“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.” From the book The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Introduction
When I was a young boy in elementary school, I was told I daydreamed too much. I would gaze out the window, staring into the distance or onto the playground, but seeing something far beyond the sinewy silhouette of the monkey bars and slides. As my teacher’s voices wore on in their slow, monotone cadence, my mind would ease into a semi-hypnotic state, lulled under as if by a metronome.
I probably should have been paying closer attention to what the teacher was saying. However, I was being transported someplace far away. In these visions I would see things which made me happy, longings for future dreams not yet come to pass, and what I would categorize as something “beyond myself”. But, when noticed, I was returned to “reality” with a somewhat stern redirection back to the subject at hand. Sure, it’s a mark of a good student to be disciplined enough to pay attention during class, but what about the implicit value of dreams? Isn’t this something valued within our society—at least while we’re young? Still, it’s true, this behavior could be construed as a lack of respect, despite it being more accurately due to boredom with the subject being taught. I was always curious about my teacher’s discouragement of “daydreaming,” and the offhanded dismissal, which implied they found no value in it. Aren’t we taught that our imagination is the greatest gift we can use to propel us towards our future, and to the potential benefit of society as well? I certainly thought so, as a young child. However, many years later this memory has relevance for another reason: it was the first time I can consciously recall awareness of physically being in reality, while my mind was simultaneously elsewhere.
But what exactly was this daydreaming, as it was called? Can one truly “dream” during the day? Or was the term simply being used to mean a lack of attention to something more specific? As it turns out, both are true. Later, when I was much older, but still just as curious, I learned there are considered to be a number of different types of dreaming. These are not all universally agreed upon, but there are many more than I had originally believed to exist. In the pages which follow I will be explaining why this is significant in our busy lives: psychologically, spiritually, and even metaphysically. This conversation will take us to some unexpected places, and hopefully will open up doors for new territory to explore what it means to be awake, asleep, or someplace in between.
What are Dreams?
Dreams are everywhere. From the tens of thousands of people who flock to Hollywood each year to pursue a dream of becoming famous, to the self-help books which preach self-empowerment through following the dream of your heart, and even the bedtime images had by billions of people each night after hitting REM—dreams mean many different things to many different people. However, one thing is for certain: dreams are a large part of our existence.