Last night I had a dream
It lingers in my mind in its intangible state – its existence alludes me
It could’ve been anything – from the sensation of falling to a fleeting moment of the past
For a brief instance I spawned a new life
A new universe
But every morning I wake up with a new realization
Reminding myself with the checklist of my identity
A perpetual process of hallucination and then self-discovery
Funny enough, I found the truth in what escapes me
How vulnerable are we?
How gullible are we?
To abandon our consciousness, our memories, our own identity for the sake of a dream
Our dreams setting a reality upon us - a situation - and is then manifested into an experience
Sleep has become a subscription to let the mind fall under illusion
But this illusion is but an altered copy of the actuality
Yet rarely we question it
Never refusing to believe this false state of existence, quickly accepting a truth decided for us
As if it was never up to us
So I ask you, dream with me
Our mind has no bound, as do our reality
Thank you for sharing this poem with us!
It was lovely. I feel like this poem just questions everything. It questions who we are, what we believe, and what we how view things. It is almost unsettling because we never get a clear answer but we just continue. I enjoy the use of these different words. The way you read the poem was powerful. So in a way, I find that the voice in this poem is not only geared toward the reader but also a reflection of self. Lovely !
christian, i really enjoyed this poem and the idea of questioning your own idea or reality after experiencing a dream. in terms of feedback, i do agree that although your second stanza has a lot of points and images that work within itself, i feel like you could definitely build upon these ideas. maybe you could even try incorporating the dream that has you questioning existence within the poem, just an idea!
Hi Christian!
I'm drawn in a lot in the narrative of the opening stanza. There's kind an unknown joy mixed with ennui. The second stanza gets pretty didactic for me. I feel a bit like I'm being preached at. The one moment that takes me back into the poem in the second stanza is "Sleep has become a subscription to let the mind fall under illusion." I think sleep as a subscription is a really interesting idea--like a Netflix subscription? Do people binge-dream? I think a lot of your questions and big ideas can be played out with images and narratives instead of just laid bare. The subscription idea might help you do that. With the line breaks and capitalization as it is, I think your poem could use some punctuation. Or you could rework the line breaks so it is more clear where one sentence ends and the next begins.
Nice work!
Hi Christian,
The rhetoric of the poet is seen when he is addressing the reader by asking them to join him in dreaming. The audience is being told about dreams, every morning there is a “new realization” and “self-discovery” made from them. There are a lot of intangible ideas that are being brought up by the poet, but he doesn’t deeply address the physical world in the poem. He instead uses “reality” as a comparison.
Hey Christian! Sorry about the late response. I really love your poem. For me, it perfectly captures the feeling you have in the moment right after you wake up from a dream. Dreaming is something humans have struggled to understand since the beginning of time, and I love the way you explored it. Your use of language and tone makes it feel as if the reader themselves are moving through a dream with you. Great job!
Christian,
I've said it before but I can't get over how original and unique your voice is! Every poem stands out so much as so authentic to you. Joao explained it perfectly, I picture the speaker sleeping in space surrounded by star/galaxy stuff, which I remember feeling while reading many of your poems. So cool. To me, the ending felt a little contradictory because I thought that the speaker felt negatively about dreaming and abandoning consciousness/illusion. Or maybe the speaker changed their mind? Or they're embracing this mindset with a loved one in a sort of toxic relationship? I'm not sure but I would love to read more about the ending!
As a proponent of the simulation theory of the universe, this got me pretty good! I am also a fan of this weird, magical realist / surrealist tone, I think it really works for the poem. It's almost as if the poem itself is shifting in and out of focus (not in a bad way) flowing in and out of the ether. I pictured the speaker sleeping in space, surrounded by the stars and galaxies and stuff, so if that's what you were going for, you succeeded!
I really enjoyed the ethereal tone of this poem. It's otherworldliness is clear and it effectively mellowed me out and made me think about the nature of dreams and reality. The subtlety of the music was especially effective in making this cosmic moment almost trance inducing. It feels like a dream for these reasons. I think the ending was interesting but I could've used a little more build up to the 'dream with me', or none at all, as if you're waking up from a dream. Otherwise, I really enjoyed the intangible moment being enacted and this poem as a whole.