a lucid dream in addis

9.0192° N, 38.7525° E

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I had my first lucid dream a few nights ago. I’ve been sleeping a lot. Sometimes for 12 hours a day. I’m in Ethiopia. Inside the capital, Addis Ababa. I haven’t been here since I was 5 years old in 1998. Sometimes it feels like it’s 1998 here still, or some time farther back. The cars are older with more personality. I feel like I should burn a disc of my favorite songs to play in our car rides. But, our driver has bluetooth, and my laptop doesn’t take in cds. Unless you get a contraption to attach onto it that costs extra money.

In my dream, I was taking to a girl with a misshapen face. She was telling me about something and someone that hurt her. I wanted to console her. I wanted to tell her something that would make her feel better and make me feel better too. But when I opened my mouth, that thing that happens in dreams, happened. Where you can’t speak. All of a sudden I couldn’t speak. Just moments before I was perfectly operable, yet now, as I had something pressing to say, something urgent, I was unable to open my mouth. I grew immensely frustrated. I felt embarrassed. She was just looking at me as I struggled and fought with the air. Until suddenly, inside my head a thought popped.

And, I was able to speak.