The Time for Dreaming

What does it mean to Dream?

I mostly mean the act of dreaming while asleep. Scientifically, of course, we know that dreaming is the succession of images, emotions, ideas, and sensations during the deepest part of our sleep known as REM sleep (rapid eye movement). During REM sleep our brain activity is at its highest and our eyes are in constant movement, and we most closely resemble being awake. Dreams can last anywhere from a few seconds to around twenty minutes and most people have 3-5 dreams a night. In an eight hour period of sleep, we generally spend about two hours of that dreaming.

That's a lot of dreaming in my opinion. Which makes me wonder...why don't I dream?  When I was younger I had dreams all the time. They were usually very very vivid and occasionally they would even reoccur. And then a few years ago my dreams just stopped. I don't even remember exactly when they stopped I just remember not having them anymore...and missing them. Who knew one would miss dreaming? I didn't think it was a big deal until I couldn't anymore. Jarod Kintz said, “I find out a lot about myself by sleeping. Dreams, they are who I am when I’m too tired to be me." That was an opportunity I'd lost and I wondered did I tire myself too much? Even now I sometimes wonder if the end of my dreams correlated with my seizures my junior year of high school, when I overloaded and collapsed my Corpus Callosum (or at least that was the diagnosis/guess). Other times I wonder if I simply used up my number of dreams like an overzealous child who used all their tickets at a night show carnival before the night even began. Or perhaps I simply had no reason to dream. Or maybe I dreamed of so many things during the day nothing was left at night...or was I too realistic, even in my subconscious...I doubt it. But regardless of the hidden reasons I missed my time of dreaming.

Then out of nowhere, sometime during my Freshman Year of College I had my first dream. I remember waking up so excited that I'd had a dream, (silly I know, but sleeping in absolute darkness and nothingness, though a reprieve, can be rather lonely). But within five minutes I could not remember my dream, no matter how I tried. It was like having a gossamer curtain pulled over a pool of murky water, just to make sure I couldn't reach through and pull it out of my memory. It was rather frustrating. After that, I had a dream every so often but could rarely remember them longer than a couple of minutes, or until I was fully awake. Then I began remembering bits and pieces of dreams that seemed to make no sense and made even less sense due to my only remembering scattered fragments. Then near the end of the year, I had one dream. I still remember it and what struck me was how short and simplistic it was. I woke up wide awake with a couple thoughts, one in relation to the dream, and the other an earnest thought that I couldn't, I just couldn't forget such a lovely dream. And I never have.

Perhaps the time for dreaming is not necessarily a scientific parameter of "this" type of sleep, for "this" long, for "this" many times. Perhaps, rather, the time for dreaming is when we have someone to share it with. After a long day, whether busy, stressful, or lonely, we can retreat to our darkness and await the time for dreaming. The time when we are no longer busy, stressed, or alone. When nothing has to make sense and an instant becomes an eternity. Where reality has no hold and fantasy comes alive. Those you find in your dreams may never know they kept you company in your quiet hours of peace and blissful unconsciousness, but they are forever invaluable, made so because they shared with you your time for dreaming. Perhaps, like me, they are the reason you have the time of dreaming. A.A. Milne (author of Winnie the Pooh) said, “I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart for so long. If we’re in each other's dreams, we can be together all the time.”

So what does it mean to dream? It means to find who we are when we have nothing else to be, nothing else to do, nothing else to think. To find what keeps us company when we are inexplicably alone, locked inside our minds where we create realities out of fantasy, and simply dream, satisfied that they can last at least a moment. Dreams are where we can be close to those we love. Where I can see him who I meet only in the time for dreaming, even if only to brush finger tips or catch a passing glance. Dreaming is to be alive while asleep, awake while dormant, and free while perfectly still. To be together though separate. And to learn the answer to Nicholas Sparks question, “What are we after all our dreams, after all our memories?” And perhaps, even after all our dreams, we will never fully remember the answer, but it will always be there, safely tucked away in the time for dreaming.

“You know that place between sleeping and awake, that place where you can still remember dreaming? That's where I'll always think of you.”
J.M. Barrie

-Natalie Cherie