(If you haven't seen it yet, here it is.)
Because for years I've been wishing for the exact same thing, in nearly those exact words - somewhere you could escape to and be yourself and just relax for a bit, push away reality for a while yet be able come back whenever you wanted.
I've always felt the need for some place like that; a dream world of some sort, or even a separate reality like they have in those science fiction novels - but a reality where I'm in control and everything works out a bit more smoothly, a bit more quickly and a little more happily.
While reality can be nice to come back to once in a while, there's no doubt that it's tough to go through sometimes. A lot of the time life feels like it's contorting and pushing and twisting in every direction, like its very purpose is to squeeze the life out of me, and having keep my balance on top of that shifting mass of reality sometimes just seems too much. Please excuse the analogy, but you know those pirate ship rides at amusement parks?
(Google Images FTW. Photo cred to... someone.)
Yeah, those!
I love them, but if you ride them fifty five times in a row you can throw up, even if you have a stomach made of steel. Bleeeuaaahghg. Have you ever tried standing up the entire time the ride is going? Riding at the veeery front/back of the ship? I don't know about you, but I get pretty tired after a while just because of the way I grip the bar like a lifeline (which it is), and the way your core muscles and stuff have to keep adjusting so you keep your balance and don't topple over headfirst onto the people in the row in front of you, and possibly out of the ship as well. And at that point, what I'd do is I'd get out of the ship, go grab a cotton candy, sit down on the grass and laugh while other people scream and throw up on the pirate ship.
Sadly, you can't do that with this reality.
(or can you? [insert "DUN DUN DUN" here])
A little while back I was obsessed with sleep - obsessed to the point where some people might have deemed it unhealthy. I loved sleep. I rushed through things (or simply gave them up) so I could get to my comfy little bed earlier. When I was awake, I was constantly thinking about sleep, daydreaming about speedwalking home to take another five hour nap. Never mind the fact I was sleeping as much as a cat does; I just needed more sleep.
Why?
(Adam, if you're reading this, please don't get creeped out.)
I'd found my 'escape'. Somehow I had gained a little control over how my dreams developed, who was in them and so on and so forth. I had obsessed over Adam enough in the real world that I had managed to drag him into my dreams (as well as a number of other things). Nightmares were non-existent. Every dream was happy, carefree, weightless, stressless and completely and utterly... dreamy. Who needed dreams to become reality? Screw reality, I have sleep to carry me to my dreams. Besides, it's the only way I'd ever be able to fly, and I did quite a lot of that during those dreams. Even if I didn't have those ridiculously awesome and vivid dreams, I would wake up feeling rested for at least five seconds.
...and then get slapped in the face with the load of homework, work, stuff to do, and life in general.
To quote Ernest Hemingway,
"I love sleep. My life has a tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?"
It worked well for a while.
Then I began having troubles falling asleep. (finally bitten by the insomnia bug that seems to plague all Owl City residents, it seems.)
I'm back to trying to find that escape from reality.
My imaginary 'dream world' currently hides past a magical portal behind a poster on my wall. Tee hee.
