I had a dream this morning that I had died. I had gone to a place not unlike the real world, but everyone was a slave, but there was also nothing that needed to be done. There were no chains, just indentured servitude. The masters could control where people went, what they saw, what they were exposed to, and what they did, but only indirectly. I remember feeling an overwhelming feeling of peace flowing through me.

There were lots of things I didn't agree with going on in the dream. People occasionally forced to do the most menial things, often for the entertainment of their masters, and not for any real benefit. Whilst people like me had the will to refuse or fight back, we found ourselves wanting to commit, even if we resented the activity.  After all, there was little else to do.

I remember losing awareness of my body. The dull aches fading into nothing, the tinnitus fading, the tightness in my chest releasing. My legs no longer clicked when I walked, and my stomach no longer ached after I'd eaten anything. I became convinced the people around me, including my masters cared  about us, in a weird sort of way. They showed us attention when their other sources of entertainment failed them. They wanted us in a way.

When I woke I immediately wanted to go back there, and because I find it so hard to wake these days I did find myself drifting back into the dream. The scene changed from familiar to more abstracted, visiting an old western saloon, or a waterfall deep in the jungle, but that lingering element of being watched and commanded remained. Always something easy to obey. Never something that made our lives more difficult, and never were we alone.

I realised I didn't care about the how or the why so I stopped focusing, stopped trying to fight and just relaxed into the peace. I didn't need to decode everyone's motivations around me like it was a grand puppet show. I didn't need to be analytical and responsible anymore. I just needed to be, in those moments.

Then I had a dream of my ex-boyfriend. It's been almost 10 years since I last saw him. We were in an unfamiliar house together, and we were just chilling. He would make a sarcastic joke and I would laugh. I'd comment how I'd almost forgotten his voice. He'd just smile, as if he knew I hadn't. I wanted to ask him why he didn't talk to me anymore. Was it too painful? Was it just that love wasn't important to him? Had he found someone else at last? Was he even still alive? He was just as I'd remembered him. The dream turned flirty, and I laughed at the idea, having had no impetus for sex since the doctors had ordered me to double my Anti-Depressants. But I could use my body to make him happy, and that was enough for me.

I spent twenty minutes this morning staring at my ceiling, and now it feels like the waking world is a horrible place. The dream lingers in the edges of my mind, and I realise I have no one to tell. I have feelings I can't express, and let's be honest - no one likes to read about dreams. So, I think to myself, I'll write my dreams up into a little story. Embellish it a little. Turn things around a little too - maybe change the order slightly. I'll post it somewhere on the internet.

There to be ignored, like a whisper in a cacophony of sound. Another lost voice. In it all I realise the worst dreams are the ones you never want to wake up from. This is not a happy story. This is someone dying.