When I was a kid, I stumbled onto something strange. I realized I was dreaming while still asleep. Suddenly, the dream world turned into a lab. I could fly, bend the rules, change the scenery, and pull objects from thin air. But one thing obsessed me…

What if I could bring something back?

Over and over, I tried. I focused. I willed it. I tried everything my young brain could think of. And every time, I woke up with nothing. Eventually, I gave up. It wasn’t possible.

Years later, when I learned about death, it hit me. Death is just a very long sleep, the kind you don’t wake up from. And just like in my lucid dreams, you don’t get to bring anything back. That realization cracked something open in me.

Why do we spend our lives chasing things we can’t keep? Money, power, possessions, what’s the point? None of it crosses that “line”. None of it survives the final blackout.

As I got older, I saw it everywhere. People chasing illusions. Greed, envy, gluttony, whatever you want to call it. All of it driven by the urge to own, hoard, conquer. But why? When it all ends, you carry none of it out.

That shifted something in me. Maybe life isn’t about having. Maybe it’s about being. About who we are, not what we collect. About the moments that shape us, the people we affect, and the echoes we leave behind.
Dreams remind us that nothing lasts. Death just slams it into you.

So maybe the question isn’t what you can take with you. Maybe the real question is what the hell you’re leaving behind.

If life is just a fleeting dream, what do you want your dream to mean?