Am I that which I am in Dreams?

For as long as I have living memory, I have had dreams.

Day-dreams; blissfully poetic and fantastical, yet sometimes completely ordinary. These are passing fancies of fantasies that swirl and shift and gleam.

Night-dreams that are always vivid, intricately detailed with plots, scenes, settings, motifs and intense feelings and emotions. These are the dreams that inspire me, that leave me with a distinct feeling all day long, sometimes all week long.

Night-terrors/Nightmares that are absolutely terrifyingly real and serious. These are the gory, fear-ridden, beyond waking up and feeling "okay," experiences, and these are the reason I didn't want to fall asleep as a child, and occasionally, as an adult.

I almost always remember my dreams.

Apparently, this isn't the case for a lot of people.

Everyone has had the experience of waking up with a fleeting feeling of their dream; the wispy threads that float before their eyes beckoning to them to listen, recall and remember.

Most of the time... in fact, I would venture to say 99% of the time, I can always vividly recall my dreams.

I remember dreams I had when I was an imaginative and energetic child; an awkward and delicate pre-teen; an angsty and joyful teenager; an excited and intense 20-something.... these are the years I'm finishing up.

Soon enough I'll be dreaming my way into my 30's, and I have a feeling that it's going to be the same and different; I'll be having dreams I've never begun to imagine before.

Though I'm a full-fledged adult (and I beg to differ by the way that most folks, despite the fact that they've survived 18 years, are by no means at all ready or fit to claim the title) I often wonder what happened to the earlier me?

My sense of self has often shifted with my dreams.

I also have warning dreams -- some would call them premonitions, but really, I just think of them as the 'deja' before the 'vu'. In these instances, my waking life intersects with my dreams; what I've seen, heard, felt and witnessed before.... all very true visceral and intellectual reactions--- all entirely familiar.

Sometimes my grandmother talks to me in my dreams. Sometimes I dream of danger, and I awake with an urgent feeling to check in on a friend and loved one. Most of the time this happens, I don't necessarily tell them about my dream, I simply send them love and well wishes.

Whatever the reason for my dreams, I am eternally grateful and thankful that I have them.

I do not know who I would be, or how I would have developed without the stirrings of my subconscious.

Dreams have helped me survive through my past formative years and into my present ones.

I have no doubt whatsoever that they'll be an immensely important role in my future formatives.

No matter what anyone says, dreams that a person remembers serve a purpose.  They are often a mark of time, emotion, transition, transformance or simply part of a process.

Never let anyone dash them, criticize them, squash, squelch or suffocate them.

In fact, I think that most dreams who have been ill-treated come back louder later. ;-)


Remember, "We are such stuff that dreams are made on," -- Prospero. "The Tempest," IV.I. L156-7.