It Was All a Dream
I’ve been thinking a lot about dreams lately.
Perhaps it’s this chapter of life – a time when sleep feels more fragmented, and yet my dreams feel somehow deeper. More revealing. More urgent.
I came across this extraordinary essay by Maria Popova exploring dreams, consciousness, and the nature of the universe. It left me quiet for a while, in the way only profound truth can.
Two lines have stayed with me:
“Dreams are an arena that can enable supracognitive powers to perform calculations and perceptions of reality that may be incomprehensible in our wake state.”
And:
“We are born dreaming and spend a third of our lives in the unconscious reaches of the night.”
It made me realise how little credit I’ve given my dreams over the years. For so long, I treated them as noise – random neural leftovers from the day. But as I reflect on some of the biggest turning points in my life, I realise so many of them were first glimpsed – hazily, abstractly, impossibly – in my dreams.
The logic of dreams is not our normal logic. It is deeper. Truer. Almost a remembering of what we’ve forgotten in the noise of waking life.
Sometimes, I dream of my dad. Of our old home. Sometimes, I dream of futures that don’t yet exist, ideas that later arrive in my work, my talks, my projects. Sometimes, I dream simply of being held – safe and unjudged.
And each time, I wake with a feeling that feels like guidance. A reminder that I am not just the dreamer, but also the dreamt. That there is wisdom in me that I do not always access in daylight.
What about you?
Do you understand your dreams?
Do you listen to them?
Do they guide you?
Behind the green curtain of your mind, what wisdom is waiting to be remembered?