Last night I dreamt I went to Manderlay again.

I think of this line every time I dream about him. Then I think of all my other dreams about him; all those I remember and all those that are lost to me forever. Memory is a tricky thing, it assures you that you would never forget the important details, yet you do.

I sit here wondering how to make this sound non-cliche, how to make dreams, a subject so thoroughly explored and exploited by authors, artists, musicians, sound new. And I conclude that I can’t. I can’t escape the cliche in what I feel, the cliche of a feeling so universal, so widely felt and understood, yet so sparingly reciprocated.

There are times when I realize, during the dream, that this is not real. But sometimes I forget. I forget that I’ve stepped out of reality into a little world of my own. I happily forget that I will have to go back. I don’t know which one is worse; knowing that this can never come true, or enjoying a few moments of happiness before being shocked back into reality. I used to think it was funnily exaggerated, the way our teacher told us Keats felt when he would finish a poem, come back out of his world of imagination, and face utter disappointment in the real one. Now I think his poems were little dream episodes for him, and after that world, the real one became distasteful.

After a dream like this, I often wonder why God created dreams in the first place. Is it a breather, a little space out of reality granted to us to keep going on? Like a little vacation we sometimes take? Or is it a glimpse of an alternate reality that could’ve been the reality, had things gone the way we wanted them to. I choose not to believe in the second one. It sounds too cruel, too testing on man’s faith. I do not think of God as someone who would derive pleasure out of our misery, who would assert His power by making us feel frustrated at our own lack of control. I believe dreams keep us going, little vacations that energize us to pursue an ultimate goal. God shows us little glimpses to make us strive for Heaven where all unfulfilled dreams would come true.

If I go to Heaven, I will ask God to make me live those dreams, make them the reality.
Yet, when I lie down to sleep at night, I say a little prayer. I can’t wait forever for those dreams to come true. I want to go to Manderlay every night.