I Believe in Dreams

I believe in the power of dreams. Dreams mirror your true feelings, perhaps more than anything else. Take myself for example. I have recently gone through some very rough times and as a result, I do not remember most of my dreams, but I always remember my nightmares. They are vivid, always featuring a black backdrop like that of the darkest night sky. I am almost always outside and it is always cold, which I know because I am dressed in jeans and a heavy sweatshirt. Still, I hug myself for warmth as I walk along the dirty grey pavement. My footsteps echo. Then, I get that strange feeling of being stalked. I turn around only to see whatever horror haunted my reality that day, slowly trailing me. These horrors manifest themselves in different shapes and forms. They can be enemies or even friends, gruesome disease or rotting plagues, decaying objects or ghostly ideas. We both begin to accelerate, and I end up in a full on sprint. I pass the same distinct markings in the pavement, making me realize that I cannot escape. Then, my horror catches me and my scream fades into an abyss as my eyes snap open. All is still, it is three o’clock at night. This is what my dreams tell me. They illustrate my constant, irrational fear. My now anxious and distraught thoughts, always lead me to disturbing images and imaginations. Alternate realities form in my head during the day, simmering in a mixing pot. At night the steaming pot overfills, one horror spills out, and runs rampant in my dreams.

Dreams have always found an eery way of manifesting themselves into our reality. Abraham Lincoln dreamt of his assassination. Novelist Robert Louis Stevenson, who described dreams as “that small theater of the brain which we keep brightly lighted all night long,” dreamt of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Otto Loewi, a famous physiologist, discovered the secret of the chemical role in the nervous system through a dream. Paul McCartney awoke one morning with the hymns of the song “Yesterday” playing in his head. Dreams are our door to the parts of our brain that we will never consciously use. They should all be recorded, as precious fragments of ourselves. I just recently began jotting down quick notes on my dreams. But this was because I had not come to the realization of the importance of dreams before I began to truly think about them, and why they took the form they did. Dreams are unusually powerfully, so next time you experience one, you should at least take the time to remember it. This I believe.