(Image originally posted on www.wonderopolis.org)
I’ve had the same
reoccurring dream off and on for the past 9 years, no joke. I had it again last
night.
I’m walking
through a hallway in my old high school (I graduated high school about 8 years
ago), and I can’t remember what my schedule is. The late bell is ringing, but I
can’t remember what class I’m supposed to go to or what the room number is.
When I do remember what class (it’s usually French class), I can’t find my
textbook. Or I can’t remember the combination to my locker. There is never a
conclusion before I wake up.
You’d think after
9 years, dream Kristin would have found a way to remember where I’m supposed to
be. And when dreams like this happen to me, I can’t help but wake up and
analyze them to no end. I must be in the wake (ha ha, see what I did there?) of
a big event that I feel unprepared for. In my life, I am generally an organization
freak. Perhaps being unprepared is part of my unconscious anxieties.
Apart from having
dreams about unconscious anxieties, I’ve also had dreams about loved ones who
have passed away. My Mom has always told me that if the loved one appears older
than you remember them and they talk in the dream, then you are experiencing a
memory. However if they appear younger than you remember, and they don’t speak-
then you are having a vision. By vision, I mean that they are visiting you from
the afterlife or have a message. No matter what your spirituality is or what
you believe, there’s something comforting in this thought. I’ve also known
people to be able to predict future events based on dreams they’ve had. Call it
coincidence. Call it intuition. Whatever it is, the mind is such a power thing,
and everyone experiences this world and processes this life in different ways.
It’s easy to
place symbolism on dreams, especially if they pertain to your everyday life.
Sleep dreams are one of my top favorite subjects to talk about. But it’s such
an abstract topic, that there is really no proven facts about why we dream, or
how to interpret them.
Some people don’t
dream at all. Or at least they don’t remember them. I’ve never been one of
those people. I dream/nightmare intensely. I remember every detail, and on the
rare occasion that my dreams are fragmented and sporadic, they are mostly full
stories. This is where I feel extremely lucky. Because I’m a storyteller. And
if my subconscious mind can do work while I get the much-needed sleep my body
needs to function during the day, then I can double time my creative process.
This is why I fully recommend keeping a dream journal. It doesn’t have to be
anything fancy, just a spiral notebook or something. After you open your eyes
and take a few deep breaths of the day, just lean over and grab the notebook to
jot down what you remember from your sleep. This can be a ton of fun!
The thing that
blows my mind, is that dreams are mostly something you can’t control, since
they are in your subconscious. Of course there is the infamous “lack of
control” dream, where you begin to lose one or more of your senses: your
peripheral vision is blacking out, your legs can’t run quick enough, etc. But
that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about the fact that you
can’t even control whether or not you are going to have a dream to begin with.
My friend told me
that after she had her son, she stopped dreaming while asleep. This could be
due to exhaustion, to the point where her brain didn’t have the energy to
produce pictures while she was sleeping. She’s since said that they’ve come
back- but this got me thinking. I have no control as to whether or not I’m
going to continue to dream. So I must appreciate every moment of it, because
I’ll never know what I’ll experience when I close my eyes in bed each night, or
when it might just go away.
The possibilities
of the mind are infinite.
❤ Kristin and
the Wordwraiths
Wordwraith Books 