Dreamers Keep On Dreaming

I’ve got a confession. I’m a dreamer. 

I mean this literally and figuratively. Every single night I have extremely vivid dreams that I can usually recount in full detail. 

Sometimes I’m lucky enough to even have a few lucid dreams once or twice a year. 

If you don’t know what lucid dreaming is don’t worry, it’s a pretty niche topic (here is an extremely educational book,  "Llewellyn's Complete Book of Lucid Dreaming" that covers the topic extensively if you who want to creep further down that rabbit-hole). 

Anyways let me give you my brief synopsis: 

To break it down, lucid dreaming is the act of becoming aware that you are in fact, in a dream, and then exercising control over the actions you take while maintain that dream state. 

It would be like waking up inside of a video game and being able to do anything you want, all the fun without any of the risk of reality. 

I recall once having a dream in which I had a tall, somewhat alien looking figure turn his head to address me, and ask: “and what have you been dreaming about?” 

As soon as the question was proposed within my dream state, I became aware that it was a dream and was instantly fully lucid. I spent the rest of that dream flying through corn fields as the sun was setting. 

It was a wonderful experience and quite a bit of fun. For me, lucid dreaming is an extremely rare occurrence. There are many who practice the ability of ‘waking up’ in their dreams and train their minds to do so successfully on an oft-repeated basis. 

Beyond my sleeping habits, I’m also very much a dreamer in real life. 

If you aren't dreaming much then the first step to recalling your dreams would be to keep a dream journal by your bedside and as soon as you wake up, try to write down what you were dreaming about. 

 

If you repeat this habit for long enough then you will begin to train your mind to remember your dreams more clearly. The second step might be to assess your mattress and whether its time for you to upgrade. 

My wife and bought an iComfort mattress online (much cheaper than the mattress stores) and haven't looked back as the level of comfort and ease with which we fall asleep now is not even comparable to our old sleeping setup. 

I think its easy to forget that we spend on average about 1/3rd of our life sleeping and if you aren't utilizing a proper mattress to do so, then you aren't going to be your best self in your dream state or in your day to day life. 

 

I’ve always had big ideas, thoughts, and aspirations that probably sound unrealistic when I speak about them out loud to other people besides my wife.

At times, I know my wife loves me for my big ideas and dreams, and at other times, I imagine it can be a bit more irritating. 

I often get laser focused on a single subject for a small period of time and in my exuberance, will talk her ear off about a topic until she wants to duct tape my mouth shut. (Hopefully this is an exaggeration guys I’m pretty sure my wonderful woman loves me with absolutely no conditions). 

Interestingly enough though, I am sympathetic in her annoyances with me and my tendencies for even I recognize that as a dreamer I can at times have my head too far in the clouds. 

At times I definitively need to be grounded in reality. What’s that phrase? Wake up and smell the roses? Or how about this one: Don’t dream your life away. 

But I swear I can’t help it! 

There are few things that I enjoy doing more than stretching out the confines of my imagination and picturing what kind of possibilities exist outside of my current reality. 

Sometimes this is for realistic sounding goals that are currently only accessible through a dreaming mind. 

What if my writing/blog took off to the point where I could actually do that full time? 

What if our daughter grew up to be the first Female President of the United States!? 

Sometimes I go even farther, just imagining “out there” ideas that have no basis in reality and delighting in those ideas.

What if I happened to run into John Mayer in the airport, we became best friends almost immediately, and then we went to hang out and jam on guitar? (ok that was an actual dream that I had one night and let me tell you: IT WAS EPIC.) 

What if the Earth is actually a giant space-ship traveling through the Universe and put into its orbit by some higher intelligence being? 

I even went as far to imagine that Earth is actually the Noah’s Ark that is referenced in The Bible, created to protect all life that exists in a harsh and cold universe. 

It’s an out there idea but I have fun with coming up with those kind of thought experiments and seeing where they go in my mind. 

I LOVE to dream. Truly. 

However, I think having a spouse who is more rooted in what is real/possible allows for a healthy balance as it helps ground me when I’m nearing the upper level of the Earth’s atmosphere and at the same time, if my wife is being too cynical or pessimistic, sometimes my imagination and tendency to dream can help lift her attitude, and I’m able to pull her up into the clouds with me. 

What are your dreams? Are they insanely farfetched, fairly achievable, or perhaps even aiming too low so as not to allow yourself to be disappointed? 

My opinion is tainted by my own nature, but to me, why dream at all if you can’t dream BIG? 

My wife and I love to discuss the idea of being financially independent, having ZERO debt, and only having to work part time in order to pay the bills so that we can focus on raising our daughter full time and traveling across the country.

Is it possible? Most things are. Is it realistic? It would take an immense amount of work, discipline, over 8-10 years but I do think that it is in the realm of possibility. 

Is it the path that we will ultimately walk down? That’s the real question. 

So much can change from year to year as we both work full time and pursue a healthy combination of success in our careers, stability in our finances, maintaining our friendships and familial relationships, working on our own relationship as a married couple, and adjusting to the life of being an active parent in our daughters life. 

Needless to say it is quite a plate to balance. I imagine a waitress or waiter carrying a giant platter of food, drinks, plates, and utensils working to keep it all perfectly balanced as they walk on what probably feels like a tight rope. 

One moment of lack of clarity or uncertainness and it feels as though it can all come crashing down. 

So the question begs, how do I balance out my dreams in life, in the face of reality and all that it brings with it? 

Should I give up all personal dreams of mine to focus on work, my wife, and my child? Should those dreams get sidelined in support of my daughter’s dreams and aspirations? 

I think not. 

I think doing that would be a disservice to my daughter as I wouldn’t be living out the life that I’m telling her she is capable of living. I’d only be selling a shadow or shell of my own reality. 

If I’m not actively in pursuit of my own dreams and making time for those, how can I tell my daughter with a straight face to “dream big”? 

The truth is life is impossible to navigate without having seasons where we aren’t fully committed to what it is we want. There are storms. There are landslides. 

There are times where the very ground that you’ve stood on for so long starts to feel like lime jello as you slip further and further underneath the weight of reality’s overwhelming and uncanny ability to make you feel small and unfit for the destination you are seeking. 

Yes I dream but YES I also put my dreams in a drawer at times and let them stagnate, let them fall to the wayside in the wake of life’s constant wear and tear, hitting me like an ocean tide hits a shoreline. 

That tide will reshape the shore over time, re-organize it, and turn it into something different than what it originally was. 

In the same way,our dreams can shift, change, and transform over time given the experiences and hardships that may come our way in life. 

But we can’t give up! Those seasons will come and go and at some point you just have to embrace the struggle, take a deep breath and stop making excuses. 

Pull that dream out of your junk drawer, dust it off, and give it the air to breathe again. 

Nothing worth anything is ever easy or completed in a single day, week, month or year. 

Everything of value and merit takes time, consistent effort, patience, and a willingness to fail over and over before you ever see that first success. 

I think the key is that you maintain goals and when reality tries to step in and stop you from achieving your desired dreams and goals, you stare hard back at reality and let it know that YOU are not going to relent. 

You are going to be just as constant as the ocean tide. 

YOU are going to put in the long hours and sleepless nights, dreaming of something bigger and putting in the energy to make it happen. 

YOU have the willpower to pursue your dreams in the face of struggle, stress, strife, and everything else that the world tries to throw your way to get you off track. 

Why will you do it? 

The same reason that I am pursuing my dreams and trying to be something greater than I’ve been told I’m capable of being. 

Because we only get this one singular life and there is no better time than now to start viciously living it and conquering the areas that we’ve for too long been told are unconquerable. 

Together in writing this blog and continuing to contemplate on the journey and how we are to travel through it, we will get where we are intent on heading! 

Together we will identify our dreams and start building the road to reaching them. 

Coming full circle to the idea of lucid dreaming, we are all in a sense living out a lucid dream on a daily basis. Our perception becomes our reality and we have all of the tools around us to shape our reality and control the dream that is life in any manner we see fit. 

But so many choose to sleep through their lives and ignore the power that they have internally to pursue greatness. So I say to those hungry for more: Dreamers keep on dreaming! 

If you want to dream on with more content from likelyfiction then check out my post, "Faced With The Vast Universe" where I discuss the action of looking at the stars in the night sky and how we as humans fit into the collective whole of the Universe!

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