Living alone can sometimes suck. Ya feel me? On those few week nights I have nothing to do, my friends are far away, and there is nothing sports-related I want to watch on TV, I start doing something dangerous...THINKING!
My brain goes all over the place: what would I look like with a beard (answer...not as awesome as I would hope), who would I like to punch in the face more Rex Ryan or Bill Belichick (answer, either would be satisfying), and of course the general quandaries about why the world/people/I is/are/am the way we are. (answer: Why you asking me? or I guess, Why am I asking myself?). And the answer to THAT answer goes back to the reason I started asking questions in the first place: boredom. Now ain't that the epitome of circular logic.
While my brain was chasing it's own tail with these riveting questions, one question in particular invaded my cerebral cortex and embedded itself in a few hundred thousand synapses. As I have a tendency to do, I got pretty existential and starting pondering why do we...and by we I mean humans...dream? For that matter why do we sleep?
Well immediately, I'm sure many of you (which might be presumptuous of me that "many" could describe how many people will actually read this) will give the response that sleep is required because our humanly bodies need to recoup energy for the next day ahead. True. But WHY do we have to do that? Granted there is night and day and the structure of our universe tends to lend itself to giving most creatures a very specific time to "shut it down" for a while. And in my solitary supposings, I naturally went on to question even WHY the universe is structured the way it is.
As a man who believes God created everything, I came to only one conclusion: God wants us to dream! If God intentionally made the heavens and the earth, then intentionally made us, and was able to be so detailed down to the microscopic level, it seems ludicrous to suggest that dreams were some unforeseen by-product of a decision made by an omnipotent creator. Dreams had to be intentional along with everything else. So, again, I pose the question, why? What purpose do dreams serve?
God, being able to make this world whatever He wanted it to be, could have created a world and a people who never had to sleep. However, in His wisdom, He gave us a world where 'going' all the time is impossible and sleep is imperative. I know many of us get a heck of a lot more than others...I try to clock in 8 hours a night minimum, but the fact remains that whether it is 2 hours or 10 hours, everybody is doing it.
Now add to this that our brain is still active and can produce the most elaborate and outlandish apparitions of reality while we sleep...so much in fact, that some times we can dream and even think it WAS real, and tell me you don't have a bit of curiosity about why God made us able to do this?
It dumbfounds me that some people have told me that they don't dream. I don't know (and obviously can't) if these people truly don't dream at all or just forget them as soon as they wake up. *By the way, did anyone else love Inception as much as I did, I just realized how close I am about to get to the plot line of that movie and it got me excited! * On the other side of things, it dumbfounds me some of the beautiful, significant dreams people have told me they've had.
It pains me that most of my dreams are just down right stupid. Most are on par with me and that talking baby from the E*trade commercials skiing together down a volcano that is spewing delicious caramel. Not sure if there is any significance in that, but I know people who have had dreams that have TRULY meant something. Dreams that have given them direction in life. Dreams that have affirmed them. Dreams that have presented "what if" realities to choices a person may or may not make. That is some COOL stuff to me.
I believe that dreams are one way God communicates to people. Maybe not to everyone, but to some, I think God taps into their lives in a meaningful way through their dreams. Psychologists may say that dreams serve more as a means for the mind to rectify feelings we've had, perhaps repressed feelings that we need to live out, or maybe a hundred other metaphysical conditions that need to be addressed that we may either consciously or subconsciously be aware of. So, my inquisitive nature then presents, How do we know that isn't God? If you believe in the trinity, as I do, then The Holy Spirit is with us 24/7. If God recognizes a need for us to reconcile something plaguing our minds and/or hearts, maybe the crazy dreams we have are the manifestation of God's means of addressing that issue.
Unfortunately this led me down a more self-evaluating road. If my dreams are silly, meaningless, and focused more on what I see on TV than what I read in The Bible, then what does that say about the state of my heart? I know this may be a little overly harsh but if my mind was set more on God and less on the things that entertain me, I just think that would show up in my dreams. I dreamt last night. I had asked God to let me dream and I asked Him to be part of my dream, to make it a spiritual dream. Then I dreamt that me and 2 friends were eating at a restaurant and they somehow stole the keys to my car (which was, for some reason, a white van) and, without me knowing it, moved it into a handicap spot and called the cops who then wrote me a ticket. Granted, there may be a nugget of spiritual wisdom to be discerned upon further reflection of that dream...I'm just not sure what it is yet.
I see throughout The Bible, God, or in many cases angels, communicating to people in dreams. What's to say the same thing is not going on today? Granted the dream interactions we read about in The Bible seem much more overt than how most of us dream today, but that doesn't mean there isn't wisdom to glean from our modern day mind movies. One of our biggest problems is retention. After about 5-10 minutes from the moment I wake up, I usually forget any thing or at least most of what I dreamed about. I think it is because as soon as reality hits, I start thinking of what I need to do today, my 5 senses fully spark back up, and my sensory inputs such as feeling cold or hot, hearing the garbage man, or smelling coffee brewing override my ability to dwell on the images my brain produced moments earlier.
Now, while I personally have never kept a "dream journal" per se (well I had a journal that read "Dream" on it when I was a kid, but that was mostly filled with pictures of Jennifer Love-Hewitt), I do think it might be a worthwhile thing. I'm not sure what I would find out about myself if I took the time to write down all I remember about my dreams as soon as I woke up. Maybe I'm scared to actually be that introspective. Maybe I'm worried my subconscious knows me better than I know myself. Maybe I'm just too lazy to grab a pen and paper first thing in the morning and work my brain IMMEDIATELY after I wake up. Maybe it's all three.
I know one thing. Nowadays, I'm all about bettering myself. Physically, mentally, spiritually. And if dreams really do serve a purpose, as I believe they must, I say it's got to be a worthwhile venture to analyze what they could mean. Will I start having more profound dreams after I write this? Will I start experiencing spectacular visions in my sleep? Will I get a glimpse into what God has planned for me?
Maybe dreams can come true.
What I'm Into:
Movie: Inception- Not sure many people will want to be my friend after this admission, but I totally want to be able to navigate people's dreams. And, if I'm being really honest, I'd also like to be able to prank them every once and a while by creating a dream within their dream. Just think how much easier dating could be if I could subconsciously plant the idea in women's mind that I'm the best thing since sliced bread. ;)
Song: "White Blank Page" Mumford & Sons- This album is amazing and right now is in a tie for first in my 2010 albums of the year. I think Mumford & Sons are catchy yet unique, have shown that they can go beyond the trite lyrics that plague alternative music, and they can rock out with string instruments and a piano.
Bible Verse: "He speaks in dreams, in visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on people as they lie in their beds." Job 33:15
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