Here’s a question I’ve been pondering as of late. What captures and holds most of our attention? I mean such items as food, fashion, cars, sports, romance and so on.
I’m sure you could add many other items to this list like religion, sex, politics, etc.
And of course there’s personal health, well-being, family and our work environment. These aspects form the basics of concerns in the lives of many, as they obviously should.
However, here’s an area we don’t much think about. We each spend about one third of our entire lives, roughly eight hours each day, (night) in slumber. We sleep. We rest. We dream. Then we awake and we almost totally ignore that portion of our lives, our dream world.
Some people will, almost unbelievably, tell you, “I don’t dream”.
Some other people you might well run across appear to be in a constant dream state in their waking world. I wouldn’t advise you to let them drive your car!
I have a friend in her nineties who sleeps about sixteen hours each day. She often tells me about events and recent occurrences of hers that I find hard to believe.
I ask her politely if this happened in what we call the real world or was it all in her dreams? She usually replies that she’s not sure.
Sleep, to me, is like time out, rest, relaxation and recuperation for the body and mind. It’s a state of altered consciousness. It’s not unconsciousness. We are mentally active and aware in our own universe. And if there is a disturbance or loud noise in our physical environment, then we can usually wake right up.
It seems to me that dreams are not as mysterious as some people think. They appear to be a product of our active imagination combined with how things are going in our awake world.
If you’re stressed, anxious or in pain. then you’re not likely to have pleasant dreams.
However, if you are healthy, comfortable, well fed and carefree then it seems your options for sweet, peaceful dreams are wide open.
But, and this is a major puzzle, there appears to be a forgetter mechanism set up at the gateway between your night time dreams and the other two thirds of your awake time.
Sure, you may well recall fragments and dramatic dream parts at times but they seem so different, illusive and separate from our physical existence.
Some medical conditions such as advanced Alzheimer’s look to me to be a lot like permanent dream states.
We try to pull these patients back to what is the real world to us, but they remain on the other side of the gateway in their dream universe.
You might hear people claim to have had communications, during their dreams, with loved ones who have passed through to the next world.
Some others say they have had great insights and fundamental revelations about the meaning and purpose of life while in their dream state.
I’ve had some of these myself, so they are real to me.
Lucid dreaming, which is being aware that you are dreaming and being able to steer and control the direction and plot of your dream experience is such a pleasurable adventure. You might accomplish this by simply deciding that you are going to do so right before you drift off to sleep.
It may also help to make a firm decision that you will remember it all afterward.
Science fiction writers at times like to explore our dream world phenomena seeking to validate it as an alternate reality and separate universe.
They sometimes ask how you know for sure that the seemingly solid world around you is really as it seems and not all just an illusion? And, conversely, are you totally sure that your existence, identity and experience in your so-called night time fantasy world is only a brief passing dream?
This is not meant to shake your belief, conviction and reality of the solid concrete, rocks, mountains, oceans and space surrounding us, dear reader.
But mystery, inspiration and imaginative creativity are often lumped together and associated with our dreams. I think the subject needs a lot more observation and study.
We can, of course, forget, dispose of and banish undesirable or so-called bad dreams. I wish we had that same ability to do likewise with our current physical world’s unwanted conditions such as war, famine, hunger, fear, heatred, etc.
Dan can be reached at danhughoconnor@gmail.com
