Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away. At least according to Philip K. Dick. But what if something unreal sticks around and lingers? Does it become real, or have you lost touch with reality?

I’ve been away for a little while—a very short little while, actually—and yet it feels like a long stretch of time. The reason for that is, I believe, that reality was suspended for said little while. Time becomes strange when reality is suspended. A dream can feel like a lifetime; the split-second of a car crash can feel like eternity.

Everyone has to go away from real life from time to time, to escape from real life, to go to the mountains, or to nature, or to hear music, to listen to poetry…just to dream and to escape a certain reality of life.

I don’t think that we escape for the sake of escaping. Not necessarily, not always. We escape to change ourselves, to get unstuck, to return as a different person. Back to reality. Everything’s real (again), yet everything’s different. Not better. Not worse. Different.

I don’t know why, but some people enter our lives and bring an entire universe with them.

I think that’s what happened. I think that’s why I’m sitting here now, writing these words. I think that’s what always happens when one’s reality shifts. You escape, enter into a different universe; and, if you’re lucky, a little part of this universe stays with you.

We are obsessed with escapism because our souls weren’t made for this world.

You wake up from the dream; you know it wasn’t real, and yet you’re still glowing. You know that you can’t go back; and most importantly, you can’t go back to the way things were. You feel like nothing much has changed, and yet you’re now living in a different reality.