Really Living 06 Jun 2008 08:56 am
Making new dreams
Awhile back, maybe 6 weeks or so ago, I started feeling aware of a need to dream some new dreams for myself. The purest fact is, my life has radically changed over the past year. Congruent to all this change, I’m also accomplishing several of my older dreams and goals. I see myself in a new light, a new context. Some of this is due to the therapy I’ve been going through while I coped with the divorce and the reasons for it… my inner voice has changed how I speak to myself, in every aspect from how I look to what I think I can do. Or, more honestly, it’s changing, present tense, because it’s a helluva thing to change about oneself and HARD.
Oprah used to say (maybe she still does) that, “God has bigger dreams for you than you can dream for yourself”. I love that spin on the scripture that talks about the “plans He has made”. And I guess if God doesn’t keep us in static little boxes, neither should we do so to ourselves.
Ever since I was a little girl I’ve had the ability to “decide what to dream” as I fall asleep at night. I start by describing to myself a setting and imagining myself in it…then as I fall asleep my mind continues on, usually in full color and usually with a plot. Now and then I’ll dream little seemingly mundane moment in my subconscious mind and then years later actually find I’m living that moment, leading to a punch of deja vu that has taught me to pay close attention to the “setting” of those “mundane” moments in my dream hours. They can provide powerful contextual clues as to how my life is going to change in the future.
So when the thought came over me a few weeks ago that I needed some new dreams I had a choice: deliberately plan some or wait for new ones to arrive without my determination at work. I decided to wait. Something felt wrong, and very small, about list making and controlling it. I wanted to be surprised, to open my mind, to let something in that might be very different from anything I can presently conceive of. To decide on my own what to dream felt too restrictive and confined.
Waiting on a dream is a little tense. Or, at least, it can be. Without a future vision I’m not really sure what I’m working for and I’m the kind of person that needs to have a goal in sight in order to maintain endurance. Open ended work is discouraging to me and trials become monotonous and purposeless. Tracking back across the past month or so, I can see days that reflect that.
Revelations don’t happen in a big BANG in my experience….rather, there is a build up and repetition, though it may be subtle, in the days just before, that make the revelation, when it finally comes, ring more true. It feels right because even on a quiet, subconscious level, there has been some level of preparation going on. And so it goes: a friend will mention something here, an observation is made there, mental files are constructed, feelings are recorded into the body’s memory.
Yesterday I took my children to the beach. Our beach days sit within my Mother Remembrances as some of the most special, most fun, most jubilant days we’ve ever had together. The wide open space, the continuity of the ocean, the relaxation that comes from interacting with such a massive force…we are at once at peace and happy to be together. There has never been a sibling fight at the beach and “Mom always plays too”. Anytime I need that kind of healing reminder that there is something bigger than our lives and our problems, we head to the ocean. Even better is being there with loving friends, and such was our day yesterday.
Despite three applications of high level sunblock though, we all came away a bit burned. And with a heat index of 104, it only took a few hours to wear us out. We came home smiling but exhausted and as a result, had a pretty quiet day. By evening my mind felt clear and blank….I couldn’t concentrate but didn’t feel troubled by anything either. Just really, really light and spacious. I’ve felt that before while praying and meditating, but to my memory, not ever from the elements. It was a profound feeling of peace.
And a more ideal way to drift into sleep must not have ever been! I think I smiled as I fell, hearing loving words run through my thoughts as softly as my head rested on the pillow. A cologne sample nearby my bed permeated the air and crickets scratched at the stars. The dreams came vividly and strongly and when I woke up to white sunlight this morning, my thoughts became conscience extensions of the dreams. The contrast of how I typically do it, that is, deciding consciously what to think before sleep, hoping that it continues in dream land, occurred to me. I was glad I had not attempted to control the gift of their coming. These dreams were full, “5 senses” dreams and I could fully remember them in the morning.
Today I’m wondering which of them will come true. Or perhaps what portion of all of them will become reality. In a few places, I can trace them to memories. In every case they possessed content that in conservative smallness, I’d be tempted to doubt their possibility. But dreams aren’t really about being conservative or small or cautious. Dreams, by their nature, provide a way to envision a life or experience that is outside our realm and tightly drawn lines. They are not a pre-determined coloring book of artwork and that is why I’m glad I made the choice to wait for these. The result is amazement and curiosity and dare I say it?…. hope.
