I could not sleep last night. The voices of hooded monks liturgically chanting echoed in my ears. As their voices grew louder an old thought violently resurfaced within my mind. I am and am not as wonderful as I think. Who was it who told me that? I pretend not to know and ask that for my own sake, but none of this would be written if that was true. Earlier I thought of a story and in the story I thought of another story in which I told a story that was a lie. I sat and dreamt three stories in one, and for a brief moment I believed them to be true. Perhaps they did happen somewhere else, long ago, in a place unrecognizable to those in this world. Whatever realities exist within my dreams, both awake and asleep, they are not for me to be allowed to stay within. There is too much rope, too much rigging, to navigate and control for my soul to stay present in them. It puppeteers what it can like a poltergeist acting out because it wants to feel alive again. Now I wonder, what of the souls of those inside my dreams though? Do they persist? Born of dream or nightmare, are they not allowed their own chance to make a life for themselves? It is saddening to think that they are lost the moment I wake up.