When I Dream of ME

What follows is an account of a special event in my life that led to profoundly positive changes. It is an event I write about in Book 1, and it seems fitting to this platform where I attempt to share my journey through part of the criminal underworld.

As I sat to write this, I thought about many ways to retell this story, all proved elegant enough to me, but in the end, I decided to share it as I would with a stranger I fancied in a place I didn't know. I want to talk to you about a reoccurring dream I have had lately (lately being since the beginning of last year - 2019), which has helped me put many concepts in a clearer perspective.

According to Wikipedia, a dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not fully understood, although they have been a topic of scientific, philosophical and religious interest throughout recorded history.

In my dream, which is consistent in timeline and content, I am the devil. I am the big guy – and whilst the implications of such archetype are negative or considered evil by most social standards, I do not endorse heinous behaviour in my dream or while awake. What I do is control everything around me, to the extent that people come to me for help in achieving control of their lives. I grant favours to those who request them without expecting immediate compensation; instead, I suggest that they owe me for such blessings until I am ready to collect on their debts.

A significant part of the dream is my need for solitude. I attend to the world's demands for my attention as a chore, and though I do enjoy the power and control these demands give me, I prefer observing people's conduct from a distance, whence I derive a better understanding of it.

An even more critical aspect of the extended experience of this dream is my emotional state upon waking up. The first few times of awakening from dreaming of being the devil I would be unhappy; the impression that I was not that person the world sought to provide them with control, stability, and power would make my circumstance feel less than optimal. Don't get me wrong, I did not hate waking up, but it felt as if something was missing. I'm sure you know that feeling of being behind on a deadline: the understanding that something important has been left unattended, but you can't put your finger on it, as people love to say.

I will submit that now, and the last few times I've had my devilish dream, I wake up energised and ready to take on the world, to provide it with anything it requires of me; and this came after shifting my perspective to fit the meaning of the dream to the state of my psyche.

Dreams, I believe, are a reflection of notions and ideas that affect our psychological states. The concepts that occupy our thoughts, the events that affect our emotions, the things that worry us during the waking state (and many subconscious processes) are indirectly represented in our dreams. For me, it took conscious effort to stop to reflect on the imagery prevalent in this dream.

Introspection led me to see that I was executing certain functions poorly in my familial and extended circles. I noticed that I was not using my communicative abilities to get what I needed from the people around me, and I could not provide them with what they needed from me, as a result.

Extrospection showed me how my omissions were interrupting the loop of communication and therefore, the interpretations of it. It was necessary at this point to focus on affecting these important processes again; a choice that I'm delighted to say has yielded excellent results.

I may not be the devil, unfortunately. I do not believe that such constructs are grounded in reality, but the symbol carries a meaning that came before the inception of this dream franchise. Meaning that if analysed honestly, and reflected adequately on the world around me can provide answers to the question of me – of who I truly am.

PS: I say all this without endorsing any belief in the supernatural. I don't think our dreams are revelations of anything except for internal representations of our mental states. The meaning I derived from my dream is unique to me, and how I chose to live my life, this article is not a suggestion of how you should interpret your symbols. Thank you for reading and understanding.

I will share more about the invigoration provided by the dream and the extent to which it has helped me, in future stories.

Peyton