I want to go back, shake myself awake before that dream comes to an end. I need to know what’s wrong. This feeling—I can’t shake it. Even though physically I feel better than I ever have, there’s something lurking. A shift in the shadows, a dust mote in the sunbeams.
It’s the madness that hits every time I lie in my bed, pretending, if I think about it hard enough, maybe I’ll sleep. But no, not a wink. Physically exhausting myself; nothing. Drugs, no help. Even getting what should have been black-out drunk only left me numb. There is no reprieve from this waking nightmare.
It’s the seventh night. I’ve had enough. The December sun sets and I stare out across campus. Students are mere shadows dancing from streetlight to streetlight. Something shifts, the shadows twist; it feels right. I have to go. Excitement bubbles in me, though I can’t say why.
I grab my jacket, run down the stairs and fling open the door. The cold stings my eyes, but I don’t care. Flurries of snow fall around me. I recognize all of this; déjà vu, but… not quite.
I’ve been here before. The snow quiets the noise of the busy campus to a dull droning. This is it. I skid to a stop; warmth radiates from my middle, sending tingles to my fingertips.
This is my dream.
I’m alone now. Where have the students gone? The sidewalk is illuminated in patchwork by the LED lamps. It isn’t quite right, but it’s leading me. Where?
I know.
I follow. I have to. It’s the answer. The obvious one.
The snow picks up and a wind blows it across my path, obscuring the road, my view. Light bounces every which way on the falling particles—light from above, light from… not.
Oh. The car, yes—headlights, not street lights. I knew this. And still, here I am. I can’t move, not sure I even want to. The lights fill my field of vision and I close my eyes, welcoming sleep.
They say if you die in your dreams, you die in real life.