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| Teddybears At the Museum of Childhood, Pen-ffynnon. A wonderful place to recapture the past. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Thoughts after waking from a short nap:
Remembering a dream can be difficult enough, but trying to reenter a wonderful dream after a moment of wakefulness is sometimes a frustrating impossibility. There can be times that no matter how hard we may try to return to sleep, waking life calls us whether or not we actually need to be up. This is in contrast to those other circumstance when we cannot seem to escape the clutches of a fearful dream that we fall in and out of, wishing that it might go away and yet seeming unable to shake ourselves loose from that nightmare.
There are times when I will be dreaming of something most wonderful and pleasing only to be awakened for some reason. The phone might ring or some other external stimulus will rouse me from a blissful sleep. Sometimes I awaken for no real understandable reason other than my body sensing in some way that it needs to wake up my brain. This often occurs during a brief nap in the daytime. Perhaps there is something of the nature of a brain center of responsibility that is telling me to get back into the waking world because there is work to be done or the business of living to which to attend.
Indeed, sometimes the depths of sleep and dreaming beckon me to enter for some interminable length of time--perhaps even forever. My mind somewhat begrudging stirs and resists any attempt to return to sleep, to find again that dream that it so leisurely drifted through. I want to keep on dreaming that wonderful vision of sleep that calls to me from a secret place deep within me. But the dream is elusive and will not let me return into its magical realm.
I am a creature of the waking world for the time that I live. At times the necessity of sleep will open the door to that secret elusive dream world and let me in for a brief while. I cannot stay for that would violate the laws of being alive and wakefulness. I read, watch movies, listen to music, or let my imagination wander. Those are but substitutes for what my dream world promises me.
To return to the dream might be considered cheating life. The attempt to replace an imaginary paradise or even a chimerical hell by dreaming away life into an existence of mind only is a paradox to defy actual existence in order to become nonessential to the waking world. Dreams are intended to be fleeting and temporal as long as we exist in the world of the living.
As much as we try to return to the dream or escape from it, the dream is an unreal reality of the mind or a real unreality to our interaction with the living world. We often want that which we cannot have, but every so often we all get a small taste of it.
Do you think that death could be a doorway into the world where our dreams exist? Have you ever tried to return to a sweet dream that eluded you? Are you able to go back to sleep after waking and continue a dream that you were having?
Very rarely have I ever been able to go back to a dream after waking up, even just to turn over. Last night, before bed, I was reading a ton of Harry Potter fan fic online, then 'Chamber of Secrets' so all night long I had HP-related dreams. And then I dreamt about my stepdaughter too, because I have to take her and her dog to a specialist for the dog's eyes today.
ReplyDeleteI think it's easy to see the influences for these dreams. I'm sure you were happy to have the Harry Potter dreams.
DeleteLee
I don't know about visiting heaven or hell through dreams or nightmares, although that idea does deserve some thought. What I do know is I have revisited dreams after waking too early in the morning. It feels like a gift and a great way to start the day.
ReplyDeleteAnna from Shout with Emaginette
Wending ones way in and out of a good dream before getting up in the morning is a good way to start a day. Better than dealing with a bad dream that can leave you in a negative state heading into a new day.
DeleteLee
I've always wondered if dreams were a form of time travel. I've tried to go back into dreams, usually the ones where I've died, or are about too. I have to change the outcome, but I've never really gone back to the dream as much as continued the thought until I was happy with the conclusion.
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting concept to think of and it reminds me that I was going to post about something along those lines. I have to get this into my queue to write a post about later. I've done that similar thing of reworking the dream story until it turns out better. Or sometimes I'll rewrite the ending after I've awakened so I feel better and can go back to sleep. Dreams are probably more along the lines of an alternate creative state then any actual time or place I think, but it would be cool if it were an alternate reality of time, space, and place.
DeleteLee
The elusiveness of the dream! Dreams point to our blind spot and do not tell us what we already know - they tell us what we don't know. Which is why it is helpful to have another to tease out the meaning of the dream; invariably totally different to the spin one may have made in making own interpretation .. But apart from that it is always NB to have a dialogue with the dream i.e. an other aspect of one's self..a gift.
ReplyDeleteYes, I used to wish I could return to a pleasant dream and continue it but it is out of my control!
On the other hand the dreams might be telling us what we do know but in a way that we don't understand or doesn't make much sense. The objective analysis can be very helpful for gaining the insights that we blind ourselves to.
DeleteLee