My Inception Moment: Reality or Dream?

Long car rides do weird things to me. I’d rather be driving. 

So when eight of the ten people in your family are piling into a 12-seater van for a 13 hour drive to Tennessee, it’s easy to decide that sleeping is the best option.

Most trips go like this. Sleep. Eat. Read a book. Eat. Sleep.

And normally I don’t think much about it. This time, however, I had a kind of a freaky inception moment. Yeah, the whole dream within a dream sort of thing. I’ve had them before—like those times I’ve repeatedly been “woken up” to get ready for school.

But this was different because of how eerily real it all was and familiar it felt.

First off, I’ve not slept a lot over the break. Book reading. Writing. Family. I had gone to bed too late and gotten up way too early to be trying to do anything but sleep. My brother was reading Mockingjay. I was talking about Divergent. We like talking about dystopian novels. Then, I’m telling them about the weird simulations in Divergent that make you face your worst fears in a simulated, fabricated version of reality and how the protagonist learns to control the simulations. Then, Kathryn and I start talking about the movie inception and how perceptions of reality can be twisted until you don’t know what’s real anymore.

Yes, that’s when I decided I was too tired to talk anymore and tried to curl up in my little corner of the back seat. And I started dreaming… 

This first dream is hard to remember. I know I’m standing in a white-washed world, and I’m important. I feel like I’m supposed to be the heroine—a sort of Katniss Everdeen. But I don’t feel heroic. I’m not even sure what I’m supposed to be doing. There are images flashing around me that I don’t understand. Then I start to lose control. I realize that I’m dreaming, but I can’t wake myself up. I hear voices in my head—my family talking around me. I have to reach them. I’m trying to move myself, but I don’t have control of my limbs. This isn’t unusual, I tell myself in my head. I’ve had this problem before. It is an easy solution. My mind wakes up before my body. It happens all the time. So I have to fight it. I have to wake myself up. I start trying to cry out, to move myself. Before the panic sets in, I take a deep calming breath and then rush forward with my whole being against the whiteness.

And I jerk awake. I’m sitting in the van. My brother is reading Mockingjay. My sister is curled up asleep on the opposite side of the long back seat. I hear my dad talking, saying that we are twenty minutes away from our next stop, just outside of Tennessee. I’m looking out the window at the passing scenery. Beautiful snow-top hills. I feel like the view is breath-taking. I’ve always loved Tennessee. My mom asks a question about something. “How many of you have…” I stop paying attention, but my hand goes up. And then, I decide that I need to get up and get ready for a break at the gas station. My dad had said we were stopping. But I feel groggy, really tired. I shouldn’t have stayed up the night before. It’s hard for me to think. I feel my eyelids drooping any my head sagging to one side. I’m falling asleep again, but I don’t want to. I have to get up. I realize that my body is falling asleep on me, so I decide to slap myself—wake myself up. I lift my heavy arms and barely get the slap across my cheek. I feel it, but only lightly. I’m losing it to my sleep. So I try harder. I feel like I’m flailing, but my arms are not working the way I want. I can’t feel anything anymore. I’m falling asleep again and I can’t control my own limbs. 

This isn’t unusual, I tell myself in my head. I’ve had this problem before. It is an easy solution. My mind wakes up before my body. I have to fight it. I have to wake myself up. I start trying to cry out, to move myself. Before the panic sets in, I take a deep calming breath and then rush forward with my whole being against the whiteness.

And I jerk awake. I’m sitting in the van. My brother is reading Mockingjay. My sister is curled up asleep on the opposite side of the long back seat. 

The eeriness of the similarity makes me momentarily panic, so I yell at my brother before anyone can say or do anything,

“Hey Daniel, I think I just had a weird dream. Did dad just say something about being almost out of Tennessee?”

He looks at me curiously, then shrugs and yells us at my Dad, “Hey how far away from the border are we?”

“4 Miles.” He responds.

My brother turns back expectantly, but then I shrug. Because I’m not sure what exactly just happened. I look around me. It’s exactly like the dream I just had except for four small things: 

1. When I slap myself, I really feel it. It hurts; smarts. Yes, I did smack myself pretty hard.

2. The scenery outside of the van is different. There are no snow covered hills. It’s just flat with a few trees. There is still snow. But of course scenery changes on a road trip. I’m confused.

3. The little blanket my brother loaned me is still around me. It wasn’t in my dream—I thought he’d just taken it back.

4. I’m not tired. Not one bit. In fact, I feel a slight adrenaline rush.

Is this a dream? I ask myself. No. No, this is obviously reality, and I know it is. I just had an inception moment. And as I think about it, something funny occurs to me. In hindsight, in my actual dreams, I never ask myself if it is real. I just assume it is. But in reality, I always do; I have to be sure. It’s a subtle difference, but then problem is….if I never ask myself whether or not I’m dreaming unless I’m awake…then how do I know I’m dreaming? Good thing dreams don’t last forever.

And that was my inception moment. Wake up from one dream into another. Fall asleep in that dream and wake up into a freakishly similar reality. Mind Blown. 

I should no longer read or discuss sci-fi novels/movies before naptimes on a long road trip. Or before sleeping ever.