The duality of where our minds can take us and where they want us to go summed up in that one word.
We’re both told to follow our dreams and to not place too much value in them as they are, after all, only imaginary. We’d be nothing without them and it’s best to leave them behind if you ever want to be anything. Dreamless sleep is either the most restful or more terrifying than the worst nightmares. To be a dreamer is both a compliment and a curse, sometimes at the same time. They’re deeply personal and can be shared by an entire populace. In dreams we can do anything we want and to live a dream is often to attain a very real goal. If you die in a dream you can never come back, except when you do. There are no rules in dreams yet we search for meaning in them. The operations of our brains remain largely a mystery and we think we can glean information about our past, present, and future from hallucinations they impose on us while we’re unconscious. Dreams are a source of inspiration, great works of art come from dreams, and if we have unrealistic expectations of something we’re told we’re dreaming. Hence, producing a great work of art is unrealistic, yet so many of us try because we’re following our dreams. You’re a dreamer if you want to make a living from art and you’re dreaming if you think you can. No two dreams are the same but we all know what it is to have one.
It seems fitting that dreams and dreaming are such fluid concepts. That speaks to the very nature of what they are. Those contradictions are also maddening, as dreams themselves often can be. That supposed ability to do anything in them doesn’t exist for everyone and their unpredictability is much like life’s own twists and turns. We think we can learn things from our dreams if only we could remember them. You can share the experience of a dream with someone and they can either know exactly what you’re talking about or think you’re absolutely insane. It’s also possible that without some forms of shared dreaming we wouldn’t have achieved a fraction of what we have, for good or ill. One person’s dream can move an entire nation to great or terrible things. It can inspire or inform the realities, let alone the dreams of those others. A dream for some is a nightmare for others.
The things that are so highly individualized about humanity are also universal. Each and every one of us has some special dream, whether it’s one we have while we’re asleep, one we pursue when we’re awake, or both even if the two are completely different from each other. Recognizing those synergies while allowing for the differences? Now that’s the dream.