He woke up screaming. It was a dream… It was only a dream, he thought hesitatingly. He ran to switch on the lights; it took him a few minutes to believe that it was just a dream. He could still feel himself shivering and his head was pounding furiously. He looked at his watch; it was no more than half past two. He had to get back to sleep. He switched off the light and went back to bed.

Although he tried hard, he could not get the dream out of his head. All the scenes kept on playing sequentially in his mind. I don’t believe a nightmare woke me up, Ishaan thought. Ishaan was a heavy sleeper—he wouldn’t wake up, even if someone slapped him while sleeping. He hardly remembered any of his dreams and he had never had a nightmare in his life. This one however, made a great exception.

Two hours had passed, and Ishaan was not even close to sleeping. His eyes were burning, and his body was tired of laying uselessly. He decided to get out of bed. He went to the corridor and started roaming from one end to other. Each second that passed felt like an eternity. After a lot of struggle a few hours had elapsed and it was time for him to leave for the office.

It was a normal day at the office; Ishaan managed not to think of the dream again. He didn’t want his nightmare to haunt him forever. He tried concentrating on his work more. He finished his work and returned home early. When he entered his bedroom, he thought, it’s the same room, and it’s the same memories, but love is no longer the same. Funny things—great people have said about love and died—no such things exist. Or maybe, we human beings are not true enough anymore to carry on the legacy. He was too tired to do anything; he directly went to his bed.

A few hours later, he could feel severe rumblings in his empty stomach. He was damn hungry; he wanted to have some good food. He got dressed and went to a restaurant in another lane. He ordered his favorite Hyderabadi Biryani, vegetable curry and nans. He ate all of them like a pig. Half of the people of this world must be doing  the same job to fill their evil stomachs, he mused while leaving the restaurant.

It was raining outside; the roads were glistening in the light cast from the street lamps. Ishaan thought the fresh raindrops might revive his energy, so he started walking down the road in the rain. He reached the intersection in just a few minutes. He was waiting for the signal to turn red so that he could cross the road. As he stood there, he saw someone at the bus top on the road going east. In a heartbeat, he knew it was Megha.

I might be able to see her one more time. I might be able ask her how she is! He hurried to reach the right most lane of the road. He was about to cross the junction, but the signal turned green for the vehicles going east. With great difficulty, he managed to cross the road and reach the bus stop. 

Unfortunately, Megha had got into a bus which was just about to leave. He couldn’t let it leave; it was his last chance to see her once more. He started running to catch the bus. I wish I had practiced running in my school days, he thought while running and increased his speed. But the bus had already left and in spite of running at his full speed, he was no match for the speed of the bus. He saw her vanishing in front of his own eyes. He gave up and stopped when the bus was totally gone.

Ishaan was totally drenched in rain water and he could feel his heart pounding loudly. He knelt down for a while to regain his breath. After sometime—when he got up to cross the road—there was a huge truck, at a distance of no more than an arm’s length, coming towards him. Before he could think of anything, he was dead.

He was screaming again in his bed. God! This can’t be happening again. Ishaan woke up confounded. He was feeling feverish. He just wanted to ignore the dream and go back to sleep again. I don’t want to spend another night in frustration, he thought and forcibly closed his eyes. He kept his eyes closed for a few more hours trying not to think about his aimless life, but sleep was still beyond his reach. He kept on struggling till the next morning.913Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxprY5nCUTi

Slowly but surely, one month had passed. He was still not able to get rid of the nightmares. Days continued to pass normally, but nights were getting scarier. Every night in his dream, he would feel his true love coming to an end and then he would see himself dying. He tried all the methods he could think of to stop those nightmares, but he wasn’t successful.

He tried going to sleep early; he tried sleeping late; he tried rearranging the room; he tried reading a book until he fell asleep. None of those methods worked. He thought all of those dreams were part of his subconscious mind; so he stopped thinking about his past life and focused more on the present. He met new people and started spending time with them. He felt the ring, which was even now still on his finger, maybe it is one of the causes of the nightmares (He believed Megha was somehow, still attached to him through that ring). He removed it and kept it in the back of his drawer. He turned to happy music, and watched only comedy movies. 

No matter how hard he tried, those nightmares were still haunting him. He was tired of dying every day; he was tired of living a dreadful life. He was starting to become confused between what were dreams and what was reality. He wasn’t sure whether he was dead or alive. He decided that he needed a psychiatrist before he became totally mental. He searched on the internet for psychiatrists and was able to find a website for one: Happy2Help. The website was user friendly and quite easy to navigate. There were four methods through which one could discuss their condition with an expert: Face to face Counselling, Telephonic Counselling, eCounselling, and Emergency Telephone Sessions. People mostly discussed their personal lives, work, relationship and parenting issues.

I won’t be able to express everything face to face and eCounselling won’t solve my problems. I would be better to opt for the Telephonic one, Ishaan thought. But what if my problems are not solved even over the telephone, then I might need to go for the Face to Face. Will I be allowed to switch the counselling mode? I had better ask all my queries through email first, he decided.

Reply came back within a few hours.

Ishaan picked up his cellphone and started dialing the number he had received in the email: 0-9-0-7-2-0-0-0-2-1-2. He was just about to place the call when a sudden impulse passed through him, causing him to lose his nerve. He cast his phone aside and said to himself, what are you trying to do, Ishaan? You are expecting a total stranger to solve your life’s problems. A psychiatrist may try to understand your feelings, but they will never feel through your heart. It’s your life and only you have to deal with it. So stand up like a man, face your nightmares and beat them with courage. Victory will surely be yours.

Ishaan logged on to his laptop and opened the browser. At first, he needed to know the meaning of all of these dreams. He searched on various dream interpretation forums; each one of them tried to give their own thesis. They were just trying to sell something on the internet by drawing viewers’ attention. Some attracted users by calling themselves a resort of dreams, some prided in calling themselves a dream’s dictionary and some of them had the tagline as, ‘How dreams actually work?’ There were many varieties in which they gave different meanings to the same dream.

Internet is getting messier day by day, Ishaan thought. While he was still surfing hopelessly for the analysis of his dream, he came across an article of a realist. It grabbed his attention instantly.

“Life is infinitely simple until people start making it complicated. I don’t understand what the big fuss about dreams is? It is the natural tendency of us humans to dream. There are no good and bad dreams; there are just happy and unhappy minds. Make yourself happy and your dreams will eventually be good. To be happy, you always need to follow your heart. Never indulge your brain in your decisions—it may try to fool you with its unnecessary logic. Follow the logic and you will always regret it later. It’s the heart which gives us true happiness. I agree however, that it is not always in our control as people to be happy. This happens when the heart itself gets lost. People start having nightmares and it becomes quite difficult to cope with life. The only solution is, you bring your heart back into its right track. For this, I am introducing you to the concept of lucid dreaming…”

Ishaan studied the complete article attentively. It took him one complete week before he achieved his first lucid dream. Every day before going to sleep, Ishaan would say to himself, I will remember my dream as soon as I wake up. He maintained a dream journal in which he wrote every detail of his dreams for analysis. He picked up every sign from his dreams that linked them to reality. He focused more on his real life and tried to implement the same in his dreams, only after manipulating it. He wanted Megha to be there, happy and in his arms. He wanted to express his love for her and the only way to do it was in his dreams. He kept on experimenting more in his methods; he knew one day he would be successful.

Ishaan was dressed like a gladiator standing at the center of a Roman arena, surrounded by enemies. Each one of them ready to kill him in single blow, but his eyes were fixed on ultimate victory—who was waiting for him eagerly—pining to feel his love. He moved towards the exit, slaughtering every enemy with his sword that stood in his way. He had killed all of them and as he came out victorious, he sensed a freedom he had never felt before. It was the freedom for his love. She was standing right behind a magnificent pine tree in the distance. He ran up to her quickly and when she turned around, he was lost in her flawless beauty. She hugged him promptly and he kept his arms around her, feeling blissful for his true eternal love…