I awoke cold and shivering in a long dark tunnel, much like a subway underground but with no train tracks. There were people around me, also waking up from a deep slumber, slowly integrating their surroundings. I followed a few people towards a light near the end of the tunnel and we stood there trying to get warm. The graffiti on the tall cinderblock walls of the tunnel were colorful pieces of art and quite unlike anything I’d seen before. I hugged my arms around my torso and rubbed my hands up and down my arms to warm them up. Everything was grey and dank; the only color was from the graffiti on the walls in the damp tunnel.
 
I stepped outside into the grey cold. Someone handed me a scratchy wool blanket, which I gratefully accepted and wrapped around my body. I could see for miles around me. Everything was grey; it looked like a dead country. A lifeless meadow stretched for miles and near the end of it I could see the outline of a city, packed tight with tall buildings, on the horizon. Dreary clouds hung in the already colorless sky, the air felt like that dampness right before or after a rain fall; however, the ground was dry. 
 
A man driving a large carriage with two horses pulling it drove up slowly. He halted his carriage and motioned for us to get on. We slowly climbed in through the back, huddled closely to keep warm. I felt as though I was in a dream state, but a lucid dream state.
 
As the carriage bumped along the road, off towards the city, my mind slowly became conscious and I realized that I had woken up into a dream. I was dreaming within a dream! A lucid dream, no doubt, considering how real all of this felt, but a dream all the same.
 
I looked at the people around me and whispered to the person next to me, “Are we dreaming? Are you dreaming too?” She looked at me and her eyes widened as she, too, realized that this was a dream. A buzz of energy flowed through the people in the carriage as we all realized that we were dreaming, this was but a dream, and we could easily wake up and end it.
 
The carriage bumped along, the man driving the carriage looked back at us, sensing a change in our energy. He was kindly and meant no harm. He slowly turned back and urged the horses onwards, towards the looming gray city growing larger and more ominous the closer we got.
 
I lay my head on my neighbors shoulder and dozed as we slowly made our way across the plain towards the city. When we arrived, the carriage came to an abrupt halt and the carriage driver slowly stood up. We knew we had to disembark, which we did. I felt sluggish, almost like I was sleepwalking. I made my way down the narrow dark city streets and tried to find anything familiar.
 
I wanted to wake up out of this dream, I wanted to go back to my real waking life, but I could not seem to shake myself out of this gray, dark world I found myself in. I shook myself, I told myself to wake up, but nothing worked. I was stuck here in this dream world. I started to panic. I found a bar that was full of people but it wasn’t noisy like a bar would be in my waking life. It was subdued, quiet; people were noiselessly communicating and sipping various tonics. I went up to a group of people and asked them if they realized this was a dream. They said they did. I asked them how to wake up out of it. They said they didn’t know, they’d tried and only found that nothing worked.
 
I felt trapped in this grey world with its tall looming dark buildings, smoke and smog floating above… and I had no idea how to wake up and get myself out.
 
~
 
I awoke abruptly with my morning alarm, his warm body next to me, with a sigh of relief. Sometimes dreams are only dreams after all…