The only way I know I’m awake is if I’m wearing a red shirt.<\/p>\n
In dreams, color is muted and blurred so red stands out. It reminds me of safety. Bright and stimulating. The color at the edge of a perfect sunset. A surefire path to a warm reality.<\/p>\n
See, I spend my day in dreams. Mostly other peoples. Some folks think it’s strange I wake from my own slumber to return to sleep for strangers, but people have memories they want cleaned. That’s right: cleaned. We don’t say erased. Cleaned is more pleasing to the ear and more importantly the soul.<\/p>\n
Slipping from one consciousness to the next, I identify the memory in question through the dream and get to work cleaning it into something palatable. It manifests differently in every person and takes a well trained eye to sniff out. I’ve been at this for half my life so I can spot a bad memory in a quick shake. They have a blackish haze to them. Not a glow but a dim–that’s how I like to explain it.<\/p>\n
Such keen training means the haze others mistake as the confusing smog in dreams is a crystal clear sign to me. So much so that lately I’ve been seeing those dim shimmers in my own dreams. Like a shadow stalking through my otherwise whimsical interludes, clouding the depth of emptiness between rest. They’ve spread, stretching like a fungus over everything. Unfortunately, cleaning isn’t something you can do to yourself. And frankly, it doesn’t come cheap. I may make a pretty penny for my skills but you’d be surprised the premium a clean conscious comes with. So I try to ignore them.<\/p>\n
The fog is everywhere now, though. Last week, when I went to the city for a show, the shadow loomed over the buildings, taunting me with a question. I took second glances at every blur. I know it’s just my aging eyes, but I can’t help but look again at every possible blur. Even now, during my lunch breaks, as the otherwise bight room flickers with darkness I wonder…am I awake?<\/p>\n
But no, this is what’s real. I know because each time my red shirt is there to welcome me with a different hue. Maroon. Scarlet. Brick Red. Crimson. Each color a friendly wave, a happy reminder. I find it strange, however, the day I dive into a dream and discover my one link to reality still draped over my skin. I know I checked into the lab. I know I linked into the dream. And yet, inside a vast chasm of a millionaire’s thoughts, I am still wearing red.<\/p>\n
Stranger still, I don’t feel the panic of being un-tethered from reality. I feel relief.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The only way I know I’m awake is if I’m wearing a red shirt. In dreams, color is muted and blurred so red stands out. It reminds me of safety. Bright and stimulating. The color at the edge of a perfect sunset. A surefire path to a warm reality. See, I spend my day in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[46,41,35,58,45,21,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-action","category-characters","category-discovery","category-ending","category-practice","category-writers-sketch","category-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2YHlB-lH","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1345"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1350,"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345\/revisions\/1350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}