Autism: Daydreams

The room was in the basement. We called it the “blue room” because it had a blue plush carpet on the floor. At one end, it had a built in desk the width of the room, with large shelves behind doors on either end. The shelves were large enough for a child to hide in, something which I did often.

On the other end of the room was a small platform. I am guessing it was about 4 feet deep, and 6 inches off the floor. Perhaps there were pipes or something underneath, I do not know, but it was a good place to play.

To reach the room, we went through the rec room, down a hallway past a mini kitchen and the storage room under the stairs, and into the laundry room. The door to the blue room was on the left. That room was set aside for our playroom, and I spent quite a lot of time in there.

I liked the feeling of the blue carpet under my feet. I liked the thought of those shelves that I could hide on, should I feel the need. I liked that it was often quiet in there, as the rest of the family was in the rec room watching movies, or TV. I liked building with Lego in there.

Almost every time I played with Lego, I built houses. Sure they started coming out with Lego sets at that time, which came with full plans for building things like helicopters and cars and such, and I did. It is just that I liked building houses best.

After my houses were built, I could often be found staring at them. Daydreaming, I guess they would call it. For a moment, I could imagine I was tiny, and could see myself walking through those houses that I built – hiding out where no one would find me. I loved the idea, though I never could quite make it real… but I wished I could. I wished it so hard, that I almost believed it would be allowed (for impossible to me, then as now, stands more for not being allowed to do something than actually being, well… impossible.)

While at some point, I stopped building with Lego often, the daydream never really ended. In later days, it came to me in pictures that I had drawn, floor plans I had designed, pictures, puzzles, murals on the wall… if only I could believe… strong enough, true enough, loud enough – perhaps that dream could become reality.

Often those dreams came to me when I was alone, but there was a time where I was in the basement of a friend’s house. There was a mural of a forest on the wall. I was sitting on the couch with… I don’t really remember. Jessica, maybe. Two of my friends were on the bed playing a hypnosis game (we played it a lot those days, and although it never worked on me, I found it fascinating.)

Only on this day, I wasn’t paying attention to what was going on in the game. I was looking so intently into the mural, that I found myself walking down the path pictured there, in the forest. I was walking along, and enjoying myself very much, when suddenly I felt the strong sense that I was not alone in there. Someone was walking beside me, by herself, watching me. It scared me so much, that the dream ended, and I was back on the couch – where Jessica and I both began talking at once, explaining our walks through the forest. Strange.

These days, I continue to have these waking dreams. Sometimes other people are with me, but only in my mind. It has been a long time since I brought someone along with me… possibly because I am so often alone these days – and my son… well… he never had that kind of imagination.