Tag Archives: T.E. Lawrence

Dwelling on (Bad) Dreams

One Take from the Week #13: Dwelling on (Bad) Dreams

9 p.m. By my standards, it is late. I am still on my phone researching future investments. I know it is time to shut it down. I am taking in too much blue light. I am aware of the consequences and how it affects my sleep. Yet here I am, sipping on some chamomile tea and scrolling.

10 p.m. I have been laying here for thirty minutes. The moon is in its third night of super-brightness. Bethany is next to me sleeping soundly. I am wide awake. I take my phone out of airplane mode and open the Insight Timer app. I hit play on some sleep music. I am in desperation mode, and this calls for calming measures.

10:30 p.m. Nothing. I get up and go to the living room. Maybe a change of location is what I need. I hit the couch and then finally…

I am at a party. We are all having a good time, even the unknown serial killer that has joined us without our knowledge. Now people are dying, and I am in a fight for my life. How long does this fight go on? And then…

12:30 a.m. What the hell just happened? A bad dream? A nightmare? This is not what I need right now. That dream was so vivid, so real. I get up off the couch and go back to the bedroom. I lay back down and try to go to sleep. Yet, I am even more awake. Questions run through my mind, way too many of them.

  • Is a dream like an astral projection?
  • Did I leave my body and join other dreamers somewhere in the cosmic universe?
  • While in an astral projection, is it possible to sever the tether anchoring me to my body?
  • Can somebody else get in while I am projected?
  • Was the killer a real person somewhere in the universe?
  • Could he have gotten in while I was out?
  • Do I even trust myself at this point?
  • Who am I?
  • What am I?
  • Is it even safe to go back to sleep?

1:30 a.m. I get back up and go to the couch. I am back at the epicenter and afraid to go back to sleep. If there is a “yes” to even one of those questions, then it is too dangerous.

5:25 a.m. The alarm goes off. This is my “Don’t forget your keys and wallet and get on the road” alarm. I missed my 4 a.m. alarm and immediately go into fight or flight mode. If I don’t hurry, I am going to be late. Damn!

I am now driving with a podcast playing in the background. I barely even notice it. My mind is still trying to answer the questions. Freud, Jung, where are you guys? Got any advice? Nope. All is silent but my mind.

It does do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.

J.K. Rowling

Of course, I need to let it go. It does not do well to dwell on this one. Action, any action is the remedy. Action equals life. And I, I want to live. Write it down, put it on the shelf, and get busy with life’s purpose.

The stoic in me says these sleeping dreams are out of my control. I can’t spend too much time on them.

All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.

T.E. Lawrence

Are these sleeping dreams really vanity? In this case, I sure hope so. But the waking dreams, those are different. Those I can control. I have the power to influence the waking dreams. I can do something with them.

Feature photo by Ganapathy Kumar on Unsplash

Keep Dreaming

Hope 10/19/2019

I have been thinking about dreams lately. My dreams at night have become more and more vivid. Not only vivid, but stimulating enough to activate my mind and keep it awake for several hours afterwards. This is a bummer if I have only been asleep for ten minutes, which is what happened to me earlier in the week.

I have a friend in Ireland who told me about her recurring dreams. I am in her dreams, but in them I refuse to climb up a mountain with her. It reminds of me of my own recurring dreams. I used to love those types of dreams, because I always woke up feeling like a completed the next chapter of a book. And though my dreams are very different than my friend’s, they have one thing in common. They are both completely random. On that day at that particular time, the mind pulled that dream out of nowhere, allowed it to run its course, and then casually placed it back in the hidden closet from which it came. The sleeping dream is completely random. And try as you might, you have no ability to influence its outcome.

All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible. –T.E. Lawrence

I used to spend more time thinking about my sleeping dreams than I ever did on my waking dreams. What a shame, because I was focusing on something I had no control over. Why focus on something I can’t control, when I could focus on the things I can control. One is magical in that you can’t control it or touch it. You can only watch it and hope the story turns out good. The other is magical in a totally different sense. You can imagine it, shape it, and write your own narrative. You can control it from the beginning and even see it through to its completion. The waking dream that becomes reality is truly magical, and the magician is the dreamer who chooses to keep her eyes open.

“Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be.” –James Allen