Some might call it premonition.

Others, foresight.

Still, others might call it a miraculous blessing.

I call it a curse.

What came over me, I do not know, except that I had been sleeping, only to be awakened by some homeless man, ratty and ragged, rummaging through my coat pockets. I had been very tired, exhausted in fact, and while waiting on the bench at the bus stop, had fallen asleep, apparently looking like an easy target. The strange thing, though, was that just before I was awoken, I had been dreaming of being robbed by a homeless man, ratty and ragged, rummaging through my coat pockets, while I slept on a bench at a bus stop.

I know this sounds crazy, but it’s happened to me so many times before, and has only gotten worse.

The first time I remember it happening was the time I dreamed our giant Saint Bernard was licking my face, only to wake up to Toby, our giant Saint Bernard, licking my face. That may seem pretty innocent, but things got pretty weird pretty fast. I mean, just a bit ago, I had been sleeping slumped over on a bus stop bench, dreaming of the very robbery that was actually happening to me.

The worst part is, I have no control over any of this; my dreams just come…true. In the weirdest way, somehow I have some strange ability to make my dreams a reality, though I am unconscious of even doing it.

I’ve been to therapists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, psychics, mediums, doctors–you name it, I’ve been there. Still, nothing, no one can seem to figure out what’s going on. I don’t say that there’s anything wrong with me, because I’m not sure that there is; it’s just a strange coincidence that the very thing I am dreaming, I wake up to. Even though it feels like a curse, I wonder if it might have something to do with whatever is going on inside my subconscious, if it’s just a bunch of neurons misfiring, creating a reality beyond that I can’t control. But if I just could…

Tonight, I hope to stay awake or have good dreams, if I do fall asleep, because I don’t want another incident of just barely escaping a near death experience with a thousand swarming bees or a voracious, hungry bear. Needless to say, I don’t sleep much, which doesn’t really help, either: insomnia is not conducive to a stable mind, and an unstable mind doesn’t really produce rational thoughts–or positive dreams.

Even though with this condition, I’ve always been pretty different, I don’t know what I’d do without it; it’s a part of who I am–it is who I am. And I can’t seem to change who I am or control that in the least bit. My friends used to call me by my given name, Darien.

Now, they call me Dream-Maker.