A Dreaming Life

(Photo by William Bayreuther, found on Unsplash)

I've been on the crossroads for a while. To name it concretely, it began in 2016 with a rumble in my consciousness. It felt like I was moving between lives, between existences, between timelines and between forms.

It was around my 30th birthday that I dreamt of a massive wave in the sea about to engulf me. In the dream, I was on the threshold between land and sea, fishermen asking me to run for safety, while my consciousness registered the wave behind. It was the size of a mountain and before I could react to any of what the strange voices harked at me, the wave had overwhelmed me whole. My bones and my flesh were scooped by endless sinews of waterness and I couldn't see the sky. I just had one thought then - I'll either drown or the wave will spit me out on to the beach. What do you think happened next?

Dreams have a way of pushing us against our purpose, our fantasies, our need to break free. They challenge the last grain in us, if we are listening and they inspire us to see with eyes that have a different quality. Dreams make us shudder beneath the skin we have so carefully constructed and make us wonder more about what we don't know than what we do.

Ever since I began to pay attention to my dreams, my reveries carry more meaning. Rich, intricate stories unfurl under my eyelids and what I couldn't soak in with waking eyes, I learn in sleep.