Blind With Eyes Wide Open: A Dream Story

Jade Buddha at Quang Duc by Trieu P Nguyen via Flickr

The fall

She felt herself falling into an abyss and she started screaming. Everything was black yet she could still see. When she hit bottom the ground didn't feel hard but it wasn't soft either.  

The ball

She suddenly found herself in a room which was pitch black and she's squeezing a massive ball tightly to her chest; so tightly in fact by anyone's reckoning it should burst but doesn't. She kept on hugging it, pressing it to her chest. 

Mind talk

Then she felt an insidious niggling in her head; thoughts were trying to intrude into the silence. It was the ego. "I know you for what you are so go away, thank you very much" she said to it. It was so afraid; it didn't want to die. 

The passage

Then the bubble that she was crushing to her chest starts passing through her body as if she's transparent. She can see it as it comes out of her back. The bubble disintegrates after going through her and disappears; taking with it all that was foreign to her body. 

She feels a knot of fear in her gut. "What the hell am I doing, what is going on?" she wonders in panic. Nothing makes sense here.

The bubble keeps getting smaller and smaller in her arms as she continues to press it against her chest. It passes right through her, disintegrating and disappearing completely. 

Wakey, wakey  by law_keven via Flickr

Blind with eyes wide open

She looks around and realises that it's still dark. It's then that she realises that her eyes are closed. She opens them and looks around, puzzled.

She knows for sure when she landed that her eyes were open but she couldn't see a thing because it was pitch black; so when did she close them.

Illumination and exit

Now, there's a soft silver-white light illuminating everything yet she sidles close to wall and finds herself hugging it and feeling around with her hands as if she still can't see. They find a door handle. She turns it and pushes the door open. There's a sudden gust of fresh air and she takes a deep, gratifying breath. 

With a start, I feel the ball in my gut disappear and my eyes fly open for real.