Vivid Dreaming

I was in third grade, age 8, when I started having intense dreams.

Dreams:

I was standing on my dresser. I leapt off the dresser and the world moved in slow motion as I came crashing to the ground. Slowly, slowly, slowly, I saw the ground approach closer and closer to my face. The pit of my stomach moving from the excited and terrifying feeling of falling to the sheer horror of about to smash into the blue carpeted floor. Just before I pounded my face into the ground I was shocked as a strong, pulling, upward motion grabbed hold of my body from the belly and swept me towards the ceiling. In my relief the motion took over me and I began flying through the room. In circles and figure eights I went flying gleefully and happily with an incredible joyous feeling for this new talent I had found. For hours I swooped through the room, laughing to myself at the extraordinary experience. It was vivid and more real than anything I had experienced in life. Weeks later, I could not tell if I had dreamt it or truly experienced it.

Our house was under construction. My siblings and I were on the roof of our home. There was a sense of fear in the air. The dusty blue sky was ominous and stars twinkled without a cloud. A rumbling and a shake of the ground caused us to tremble and freeze in fear. We were in danger, something was wrong with the construction. The ground trembled as we came to our senses and began to run to the edge of the roof. The house began to crumble beneath our feet. The ground shuddered and pieces of brick and cement fell behind us. In the darkness, a sliver of a shadow crept in front of us. An Arabian carpet flew beneath us and we scrambled onto it pulling one another close, quickly rushing to get to safety. My youngers held me at my waist as I faced forward, not knowing where this new adventure would take us. We flew through the night, the wind so real in my hair, my siblings' hands at my waist so comforting and the feeling of falling and rising more true than any emotions I had ever experienced.

One night, I went to Thailand and I had a nightmare. I dreamt that I was lost in a maze of bushes and my siblings were somewhere with me. A vicious Queen of Hearts screamed in a shrill voice as she ordered her guards to kill me and my siblings. We ran from the guards, feet hitting the yellow, cobble-stoned ground. One after the other, me leading the way and my siblings only steps behind. We ran and ran and we ran. At a cliff, I was able to catch myself and stop, but my siblings were running too fast, they fell over the edge and were desperately holding on to the edge of the cliff. I reached out and caught them just as their hands slipped from their grip on the edge. I held on as long as I could until they slid from my fingers. I woke up horrified and devastated, just to see my sleeping siblings at my side. I went back to sleep determined to change my fate and the fates of my siblings. I put my head back down onto my pillow and threw myself back into the dream. I rewound it to the beginning. This time I knew what to do, I had lived the dream before. This time they did not fall off the cliff because I stopped them. I had saved my brother and sister this time and awoke before the Queen of Hearts could get to us.

Dreams can cause us to have very strong emotive reactions when we wake. Emotive reactions that can bring true joy, adventure, or horror. Through my dreams, I realized that I could create my own fate, that no matter the situation, I could change the story. It does not matter what life gives you or what cards that have been dealt. It is up to us to recreate our story and help ourselves get to a better state. The plasticity of our brains and the ability to create new neural connections is a testament to just how adaptive we truly are. It is so important to know that the way we exist today is not the way we have to exist forever. Today, I carry with me the notion that no mistake is too grand to recover from and that some of the most beautiful things can come from the most terrible mistakes.