I have always been a really vivid dreamer. Sometimes a week will go by when my dreams will hold just as much weight as my reality, and I’ll feel like I’m living in alternate dimensions. The things my brain dreams up are incredible. There are foreign nations, complete cities and transportation systems, a huge cast of characters, and tons of insane action sequences. My dreams seem so real. Sometimes I realize I’m dreaming in them, and I’ll pinch myself and it won’t hurt. Then I can control a little of what happens. Usually, though, once I realize I’m dreaming I start traveling back toward consciousness, no matter how much I want to stay there.
Once I’m awake, my dream sometimes stays with me all day. I’ll have little flashbacks. I’ll think about what happened, I’ll remember it like it was the event of yesterday. My dreams become a part of my life. Sometimes I can’t remember if a memory is real or if I dreamed it (or if I read it in a book). I used to try to find meaning in my dreams, picking apart all the specifics and assign symbols and try to decode the secret message. Now I just view it as a reflection of the state of my mind at any given moment. I don’t very often have really happy dreams, or maybe those are the ones I don’t remember as much. What stays with me most is the feeling that I’m running from something, or trying to find someone, usually in an unknown place. Maybe I’m late, or trying to catch a plane, or just trying to avoid someone, but there is always that heightened awareness and that feeling that something needs to be done that isn’t being done.
Last night I had a dream that all of my worst fears were realized suddenly as I walked along on a beautiful spring day admiring the scenery. Wham bam. I woke up totally freaked out. When that happens, it’s good to go back to sleep and change the ending of your dream so that it’s better. It’s so crazy how powerful your brain is, and how it can play tricks on you, awake or asleep. The best part about nightmares is that you get to wake up, but it’s easy to forget to not let your thoughts or your dreams control you. You are not your thoughts or your dreams. You can choose what to act on and what to believe. You can go back to sleep and revise. And you can get up and know that your worst fears will never happen in reality. Dreams are where they will stay.
