Where do dreams come from?
Photography by Wix Images
By Bree Duwyn
I once dreamt that I went fishing with my late grandfather, in the sky. We sat in a battered rowboat, with a bucket of rainbow trout between our feet. This dream came 16 years after his death and I was unaware I even remembered what he looked like. I still recall that he looked the same as he did the last time I saw him alive. I couldn’t ever forget his carefree smile, or the look of pride on his face as I reeled in fish from the sky, dipping my fingers into the cotton clouds surrounding us and inhaling the subtle hint of sea salt.
That’s the thing about dreams, they come in sweeping moments, like ocean tides, and whisk you away to a new uncharted part of your mind, or in some cases, your heart. Dreams are fluid, in the essence that they could be a series of thoughts while asleep or passions and aspirations that one wishes to make come true. Although these variations of dreams are parallel, they also are woven within one another, feeding off of one’s secrets or hopes or hidden agendas. Dreams, in essence, represent what we, as humans, need or desire or wish or imagine. They offer us the opportunity to dig deep within ourselves, and learn about our most raw selves.
I often wonder where my dreams come from. Why they linger and what made me want to chase them. Dreams are born within themselves, and take root in our subconscious mind until they are revealed to our conscious. It’s funny to think that with age, our dreams will be realized before our very eyes, with no say in how or why that dream decided to manifest itself. The matter of our dreams come from what we do with our lives, and how hard we push ourselves to be who we want to be. Without that want, then we are cast adrift, in a tiny rowboat in the sky.