Title of the Day — A Dream
Perhaps the dream’s lesson is this: to truly observe the world, I must first let go of seeing myself. Because sometimes, the only way to find meaning is to disappear—if only for a moment—into the clear, unbroken glass of possibility.
I am a house of notes. I wake at exactly 4:04 a.m.—no alarm, no warning—just that uncanny moment when darkness feels especially alive. Over the years, I’ve accepted it as my peculiar rhythm. Maybe I don’t need eight hours of sleep. Or seven. Or even six. Instead, I reach for the yellow sticky pads or the small white index cards scattered on my nightstand, scrawling reminders, half-formed ideas, or potential titles—words that seem to catch fire at that hour. Everything needs a title. That is how my days begin.
Last night’s title is The Hardwood House, born from a dream I can’t shake. I hardly ever recall dreams, but lately they’re so vivid—sometimes disturbing—that I wake convinced I heard the doorbell or a distant shout calling my name. I’ll rise and wander through the silent house, probing every corner—no intruder, no echo of a fallen object, nothing to explain the phantom noise. Then I glance at the clock: 4:04 a.m., a time ancient seers linked to home, safety, and protection. At least, that’s what I once read in a tattered book of numerology. I scoffed at astrology and mystical numbers, but I do believe dreams matter—those scrambled images and sounds our brains assemble from fragments of memory, fear, and desire. How do they come together at all? And why do they sometimes propel me into the day with a mood I can’t name?
In this particular dream, I stood before a four-story house made almost entirely of glass, its interior skeleton and floors crafted from dark, glossy hardwood. No furniture. No kitchen. No drapes—just endless transparency. I entered and climbed the wide wooden steps. Up. Down. Up. Down. The floors echoed underfoot; my reflection flickered on each pane of glass, doubling me until I lost myself among infinite ghosts.
Then, as if conjured by some dream-logic, a new staircase materialized. Of course, I took it—because that is what we do in dreams. The steps spiraled upward to the fourth floor, where the hardwood gave way to towering glass windows, stretching nearly eighteen feet from floor to ceiling. I pressed my hand against the glass and expected to see my own face or at least a blurred reflection. Instead, I saw the world laid bare—roofs, trees, distant hills, the pale glow of streetlamps. Everything but me.
Frantic, I raced back down—to the third floor, then the second, then the first—searching for that same view. But there, the glass only showed me: my anxious face, my sweaty palms pressed against the unknown. On floors one through three, I was all reflection and no vista. Only on the top floor did the glass become a portal to everything outside, a mirror that swallowed me whole.
Exhausted, I collapsed onto the polished hardwood, the grain cool beneath my cheek. I wept until sleep reclaimed me, half-wishing I’d wake to find it all just another “million-moment” passing through my mind.
Was the Hardwood House a harbinger of something—a call to see beyond myself? Or simply another trick of my dreaming brain, reminding me that perspective is fleeting and identity can slip away in an instant? Perhaps the dream’s lesson is this: to truly observe the world, I must first let go of seeing myself. Because sometimes, the only way to find meaning is to disappear—if only for a moment—into the clear, unbroken glass of possibility.
