I've had this dream before and I'll probably have it again.

I'm just floating down in like, black water. Everything is fine, nothing really happening.

Then something coils around my throat. Not choking, just holding me tightly. It's just keeping me trapped there.

Not necessarily a bad dream. Just weird.

Last night I dreamt of doors once again. Finding myself in a stranger's home I panicked at every footfall that did not belong to me. There had to be a door to the outside somewhere in this house.

Frustrated after trying the first three doors, which all looked promising before I opened them and found they just led me to more rooms. The windows lied to me. They were not to be trusted. There was no sunshine and garden out there. It was a trick.

All the outside doors were locked to me. Others were going in and out with ease. I did not have the right key. Every door to the outside world was closed to me. I was suffocating. There was not enough air in this home. The muddy air was sucking me into it and my footsteps to escape were sluggish and draining as I crawled from the house to the shop, without ever breathing outside air.

Asking the shopkeeper if they had any doors to the outside that worked she told me the doors only worked when I was awake. She was sorry but I would have to return in the daytime when the doors would be unlocked. I pleaded with her to just open one for me or I'd die. She smiled sadly and pocketed the silver key before she vanished.

There was a city within those walls but I could never leave. Not while I was asleep. I could buy anything I wanted, dine in the finest restaurants and even light a candle in the church. As long as I was asleep there would never be a sweet escape to see the mountains and the river I could see from behind the foggy windows.

Every night. Every night. Doors and more doors kept me trapped. I even tried being awake while I slept to see if the doors would let me go. They were not fooled. The shopkeeper had warned them in the dusky change from day to night. "Don't let that one get away." Here I will stay, inside the secret place filled with locked doors until I figure out the riddle of dreaming wakefulness.

Ringing woke me from my beauty sleep. As my eyes peered open, I grabbed my phone off my nightstand. Placing my phone against my ear, I sit up at wails from the other side.

"Mia?" I asked.

"Anna," my longtime friend cried. "Andrew is in the hospital,"

"What?" My heart stopped. The room I slept in distorted. There I stood in a hospital hallway. My stomach sank as I stare into one of the many rooms along the hall. Mia sat at Andrew's bedside on the floor. Arms splayed on the man lying on the bed. Face hiding within the blankets, refusing the truth. Her muffled cries drowned out my thoughts.

Before I knew it, I crawled toward her laying my hand on her shoulder. "It was alcoholic poisoning," she whimpered. My eyes squinted shut, and my nose scrunched. I should have known better.

They widen at her shrieks. Startled, I stumble backwards. Maya ran out the room. I was left alone with a motionless Andrew and the beeping sound of his life support.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Where is Mia? Why did she leave? Beep. Beep. Beep. My eyes searched the room and scoured the walls for answers. Beep. Beep. Beep. I counted the seconds.

Then silence. Water began streaming from my eyes, as my face contorted. Screams echoing.

I'm not a lucid dreamer. In fact, many times I wake up and have to remind myself of what's real, and what's fake. My eyes have to adjust to see light purple and dark purple, instead of grey and red. My ears have to determine which voices are in my head an which voices arenot my own, are speaking to me.

I dreamt I had a child once. I lost the child, forgot the child. He wandered suburban backroads with our dog- no one could see him, no one could remember him.

His name was Truth.

I dreamt I had a brother. I still dream about him. He grows with me. We first started dreaming about each other when I was really little. We were wild children, dirty faces and bare feet. Our grandfather raised us in his little treehouse laboratory. I forgot about them for awhile, but I went back to that little treehouse in a later dream, when I was a bit older. My brother was there when I began to remember. My brother was there when I jumped with joy, excited about everything I'd forgotten. My brother was there when I realized who was missing.

"Where's Grandpa?" I asked.

"Please don't forget," He whispered sadly.

My brother met me later, in many other dreams and adventures. He laughed at me when I had a hard time running up a hill. He found me in a stall when I was scared of the other teens at a skating rink. He protected me when I had a nightmare, when I was trapped in a translucent jail, a jail made of glass, a jail on an island, a jail where babies and the elderly and men and women all sat and waited and went insane, no one remembering why they were there or when they would leave.

"Please don't forget."

I've never had a brother.

I hope that this one is real, that I'll meet him someday. When I hear a voice and have to decide if it's an echo or if it's real I always think of him- maybe he's calling out to me. Maybe we can go on these adventures for real.

But maybe he's not real.

The words you wake up speaking don't have any definition, not in any language at least.

Your son, the boy named Truth, he's not really your son, and he's not really lost.

"Please don't forget."

Please don't forget, please don't forget.

Sometimes I'd rather be there. I'd rather be dreaming, in the worlds I know so well, with people that I love, on adventures where nobody judges me. where "life" problems don't matter.

Stop, oh. A rational thought. she's telling me that I'm growing to attached. Real life matters, Real life is actually happening, forget them and have your adventures with Real people out here. Never wonder which voices are which, which colors are which, which words are real or made-up. Come back to reality, keep your feet on the ground. Science can define what happens out here.

"please don't forget" But Charlie, I made a promise.

a promise to a dream.

I dreamt I made a promise. A promise I can't keep.

But I might see my brother every time I fall asleep.

last night I dreamt

that I was

Walter White

in a field

of grain

pointing

a gun

in someone's

face

when the gun

fired

a shot

I turned around

Walter White

on the ground

I was the one

who shot him

in cold blood

I was

the person

I don't want to become

Last week; I was in the imagined interior of some East Village bar -- a small brick building with a pride flag hanging cheerfully on the front. I've never been there. My ex slid off her barstool to meet me halfway. I don't remember what we said, but she cried, her red hair falling around her pale cheeks with a certain quiet desperation. I woke up with a wet face.