May 2016

Can certain images we often see, come only at night, and only in dreams?

You wake and wonder about a reality prompted by nocturnal scenes, and more so, by what we believe. By no means figments of your imagination, the dreams are real but require an imagination that happens while you sleep.

Through the day you have walked for miles, and thoughts have travelled far and wide. At the end of the journey the body is cold and tired of thinking, and moving, and doing. A good night’s rest can restore the body’s strength, but more importantly revitalize all that matters.

As the body adjusts to a horizontal plane, tension is relieved and joints become free of pain. Spread across the mattress, weight and mass is more equally distributed, your feet and shoulders now free of the burdens they carry. Comfort is important; lord knows you’ve spent enough time through the day adjusting to someone else’s needs, wants or orders. This time is all about your entire self.

Quickly you react to the new stationery position; the blood flows more freely and, finding its own tone or tempo, the chest rises and falls. Each breath shifts into rhythm with a lessening heartbeat. Muscles once constricted or contracted can expand as the body takes up a new space and shape. The mind becomes free to wander, your head feels hazy, and your now-closed eyes lapse into the head.

There is that slight dizziness as you notice the descent. This is the point where the mind realizes it is free-falling away from thought patterns, stupid questions, and the annoying idle chatter it is forced to contend with through the day.

Your mind may, briefly, seize the moment and try to react. We all have those one or two questions that demand to be answered at the end of the day, yet the solutions are not strong enough to hold you back, and are too weak to resist the pull of Morpheus.

With the blood slowing down to a nocturnal pace, all those emotions stuck in the veins and capillaries are now free to drop off the cell walls and circulate through the limbs and up to the head. Automatically you breathe in the still night air, releasing negative energy and feelings with each exhale.

It is while you are sleeping that the mind opens up and deep thoughts and memories begin drop in. Unpredictable predictions are released from the darkest crevasses of the brain. With the blood flowing smoothly, feelings and hormones shake themselves free and begin to travel through the bloodstream to the heart where they were born, and the brain where they were active.

The residue of days and years gone by, information forgotten or misplaced, along with people and places, are the things dreams are made of. Everything we dream is not imagined, and most of it is true. Or can be. Much of it is forgotten, or lodged in those hiding places we are often too busy to visit during our waking hours.

Dreams need not solve the world’s problems, and may only be mild entertainment. Depending on the stress or satisfaction of our daily lives, and ultimately sympathetic to time, there is nothing simple about dreams.

A dream is the result of what you know, or want to know. Dreams are not at all logical, but many times will make sense, if you don’t mind or allow it to matter.