Somewhere along the way we stopped and forgot to dream. We got busy with life and became evolutionary hamsters vying for a piece of cheese. We stopped to dream and it is now time that we get back and dream a little dream.
We know what happens if you sleep but don’t dream. I don’t mean you don’t remember your dreams, I actually literally mean when you don’t dream. Why you lay down tired, but are unable to reach rapid eye movement and hit that beautiful stage of sleep that allows for dreams.
You were designed and born to dream, and so when you are deprived of it, you will quickly become highly irritable, angry, and in find yourself in a full blown emotional crisis. You will break down, because that’s how important it is to dream.
Now, lets think about it. If in a matter of days we can become extremely unwell if we don’t let our unconscious mind dream, why wouldn’t the same hold true for our conscious mind? They are one and the same, and what arms one, surely arms the other. And we used to dream. We dreamt a lot when we were younger.
We had visions of scoring the game winning goal in the Stanley Cup final, or becoming a tenacious scientist like Marie Currie. We dreamed of becoming a painter like Emily Carr, or a rockstar like Axel Rose. Ok, maybe without the cocaine and heroin habits or the unnecessary crazy antics, but we dreamed and we dreamed often none the less.
If you observe children and talk to them, you’ll realize that they all dream. It’s what gets them excited in the morning. It’s what gives them that unstoppable attitude. It is contagious and soulfully up-lifting. So, what happened?
I’m not sure if dreaming was legislated out, or educated out, or somehow compromised out of our lives but it happened. We stopped. Or took greater care to grind out our existence than to purposefully dream out loud.
Now is the time to get go back in time and bring back the ability too dream a little dream. We need to work extra hard to return to a second innocence. We have to leave childish things behind and rediscover the childlike ways of living out the rest of our days.
I know you’ve got dreams and I am certain of that because I rediscovered mine. The funny thing is, as you discover and pursue only one of them, another one will suddenly begin to glance back at you. Without dreams in our life, we are dead. We become emotionally broken. Tired. We live less than human lives. We morph into caricatures of resignation.
But dreaming a little dream can change all of that.
It will take you a little bit of effort, yes, and a lot of persistence, for sure, and you’ll definitely need to dream each and every single day. Not just on vacations. Dreaming will have too become an integral and a daily part of who you are.
You have to begin small. You have to begin somewhere and you can’ stop until you dream big. So big, that other people notice and begin to dream themselves. There is simply no other way to be happy, or fulfilled. It is our dreams that keep us young and provide a meaningful existence.
So dream a little dream. Dream lots. Make your way back to your second innocence.
Cover photo generously provided by photographer Johannes Plenio via unsplash.com
