The world is solid, they say, something tangible, like a brick. Air has substance. We may not be able to touch it, but it’s there. We feel the truth in that, like a slap in the face, discarding the dark dreams of our sleep.
  We sleep all day, all night, and the world is mortar and stone, the building blocks of reality.
  There is nothing behind the veil, they say, except our morbid fantasies and lucid dreams. We take comfort in that, take comfort in the fact that we exist. We strive all day, all night, not to bump into a wall, not to hit a tree.
  And the world goes on without us, growing to infinite proportions in our mind.
  At night we dream. We dream of mist and shadows and spirit, the world of horrors and joy beyond our imagination. We touch them, and they are tangible. They are true, and suddenly the world opens up to us, and we discover what was hidden, what was not.
  And we burn and breathe and live.