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Dream

By Dahni
©️  2022, all rights reserved

I suppose, we all dream, sooner or later, but why? Why dream? It is said or “They”, the unknown and unqualified experts of the world, they say_ we all dream every night. i do not believe that.

I myself rather ascribe to the Biblical sleep producer that, when I lie down, my sleep should be sweet. Proverbs 3:24

For the life of me, I cannot understand how sleep would be sweet_beneficial, needful, restorative and regenerative, if in my mind (my dreams), I am out galloping around the countryside of my head all night.

I read about REM (rapid eye movement), deep sleep 😴 and our body is in repair mode, eradicating or ridding itself of toxic chemicals. Awesome. But no one’s going to tell me that I dream every single night. I can, however, with nearly 100% certainty, tell anyone of the circumstances which must exist in order for me to dream.

1. I ate too much and too late before I went to bed to sleep
2. I drank too much and too late (except for water), before I went to bed to sleep
3. I was just not tired and should have stayed up and done something else. Even if I stayed awake all through the night and throughout the next day, not to worry, I will sleep well the next time. 😂
4. A lot on my mind is left- unresolved

If any one of the above or more are present or apply, I will most likely dream.

I have read many things about the importance of dreams and we’re talking about mental activity, during the course of sleep and ways to remember them.  That something may get resolved and dreams might seem completely real and you might even wake up with your heart racing, your palms sweaty and breathing heavy as if you were running a race. Our minds don’t know the difference between what is real or what is not. That’s to be determined by, the mind’s faculty of judgment.

So these are the things that I believe about dreams, but that neither means that I never dream nor that they are not interesting and perhaps, useful at times. Case in point, I am writing this piece of me having awakened from sleep and have remembered by dream. I am here now, about to share it with you.

A little background. Yesterday, I was reading and listening to perhaps my greatest musical influence. His name at this point does not matter to this story. But he was asked how he writes songs? Does the music come first, the lyrics or do they come all at the same time. His answer was that most times, the music comes first and then he tries to find lyrics that will fit. Sometimes he will write a poem or prose and go through much difficulty to find music, which will fit. Infrequently do all come together at the same time. But he said that most of his songs that people know were written between the hours of 12 midnight and 6 AM. He said it is because 90% of the world are asleep and there’s less distraction in his mind that would get in the way of writing a song. Then he spoke of the criteria that the song must have, in order for him to accept it and work on it and release it to others. Now he may have gotten it from someone else but this his three criteria are:

1. Anger
2. Wonder
3. Technique

I thought a lot about those three things yesterday. Are they true for all? Are they true for me?

Do I get angry? Sure. Not being capable of anger would really mean that we are just insensitive, non-confrontational, it just is what it is and life doesn’t get any better. Why live without anger? Well, I don’t believe any of that. However, I do believe in resolve. No matter what life throws at you, resolve to get it resolved, one way or another and move on.

Wonder or like innocence through the eyes of a child or just being curios, works for me.

Hope is the top of my list. no matter how much despair we might have, no matter how dark it might be or negative a situation, there is always hope.

We need principles or a code to live life. To do this we must first have some principles. We must have integrity. We must be brave. We may not be a hero or heroic public figures, but we must have courage, at least for ourselves. Anything less and we cannot withstand the storms of life and even the multitude of Fairweather friends.

We must have grace and live it and in it. What perfection has imperfection ever made or will it ever?

We must have resolve or resolve something as best and as soon as possible. There is something to always learn.

Be a child in always asking questions. Never stop learning. Always be curios. Never loose your wonder. Yesterday’s sunrise and sunset have never been and will never be like today’s.

Always be grateful and humble and you will always be kind.

Nearly last or actually first on my list is love. Love is the greatest action I can take, the greatest reason for doing anything and my greatest service to others for the grace I’ve been given.

Last of all, look for new beginningS. There are just 8 notes on a piano 🎹 and that is an octave. There are 11 octaves on a piano. Always search for another octave or for a new beginnings

So my list for writing songs or just plainly for living life is, as follows:

1. Hope
2. Courage
3. Grace
4. Resolve
5. Wonder
6. Humility
7. Love
8. New Beginnings

What does this list have to do with my dream? For one thing, this entire list got worked out in my head while I was dreaming. For another, every single item on the list was found in my dream.

But my wife Susan was in my dream too. So was the actor, Sir Anthony Hopkins. He was a world renowned and knighted psychiatrist. My wife and I seemed to be on a second honeymoon, somewhere in Europe where snow capped mountains were the backdrop to the Inn we were all staying at. Anthony Hopkins was there to rest and work on a book he was writing.

I know who he was and I acknowledged him with a friendly nod, but mostly, I felt like he just wanted to be left alone as I wanted to be alone with my lovely wife. I’m sure our tables were close enough together and he overheard conversations that my wife and I had.

I love to do childlike things including getting my feet on the bottom of a shopping cart and ride it down aisles like a horse, to my wife’s chagrin and likely embarrassment. There was one other thing that I was doing often in this particular dream. I did not have any skis or any other means and most of our monies were already spent in accommodations and transportation to and from this inn and back home. I borrowed a regular shovel from the grounds keeper, rode to the top of the mountain in a ski lift, got out, held the handle in my arms and hands to steer and to hold on. I would put both of my feet on the shovel, push off and ride it down the mountain. 😂😂😂

Apparently, Anthony Hopkins had heard about this from my conversations with my wife at dinner often and he had seen me actually do this, many times. But to my surprise, he was interested not because I was just weird or nuts or crazy, but for something completely unexpected.

Our last day at the Inn was also, the last day I would shovel-ride the mountain. I did so, but Sir Anthony Hopkins had rented a car 🚘 and he was following behind me. I was fine, but he crashed his rental, right before he would have also, crashed into me. I told him my wife and I had also rented a car and I would be more than happy to drive him to the airport as we three were to leave that day. He seemed incredulous and said, “You would do this for me, after I almost ran over you?”

We made arrangements about where and when to meet. I was to drive back to the Inn, pack the car, get my wife, explain to her the situation and then pick up Anthony Hopkins. But often as my dreams are, they go on and on. Things, roads, exits and just stuff that I was familiar with before, all seemed to disappear and I kept going around and around in circles. This is often how I know, I’m dreaming. I tell myself that, “This doesn’t make any sense, this is not real,” and I wake myself up.

This is where resolve comes in to the picture or the dream and it is also what frequently wakes me up and sometimes, I’m able to remember my dream like I am re-counting it to you now. But I drove around, couldn’t find the Inn, but I did find the Inn had a passenger bus and everybody loaded onto it, including my wife and Anthony Hopkins, They were all on the way to the airport.

My wife did not wait for me because, we had a flight to catch, I was nowhere to be found and Anthony Hopkins was on the bus and everybody at that point, recognized him and thought that was pretty exciting!

The only thing that I remember next is that we all made it to the airport to catch our flight on time and we all made it home so, my dream ended very well.

But the unique thing about this experience is we get tunnel-vision or just look at the same-O one Direction, analyze everything and live our whole lives that way. Anthony Hopkins, despite his success was enamored by my riding a shovel down the mountainside and he wanted to do something similar to regain his wonder for living life.

I-Magine often in the day. Stay curios. Seek. It will spill over into our sleep and if we dream, 😴 let it be interesting and get it resolved.