Dreams of an Idea Instilled - by Vincent Bian

My dreams feel just as emotionally salient as real life—while I’m asleep, I experience real joy, anger, amazement, sadness. Most of the time, I forget them before I even wake up. Sometimes, a few scattered fragments remain in my head and fade away through the morning. Occasionally, I wake up with my heart pounding, and I can still see the monster’s outstretched limb, or the gun pointed at my head. But very rarely, I wake up, sit on my bed, and know myself a little bit better than the night before. I sat on a rock in the middle of the river. A waterfall, a hundred feet downstream, tumbled down the cliff that loomed over my hometown below. It was late, but there were still a few lights on in town as I stared into the distance. I snuck up here in the dead of night to get some fresh air and hopefully some clarity, but the isolation only highlighted how alone I felt. A full moon hung overhead but didn’t illuminate the ground. Everything was wrong. Reading was boring, my major was boring, le

My dreams feel just as emotionally salient as real life—while I’m asleep, I experience real joy, anger, amazement, sadness. Most of the time, I forget them before I even wake up. Sometimes, a few scattered fragments remain in my head and fade away through the morning. Occasionally, I wake up with my heart pounding, and I can still see the monster’s outstretched limb, or the gun pointed at my head. But very rarely, I wake up, sit on my bed, and know myself a little bit better than the night before. I sat on a rock in the middle of the river. A waterfall, a hundred feet downstream, tumbled down