When one turns their eyes skyward and look at the stars, one oft wonders the nature of these distant lights. Many astronomers, of ancient and contemporary sort, have gazed upon the starry heavens, trying to map the cosmos and decipher the truth within.

Many wonder about the nature of the stars themselves, and so they analyzed the light they emitted and so they discovered their nature. They got to know more about the celestial bodies which so populate the sky. Many civilizations have found that they stand upon one of the innumerable specks and clumps which dust the cosmos. Yet their fascination with the heavens never ceased and soon they discovered how stars above them were great spheres of flaming plasma and how they danced intricate paths across the cosmos with the help of gravity, forming the galaxies and planetary systems which gave order to the sky. Eventually, their pursuit of knowledge and understanding of their place in the universe would lead them to discover that which occupies outer space.

When one begins to turn their eyes to where there's little, to the gaps between the stars, to the void that kept the stars and galaxies apart, to the holographic tapestry of constellations that make the universe, they would see a great discrepancy. Through the calculations made by scientists, all the visible matter that exists couldn't possibly exert enough gravitation force to keep galactic bodies together. No, not at the current rate of universal expansion.

There had to be something massive and grave existing.

For you see, the universe is not what it seems.

There, in the gaps between the stars lay the dreaming thing, slumbering. Its body stretches across the universe, occupying otherwise empty space. Its possibly serpentine form threads up and down the dimensions, exposing irregular blobs of its invisible flesh to the 3D plane. Its flesh invisible to the senses and all the instruments we possess could only be observed and measured by the effects they exert. Though light and other stuff pass through the blobs as if there non-existent, they affect the space which they occupy by their gravity. In current parlance, the theoretical substance, the flesh of the dreaming thing, is called dark matter.

The dreaming thing does as what it's called. Although it may appear unconscious and asleep, it is anything but. It lays within the Nyxian intergalactic void, sleeping and dreaming. It is conscious and lucid and interacting with the universe. It dreams of living idyllic lives on tropical worlds while simultaneously dreaming of scavenging on harsh radiation-smitten planets. Sometimes it dreams of building grand structures that seemingly pierce the very skies while in other times it dreams of participating in skirmishes against equal enemies while the earth quakes from the power of explosives. It dreams of childhoods and old age. It dreams of life and death. It dreams of love, hate, and acceptance. It dreams of being awake and being asleep. It dreams of dreaming. It dreams of consciousness and you.

You.

It is you. It is me. The dreaming thing is dreaming about us. It dreamt of being in our shoes and being in everybody's shoes. It dreamed of being animals barely capable of logic and of being creatures of massive intellect uncovering hidden secrets of the universe. Your every thought and desire is brewed within the dreaming thing's brain. You looking up to investigate the mysterious dark matter is itself witnessing itself. Although you and everyone could only sense an infinitesimal fraction of the dreaming thing's form, when it's everyone conscious in the entire universe, each vision of itself adds up into a collage of its full glory.

Though the dreaming thing may appear static, it is anything but. The dreaming thing has been growing alongside the expansion of the universe. The breath it exhaled during its dreamful sleep permeates the entire universe, urging all of space to expand, accelerating the expansion of the universe to accommodate the dreaming thing's growing frame. In current terminology, the dreaming thing's breath is called dark energy.

The dreaming thing is quite ancient, more ancient than the primeval light emitted by the first stars. It is incalculably ancient, having been living before time flowed and the first tick tocked. It has existed since the very beginning, possibly even existing prior to the Big Bang, and will continue existing billions and trillions of years hence, after we had long passed in the memory of the universe.

Its dream of the universe will eventually come to an end. As the dreaming thing continues to sleep in the numberless eons that will pass. The breath the dreaming thing expels will grow alongside its growth in size. Permeating the universe in ever increasing density of dark energy, all of space will expand faster than the natural forces could hold together, even in the embrace of the dreaming thing's entangling form. At the end of time, the universe will grow dark as the space which all occupy expands faster than light could travel. All of matter will fly apart as the very fabric they're embroidered upon stretches without limit, unraveling the stitches which fasten them to reality.

Then the dreaming thing will open its eyes for the first time in numberless eons, awake. As the universe around it rips apart, tearing at its most fundamental layers, the dreaming thing will awaken, fully mature, ready to take on the multiverse. The cosmos around the dreaming thing dissolves as the membranes which separates which-that-is from which-that-is-not disintegrates, the dreaming thing will emerge into the greater multiverse like a young from its egg.

Although it has awoken, the dreaming thing continues to dream. Wakefulness does not remove its ability to dream. Perhaps it would continue to dream of dreaming.

Perhaps it would dream of a universe.

Perhaps it would dream of us.