The Dream and the reality

I have travelled before.

It is certainly a desire of mine to be touched by the experiences offered by another country or community and its culture or people. I want to visit many places in this expansive world, both near and far, and I am sure I will. There is only the assurance of time for any one of us, and although the exact quantity of time remaining is ambiguous, it is our choice how we spend it.

When Ashley and I travel we tend to get a little carried away about our trips. We study guides and map out full programs along the most efficient routes, in order to fit it all in. We generally come home satisfied that we got to "see" all that we wanted to see, and more, but seeing is one thing, but what about "being"? Well I guess that is where "the dream" comes in.

I have been told a couple of things about "the dream". Not the dreams we have when we are asleep, but the things we would like to see happening in our experience of life. I have been told that everyone has to have a dream to keep them going - to keep them interested and motivated. A dream or ultimate goal enables us to plug away at the daily grind, endure hardship, and survive. Viktor Frankl discusses this at depth throughout his book Man in Search for Meaning..

Another perspective tells us that a dream is not something we should necessarily strive to achieve. Rather, it is something you simply hope to achieve, and by thinking about our dream often; imagining every detail; seeing ourselves 'there', basking in the moment of its full, untainted-by-reality, glory, the dream itself, rather than its achievement, gives life meaning.

According to these lines of thought, if we were to fulfill our dream, we might find that we no longer had anything to live for, or worse; the reality of the dream could be utterly disappointing, and we would have wasted our life on an unworthy dream - so says the 'crystal merchant/tea house owner' in Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist (another recommendation). Well find ANOTHER dream, geez!

So....my dream.

My dream was to live overseas for at least one year. OK, done. Life over. Just joking..... Yes that was a dream of mine. I know it isn't that exotic, people do it all the time. Although I haven't yet returned, so I guess I am still living out my dream. It was a worthy dream, because it wasn't exactly easy to pull off. It took some courage, and I have learnt much from the experience. But now that this dream has been attained, I do need to grab hold of the next rung and reach for something else along these monkey bars of life.

I think perhaps I have had two dreams... maybe more if I really think about it. The living overseas one, which possibly emerged as a teenager - I had a ridiculous number of overseas penfriends and I was simply fascinated to read about their lives.

The faint dream of one day becoming a writer is a secret I have long held under lock and key, and close to my heart. I have enjoyed writing for as long as I can remember; for me it is a release or (until recently) a private act of unburdening.

I started out writing limericks and short poems for Possum Pages (a kids creative purge in the local Sunday newspaper. Quantity rather than quality was the general mainstay of the Possum Pages I am afraid- it had to be said -not sure if it still exists though).

If published in Possum Pages, you were sent a certificate and sometimes a book prize. Some of my "work" was published, along with the lovely drawings my brother always seemed to produce. I can't actually remember any of my fine contributions, so I might provide an example (they were probably awful anyway).

In high school I wrote letters to friends, morbid private poetry full of teenage angst, and silly stories for English class.

As a young adult I continued the poetry, but the creative side got lost for a few years, while I wrestled my mind into the rigidity and discipline of "anything but creative", academia. I did write a thesis, I guess that is something.

Today I write this blog; I email friends; I have attempted to renew my passion for bad poetry writing; I have even entertained writing short stories, and children's books, but the dream of becoming a career writer remains as elusive as ever; and since all other career aspirations appear to have been blocked by a higher power to ensure I never take one step down that shaky and questionable road, I am more strongly noticing the writing theme in my life and am testing its importance to me.

Maybe I will never be a great writer. Perhaps I will never write anything worth publishing, bar my lonely thesis, which sits in some dank and uunfrequented corner of the university library; full of my now trade mark editing paux pas, oops. But it is a dream, a worthy dream, and a dream that keeps me going.

*This post was enter as a contribution to the Sunday Scribblings prompt - Dream journey. If you are interested in the contents of night dreams. I posted such an offering only a couple of days ago. If you are remotely interested, here is the link to Dreaming.

Dreaming

I dream a lot. Well, at least I used to dream. I enjoy a good dream and I like to analyse dreams. I am not bad at it either, I think.

Since having the kids, I don't think I have had a long enough stretch of sleep to warrant the remembering of as many good dreams. I am not really into sleep that much, which is ironic really, because you need to sleep in order to get the dream, but sleep has never offered me that refreshed feeling that people talk about.

I have a sleeping disorder. It is a common one. It is called sleep paralysis, you have probably even had a bout of it. Mine occurs with the onset of sleep, and often accompanies hallucinations or weirdly vivid scenarios. For me, sleep paralysis is often brought on by some kind of stress or severe sleep deprivation. It started when I was 14. I used have several episodes a week, but now it only occurs a handful of times a year.

For me, a typical scenario for this kind of thing, might see me hallucinating/dreaming that someone has entered the house, while I am asleep. I will dream that I am asleep- everything is exactly how I "left it" when I closed my eyes only seconds before. I hear the front door open and footsteps downstairs. The dogs will be barking or growling at the unexpected night visitor. I can't move. I can't call out. I can't open my eyes. I hear the foot steps creeping closer and closer, and I feel the person in the room. Sometimes they might touch my arm or breathe so close to my face I can hear them, and I feel them looking at me. Sometimes I feel them sit down on the bed next to me.

I struggle like a drowning woman fighting for breath as I attempt to break the paralysis, and when finally I do, I find myself alone. There is a strange calm about the room, and my dog is asleep on his mat next to the bed. God I hate that type of dream. I am never really sure if it is a dream or not, as it is happening of course.

I have had two kind of funny regular nightmares. One was so dumb, that in hindsight, it is laughable to even call it a nightmare.

Some incident was happening, I think I was in the middle of being graphically murdered or something. It was a horrific scene... extraordinary, in fact so extraordinary, that I didn't even believe it could be real. So in the dream, I reasoned with myself that, if it were a dream, the time on the wall clock in the dream, would be different to that on the wrist watch I just happened to be wearing.

Of course, the times do not match, which lead me to cry, "A-hhha!", to which I immediately awoke. Now how ridiculous is that? What would have happened if the times hadn't matched?

The other funny nightmare occurred at a time when I worked as an assistant baker, and commenced work at 3am on a Sunday morning. In this dream, my car broke down and I had to walk home to get my bike, so I could ride to work. I was walking along a dark street near my house, when I saw a man up ahead. He is a far enough away that he should have posed no threat, but when he saw me, he began to approach. I turned down a street, wary of his presence. He was walking behind me now- following me. I looked back and he looked away. I walk faster, he walked faster. I started to jog to see how he would react, he started to jog to keep up, which freaked me out. I started running for my life, but was slow and the man caught up to me, his jagged arm outstretched, crooked fingers lurching for my shoulder. Then I started to wonder..."perhaps he isn't trying to harm me at all. Perhaps he just wanted to ask me something". So we stopped running and he says in a calm and friendly voice, "Miss, I was wondering if you knew what time the next bus comes by"? To which I awoke, greatly relieved and slightly confused.

I think the most dastardly of dreams I have ever had, was a dream in which I was presented with the opportunity to know my life's purpose.

In that dream, I had infiltrated a secret building and had broken into a room housing a top secret computer containing the name and life purpose of every person on earth. Persons allowed in that room were highly restricted, but somehow I was in front of the computer trying to crack the password, so I could learn my own life purpose.

I sat there on the edge of my seat working quickly, while keeping one ear out for approaching footsteps; if I were found, I knew I would be killed.

I managed to break the code, so I entered my own name. The role for my life's purpose was , strangely referenced "Goddess" . To find out more about the life purpose of the Goddess, I had to download further information, and that was going to take time. In the meantime, all I could do was sit and wait for the process to complete.

It was about 60% done when I heard footsteps at the end of the corridor. I started to grow impatient and anxious, "come on , come on". My heart began to race with the anticipation and want; my life's purpose was almost within my reach. I was about to learn everything I had ever yearned and ached to know about my reason for my being; my life was about to make sense.

But the footsteps were coming closer, so close that it was getting dangerous. The footsteps stopped outside the door of the top secret room, and I was forced to ABORT the operation, only moments before the download was complete.

I awoke immediately, feeling completely pissed off, ripped off, frustrated and ARRRRHHHHHH! I tried desperately to go back to sleep and resurrect the dream; change the outcome so I could learn my fate - but I couldn't.

Gee, I have had some doozies....

So there you go, a little venture into my warped little mind. By the way. I can't seem to interpret my own dreams at all. I think I am too close to see the meaning - that is, if you believe dreams offer some kind of insight.

Actually, I should really be having dreams right about now, rather than writing about them. So sweet dreams all.