Lenses:
To draw a comparison between nightmares and dreams...
Are they really so different? Both conjured by the mind, full of emotion, lacking clarity. Personally I never found either captivating. Lucid through both, I felt the dread-knowing I didn't have to. I enjoyed the love-knowing it was never to be.
But if I had to choose, I'd pick the nightmare. I'd pick the nightmare each and every time. Why? Because I'm a realist. I cannot see my reality as joyful. But I will not let a dream sour my reality either.
I pick the nightmare because no matter how scary it was, I always get to wake up.
In another time, another place, another version of me- I would have picked the dream. Knowing that after every long and tiring day I got the chance to dream.
To see things as I wish them to be and not as they are. I'd choose the dream so that I could look forward to the days end.
Now however fate is less kind. Now I need motivation to wake. It would be so easy to stay asleep. To slumber till Doomsday. But I must wake. I must exist.
Why? Because regardless of whether I matter to anyone else or not- I know I matter to me.