When is a dream only a dream? 3/19/13

 Deep in the darkness of an evergreen wood I run down a dirt path.  Running?  Running towards what? Or worse from what?  I breathe heavily as my tired legs keep me moving somehow, it must be the pure numbness of my legs that allows me to keep running.  Some reason I have this unexplainable urgency to keep moving.  I look down at my finger and see a tiny hole in it that starts to expand larger and larger, but no blood seeps from it and I can feel no pain.  All I see is a growing void.  This must be a dream for there is no blood, but how could this be so real?  I keep running, moving forward never looking back.  In the distance, I hear screams for help and the howling of a wolf pack going in for the kill.  Am I supposed to save them?  Is that why I am running? There is a clearing ahead and a small village within. As I run into the village, breathing heavily, I hear screaming nearby.  I look and yet I can see no one.  I search frantically but I cannot find anyone, just hear their screams.  Gripped by fear I run into the nearest aluminum sided building looking for someone… anyone.  Silence, their screams become but a faint recollection of cries in some distant dream.  Inside I see nothing but a beat down bar with cobwebs everywhere.  Tables flipped on their side, empty bottle littering the floor, and a TV in the corner lit up and playing.  As I stare at the TV and watch what is playing I see a pack of wolves surrounding a group of people yelling for help, when one cries out "Matthew Ford come save us!!!" Me?  It couldn't possibly be me, I don’t even know where they are at.  I am so confused, how can I help them when I don’t know where they are at? How do they know my name? How can I save them single-handedly from a whole pack of wolves?  All I can do is stand there in shock as the people are devoured one by one until all are dead save one person whom screams out my name as they too are being devoured.  I look away disgusted...  Another scream! But was that the TV I heard or was that real life?  Suddenly the TV turns off and I hear someone scream, "Matthew Ford come save us!!!"  I run outside to see a group of people huddled together surrounded by a pack of wolves.  I see the people just as I had seen them on that TV screen… How is this even possible?  On instinct I grab a rake and run at the wolves yelling and screaming not knowing any other effective way in order to help these people.  The wolves take a step back more in shock than fear.  I take that short window of advantage to get the people to safety within a building.  Little did I know that the building I led them to had no floor, and one by one they mindlessly fell into a furnace, a torrid fire...  They trusted in me and thought that they were safe, yet they were unknowingly misled by me.  Helplessly I began to turn from the door when in the corner of my eye I saw the pack of wolves falling upon me... when suddenly I sat up in bed,  but this is not my bed, warm and comfy.  This bed is hard and cold.  My feet are touching the wall and my arms are against the sides of the room and I realize in the darkness that I am in a very small room on a rock hard slab.  I see light seeping through a vent in the wall right by the ceiling… I stand on the bed and look through the vent into a room with a robotic man working on a computer.  I peer through the vent wondering what he is doing.  He turns and looks me directly in the eye and says, "I am reprogramming you" astonished I reply, "what do you mean reprogramming?  I am no robot, how can one reprogram a human?"  He just looked at me with a cold look of disbelief, how could I be this naive.  "There is more to this world than what you can see, every experience you have is programmed to change you" he said.  I wondered what he meant by this, and out of curiosity I asked, "don’t I as a human have free will?"  It looked as if his robotic mouth almost formed a smile as he said, "You can choose, sure… but I know what you are going to choose already.  You think you can have lots of chosen experiences in life, but I already know what you will think and where you will go and what you will do.  I designed you and I programmed you… so yes you do have a choice, but I know what you will choose"  Troubled I stood there looking through the vent thinking what is the purpose of life if I am programmed to do a designated task and no matter the illusion of free will I think I might have, I ultimately will do what the programmer has programmed me to do.  "Ahh good question" he says "what is the purpose of life?"  He paused only for a second and says "do what you are programmed to do, and give credit where credit is due..."   "Matt!!!!!!!!  Matt what are you doing in my bed!!"  why is someone shaking me?  This is my warm bed not yours.  I opened my eyes to see one of my best friends shaking me, telling me that I was not supposed to be in his bed.  I sat up confused, wondering how I had got here in his bed when I realized that all my friends I've ever had were sitting in the room pointing and laughing at me.  They ridiculed me and said that I never belonged in this intimate place with my best friend.  I was never his friend, I was never any of their friends for none of them would want me in their bedrooms either.  That was too intimate, no friend that I looked at wanted me that close.  They told me that our friendships were a prank, an illusion, and that I should leave them alone.  I walked to the door as my "friends", filled with hate, ridiculed me, mocked me, and shared with each other any secret I had ever told them.  As I opened the door they shoved me out and I fell… Daylight! I sat up abruptly in a warm bed realizing that this was all just a very vivid dream.  What a very vivid dream… or was this just a dream?

This is a dream I had in March while at school, weird right?  So I pose the question again, When is a dream only a dream?