The average dream lasts three seconds. A healthy adult body needs at least seven hours of sleep. This means that if every single second that your mind is in its sub-conscious state of sleep were to be filled with a dream, you’d have approximately 8,400 dreams per night. Welcome to my life. I’m a dreamer, and I’m responsible for 8,400 regular people (because the average person has only one or two dreams a night, if any). If any one of the 8,400 people that I am responsible for happens to dream a dream while I’m asleep, seconds later I have that exact dream.
Once we share this dream, it becomes less real, less horrifying, less painful, less inspirational, and the world can continue on as normal without billions of people running around with revolutionary ideas or horrendous nightmares in their minds. No dreamer has figured out how or why this happens, we only know that it does. Along with this, no dreamer had ever shared this massive secret with a regular person, until a sunny, ordinary day waltzed over New York City’s skyline and through its streets only weeks ago…
“Hey Ed, do you have those numbers for me yet?” an annoying voice called out to me from behind.
I ignored the annoying male voice completely, keeping my attention glued to the screen of my smartphone while walking quickly away from the pestering man following me.
A news anchor stared resolutely out at me from my smartphone’s screen while relaying her story to millions, “…the man who, just days ago, told reporters that he has the exact same dreams as thousands of people each night is now attempting to prove it to a speculating population…”
“Hey Ed, do you have those numbers that I asked for before lunch?” the annoying man, Todd DeHertz, asked after catching up to me.
I answered him with a question of my own, “Hey, DeHertz,” I specifically chose to use his last name (that he avoided like the plague) so as to suggest to my annoying colleague that we weren’t in any way friends and gestured towards my phone, “have you heard about this?”
“Yea, some crazy cult thing,” he answered, peering at my phone in an exaggerated way, “so how about those numbers?”
“I told you,” I answered, “that it would take a few days for me to put together an adequate portfolio for what you want.”
“A few days could be the difference between winning or loosing billions of dollars, Ed,” he responded, whipping out a bothersome saying that our manager enjoyed laying on us.
“You are absolutely correct, DeHertz, but I also have other things to do, which could also cost the company billions of dollars, but I’m sure that you already knew that I don’t focus my work schedule around you, right?”
“Of course, just get the numbers Ed,” he replied in a peeved tone.
“Will do,” I assured, then snaked my way through the crowded sidewalks of Wall Street.
My thumbs smacked the touchscreen of my phone, navigating through the news station’s website until I again found the story I had been looking for. After locating the story, I quickly skimmed through the paragraphs of the report until I was sure that it wasn’t just a coincidence, or as Todd had put it “some crazy cult thing.” It had finally happened. After thousands of years, a dreamer had finally told the world our secret.
To be continued…
