The other sight.

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A dream, really.  But some dreams are different.  Some dreams are just dreams.  I think these were created and developed to help us deal with the ambiguity of the world.  A place for asking what if... filling in the blank without reservations, morality, logic, but not necessarily excluding those.  And perhaps exploring that.  Other dreams, for me, are prophetic.  Prophecy is only the naming of the potential.  Some more strongly, some more weakly... some without a doubt.  But no man may know, not for sure.  I don't care for those dreams, in some ways.  It's like loving to cruise on a ship, then wandering into the murky down-below, where the machines grind, oil and sewage water and hard things exist.  There is a beauty to it, but no surety, and yet absolute certainty, given specific givens and inputs.  Then there are the dreams of time past, some of it mine, the flesh suit I own has had a... rich past.  And there are dreams of other people's past, though some of those, perhaps, are me as well.  And there are some dreams of my future.  Not quite... prophecy, these.  Just... their own.  And then there are the dreams... like the one I had last night.

As you may have noticed, my dreams are rather... full bodied.  I don't dream of a butterfly, a lake, and a dragonfly.  I live at the lake, in the example given, and fully realize my living status, my residence or camp, I study the flora and fauna if they are noticed.  I live from a day to years in that dream, and it becomes a part of who I am.  Crazy?  I don't know.  Simply an artifact of a powerful imagination?  I'd love to believe it but I don't consider myself imaginative, not in the... this area.  I am functionally imaginative.  I deal with the reals, and mix and match application, process, and technique.  For example, I consider a lot of crossover between love and war, and have been tops at both... in my areas of those, and for good or ill.  Still, I don't just dream a little dream.  I go live somewhere, become someone, or even something, else.  I have been a bear, a wolf, and an eagle, in that order.  I ate, thought, hunted, and lived, socially and singularly, as each beast.  No simple small dreams.

In this dream, and this type of dream, I... don't understand these.  It is as if I am looking through myself, looking through myself.  I am highly dissociated from the lead main in the dream, and yet I think it is me.  These are the dreams where I see myself, for example, as the rider of the red horse.  In these dreams, I might be that, or some other aspect of it, or see some way that this came about.  But I am and am not who I am.  So it was with this dream.

In it, I found myself, somewhere in middle life.  I had been, and agreed to be, a product of and for war.  I had been trained for combat.  Not the type of warfare a soldier or general or typical military asset would encounter, but all out warfare.  Then I was trained to be a general, given the same operational freedoms as before.  I was taught tactics, given real combat commands, taught to see the enemy and his motives, through his actions, and to be able, and willing, to sacrifice this unit (men) or that for the scheme.  None of it is... pleasant business.  Some sacrifice, or offer that, of themselves.  Others have an even more terrible burden.  They must sacrifice others.  I was created to be both.  A bastard of the way of war.  A bastard I am, and so it should be no surprise.  Simply, the notion, sometimes, catches even me flatfooted.

I was taught hard.  I was taught well.  I was given nothing, but what was needed.  I often had to make due with less, or even nothing, and in real world and hostile environments.  I learned to not die, I learned to kill, but I had to survive, or not.  Training went beyond the battlefield and enemy territory, engagements and ghosting.  Beyond the world of flesh, the education went into the mind.  Deprivations, starvation, indoctrination, literal practical professional training.  I was separated from myself, so as to be what was needed and wanted.  Torture was something I endured as part of it, perhaps even in my combat situations.  I learned escape.  I learned many things.  Including when to fight, how to fight, with whom to fight, when to go alone, and how to sacrifice everything I loved in order to win.

I was not taught about greater good, God, the worth of men.  I was, however, chosen, in part, because I already had the attributes in these areas that were seen as satisfactory.  The hope was that neither would unbalance the other.  The goal was to have a man who loved and obeyed God, had a respect and love for mankind, and yet could set aside these things, or balance events and actions through a process that a computer simply can't replicate.  A weighting scale with a greater latitude for perspective than most men can naturally have, even in the worst of situations.  Can you surrender yourself?  Many can.  Can you surrender your family?  Your allies?  Your leg?  Your morals?  While many men have done so, they didn't often do it willfully, only regrettably.  The difference may seem slight, but it's not.  There is a universe of difference between the two.  What is the gain, is all I will say.  I can't be bought, negotiated, threatened, or blackmailed.  I am.  If, that is not all I am.

Sweat rolls, sometimes, in such dreams.  Burning.  Much humanity was sacrificed in the making of this man, or me.  Things so delicate, so precious, but so costly to carry where I was being created to be sent had to be... removed, eliminated, killed.  Things were lost, or set aside, beyond that.  Take the breaks out of an automobile, or the sugar out of soda, and the thing becomes less inviting.  And, in the dream and in real life, considering these things is painful.  But there was a method created, so that the war Pinocchio could still be a real little boy.  An alternate ego, as common parlance might term it.  A being created from the ashes off all the innocence burned on that pyre of and in sacrifice.

For the most part, when people meet me, it is this that alternate ego they are meeting.  But it is not all they are meeting.  Some know it, others don't.  Whether this is all in my mind, a trick, or if there is something cosmic, divine, or real to it... that I don't know.  I just know... it's as real... no... more real, than I am.  I have no idea how to deal with such dreams, notions, or that reality.  So... I don't.  I see it, I write it out, and I... let it be.  There is some pride, and joy, to and in it.  And some great sadness.  In equal parts, but grand in ways most could not understand without building themselves into a mobile temple fortress.

Well... that was my dream.  Now I will... try to... just live.  Good day.