I notice it when the teacup hovers a centimeter above my aunt's saucer. I'm dreaming.202Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQxd9mXOROW
The realization ripples through me like electricity. Suddenly, I'm hyper-aware of everything: the impossibly perfect sunlight streaming through lace curtains, the distant piano music that has no source, the way my aunt's face sometimes shifts when I'm not directly looking at her.
"You always were a clever one, Emma," Aunt Mae says, though I hadn't spoken my realization aloud. Her smile is gentle, knowing.
"You're not really her," I say, testing the boundaries. "You're a construct of my mind."
"Does that make our conversation any less meaningful?" Not-Aunt-Mae asks, lifting the floating teacup. The tea inside doesn't spill, despite defying gravity.
I consider this as I look beyond her garden. Where there should be a neighborhood stretches an impossible landscape—mountains that curl like waves, forests growing sideways along cliffs, cities built from light rather than matter.
"I could go anywhere," I whisper, feeling the dream's fabric yield to my conscious will. "Do anything."
"Most dreamers would fly," Not-Aunt-Mae suggests. "Or conjure fantasies."
Instead, I close my eyes and concentrate. When I open them, the garden has transformed. The flowers now grow in perfect mathematical sequences, their petals following the golden ratio. The pathways curve in precise logarithmic spirals. A reflecting pool mirrors not the sky above but a different dimension altogether.
Not-Aunt-Mae laughs delightedly. "You're not escaping reality—you're redesigning it."
"I'm an architect even in my dreams," I admit, watching as impossible structures begin to rise around us, buildings that could never stand in the waking world yet here express perfect structural harmony.
I extend my hand, and a glowing blueprint materializes. "I've been stuck on this project for weeks."
"Because you've been working within unnecessary constraints."
As we walk through my evolving dreamscape, each step bringing new inspirations into existence, I understand why lucidity matters. It's not about control—it's about recognition. Recognizing that even in unconsciousness, I remain myself.
When I feel the familiar tug of waking, Not-Aunt-Mae takes my hand. "Remember this feeling."
I wake with tears in my eyes, reach immediately for my sketchbook, and begin to draw what I've learned: that limitations exist primarily in our perception, not in reality itself.
The solution had been waiting for me all along, in the architecture of my dreams.202Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsYw9M91tEG
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