A dream | Loneliness

Last night, after days of cheering up and starting to do better, I had a dream that branched out in several dark directions.

I've had dreams before, in similar places, where it's night and I'm at school. I'm older, I think, and I'm trying to make it to the bus. I end up forgetting something or getting lost in the crowd. Sometimes I make it onto the bus to go back to my teenage home. A place that was hell.

This time, when I came back outside after retrieving what was forgotten, I ran up to my bus as the doors were closing. They paused, and I asked if I could get on. The driver said all the seats were full.

As the busses drove away, I collapsed onto the floor in tears. I couldn't get home like I'd walked to so many times in other dreams. My home was farther away than it had ever been. I was also more chronically ill than I'd ever been.

I began to walk, and a strange man appeared. He resembled something hellish, a bit like a chubby ringmaster with a top hat lowered to greet me, a friendly face of course, as I'm a left-hand path Pagan.

He offered some magic of some sort to get me home. I think I accepted, but ultimately continued to wander the grounds.

I ended up in an outdoor structure with a roof. It had steps and was made of wood. A body toppled down to my level with a small sofa. He laid there, unmoving, eyes open. He looked alive but was dead. He'd lost his footing while moving the mini sofa.

The same hellish man appeared, and eventually, whether it was my wish or the body's, after some laughter from the man at the accident (it wasn't malicious, more of a reaction to a silly accident), the body came alive again. I recognized the person; my friend Sean from elementary school, all grown up. As kind as he always was.

He offered me a ride home.

The dream shifted, and I was at a store at night. It was rainy. I was messing around with a computer only to accidentally reinstall a browser I'd once deleted. Annoyed, I redid the deletion process. I ended up on a page showing clips from Edward Scissorhands, and I stopped to watch. I thought of the film, and I wanted to go home immediately and watch it.

I thought, 'I know what it feels like to feel that lonely.' I grew emotional as visions of the movie passed by. I went home, thinking my brother might want to watch the film with me, even though we've never had much of a relationship.

As I started to come out of the dream, I carried it into waking. I felt how depressed and sad I was in the dream, and I thought more of the film. I used to love it as a child, but now as an adult, I understand its darkness, its loneliness, Edward's desire to love and be loved but too afraid of it. His fear of hurting the ones he loves most, and his initial fear of people, and his preference for isolation and his art.

I'm not sure why I went from a period of happiness to plummeting. It's as if happiness is some sort of warning, something to avoid because every time I've let my guard down, something terrible happens. Happiness is not to be trusted, almost as if it isn't real.

©2025 Shane Blackheart