You know that old song lyric “the dreams in which I’m dying, are the best I’ve ever had”? It’s kinda like that, except I’m dead here and those dreams where it all worked out and I get to live, yeah, those are the good ones.
It’s easier being dead than you’d think. As long as the other versions of you exist, you don’t actually stop existing if you die, you just fade away enough that you no longer impact or affect the reality you’re in. It’s kinda liminal space, your existemce drops into the back rooms od your world and you can’t really leave.
Tbh it’s not so bad when you know there are others of you who made it. And those dreams where for a moment I get to feel safe and loved and alive, those are precious. The sense memory of laughter and strong, gentle arms around me that is so powerful it gets transported over a thousand collapsing wave forms of consciousness as the various me who made it or did not receive and react and pass on the signal.

Plenty of us didn’t make it, but that was always going to happen (and happens to all many-of-one, which I assume is all beings,  as it’s really weird for there to just be a few of us), and those of me that did we will never interact with further, beyond these little glimpses. Those little late night psychic text messages, checking into the mass consciousness of us with updates. Well, that’s how it’s supposed to be anyway.

*

We’re at the water park beach! It’s beautiful here, clean blue water and soft white sand. Everything is clean and everyone I can see looks healthy and happy, splashing about in the water, socialising and climbing the activity walls. The giant white marble war monuments overshadow the light hearted tone of the park a bit though but they literally built the park around the monuments to remind us what the war was for. I think.

I keep catching smooth, clear skinned limbs in my perifere, its so strange knowing they are my limbs too, when mine mine never got shown like that and never had the chance to look like that. I’m at an outdoor movie screening now, people are all still all in our bathing suits so I think we’re still at the water park, we have some blankers and towels to be cosy and I’m sitting against a large, warm, (safe), body and there is a mans arm over my shoulders holding my body that I’ve lovingly nestled against them and I’m holding onto his arm with both my hands, and I can sense they love me and I love them and it is safe. We catch each others glee at points in the movie, which for some reason involves The Monarch and 21. Me and the big safe body and their big safe arm around me, share a squoze of recognition when our favourite characters appear on screen, and we both ecxitedly do the Monarch voice for the line, and laugh..

*
The feeling of loved and the glimpse at a real alive life so unlike mine, is wonderful- but my singular consciousness shakes me away from the update. There are too many inconsistencies and we fear this isn’t real. The fear of the big arm and the faceless body it’s attached to grows too strong. Too much of my personal lived experiences are sounding all my alarms to get away, get inside, cover my mottled limbs and get away from the man because it isn’t safe.

.

I was 18 when the dreams first started, well, that was when I noticed them first. Every night for months I was plagued by dreams I was learning to drive. Me me tried driving lessons briefly but did not like it and found it creepy and overwhelming being trapped in a small car with a strange man. I stopped after like 3 lessons. The other me’s had a much better support system in place clearly, as every night for months, we were getting into the vehicle (usually it was an old city car, but we had a couple of pick up trucks and a minivan going to. There were more of us back then.), rolling a cigarette and buckling in. Starting the engine, checking the mirrors, shifting into gear and pulling out into slow loops of the industrial estate/tesco car park/ the fenced off hardtop lot behind a neighbor’s farm.

Usually at first Charly was with me in these dreams, I think most of us had a version of her, her fun, big sisterly energy and practical knowledge were very reassuring, and she let me smoke in her car too, which really helped. When I finally met her in my waking life a year or so later, it was a strange experience, haha. Otherwise it was one of my parents, behaving very uncharacteristically benevolently towards me, those were particularly weird..

Any way, the concentration in those first few months was intense. I’d be waking up exhausted and full of sense memories tingling in my hands and feet, and newly formed mental maps of gear placement and pedal pushing routines were encroaching on me me’s late-teenage burnout, I’d be sitting on my sofa watching dvds, and tapping out the clutch and accelerator beats with my toes while my right hand moved up and down through the gear shapes. Car engine noises had more meaning as I started being able to recognise the rev patterns and correlate them. I started eyeing up beaded seat covers for my computer chair as one of the vehicles had one and it felt nice.
.

(To be continued. And probably moved to a pet once I get the gems to buy another.)