Which reality?

I demand to know, who is living my life for me? How have I become trapped in this sub-existence that I have been fighting so hard to stay out of? Someone has stolen my life from me. I can feel it winding on, playing through in my subconscious, keeping me barely aware of my failed aspirations.

I dream inside of a second life. A life much more satisfying, yet oddly troubling, awaits me every day. It waits for me to lend my mind, my experiences, to it as I sleep. It is a construct reality that is sucking me dry during my ever-so vital REM cycle. While I sleep, it feeds. My brain has become the target of a mental parasite.

When I sleep I go places. I meet people, I achieve goals, I explore. I have objectives. I cannot read in the dream-reality. I tried to read once and it felt like trying to lift an immovable object; imagine trying to pick up a car. No particulars are given to me. There are no distinguishable faces. I enter, do whatever is needed, devote mental processing and valuable rest time, then receive a few precious hours of deep rest before waking.

The dream-reality has carried over into my daytime life. I rely heavily on stimulants to stay focused on reality and the present. If stimulants are not utilized, my entire focus may become immersed in the second life. Most times I am living in both simultaneously, not devoting full attention to either, but working a balance of my facilities. It is obvious why I must focus on reality, this reality, but why do I need to maintain the other as well? What is it within the invisible realm that I feel the need to preserve contact with? What is going on in there that is important?

Welcome to my mind. Here you will find a constant struggle of multi-tasking and mash-ups of every task and thought that may need to be entertained at any given time. I feel as though I have a cloud to work with. Sometimes I find a piece of something useful, and it just happens to be floating by when I need it. More often though I cannot find what I need (focus on a specific process or devote a thought sequence) or I constantly find things that are not practical in the current situation.

The logical action to take is to find a way to sift through my thoughts and gain focus on a specific idea on demand. The problem with this is all creativity is then taken away. If I want to maintain creativity, I need to always be in an open situation where I can entertain whatever comes my way. Life must be an open book, a blank canvas, on which I can write or paint whatever happens to inspire me or strike my fancy.

I lack the ability to focus. All I can willfully muster are "fringe thoughts". I can see the outer limits of thoughts and ideas and theories, but I cannot focus on them to bring them to light. I feel like I am scrambling in the darkness, trying to reveal dim shapes, but doing so with a dying flashlight. Shadows are all I uncover.