I'm going to pose a question that I would really like some responses to -- no matter how weird it might seem.

Have you ever felt like the world we're living in is not the real world?

I had an interesting conversation with Nate the other night (and that would be Nate, my son's pseudonym, not Nate my boss, for those of you who know me) about how he feels sometimes that this isn't the real world - that there's something else he's supposed to be doing or preparing for, and this isn't it. He has this image of himself in a room of ash that both protects him from a flow of lava that surrounds it, and imprisons him within the room. I guess it's sort of a Matrix-ish idea...that he's moving around this world, but that in the real world, he's stuck in a room of ash and needs to get out somehow.

What really interested me about this idea is how many times I've said that I feel sometimes like I'm stuck in a box that I can't get out of. I posted a poem on the subject that's somewhere in the archives of this blog. We both seem to have an idea that there's something else we're supposed to be doing that we can't quite define. He also mentioned that sometimes he thinks he just needs to leave the house and start walking and go out into the world. How many times have I said that very thing?

So...are we both having some kind of malaise and discontent that seems to be genetic? Or does everyone feel like this?

He went on to tell me about a dream he had that seemed very real to him, wherein he felt that he was in the actual REAL world, and was doing what he needed to be doing. There was pain and cold and struggle in the dream, but he knew he was where he belonged. He'd like to get back to that dream. I told him that maybe that dream was teaching him something about what he wants, and how he wants to feel. That he can have that feeling in this world. I confess I was having some concerns about him going off all half-cocked and trying to catch the Hale-Bopp comet or some such. I told him he's searching for something and he needs to keep looking and he'll find it in this world -- this being the one we seem to be in and all. All the same, I know I've had the same feeling before, that there's something else out there...and I wonder if I was telling him the truth. I told him what made sense, but still...I wonder -- probably because I haven't had any success finding the feeling he described, and I know I've searched for it too.

So you tell me...is it the family wanderlust coming home to roost (or maybe the family mental disorder), or do you all feel that way too? Are any of you trapped in boxes or rooms of ash? If so, how do we get out?