Listen to This: A Dream Within A Dream

Album Artwork for Drink The Sea by the Glitch Mob

The following post if both a review as much as it is a story I want to tell, but only because something amazingly different happened to me today. So let me start at the beginning of my story and then show how perfectly it relates to a song. This morning my parents woke me up at what would be abnormally early for someone like me and told me I needed to watch the puppy while they go to the vet with one of our cats. If you are curious, the orange tabby needed some blood work to be done because we think he has a failing kidney. Anyway, I was extremely tired and almost unable to get out of bed, but I managed to get up and go downstairs.

After grabbing a cup of joe and taking the puppy outside, I sat and waited for my parents to return. When they finally did get back, and my coffee cup was completely empty, I did not feel like I had to sleep anymore. So I went upstairs and started writing another blog about learning French. I did not finish writing that blog (though I am working on it still). Instead, I ended up falling asleep about an hour later, completely passing out in the darkness of my room.

My dream felt real, like I had not gone to sleep and was just lying in bed not doing anything. So I got up and walked downstairs and talked to my Dad, to which I have no idea what our conversation was about and because it was a dream my mind just accepted that the thoughts were exchanged. Then I went back to my room and just lied in bed because I was so tired.

I fell into a second dream, a dream within a dream exactly as the movie Inception would say and exactly the title of the song. I was outside in the bright sun, the rays coming down and heating up my skin, and the new puppy was there. Then my Mom came into view, we were playing with the dog and having a good time. I felt that I was still not dreaming, but that the feeling of being tired had just passed away; yet at the same time I also felt like I was just barely asleep. It was surreal, it was weird, and it was different.

Suddenly my Dad was being real loud in the real world, his voice booming to my ears. It passed down through my dreams, through my thoughts, and reached me at the second level. I woke up from one dream and was in the darkness of my room. It was as if the vision of me being home was completely masked by the dream, I actually felt like I was there. I walked out of my room, which happened with surprising ease after just waking from a well-needed slumber, and walked down the stairs. No one was home, no one was there to have made that voice, but I was sure that I had heard my Father. Then he shouted again about something, maybe just overly excited about a politician, and the curtain that had been covering my eyes as to where I really was came free, waking me again.

I thought I would bring up this because it was crazy, a sort of insane state to suddenly have to wake-up twice from the same dream and the same slumber. And I am fully unsure how I was even able to reach the second level of the dream state. But the minute I woke up, I could also hear A Dream Within a Dream by The Glitch Mob playing in my head.

I think the first time I listened to this song I might have skipped over it, thinking little of the beginning beat as it sent shivers down my spine. However, I ended up returning about a week later when I fell in love with the entire album this song came on. If you have not heard all the songs on Drink the Sea, go out and buy a copy right now. To put it in perspective, this is the music I play when I want to have conscious and consistent thoughts, a background sound I used to study because it provoked me to keep learning. I cannot say exactly why, but I highly recommend this entire album. And if you are curious, my favorite song is still Fortune Days.

But this review is not about Fortune Days, it is about A Dream Within A Dream. When I finally did get back to listening to this, I realized how very close to home the name of the song actually hits. This is a very fast-paced song, the melody repeating at parts and bringing about a sense of the impending aurora at the end of the night. And the beginning, the part that had originally pushed me away from the song, is actually a very much needed and strong piece that shows the passing from a state of clear consciousness into the realm of the other world. It is the key, the reason that we pass from the first dream to the second one as our eyes close and we fall asleep. You can see the solar system in this first scene, the way the darkness in the sky passes above, the calming sensation, and then the breath as the dream begin.

Immediately after this introduction, the tune starts up as if you are somewhere you have never been, doing something you might never have imagined yourself doing. All the while it seems unreal, impossible in the feats that you accomplish, but they are still feats. And with the passing of time, it only seems to dive deeper into the dream-like state as you continue to be this magnificent heroine on some astounding, technological quest. And then you fall into the next level of dreams, spending the rest of the song trying to find your way out.

I think it is this imagination that really brought me to loving this song, the sense that I could see something that was not there even while only the music was playing. That is why I love this song. Add in a perfect back beat and some astounding repetition to drive home the thoughts and you get a golden song. And like I said, this is not even my favorite song on the album.

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