A dream. It wasn't the kind of dream where you are falling... falling... falling...and you jerk out of sleep seconds before you stop falling... falling... falling... and split onto cement, bursting into lots of pieces like a watermelon on a patio, or an egg -fresh from the chickens- on the sidewalk, transforming from something whole, to something people avoid stepping on in their new church shoes.
It wasn't the sort of dream that makes your heart smile and your brain quit caring because you are in a world you've always only dreamed of and you don't care if it is real or not, just as long as it lasts forever and when your alarm clock awakes you, you do anything to just fall back asleep to keep dreaming... dreaming... dreaming.
A dream. Not the kind where everything looks so real, with the people around acting like so, and it is just a normal day of normal things and the next morning you wonder if it really happened or if it was only a dream, and for a while, possibly forever, possibly for a minute or two, you can't decide if it was true or false.
Not a nightmare where you know it is only a dream but you can't force yourself awake in time to stop the evil from enclosing you. Or a black and white dream with no color, only different shades and tints of grey. Or the kind where you are just watching the dream from the outside; people walking, talking. You see yourself, you see your mom, but no one sees you because you are far to distant, for you are an outside mind looking in on your own dream.
It was a dream. But not the kind where people from a show you watch appear as their character -not the actor- and you act as if meeting Danny Tanner is an everyday, ordinary, normal thing to do on a Tuesday. And not the sort of dream where outside noises: an alarm clock, a dog barking, a television show. They become things in your dream: a fire alarm, a dog chasing you, a conversation you are overhearing at a party. Not the kind that symbolizes something, or answers a question you've been asking, or suddenly makes everything clear, shows the right decision, causes an epiphany. Not the kind of dream that is beyond bizarre and you wonder for days what it meant, or if it was a sign; not the kind of dream that reoccurs, shows up again, repeats itself, that you recognize it at first, but don't remember how it ends until it does.
It was the kind of dream, yes I'm sure, the kind of dream that it is not until you are off the school bus, done walking home, ate your snack, completed your homework, scarfed down dinner -and dessert-, took a shower, brushed your teeth, and is laying in bed thinking and reliving, when you realize in fact, that it was the sort of dream, that wasn't a dream at all.