OOMMEN: Sweet dreams

Last night, I had a dream.

It was a Monday morning, and I had no idea where I was. I was lying in a bed in a dorm room I didn’t recognize.

Disgruntled, I paced a couple of times around the room and then looked outside the window.

The hustle and bustle of Commonwealth Avenue had been replaced by a peaceful area of trees and buildings that looked like they had been built in the late 17th century.

Across the room, the unmade bed was surrounded by pictures of a girl I had never met before posing with her friends and family.

The next moment, that same girl came into the room.

“Rise and shine, sleepy head!” she exclaimed, giving me a hug.

I backed away and asked who she was and what I was doing in her and her roommate’s room.

“You are my roommate, a fellow Harvard freshman, and all your dreams are coming true,” she said in a comical manner.

I looked around my side of the room again and realized she was right.

There were pictures of my friends, my family and myself. This was my dorm room. My college.

“Harvard accepted my application?’ I asked my roommate. “When?”

I got on the laptop that apparently belonged to me. My class schedule was my wallpaper.

Chemistry, an engineering course and German were my classes for today, and I was already late.

“But I’m not a science student!” I exclaimed. “And I can’t speak German!”

“But you’re in Harvard … Veritas!” said a voice in my head.

I accepted this truth and got ready. From the neatness of my closet, super-organized desk and busy schedule, in my dream, I was the proactive Harvard freshman that my mother dreamed of me being.

I soon found myself walking out on the street.

As I was putting money into a street musician’s bucket, another girl greeted me and told me I was going to be late for orchestra. I asked her what instrument I played.

“The violin,” she replied.

She asked me to join her for lunch at the dining hall and we began walking toward what looked like a church.

After a lunch of pretense, I had a very important meeting with an advisor for next semester classes. I tried to explain to him my situation about changing career paths but then I started talking about Boston University and suddenly I wished to be there again.

I woke up again and saw my messy closet in front of me and the view of Commonwealth Avenue behind me.

I also got texts from BU Alert and a friend from my French class telling me to meet her at the Warren dining hall.

I was so happy to be back.