The Sum of a Thousand Dreams
I was at the park one day, resting under a tree when suddenly, a falling leaf slowly, but surely landed right on top at where my heart was. And just so you know, the answer is an infallible, “No!”— my heart was not at the park, not even somewhere within the same vicinity where my body was, but all that I could remember was being caught inside a web of such a mysterious phenomenon. I called it mysterious, because I didn’t know then of how I was bound to tell the tale of its eventual story; for me to see how my heart went on a whole new big adventure of its own, conceivably, dwelling inside somewhere else’s story, and captivatedly indebted to someone else’s dream. Was it only just a dream or something else, like a private promise as to where newer dreams may come, hmmm! —that was the bigger question, which I also remember quite vividly, all because of someone else’s voice, who guided my ears to see, what was indistinguishable for me at the time. Oddly enough, I also remember closing my eyes, while thinking of opening my ears as wide as it was possible for me to reach any sort of sound, while overhearing my own thought, “What in the world is happening to me?” But instead of getting an answer that can pacify my present confusion, what I got was a silent whisper, as to which I might have literally considered them coming from a soft gushing breeze, ssswish!
“Anyone can write a story, but not all stories can be written—there is a story rambling around inside your head right now, through which, can only be truly inscribed inside a dream”
the randomness of its entirety blew my mind onto a thousand more thoughts, and felt bewildered, I had no other choice but to open my eyes, once more—as fast as I could, but has done so, way too fast, that that experience has left me feeling empty, and lost, more so than my curiosity can keep them both at a comfortable distance. I woke up and found myself, not sitting at a park somewhere, but seated unexpectedly, at the middle of my own bed, at rest—inside my own room, with a pen sleeping inside the parenthesis, of my own two hands.
I welcome you to “The Sum of a Thousand Dreams; it’s a love story.”
The sum of a thousand dreams began in the same way as how all the other beautiful stories usually begin—at a standstill, engulfed inside a prayerful setting, seeking for some form of a life, inside within a single dot: Presumably digressing on top of an empty page. It was a lot like sowing a seed on an empty field, the first page became what the “parenthesis,” has beholden inside a prayer, or otherwise; the substantial element to which enabled me to feasibly open the proverbial hidden door to this “particular” dream of mine. But, before I can even begin to think of filling it up with something, or anything, other people’s ears may deem, beautiful—I figured, I must do some ploughing over the ground first, to put all the right pieces for me to reconstruct the bigger picture. And then to use the sum of its crossing over as my steppingstones to get to you; that would be my own adventure, and just as life will always depend upon the unfolding of the mystery to what the future holds. So, the journey is at hand.
I took the first step, and from the get—go, saw, “life” figuratively unfolding from within the very first word, all because of what I heard from a still small voice. I mean, come on! Tell me, who else would have thought of such a possibility coming to exist inside such a deep impression, so small and so soft, anyone else could have just as easily missed it all together. Except, for the fact that I, personally did not miss a thing. I heard everything, right down to the tiniest of its flicker—a few milliseconds later, each one grew into this thunderous spark, and when it was already deemed, inescapable, exploded out onto this magnificent blaze. And somewhere within the midst, there she was—surrounded by the most beautiful glow that I had ever laid my eyes on, and then—hmmm! She was looking straight at me— “HER” —the girl of my dreams, and all I could say was, “Is that you?”
It all seemed way too awkward, at first but progresses with a touch of unruffled sense of sensibility, as I tinkered the following thought, “Hmmm! My life will surely, never be the same, again.” Believe me, when I say there was no right word that could have classified her completely, as to quench the thirsting of my own heart. She was simply beyond compare. She was both brilliant and beautiful, and yet again—with a touch of something extraordinary, that I could not help but to enlarge my imagination; she reminded me of a candle from a birthday cake. I mean, that thought came as a surprise—surprise!!! Although, she can certainly make everything about my life, lit perfectly, that was not the surprising part to me, but how dramatic the light fills the void, and aah! Just like your ordinary everyday candle, one second, she was there, and I was on top of the world, and then the next, poof! She was gone—just like magic, and my whole world just suddenly came tumbling down in an instant. How can anyone else, ever justify the full significance of that, and her being gone so vividly historical? I could not—not bear the burden of not being able to see her again, I had to do something, or else, which I did instantaneously, and soon enough after, I found myself staring face—to—face with a whole new different source of reality.
Okay, please bare this in mind; I’m not trying to be funny here, and I certainly do not want to be a comedian or anything like that, but—still, allow me to share with you, the punch line of the story. As it turned out, I was never the one sleeping or even asleep somewhere, nor was I ever the master of my own dreams. Like I said earlier, somewhere within the blaze, I might have been beguiled, and it had never occurred to me that the girl of my dreams was, “in reality,” the dreamer of mine, in that, I was merely the one—looking in.
I hope I didn’t confuse you too much, although sometimes you have got to admit how that has pretty much always been how life generally works, and in other times, life has never been about the rules, but about whether there was ever, even one—to begin with. Sometimes, the most extraordinary journey that can come to any dreamer has nothing to do with him, as being the main character of the story, or about his dreams, being the main point, not even about how greatly he can dream, his dreams, but more to do with how the ending of the story must eventually justify the wholeness of its meaning; for a dreamer to be a true dreamer would always be defendant upon how he can ultimately make his dreams; become the biggest light to his own life story.
That was how I started to write my book, “The sum of a thousand dreams,” but that wasn’t how it all first came to fruition. And so, first thing first, before I can ever even begin to provide you with a personal kind of an expedition under the book cover— I, as the author, at the surface of it, would like to take you on a brief recreational trip down my memory lane—as for you to meet a few side stories to add onto the sum, and to what became the actual dream of it, and how that dream became the crossroad I took to reach the sum of a thousand dreams.
To speak about when the actual “light bulb moment” happened, I was being truthful when I said, I was sitting under a tree—on that same day, but I wasn’t at the park, nor was I, in my own bedroom—dreaming about dreaming it, but I was at someone else’s backyard, reading a book. The tree, in its true form,” was a fully grown apple tree, and it was standing at the middle of a beautiful garden, and it wasn’t an actual leaf which fell on me, but an imaginary apple challenging the “thinker in me,” to be more of an explorer. Oddly enough, like I said earlier, there’s a great chance, I may not even be the one who was asleep right under it, but for the most part, it was all me, meditating at what I was reading, and then, that was when gravity, naturally took over; I fell asleep, and that became the first step to my journey, heading through a thousand dreams.
The book that I was reading was, “The bible,” that explain why I was clasping a pen as fell asleep; I was praying. It was opened at a verse where the author wrote, “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept” and that was when, ding—ding—ding—ding! The light bulb moment with lots of s’s at the end. I mean, the story didn’t just come from one single light bulb, kind of a thing, which just unexpectedly lit up in my head, but it was more like Christmas lights on a string, and not so much as though they all lit up together, all at once, but one light bulb sequentially lighting up after the other; it was progressively running with a definitive passion to meet a certain goal. A goal, that can perhaps be equated to the same light, but this time, found at the end of a tunnel, I call it a “born—again experience of sort.” You know what I am talking about right? —but instead of the standard one going horizontally, this tunnel was inverted to stand upside down, and I, was standing at the very tip of it. What I uncovered seeing—looking in, was me sowing the seed, as to what can become the future pages to my book. I have been chasing each light bulb from then on, and each one which I happen to catch along the way, left an impression, that starts with a rhetoric, that always ends with a question mark, “what if?” —and here was when I become so hungry for a resolution; my mind, ended up eating every single one.
What if, when Adam was led to fall asleep, couldn’t there be a great chance, Adam may have, perhaps, also been dreaming throughout his deep sleep of his? That was the first thought that came to mind, which turned somewhat conclusive, and hmm! That makes him the very first dreamer ever—ever, ever.
Since Adam was the very first man who has ever lived, created from the very likeness of the same awesome, “God” who created him, “The Creator” who was all together, omnipotent, and true, and truthful, meaning, time, and space, and whatever else we can put onto entirety of its continuance, will have no such relevancies where it comes to this case. Considering how Adam has not yet sinned, at this point, and so, his connection with the “Creator” who created him, applies to the paradigm where a verse in the New Testament of the Bible aforementioned, “As He is, so are we in this world”?
What if, since God created Adam from the likeness of His being and then if we were to take in consideration where “free—will,” fits onto the equation, which God also gifted him with—Adam, himself was a creation with a touch of a creator born within him, but I am not looking at it in the physical sense, but spiritually, where dreams can come and go, like the wind.
As the first dreamer with all the time to use in the not yet finished world, what if, he already saw everything? What if, he already had a preview of what life is to come, in its entirety, fast, present, and future, (with God being the Alpha and the Omega,) Adam could have tapped onto the same realm where he could have seen the coming attraction to the future movie, depicting all of our lives, or maybe even seen the full length of it, up to where the word “Armageddon,“ could be just a word to explain the moment when eventually awaken from his dreams. I mean, when the Bible wrote, “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept,” I could not find any following statement anywhere, saying as to when Adam woke up, the verse only continued at how humanity was the born through him, the moment his womb gave birth to Eve. And as for him, to wake up from his dreams, became the seed to a dream coming life.
What if, we are all, only reliving the same life, which Adam lived in his dream, but only within a limited portion of its sum? I mean, it somehow explains why some dreams simply vanishes so easily as soon as we awake, what if, not all dreams are meant to be the same, and those dreams just happens to be the one’s which we can only borrow? What if, all our lives are only a retelling of the same love story about boy who dreamt about the girl of his dream, or vice versa? What if, what we call as our “history,” were only just the beginning of adding each of our live onto “His-story,” but this time I am not trying to refer to Adam, but at God, Himself, which John of the Bible also wrote, “God is love.” What if, everything about life has always been about one thing—It was all about love?
And so, here it goes—the beginning to the sowing; wrapped around my heart’s most ardent yearning, to be free. And there was only one problem, how can I possibly share what I can only imagine? Because you see, I could not imagine being a writer. At some point, I might have dared myself enough, but I was not what one may consider, a typical one, and me using the term typical, is all a jargon to mean absolutely nothing but an excuse. I admit it, I do not have the right desire for it, and I have no sort of a pedigree, to suggest that you could count on me. I have no experience to show for, no plausible working hobbits, and as far as the most basic natural knowhow to write even a paragraph; zero, nothing, zilch, but I do have a story to tell, which I felt, may have overpowered all my shortcomings. I guess you can say my dreams were only bigger than my voids. So, I wondered, what can be a more perfect place to sow any sort of a seed or write any kind of a story than at a page where there was absolutely nothing there to begin with. Where I could simply just let my faith do all the writing for me. Here is one of those “light bulb” moment: “What if, I could do just?”
Anyhow, I went ahead of writing this book, blind folded while seeking the light switch inside the darkness, and went on journey with my eyes closed, except with my eyes close, I could see nothing to write about, and so, all I could do was lean on my dreams, and discovered how my dreams do, in fact, have a mind of their own.
By this time, I could see so many light bulbs in my head that I simply had to pick one from of those, “What if’s?” like picking some fruit from an invisible tree, and to merely turned down its volume. Since I figured, if I can’t write that story, I may as well use each one of them as backgrounds to a more contemporary muse. What if, in my dreams, I am more than capable—in my dreams, I am a writer, and I can write this story? What if, as the dreamer of my dreams, I am the one in control? What if, I could then use “this” dream, or even borrow a little bit of “that,” dream, which belong to someone else, and since I am the one driving this “particular” journey, I think I may be allowed to borrow a few of those, right—just nod your head, I can’t see you, directly anyways? What if, I were to write my own story, inside someone else’s journey, someone else’s pain, and someone else’s drama, and write about the life which I could not quite live out, in my real one, or write about all the promises I could not keep, or use this chance to fix all the mistake I had that could made have my life a whole lot better? What if, I can finally meet the one person I have always dream to meet, and live the beautifulness of that life, even if it only in my dreams? What if, I can write about my weakness in life and turn them that into strength? The battle rages in my mind, and what if, I can win some of those, or even just one battle, the possibility becomes endless, and so I tried to add those possibilities, and ended up coming face—to—face with the sum of a thousand dreams.
Here is what became the synopsis of it:
The sum of a thousand dreams, is a coming—of—age story which dare speak about “Love,” not as a mean to a journey’s end, but as a starting point, to where a new point of destiny gets to be reborn onto a thousand pieces—overflowingly. Love, this time around, gets to sit at the driver’s seat, and becomes the one in charge of measuring the innermost depths of the human heart. The ultimate object as to correlate the totality of everyone’s true affections, points to love, and love was now the one wearing the mask of the seeker, and where it comes to where the heart of our story goes, allow me now to introduce you to the protagonist; J—DE Reed, a four—year—old kid, who woke up one day, losing both of his parents from a car accident. Not only did he lose the love of his life, at such an early stage, he was there when it all happened. J—DE while sitting at the middle of his world, witnessed it all; from when His parents died, to how they had to give all they had, to prevent a bus full of children from falling off of a bridge, and regardless of how heroically sentimental the images of that may have sounded, with regards to, sacrifices, or saving lives, but to witness all of that through a young child’s perspective, that dream will never to grow old. A nightmare which will haunt him, the rest of his life. Our protagonist will spend most of his days going back, and forth at those same “particular” moments in time, even clinging too much onto the sum of everything that he lost.
In due course, our story will grow up from the very first word to the next paragraph, then through the next few succeeding pages, habitually—our protagonist will also eventually move on, with the help of his dreams. Everything about life was never supposed to be a simple matter, or easy—not even the most simplest of things, like how the sun shines every new mornings, or why birds have wings and uses them to fly, or how miraculous it is to see a fruit come to life from a tiny little seed, plain and simple, and J—DE’s life story is one of those simple things, that only became extraordinary when love the central point of his story, and because of all the people he ended up surrounded himself with. Starting with the foundation, his parents; even though, they already passed away, they never truly left his side. Then came the walls; his new family circle, who provided him with all the care needed, and supported him through every storm. The next one on the list were his two best friends, Ryan and Abigail, who were a direct extension of himself, like three unified steps, connected to the front door—the door being his brother, Jared, as the one who opened the way to his new life.
J—DE’s story is a simple one, about how he was able to build a place, he can call “home,” attached to a very special tree, which also happens to be a treehouse, as a treasure chest amongst his dreams. Now, remember when I pointed earlier, to when the plot to his story, thickened. Remember the bus full of children, whom his parents died to protect and saved, one way or another, whether directly or incidental, a great part of the story revolves around how these children each grows up, as the backdrop to the legacy of his parents. What J—DE missed to realized, the moment he lost the guidance of his parents, a few angels or two. These group of children, in some random act of fate, will play a great big part to how J—DE ended up putting his life together, and with regards to the things he once lost, he got so much more in return, to realign the true path of his destiny. After all, this is a love story, seeking for love, from the heart.
Time—Out! Here is a short compulsory side note. Please keep in mind, I published this book in year 2014, while I became a born—again Christian; 2015. I just want to make sure there will be no misunderstanding where it comes to who I am, and current faith. Due to my choice of topic, where it comes to all the “What if’s” statements, please consider how, I wasn’t trying to add my own interpretation to what was the written in the Bible. During those times while I was writing this book, I was innately, lost from within the process of trying to explore the deeper meaning of the unknown universe to my own life, and as I overtly coined the phrase, “I was lost,” all that I could do at those time, or in space I was given, all I could do at the time was to lean on my personal understanding to things, and for a dreamer such as I was, and for such a thinker which my mind tends to overwhelm, I came into writing my book, unclothed like a baby, which can be likened to a book with yet a cover to name itself. I was merely trying to share with you the story of how the story of my book became what it is.