Oneiric Abyss

First Stage

My dreams erode my consciousness in an insidious manner, consuming me like an abyssal ocean that refuses to reveal its bed. Each night, my psyche plunges into increasingly deeper oneiric strata, dissolving in the tides of a realm whose threshold with wakefulness grows indistinct. I fear, in the depths of my perception, that one day my essence will irrevocably merge with this ethereal domain, obliterating any possibility of return.

As I recline upon my bed, the matter beneath me yields like a voracious vortex, transmuting into a silky maelstrom that swallows me effortlessly. At first, the sensation is exhilarating—a delicate effervescence. I laughed, elated. Yet, this fleeting exultation soon transforms into something of a far more disquieting nature.

A cold pressure coils around my leg, a presence whose mere touch betrays an unspeakable malignancy—something that transcends the tangible and should not inhabit this sphere of reality. Fear insinuates itself into my flesh and bones, an atavistic recognition that I am being driven beyond the confines of my own existence. I attempt to resist, but my defiance is pathetic—a feeble outline of revolt against incomprehensible forces.

I scream. A futile effort that lacerates my throat, yet the sound is immediately swallowed by the surrounding void. There is no echo, no resonance—only the absolute absorption of any trace of my acoustic presence. It is then that I understand: my entrapment exists on multiple planes. The first is my own mind, a territory infested by this unspeakable entity. The second is this amorphous vastness, a limbo where my cries are deprived of response. The last is the material world, where my body lies inert, unmoving in its silent repose.

I am captive. And no external force can redeem me—only myself.

But will I grant myself that prerogative? Will I be indulgent with my own weakness and admit my ineptitude in escaping the snares of my psyche? Or am I, myself, the architect of my own perdition?

Second Stage

I began to confine myself within the recesses of my mind, seeking refuge among thoughts that, with each passing day, grew denser, more nebulous. And along with them, I too underwent a transformation. Gradually, I faded from the external world to inhabit the innermost layers of my own psyche, secret foldings accessible only to me. At first, it felt safe. Solitude arrived like a diaphanous veil, ethereal and delicate, infiltrating the vacant spaces I myself had forged. Yet, without my realizing it, it ceased to be something that surrounded me and instead became something that constituted me.

Soon, my thoughts began stacking into distinct strata, layered like intricate structures of a universe only I could comprehend. Some lingered at the surface—volatile, elusive—while others descended into abysses where only silence could reach them. When I closed my eyes, I could map them—I could feel them floating, recognize which ideas were light and which bore a weight too immense to rise. The deeper I delved into myself, the more I could see, the more I could feel, the more I could command.

Then came the lucid dreams.

On the threshold between slumber and wakefulness, I traversed with full awareness, witnessing the precise moment when reality liquefied into something malleable, moldable. Within my dreams, I held dominion—I created, I dictated, I ruled. One night, I encountered my brother there. I looked at him and asked:

— I know I’m dreaming… and you? Are you dreaming too?

I never heard his answer.

Now, the question devours me. Was he merely a spectral echo of my psyche, or had he truly found me within this current? If he was a projection, why did he not respond? If he was real, why did I encounter him within my dream?

This uncertainty began to corrode me. My mind, which I once believed to be an organism under my dominion, revealed itself to be an autonomous entity, endowed with a will of its own. The more I tried to impose order upon my thoughts, the more they shattered into fractal chaos. What had once been a sanctuary became a living labyrinth, a terrain where I was pursued by the very forces I once thought I controlled.

And then I understood: I was not the master of myself.

My mind deceived me, toyed with me, entangled me in a labyrinthine game of distorted perceptions. How could I know I was dreaming, yet be unable to discern whether what arose within the dream originated from me or from something beyond myself? What still belonged to me, and what had already transcended into something other?

I began to dissolve.

I sought escape from my own mind, but there was none. It was an endless loop of thought, layers upon layers, always leading back to the same singularity: me against myself. Until, in a moment of desperate clarity, I abandoned my own brain.

And then, relief came.

No weight. No suffering. No questions.

No more doubt.

I was nothing but nothing itself.

And for the first time, I was truly free.