I once met a man who trained himself not to dream What he seems to have seen was a glimpse of everything He's been painting pictures on canvas since age thirteen And claims he only exists in the mind of a higher being And I enjoy his work; mostly scenic landscapes But each one is focused on an easel where the man paints himself painting himself And all that's in his visual field He said this was the only way he could make himself real Ever since he could remember, he had one nightmare reoccur But until about ten years ago, it didn't matter It consisted of loud, distorted sounds echoing off the concrete He ran on top of it in attempt to reach a ladder Now sometimes, he'd get so close but never touch his destination Which caused him much frustration 'cause he didn't know what it meant And by the end of the dream, he saw the scene from a bird's eye Only to witness his dead body laying on the cement It was only to witness his dead body laying on the cement At first it freaked him out, but after a while he grew content So he thought, "It's just a dream," and kept living his life Writing his soul on the canvas 'cause it sheds his planet light And it goes on and on like space and time, ain't nothing odd It's not that he didn't believe, he just didn't approve of God His experience was one I couldn't comprehend 'Till I stopped being detective and listened to him as a friend He said [Chorus] He once saw a painting that told his whole life story It was then that he knew he was the art of divinity He once saw a painting that told his whole life story A brush stroke of the gods made him one note in their symphony He once saw a painting that told his whole life story He spoke for himself and not the rest of humanity He once saw a painting that told his whole life story And I realize that I'm not real God just imagined me It's like I said About ten years ago, the event that changed his whole reality Took place on his monthly trip to the local art gallery It was there where he studied his contemporaries And there where he nearly carried his sanity to a hole and buried it forever It was a very mysterious day The place was almost empty And he got chills down his spine just being present in the scene On the wall, there was a picture that looked familiar And when he got close, his heart stopped Cause he saw it was a painting of his dream It was a painting of his dream His body on a runway By a ladder to an airplane with it's propellers spinning Which accounted for the loud noise The match up was perfect And that was the day he stopped believing in existing He resented his creator I mean, words can't explain What must have went on in his brain while he stared into a frame Of a work of art which he created and was at the same time The mind can't handle that much, it's just insane It's like reading a book where each words describe your thoughts And in quotations, it reads whatever you say when you talk You think it can't happen But it did happen I guess there's surprisingly wide cracks in each life's sidewalk He stumbled upon an answer when he never had a question And decided to stop dreaming to maintain his mental health Now he hardly talks to people Just stays in his basement Writing infinity, by painting himself Painting himself This is a strange universe Is it all just a blueprint? In the real universe, is my consciousness useless? Are we really something a higher intelligence made up? A figment of imagination colored by a cosmic paintbrush? Maybe all of our art creates the fate of other beings Then every character in ever novel thinks it's alive and were just gods Ruling blindly Just a theory I don't know what it means But that's the story of the man who trained himself not to dream [Chorus] He once saw a paining that told his whole life story He witnessed the paradox of the word "existing" He once saw a painting that told his whole life story He colored his world theirs, and concluded he wasn't living He once saw a painting that told his whole life story The hidden variable that all that is is art And when I close my eyes, I see eternity as a story A God imagined the God that imagined me And I am God And so on