paranoia

I had an overwhelming and recurring fear (I know, you never would have guessed) that started as a young child and lasted throughout high school. It did not involve werewolves, ladybugs, sharks, loneliness, a global shortage of cheese (that fear is current), or that my faggotry would be discovered. It was a simple fear. I feared that someone, probably a boy, would wake up. They would open their eyes, yawn, stretch their arms over their head, arch their back, and hop out of bed, fully awake. I would no longer exist.
I don’t know where this fear came from, maybe from some TV show or childhood story. Maybe it came from the same place as the ladybugs and farm animals. Maybe it came from my tendency to over-think and analyze. Maybe it was just a foreshadow of things yet to transpire.
What if I was only someone’s dream? What if my parents, house, pets, friends, experiences were all part of an elaborate dream playing out in someone’s mind? What if every feeling I had was actually based on someone else’s subconscious? What if, when I dreamed, it was really the other person dreaming about me dreaming? What if my dreams have dreams? When I wake up, am I killing these people in my mind who were greatly enjoying their lives until my mom woke me up for school?
Everything I have worked for would mean nothing. Everyone I loved was not real. I would never go to Heaven, I wasn’t real. I would never grow up, I wasn’t real. I would never find love and get married, I wasn’t real.
My only hope was that they would sleep long enough that the dream would play out in its entirety and I would live out my full life in dream land. When I was old and on my death bed, my last breath would happen as the dreamer awoke.
I was afraid to go to sleep. It made sense that this would be the most logical place for the dreamer wake up, unless, of course, something startled him awake in the middle of a live-action sequence.
I do not dwell on that fear any longer. If someone was dreaming, surely I would be more exciting. I would be someone famous, or hunt monsters, and not have watched every episode of Friends countless times. Now that I think of it, this complacency would be the perfect time for the dreamer to wake. Strike when least expected. I should probably go to the bathroom, just in case the dreamer wakes. Who knows how long before I am dreamed into existence again. The wait will seem longer with a full bladder.