Blindness, blindness, be my pillow

Ah, you world of restless dreams and anxieties!

Night by night I go hunting for a key. It is lost, but I cannot discover why. Either I have lost it, or an angel dropped it, and I have been sent here to find it. Ah, it is lost, and the irony is this: I cannot return from my mission until I find it. It is the key to unlock the gates of matter.

Night by night I go hunting for the key. The key is lost in a dream world. Each morning I wake, cut off from my dreams. My labors by day are dreary. I must find the key, but here I am, locked in this world of matter.

Night by night I go hunting for this key. I know the hour of waking is approaching and my dreams turn troubled. Am I awake or am I sleeping? I test myself. In the world of dreams impossible things happen. Reason has no hold. I say to myself, “if this is a dream, then let this river run backwards!” It begins to run backwards and I know I am dreaming, so I wake myself. “Do not wake yourself the next time,” I think.

Night by night I go hunting for this precious key. I must learn if I am dreaming, so I can use my time fruitfully to find a way beyond matter. “If this is a dream, let that palm tree plant itself a hundred meters hence.” It replants itself. Now knowing I am dreaming, I become ardent in my search. I must see more clearly. I open my eyes. I awake. “Do not open your eyes next time,” I think.

I am writing this while it is daytime. Or is it? Am I dreaming? The walls of my house stand firm. Angels do not call to me from heaven. But as I look closer, I see that this is not a world of reason. This is a world where everyone is blind. A world full of blind people? It must be a dream. It is a dream! How can I tell? I cannot open my eyes to search for the key.

Twilight, in a world of blind people. Surely this is a dream. Yet everyone I know tells me I am crazy. “This is not a dream,” they say; “I know I am awake.” But me, I cannot open my eyes. I cannot make any sense of this. I, the blind man, can see more than the open-eyed. Please do not think me arrogant, oh, reader. It’s merely that, I at least, know that I cannot yet open my eyes.

Twilight and I am searching ardently throughout my blindness. I wonder if this is morning. Is it time to wake up? Then I wonder, “if I find the key, will it open the gates? If I open the gates to pass beyond matter, will that be a true waking up? If it is a true waking up, does it mean I have died?” This does not worry me. Often I have dreamed of dying, and then woken up.