Our Souls are Deep with Dreams

When I was younger, I had a recurring dream of my grandmother. It started around the time that I found out from an insensitive friend that she had died. I was three years old. I couldn't believe that my mother would withhold that kind of information from me: I loved my grandmother very much and the idea that she was never coming back traumatised me -- especially because I never got to say goodbye.

So, my brain invented this incredible farewell with a library and laughter and balls of fire and the seaside. None of the elements matter all that much, but the important thing is that I got to see, in my dreamstate, my grandmother's ascent to heaven. It was spectacular and terrifying (how often do you see great balls of fire exploding around your grandmother as she laughs her way into the afterlife?). My dreams were a way for me to process something that I had been excluded from, and I have yet to attend a funeral that matches that level of entertainment.

I got thinking about other dreams as well. When I was working on my poetry anthology, I had a dream in which my dreamstate supervisor gave me the title for the collection. When I have had something pressing to say to someone, I could shout it to them in the dreamscape, especially when it wasn't polite to do so in real life. And when I met someone that I felt I couldn't quite trust, my dreams gave me a dramatisation of his despicable and underhanded nature.

These aren't our only dreams, however. There are awake dreams too; the ones where we do the equivalent of what Sting suggests in "Brand New Day": turn back the clock, start over and do the things we love with reckless abandon. In my experience, it's easier to ignore the dreams we have when we're asleep because we can rationalise them as figments of our imagination. The dreams we have right now, for our day-to-day lives, will persist until we chase them. They will haunt us with things like "could have", "should have" and, my  favourite, "what if".

Perhaps it's because I find myself at a point where I know that big changes are coming to my life, but I have made a decision to go after my dreams. It's absolutely scary and infintely exciting at the same time, but, more importantly, it feels right. If I were to complete Martin Luther King Jr's famous refrain, I'd say: I have a dream that I will live my dream of being a writer. (You know something? I already am: this blog and the projects I have going are allowing me to live my dream. It's so awesome I could burst.)

I'll leave you to think about your dreams, the ones you'd do if money were no object and you had all the time in the world. And, whatever you do with those dreams, see life as the amazing adventure that it is. Most importantly, dream on!