Written by Dennis Harvell
The Flickering Hallway
They say a dream is a message from the subconscious. In this one, a “trusted” figure denied an obvious reality, and I felt the floor tilt”
The setting was familiar, but the rules had shifted. I stood in a room—maybe my childhood home, maybe a studio—and someone I trusted stood across from me. A simple truth glowed between us.
“The light is on,” I said.
They met my eyes with a calm so cold it felt rehearsed.
“No, it isn’t. It’s pitch black. You’ve always struggled to see things clearly.”
The world bent.
The floor tilted.
The air thinned.
For a moment, I actually looked at the glowing bulb and doubted my own eyes. That’s the cruelty of the gaslight—it doesn’t just lie to you; it makes you question the part of yourself that knows.
I woke with the “Dreamer’s High” inverted into “Dreamer’s Doubt.” My heart was racing, not from danger, but from disorientation. As a writer, my reality is my compass. To have it shaken—even in sleep—felt like an attack on the foundation I build from.
Sometimes the world, or the inner critic wearing its mask, tries to dim the lights on our ideas, insisting that what we see clearly isn’t real.
This wasn’t a maintenance call for my intuition.
It was a warning.
When the world flickers the lights, I have to be the one who stays grounded. My subconscious wasn’t replaying a conflict—it was training me. Preparing me to hold onto my truth even when the room begins to tilt.
As a storyteller, I am the architect of my own light.
No one gets to tell me the room is dark when I can see the sun.