whose dream

it’s not so hard
somewhere deep inside ourselves
we know everything we need to know
but we’ve been
trained to forget
conditioned not to listen
we hunger for deep reality
but settle for weak facsimile
we aspire to courage
but allow our fears to be manipulated
we want to be free
but concede and compromise ourselves at every step
to feel safe.

we have everything we need to live in paradise
for everyone
but we’re eating it all up
and crapping it all out
as fast as we can
faster faster faster
more more more
hoard hoard hoard
mine mine mine
consume dispose consume
until it’s all gone
while high-def flat screen phantoms
shiny electrodistractors
and cell phone brain parasites
eat our time and our minds and our lives.

we live and die in a group trance
a mass of mass dreams
in which someone else’s dreams
are more real to us than our own
whose dream is this
whose dream do you serve
your conditioning is more than you realize.

stop
take a moment
take a breath
check your body
and ask yourself
am I awake right now
or am I dreaming someone else’s dream.

(PDF version)

The whose dream by Rick Belden, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.