Realm of Thoughts (traducción al inglés de "Reino de pensamientos").

Realm of Thoughts

"How do you feel?" said a voice at my right. Suddenly, I awoke. I hadn't noticed him at all, entranced as I was by looking at the stillness of the river which lay before me, below the pier. Strangely enough, I couldn't remember whatever I was just thinking... although...

—You seem awful lost —said the same voice again. It belonged to a man who was sitting beside me. Tall, dark brown hair, greenish eyes.

—My apologies. I seem to have lost my focus for a moment.

—It is quite alright. Looking straight at the deepness of the water often provokes such an effect. May I ask what you were thinking?

—I don't mind, but to be honest, it seems to escape my grasp... you'll probably think me daft.

—Not at all. Did you come on your own?

—I think so, yes...

—You think so?

—I... —suddenly, I realized I didn't know the answer to that question either. Had I gotten there by myself? When? How? Where exactly was I?

—Easy... do you know where you are?

—I'm... on a pier? But which pier is this? Is it Saint John's Pier? Or...

—It could very well be. How do you remember Saint John's Pier to be?

—Quite similar to this one... but what do you mean? Is this it, or not?

—That depends.

—Please... no riddles now.

—I have no intention of confusing you further. But where we are right now is pretty much a reflection of your main thoughts put together.

—What? A reflection of my... how? Am I dreaming? This is a dream, is it not?

—In a way, in the grand scheme of things, it could be. But no one really knows. Thoughts are... elusive. As I said, these are your main thoughts, but, being a thought yourself... can you be considered a dream? An illusion? Matter or abstract? These questions are not easy to answer... and may not be possible to answer at all.

—Sir, I admit you have lost me. Who are you, can you tell me?

—I am a thought myself. One of yours, part of your unconscious mind. Your thought of "beyond". I am a representation of the forever present hunger for knowing what the meaning of existence is... where you came from, and where you will go after your death.

—So this must be a dream then... but... this all seems so vivid...

—Look around you now. Look at your thoughts.

I did as he asked. I soon realized that what seemed a peaceful spot at first, was actually a sort of pandemonium. The first thing I noticed was a man walking behind an old lady with an umbrella. He was clearly in a hurry, yet for some reason he couldn't seem to go around the slow—walking woman. Abruptly, he grabbed her from behind and threw her to the floor, after which he yelled something unintelligible and kept going. Both of them, the man and the lady, quickly faded away to nothing afterwards. A bit north of where they were standing, I saw a beautiful woman walking down the street. Another man, quite similar to the one who had assaulted the previous woman, was walking in front of her. A third, dirty looking individual came from around a corner. He started yelling something to the girl, and even though I could not really hear nor understand, I somehow knew he was teasing her with obscene language. All of a sudden, the man walking in front of the woman stopped and turned around, walked towards the stalker and punched him right in the jaw. Again, all of them disappeared after the commotion stopped. I was about to get back to my conversation with the man beside me, when my eye caught a glimpse of what seemed to be a person standing at the edge of the roof on top of a tall building, as if he was about to commit suicide. Indeed, he jumped, and after falling head first during a few seconds, he stopped... and remained there, levitating ,as if performing a wonderful magician act. A moment later he started to move, or rather fly, until he took up speed and vanished out of view. As I looked up, I noticed that what I had thought were birds before, were, in fact, other persons... all high up in the sky, flying... free...

—Free as you would have liked to be.

—Excuse me?

—These people you see... all of them. They are your thoughts. Representations of them. Things you have done or you may have thought of doing, but for one reason or another, be it impossibility, social adaptation, shyness or whatever, you never have.

—Then, the man who attacked the old lady...

—Exactly. You must have thought such a thing recently, at one point or another, otherwise you would not have seen it here. Same thing for those people flying... but then again, who hasn't thought of that, right? And look at that other man over there... with the cats... —he said, and pointed at very happy looking fellow, who was surrounded by at least ten cats and was giving them food.

—Right. I say again though, for a dream, this feels extremely real.

—Tell me, what is the last thing you remember?

—Me? Well... I... —Once again, I couldn't remember. It was exasperating.

—Slowly now. It'll come to you.

—I... was going somewhere I think. Yes... work maybe? I was walking. And then I took a bus. I got up, got my ticket, and sat in one of the first two seats...

—Go on.

—I remember the driver was driving a little bit too fast for my liking. But I also remember thinking "what the hell, I'll arrive at work sooner this way"...

—Quite positive of you.

—I'd say practical is more like it. Anyway, the bus kept going... and... a sharp turn? Yes, I think so. I think there was a child, running towards the street and then... wait, this can't be right...

—What happened?

—The bus, I remember it... flipped? And I got thrown away by the momentum... I think I slammed my head against the front window, but... —I touched my head instinctively, searching for some sort of wound. Nothing.

—And what then?

—Nothing... that's it. Then I remember some sort of... blackness? And then I was right here. So wait, does this mean I'm in a kind of comma, lying on a hospital bed? Is that it?

—What do you think?

—Well it's either that or I'm...

—Dead.

—Am I? But... how?

—You hit your head pretty hard. Probably cracked your skull.

—Yes, I get that! But... it was so sudden, I didn't...

—And what did you expect? A warning? An invitation? —I glanced at him, angrily—. Come now... this is yourself talking, remember? I am but a mere thought, stemming from your own mind.

—You do talk like me, I'll give you that. Alright, so I'm dead then. The end of the road. What's this? Heaven? Hell? Limbo?

—Your mind.

—My mind? But... my brain is dead, how is this possible?

—Thoughts have a power of their own, do they not? They even affect reality in the material plane sometimes. They exist in their own plane: the astral. What some call "souls" is merely their own mind, resonating in the universe. You are a thought, or rather, your mind is all of your thoughts, amalgamated here in the astral plane.

—And these... they are all my thoughts? What about other minds?

—This is your own spot of the astral plane. There's one for each mind. Of course, each mind is intertwined with the others. Think of it as a tapestry, made of several strands, each one being a train of thoughts, a different mind.

—Care to explain?

—Oh, you already know... but fair enough. You see, I, as part of your unconscious mind, have always had a stronger bond to the astral plane, thus, I get to stay here when your mind travels. You see, each of your thoughts takes place here... this astral plane, or realm of thoughts, if you will. Your mind is connected to it during your physical life in whatever world you live in, but to access it... well... only few can do such a thing. It is divided. Your conscious mind, the stronger part of your whole train of thoughts, becomes fully attached to your vessel, its brain, and therefore its limited physical senses, making it extremely difficult for you to perceive anything else outside the material plane. Once the connection has been severed due to the vessel being damaged or spent, your mind is free again, and it yearns to be made whole once more.

—How come this place is so similar to the material plane then?

—Your conscious mind has just "returned" here. You are a representation of it. Having been active in a particular way for so long, it still holds reign over the rest of your thoughts. It's its way of exhibiting things... playing recorded thoughts, along with your subconscious mind. Had you been in a different world, you'd probably be seeing things a different way, similar to whatever world you may have been in.

—You mentioned other strands, other trains of thought... how come I can't see them?

—It's just a way to put it. The truth is there is no "distance" between them. Nor are they in one same place. The astral plane cannot be measured that way. You are always in your own strand, but where one intertwines with the other and where it does not, no one can say. All of us are thoughts, in the end... and we may very well be one mind, of one single being.

—So you're saying we're just part of the train of thoughts of another being? But who? Where?

—Are we? I'm not stating the fact that we are. But we could be. Or not, who knows? Maybe not all minds belong to it... maybe only some do. Maybe there's more than one "host" mind, in which all subsequent minds reside. Who these beings are, where they are... I am not sure if finding out is a possibility. You, yourself, your thoughts give existence to other thoughts. Your actions in the world you used to live in spawned thoughts in another person's mind, which in turn created new thoughts, that may have affected another. So new trains of thoughts are created, each thought coming to into a new strand. But the truth is, even here, you are not always in control of your train of thoughts either. That is how you travel to other worlds... you just can't control it.

—So I'm not staying here then?

—You will, for a time... but for how long? No way to know. Well, assuming time was actually a measurable factor here, which is not. At some point, your mind will travel again... to a certain world, to a vessel...

—Why? Why does this happen?

—Both planes, astral and material, are also connected. Think of them as two poles of a magnet, attracting themselves to one another. Part of your mind will be travelling again, and will become the conscious mind of a new vessel, while your subconscious stays in between and your unconscious mind remains here. Now if you're asking how this came to be... then I'm afraid I, or rather you, don't have the answer to that. As I said before, is all this just happening in the mind of another being? Both planes, all thoughts? And if so, how did that being came to exist? What controls all this? Is there some hidden force? Some minds have come up with a theory of one "Prime Thought", which gave origin to a train of thoughts, and thus all the rest. But whence did it come from?

—I see... it's rather pointless is it? You'd think upon death you'd stumble upon some sort of revelation... something that would made things clear, yield some sort of meaning... but this? It just leaves me further in the dark...

—As it always has. Every time the conscious part of a mind returns, a similar occurrence takes place in every strand, every mind... until the mind is finally ready to move on again, and it travels... minds hunger for knowledge, experience...

—And memories? What about them? What about previous experiences and travels in other worlds and beings?

—That's all we are. Minds are but what memories and experience have created, out of a thought which originated from a previous one. New acquired memories become part of your strand, as does knowledge. They are here, all around you, you just cannot see them or have access to them yet, because your mind is not whole, still partially divided and struggling with the passage from the material plane to this one... once it finally meshes itself together, you will see this place differently, and of course I will not be here, since we will be made whole again: Conscious, subconscious and unconscious minds.

—So then... my conscious mind waits... I wait...

—We wait.

—We wait.