世界選擇

A few days ago, I dreamt an incredibly vivid and ancient dream once again. Having recorded my dreams for several years, I have come to notice the repetition of certain dreams with relative ease—to the extent that I could literally count how many times I have dreamt the exact same dream if I checked my logs. The dream from a few days ago was as clear and radiant as footage captured in 4K. In that place, I was preparing for sleep with my family during a dark night. It was a scene reminiscent of the old days, sleeping under a single roof, sharing one blanket together. Myself, my parents, and my siblings. There seemed to be many younger sisters, perhaps. While sleeping in that manner, I stepped outside.

The outside was a desert beneath a crimson sky. The landscape of the desert was embodying time itself. While time flowed slowly in the spot where I stood, the desert I was gazing upon experienced time as if one second were a day—or perhaps even faster. Cacti withered and grew, died and sprouted again in a ceaseless loop. The wind blew, repeatedly forming sand dunes here and there and making them vanish, and amid the shifting sands, the figure of a man began to reveal itself. The man had been completely buried, but as the sand was cleared away by the wind, his coarse, black hair appeared first, followed by his forehead, his dark eyes, and his face in sequential order.

As time continued to flow, he broke free from the sand and faced me with the countenance of a youthful young man. Though his beard was full and his hair was long, the light in his eyes was unmistakably that of someone in their late teens. He looked at me, and I looked at him. After that, I looked back at the house to which I was to return, and when I turned my back to look at him once more, he had vanished, and countless worlds began to manifest before my eyes.

The very first world that appeared was a place resembling a demon king’s castle. A fortress stood towering upon a dark crimson earth. It was a realm shrouded in a black sky and heavy storm clouds. Looking beside it, there was a resplendent world featuring a beautiful ship, the kind one might behold in a magnificent fantasy universe. The place where this beautiful ship—which looked as though it had been drawn in a comic—tarried was a realm where green fields and a blue ocean lapped against each other, allowing one to feel pure vitality.

The world to the right of that was the very image of Earth, featuring beautiful concrete architecture. Square, angular, modern art museums, architectural structures realized with colossal panoramic windows, and straight paths stretched outward. This very Earth. It was the place called reality, where I am meant to breathe.

Without even needing to witness the worlds that lay beyond, I headed straight toward the place with the beautiful ship. On the path leading there, there was a walkway made of white stone, and green grass lined the surroundings. On the other side, a blue river was flowing. Everything was peaceful in that place, yet grotesque creatures with sickening skin were walking around along my periphery. I asked the companion walking with me who these repulsive beings were. I was told that they were monsters whose purpose was to hunt down and slaughter those who were not holy in this place. However, my companion told me not to worry. They said these creatures do not attack humans like me. The reason was that because humans possess spirituality, these monsters do not even perceive us, and thus, there would be no reason for them to attack. There was no need to ask what happens if one loses their spirituality, for the monster had suddenly bolted toward a thief right in front of us and ripped him to shreds.

As I walked through that realm, passing by the beautiful scenery, I made up my mind to head toward the world where Earth existed. The reason is unknown. I merely felt that urge in my heart. Upon arriving at a place like an ancient citadel—an incredibly white and beautiful castle—I was told that one must solve a riddle to proceed to the next gate. However, it was said that in order to prevent travelers from passing through to the next location easily, the hints were intentionally designed to delay the traveler or compel them to perform redundant tasks. Ultimately, for a traveler to pass through this place swiftly and head toward the ship, they required the insight and intuition to bypass the hints rather than accepting them at face value.

The castle was an exquisitely beautiful place, yet its interior was like a labyrinth. Ascents and descents. Passageways existed in every imaginable direction. Yet, no feeling of fear arose within me whatsoever. It was a place so perfectly beautiful, peaceful, and bright that I felt it would be perfectly fine to remain there for eternity. Because of this, rather than bypassing the hints to pass through the castle and head toward their next destination, people instead used the hints to explore here and there within the castle. It seemed as though they were enticing other travelers to journey further through the castle by embedding the marvelous places they had discovered between the cracks of the hints.

Naturally, since time was infinite for them just as it was for me, there was no impatience whatsoever, and everything was permitted. Eating and drinking in that place; taking a nap while basking in the sunlight, or spending hours rolling around with a lover; sharing intimacy in the wide halls inside the castle beneath the sunlight pouring from the ceilings—everything was allowed. And in that place, I met two women who tempted me. One was active and assertive, and the other was the one following behind me. I decided to go with them to a place filled with light and pass the time, looking at the hints left behind by other travelers throughout the castle.

And then, I awoke from the dream and recorded it once again. For what reason did I voluntarily enter this reality? Originally, I was dwelling in an eternal place where time does not flow at all, but upon witnessing the image of the man with dark eyes born within time and matter, perhaps I simply took a liking to one of the numerous worlds created within the material realm and am merely traveling through it.

I do not know the truth, but because the world I beheld in the dream was so intensely vivid, radiant, and shone brighter than reality, I find myself recalling the dream with a sense of trepidation. Where did the next journey of that place lead? For what reason did the people who lost their spirituality lose it? What kind of events had transpired in the world that resembled a ruined castle, rather than that bright and beautiful world? With a sensation where fear and curiosity coexist, I grope through the remnants of the dream, and in a defenseless state where I can rely on nothing, I tumble back down into the dream once more. Was this place reality? Or was this place merely one of the worlds I had wished to visit?