Layered Dream

Okay, this was a dream that occurred a couple of weeks, but I forgot to write about this because my head caved in from the stress of exam results. A lot rode on my performance on the paper… and it led me to alternate between fear and relief. Fear of failing. Relief at being done with another semester.

I dreamt that the three of us were in a room, attending either a lecture or a tutorial. There were no specific indicators on the location. The person who spoke wore glasses… and resembled a lecturer. My sister and I were seated together in the middle row. As he rambled on the weekly course contents and nature of the topics with the speed of a bullet train, I struggled to transcribe each word that was thrown at us. My heart froze when I spied the caricature of someone familiar behind us.

It wasn’t until the break time that I gained the courage to turn my back and sustained a loss of speech. It was him. The person I never expected to meet again. Even my sister repeated that it was impossible. He leaned against the swivel chair and adopted a relaxed aura as his focus was on something else. He looked exceptionally carefree. This revelation made me uneasy as I didn’t want to be in such close proximity as him. Whatever crap I did on the screen, he’d be able to notice.

In the next scene, I loitered in a shaded area as other people minded their business with grocery shopping. A wave of awkwardness washed over me when my phone pierced the simultaneous conversations with its cries. I had left it with the cashier to borrow her phone charger while I killed time. I muttered my excuse and apologies for the interruption. My eyes furrowed when it was a notification, informing me that a friend shared ‘something from the past’. What past, I didn't know. I didn’t have the privacy or time to take a peek at it.

Although the person’s identity was revealed in the dream, I’ll not name him on the public sphere to accord some protection to him. As I later found out, it was indeed a premonition of what was to come. The stranger is in the same stream of core course as me and we’re bound to cross paths again. I had my suspicions late last year… but I guess it is what it is now. Plus, he’ll only know about it on the day itself.

For the second scene, I’d like to think that it's a case of randomness. Knowing how notifications work, you’re only informed if you’ve been tagged or if it concerns you. ‘Something from the past’ could be anything from the sun to the moon… unless it’s years in the future when we’re reflecting on our past and friendship. If that’s the case, then maybe it’s the group hangouts that he might be missing. Again, it’s vaguer than a tinted window for me to interpret.