The Centre of Narrative Gravity

This morning, a hypnopompic dream represented my youth to me as the receding tide on Ainsdale Beach: a flat expanse of puddle-strewn sand stretched all the way to the horizon, where a narrow lip of water threatened to disappear over the horizon and out of sight altogether.

I have, therefore, a number of complaints I'd like to lodge. Firstly, I slightly resent being taunted by my own subconscious; life is difficult enough without your own brain-stem being a source of misery. Secondly, the image of the receding tide and horizon are rather cliched, so I think my own subconscious can be accused of being rather trite here. Thirdly, the tide is a rather poor metaphor anyway, given that tides come in as well as out, whereas my own youth will never return.

It's a good job that my sense of a wholly unified, conscious, executive self is largely illusional, and, according to Daniel Dennett, merely corresponds to the centre of narrative gravity. A consoling thought, I think you'll agree.