An Introduction

Dreams are magical things.


What is it that they're telling us? Are they telling us anything at all, or allowing our minds to travel, create, and imagine things that our "grown-up" world would never allow us to?


Personally, I believe that it's a mixture of both. The brain is a mad mix of neurons and explosions of impulses. That was in no way meant to be scientific. Just a very small summary of what I know about the human brain. I also know that scientists will NEVER know everything about the human brain. At least not while I'm alive. Or any of you for that matter.


Dreaming is a way for our minds to comprehend and cope with the real world. They take the mundane and make it fantastical. Imagine, if you can, that you have been in a car wreck. You have several senses that are working at hyper speed to try and analyze everything that is going on around you. You're taking in more information than your mind can process in those three to seven seconds that seem to take a full five minutes. You're eyes alone are gathering more information than you even know.


You go to sleep later. Dream about the wreck. See everything again with some extras thrown in. Maybe there's now a horse on the highway next to you. There was something there. Just beside you. Was it a car? You don't know. You don't want to know. But your mind knows that you're afraid, that you didn't comprehend. So now it's a horse. Roughly the same size of what you saw, but much more friendly. Unless you're scared of horses. Then insert some other friendly animal. Your mind is helping you cope to make that scary situation more bearable. 


"What about the dreams where I fall from a building and I hit the pavement???"


What are you scared of? Do you have a major decision looming? Are you going through a lot of stress right now? Then let that fear and anxiety die like it did in that dream. Let it go.


But, I digress.


Dreams - also a portal into the imagination. Did you know that you used to have one? Unless you're a habitual "dreamer" during the day, I doubt that you tap into it much any more.




Ever wonder what it feels like to have that again? Just go watch a child. I bet that if I handed you a toy dinosaur and a toy truck right now and said, "entertain yourself," then left you'd stare after me like I was crazy then pull out your phone and tweet about it. I know your type, and there's nothing wrong with it. You are you.


But maybe, just maybe, you're one of those people who would pick up those toys and play. Maybe there's a group of dinosaurs trapped in the jungle and they're working with their men counterparts to traverse the steep terrain. So the dinosaur hops in the back of the truck and away they go... Or men are using machines to try and take over the magical land they just found where dinosaurs still exist and the truck and dino start an epic battle where the pen you have with you becomes a man and the phone you could be tweeting with becomes another dinosaur and all Hell breaks loose.


That isn't polite in adult company is it? To play, to pretend. I've been fortunate enough to retain my imagination and have friends that allow me to express it on a regular basis. I don't mean that you've lost it completely, you may have just misplaced it. In the real world...


But I bet you have some crazy dreams, don't you? I know, most people don't remember their dreams. It's unfortunate. That feeling though, when you first wake up and think, "dang, that was nuts..." That's what's left of the dream. Your imagination crying out and turning all of your reality into whatever it wants. Most of the time, in talking to others, dreams seem to be using whatever you experienced that day, or week, and morphing it into something very unlike itself. Maybe it's about work. Maybe it involves the characters on your favorite show that you watched right before you went to bed. I know I've dreamt about zombies after a Walking Dead binge. Crazy weird dreams...


Dreams aren't always about reality though. Sometimes they're completely fictional. A place you've never been with people you've never met. Doing things you know you've never done. Never thought you wanted to, but now that you think about it... Are you sure?


I encourage those of you who do remember dreams, at least for the first few minutes after waking, to keep a notebook, a pad of paper, a sticky note, or, heck, you probably have your phone right there... just make a note of what you can remember. Jot down a key word. A feeling. Shapes. People you knew in it, describe the ones you didn't. You won't always remember the how and why and what. That's okay.


Dreams are fleeting. They are fading memories back into the subconscious that we can't yet access or understand. Just try. Try to remember. 


I will be...