Dreams

What IS it about dreams that fascinate people so much? I am not talking here about wide awake, conscious hopes and plans and dreams, but the very personal and poorly understood nature of our sub-conscious sleeping dreams. I have always been mesmerized by dreams, and the dream state. What exactly is it?

I have read all the scientific chatter about R.E. M. (where the great rock band got its inspirational name) or Rapid Eye Movement, which is supposedly necessary to sink into a deep, healing trance like state where dreams originate and flow up from the subconscious to induce the feelings we interpret as dreams.

I have read countless stories where doctors hook people up to monitors overnight, ostensibly to measure their sleep levels in basic sleep research, and the supposed frequency of dreams, in various scientific objective attempts. But the bottom line is that even after all this time, the dream state is still barely comprehended or understood by the scientific community.

But this bare-bones scientific approach is one-dimensional at best. Because I am not talking here about where dreams technically come from, or how they originate varying by different sleep levels, etc, but by the living, vivid reality and sheer intensity of our dreams.

Maybe that is the essence of the quandary. Because dreams are something that are more subjective, nontangible and more deeply felt rather than something objective and able to be measured by scientific standards.

The thing that really strikes me about dreams, what really resonates within the deepest inner core of my being, is the almost magical, mystical, ethereal beauty and haunting reality of our dreams. Where do they really come from, and what do they really mean? It really doesn’t matter….or does it?

What matters is the impact they have on our lives, what they reveal to us about our deepest, most subconscious feelings and aspirations. And the intense and ultra clarity of our state of mind we are in when we are having the dreams, fast asleep.

There is nothing more real, yet unreal than dreams. For my part, as real and intense and vivid as they are, like a slap in the face or a vision of beauty, they usually disappear from all memory the moment my feet hit the floor when I wake up. And then the conscious side of my brain takes over…sigh.

I have always been hooked on dreams. I can remember the very moment when I first saw the classic movie “The Wizard of Oz” in the movie theater. I was just a child at the time, but the memory still lingers.

Nothing prepared me for the visceral shock and stunning impact of the scene where Dorothy is swept away from drab, gray, (well black and white) Kansas and emerges into the vividly stunning Technicolor and almost surreal full colors of the lush and opulent Land of Oz!

This sudden transformation is like an approximation of the dream state because in a sense Dorothy enters the dream world. And of course memorializes it with her famous line, “Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore!”

OMG! That left a lasting impression on me that has lasted all my life, and that is what dreams are like. There is NOTHING like a dream, there are no 3-D movie special effects, no Imax, no Surround Sound, no wrap-around curved streaming HD TV that can even come close to approximating the stunning, vivid reality of dreams.

Dreams are endlessly fascinating, and they are so very, very real, in the sense that they take over your entire mind and body, that it leaves me in awe and wonder of them.

When you are dreaming, there is no second-guessing, there is no equivocation, there is no doubt. You are fully immersed in whatever dream sequence your unconscious or subconscious mind has produced, developed, and infiltrated your mind with while you sleep. It is a wonder to me, a puzzle, a mystery, and a great and tremendous bounty, one of the supreme pleasures of life.

I have read that most, if not all of the original Native American Indians took it for granted as part of their various religions and spirituality. No matter what the tribe, they believed that the dream state was the real world and that the so-called real world, with its daily chores, trials and tribulations, tasks and duties, was the dreamy, unreal part of life.

Indigenous peoples often fasted for long periods of time and performed various rituals (some tribes in the South West even ingested peyote) to induce and achieve this conscious dream-like, trance-like state of being.

However they achieved them, they were able to produce visions and dream-like states while they were still technically awake. They often used the revelations revealed to them in dreams, either self-induced or natural, to name their children, manage their daily lives, or make important, influential life decisions.

This practice is certainly not confined to the Native American Indians. People from all over the world throughout all the centuries of recorded time have been guided, influenced, and ruled by their dreams. No matter what the country, no matter what society, Eastern and Western cultures have all been guided and enriched by their dreams.

It could well be argued that the philosophies and religions of most literate societies have been shaped and formed, molded and originated from what we are able to achieve, realize and remember from the dream state. Although there is no written record of the pre-literate societies, by definition, I am sure even the cavemen had their dreams and interpreted them in their own context.

My guess is we will never really know for sure how or why our dreams are manufactured, how they originate from deep within our subconscious minds. But even if science somehow, someday, someway manages to measure the parameters and scope of the effects of dreaming on some objective level, it won’t be the final answer.

I seriously doubt they will ever be able to decipher the mystery of the effects, consequences, and ramifications on our daily lives of the dream state, let alone explain the vivid impact and dramatic intensity of our own individual dreams.

As Steven Tyler, from Aerosmith, sang in his epic song, which can be interpreted on various levels, all that any of us can really do, and this is a good thing, is “Dream On.”……