DREAMS

by Zed Hopkins

Dreams is an ode to the last four years of my life, a space where my memories, regrets, fears and gratitude collide in the hope of finding peace with the past. Using found footage from some of my fondest memories the film weaves together a surreal exposé that chases clarity in a world filled with chaos. Quite simply this film questions our modes of processing and ponders the space between reality and the subconscious. 

A surreal dream lulls me to sleep nowadays 

like a lullaby of memories cascading down waterfalls like mind-made movies

I’ve longed for my life to be cinema worthy  

seeing every moment as a scripted image

Imagining what it would be like to be captured 

thrusted into the lens and projected across the night’s sky 

And now finally I am captured,

trapped in the confines of a self-made camera

The lens so close it can barely can see anything

nothing but the minute details of my skin, the shattered glass behind my eyes

My past feels like a time-lapse and yet this moment falls upon my chest in slow motion

I can’t tell if it’s real or not. 

Does it matter?

Will it matter? 

I can’t tell if it’s real or not..

Time rarely slows these days 

the tapping of information cracking holes in my forehead

penetrating the frontal lobe of my perception

hitching a ride down the occipital vein

into my chest

my grasp of language still too elementary 

for the feelings that it prompts

And so my blood vessels boil, the steam with nowhere to go

builds up, hot to the touch 

but my minds learned not to burn itself 

just like my body’s learned not to see itself

Where am I?

Where am I going?

I still I can’t tell if it’s real or not..

Sometimes I feel as if the earth is spinning some 17 times faster

As if the centrifugal force of existence overthrows my handle on gravity

and I’m hurled through life like a dislodged star 

not shooting but falling,

caught in the currents of fictitious fantasies

chasing some pre-scripted future like a caricature of myself 

self-isolated and unoriginal

longing for the sweet kiss of conformity

and yet the further I fall the more I long for the ground

I dream of it sweeping me up off my feet and spinning me around

like some cinematic romance 

where everything’s solved,

perfectly packaged and bowtied

where there’s no more questions and all the answers

I can’t tell if it’s real or not..

If I really miss the past or I’m just scared of the future

I wonder what I feel 

I wonder What’s next..

I wonder if we’ll find the answers we’re looking for

I wonder.. 

I wonder…