For some, dreams can have a lasting, memory like quality to them. A dream about a lover cheating can bring a person a seemingly unshakeable anger toward their lover - at least for a few hours or days while that person tries to rationalize the dream. As Gael García Bernal's character Stéphane says in The Science of Sleep, "In dreams, emotions are overwhelming."

A simple fabrication you create while trying to digest all the day's information, references to the past week, observations about the future. Once it stirs emotions, a dream can sour a day, create distance in a relationship or in my case, on a weekly basis, stir old feelings to the surface and fuck them every which way. You see, I have been having dreams about my ex again. They're dreams about adventures,  betrayal, and false memory-like feelings of love.

We didn't end things in a firestorm. We came to an agreed upon decision filled with logic and supported by facts. Facts and logic my head is well versed in, but my heart, ah my heart. Treacherous, emotional, easily swayed to love, my heart. Add a few emotionally crafted dreams to my reason and logic, and no historically documented farewell can hold up to this feeling of longing.

We were in each other's lives for over five years, yes, but we have been completely out of each other's lives for months. While there is much that I cherish from those years, there's much that I regret as well. Distance, ill fated decisions, moods, resentment, and yet, through it all, love. I support our decision to separate with reason and logic on my side, and with love we wished for happiness. So with love, one must support the other's need for a complete and total end of the friendship that laid the foundation for love to grow.

Is it the lack of familiar contact that allows for longing to resurface? Does time allow for facts and reason to blur? Or are the emotions created in dreams really that overwhelming?

Labels: dreams, emotions, Gael Garcia Bernal, longing, The Science of Sleep, We used to be friends.