Thread: My LD Short Story

Hi this was something somewhat spontaneous that i've written due to recent boredom and LD interest. Any feedback or critique would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

P.S. please note that this story is not auto-biographical, it's just fiction


The pure panic that a person experiences when running for their life is an emotion unparalleled by any form of grief or anger or joy. This is because when life is given an immediate uncertainty, the deluge of fear consumes everything. It consumes the past and all identities or memories that it provides. It consumes the future and all aspirations and dreams one has. There is only the present moment. This present moment expands itself and magnifies each second as if it were a relevant and meaningful eternity, existing only as long as one’s awareness fills it with life.

While this emotion was soon fleeting in the waking sunlight, I still find its impact to be shocking. I guess I understand the mental capacities necessary for me to have such an experience due to my studies of dreams and human emotion, but to be so present in the situation has really caught my attention. What other emotional superlatives can I attain or have previously attained but simply forgotten?

As I sit up and meander towards the shower, I ponder my experience further. Why could I react so honestly to such a fictitious circumstance? What alter ego had I created in order to attain such a sincere belief in that reality? I obsessively relive my moment as I step into the shower. I feel the warm water pour off of my face, some spilling down onto my feet while the rest vaporizes into a blissful steam. I also feel the tub beneath my feet, the hardness of the wet floor. I hear the torrential rain inside of my 3x5 world as each of my senses combine to create my reality. I am once again present in this moment. But this is when I start to make a crucial realization. The vividness of this moment, however spectacular, does not surpass that of my dream that night. I have clear memory of hearing, seeing, and feeling all around me, not realizing that my entire experience was hallucinatory. That was really the only difference. I know that this is reality, without a doubt. This water, this steam, this tub, all exists, while the characters and settings of my dreams do not. As I step out of the shower I finish my morning routine in an almost unconscious state of daily repetition.

More so than ever, dreams intrigue me. Within the past few weeks or so they have become more vivid and memorable than I can ever remember. Sigmund Freud had argued that dream imagery, especially in adults, was mostly sexually motivated, but I don’t buy that. There seems to be so much more to dreams, than primal, erotic fantasies. There seems to be a unique adventure, often foreign, awaiting me every night. Numerous philosophers and psychologists obsess over why and how we dream. While I believe we only have a chance at answering the how part of this problem, I have chosen to make the most out of them.

As I reach the campus for my 8:30 global economics class, I feel uneasy and perhaps a bit anxious. The parking lot greets me with more students than usual. As a professor, I typically don’t have too much interest in trying to communicate with the students outside of the classroom due to an ever widening cultural shift. As I walk something disturbing catches my attention. Every time I attempt to make eye contact with a person on campus, it seems I always barely miss the opportunity. They seem to always be just turning their heads away. I choose to ignore this and label it insignificant.

Today’s lecture goes seemingly well for the first 20 minutes or so as I discuss the various flaws in different economic trading systems. That is until I reach the end of a peculiar section. What was strange about it was that I have no recollection of preparing it. The words I used have never been my thoughts before. They were spontaneous. This wasn’t just a stream of thoughts based on my lecture either. It was as if I watched myself say them. I pause my lesson for what seems like at least two or three minutes. I try to continue but I seem to have lost my train of thought. I can no longer find words to say. Suddenly, I see a large portion of students stand up and leave the room in a synchronized fashion. For the next minute I watch them apathetically line up, and walk out. There were at least twenty-five of them. The rest of the students begin to lower their heads and fall asleep, but not in a bored way. They passed out, as simultaneously as the others had walked out. I feel immobile as well as mute. All I can see is a crowd of unconscious students. The room is silent. I look to the center of the crowd and see one student slowly, but confidently regain consciousness (A dark-haired male about twenty-years of age with a pale complexion). He makes direct eye contact with me. My entire focus shifts to his eyes as the rest of the room melts out of my periphery. As the ground and chair he’s sitting in disintegrate, we both begin levitating. A cool wind blows past my face and sends a chill to every inch of my body. He calmly floats towards me maintaining eye contact until he gets right up to my face and whispers,

“It’s all a dream”.

He is violently flung back at the wall which he breaks through and flies until he fades out of my view.

My body begins to rotate and my vision is further blurred. Finally, I settle on the ground. I open my eyes and see a river flowing around me. I am sitting up on a sturdy but wet log in the middle of this calm stream which is no more than seven feet wide. Around it stands a forest of parallel and symmetrical trees that one could only see the tops of by looking straight up. They continue for miles on a flat landscape. They were at least three times taller than any trees I have seen in person or even in photograph. Although I am by myself, I find a sense of comfort with my environment. The sound of the stream gently leads me into a sense of overwhelming comfort and well-being. I feel as if I have all of the time in the world.

“This is all a dream”, I say in a soft but amused voice. This is like no dream I have had. It’s as if I was awake, living and breathing in this place. Who cares if people say it’s not real? This is the best home I could ask for.