two nights ago i had a dream––tell me what this means lolzz..

i find myself navigating a diversified, alpine landscape––mountains, forested paths, and steep ridgelines unfolding like a vast and wandering obstacle course. the terrain demands effort at every turn, and the movement is difficult––but the usual friction that arrests me in such dreams is strangely absent. i am largely physically, acrobatically ‘succeeding’––surreally bereft of the nauseating spiritual or existential encumbrances that tend to saturate my default dream psyche..

at one point the path leads through a quiet forested slope. there, adjacent to the trail, i come across the corpse of a panther ensconced in a body bag––and affixed to the bag is a handwritten tag bearing my own name ‘lucas’..

i pause, struck by the unsettling intimacy and implications of this mise–en–scène––wondering if some part of me has maybe been laid to rest along the path?

the terrain mutates slightly, and the forest begins to thin as the mountain rises sharply before me. i make my way up a long acclivity that gradually steepens into a rock face i must climb..

before pressing onward, i glance back––and there i see another panther, this one alive, standing somewhere proximate to the bag..

it evaluates me pensively, sovereign, composed––neither approaching nor threatening..

and somehow i know its presence there has something to do with its fallen companion. maybe it was rebirth? maybe the same thing returned in another form?––or maybe it had simply come to watch..

i continue my climb––and ahead of me another silhouette is proceeding fast up the mountain path, already negotiating the terrain that awaits me..

the slope grows steeper until at last the path opens onto a high plateau along the mountainside. the ascent softens here as the terrain mutates outward––though strangely it has now taken on a somewhat urban character?––the landscape now resembling the rooftop of an immense parking structure suspended improbably amidst the mountains..

as i step onto this strange rooftop expanse, i notice an escalator positioned at its center, descending downward––a quiet anthropogenic passage standing incongruously within the alpine heights, its presence carrying a curious sense of reprieve––kinda like a giant fuk you to topographical consonance lolzz..

i approach and pause at the threshold––apprehensively poised to step onto it and begin my descent..

and in that suspended moment––between effort and surrender, between ascent and return––with a single saccade of my pulsing eyes, the dream ends..

LS