What Is Keeping Us Awake?
“Every night I lie in bed
The brightest colours fill my head
A million dreams are keeping me awake…
I think of what the world could be
A vision of the one I see
A million dreams is all it’s gonna take
A million dreams for the world we’re gonna make…”
Song: A Million Dreams, from The Greatest Showman
Yes, you probably assumed it right. This article is going to be about dreams and nightmares. Well, it’s okay if you didn’t. Either way that’s what I’m gonna talk about.
So why an article on dreams and nightmares?
Well, just like all of you reading this right now, I’m too staying at home in quarantine. So those of who want to feel relatable and not jealous do read the article below written by Lakshmi Sreekumar, one of the funniest seniors I’ve met in college.
Anyways coming back to the point, so before all these chaos and confusions something weird happened. I had a dream. No, let’s call it a nightmare we’ll soon see the differences. In short, the dream goes like a ‘green light’ is destroying everything in the world and I’m trying to save my family and neighbours from being attacked (LOL! Looks like someone wants to be a heroine XD). Well, funny right?! I told my friends the next day on the college bus, about the weird dream, oh not again, a nightmare I mean, and we all just laughed it off. Guess what?! A few days later we came to know about the coronavirus. I know I know! Maybe I’m overthinking and taking it to the next level! And no sweetie, Dr Strange and I are not related. At least not by blood.
Guess what, according to the book “10,000 dreams interpreted”, seeing a light in your dream often symbolizes the development of intuition and insight. Also, spiritually it symbolizes the manifestation of divinity, truth or direct knowledge which is beyond form. I am not satisfied… This is too complicated.
Here I am attaching the pic of the book I own which I got from google. I could have taken a picture of the book myself but I ain’t a photographer.
And for those of who want to interpret their dreams but don’t wanna spend money on a book, can check out this link below:
Well, that’s my story about how I chose this topic to write about and definitely not because editor
asked me to submit one asap. (Here you go chechi!) :)So, let’s begin from the basics! What exactly is a dream?
The first paragraph of Wikipedia says, “A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not fully understood, although they have been a topic of scientific, philosophical and religious interest throughout recorded history. Dream interpretation is the attempt at drawing meaning from dreams and searching for an underlying message. The scientific study of dreams is called oneirology.”
The Demon of Dreams: Nightmares
Uhoh! These are the so-called bad dreams. One which is not really appreciated by anyone. However, it is said that people remain asleep during bad dreams while nightmares awaken the people. So, nightmares are the other side of the dream coin. It can lead to a lot of troubles including feelings of fear, anxiety, terror and even insomnia. It adds the action and drama into our head. It is so scary that we do not want such events to happen in our life. Now you know why people say “it is my worst nightmare” or “it was a nightmare” when something bad is about to happen or has happened.
Don’t worry, I have got a solution which is excerpted from the book I had mentioned before.
With a greater degree of knowledge, the dreamer can often change the outcome of a bad dream into a good one. This is called RISC technique and was developed in America as a therapeutic tool.
The four steps are:
1) recognize a bad dream while it is occurring.
2) identify the bad feeling
3) stop the dream.
4)change negative into positive
Initially, it may be necessary to wake up to undertake any of these steps, but gradually with greater proficiency, the dreamer can do this while remaining asleep.
I swear to God… never mind I swear to ONE DIRECTION, I used to do this even before I knew such a method existed! And trust me, it works every single time! For example, remember the “greenlight” dream? Well, I turned it into a film where everyone was just characters and it was like a Marvel movie or something. That’s what I do with most of my bad dreams when I go out of options to turn it into positive. Sometimes I consider them to be pranks as well! (Weirdo alert)
This brings to us the term lucid dreaming: It is when we are conscious while we are dreaming. Sometimes we can control our dreams too. You are aware of your awareness.
Now, let us take a look into the most common dreams:
- Falling
- Solitude
- Traps
- Being chased
- Deaths
- Nakedness
- Flying
- Fantasy
- Accidents and Disasters
Well, these are just obvious and frightening ones. We have already had enough horrors and terrors as uninvited guests from 2020 itself. I am not so heartless and cruel to add on more into my article as well. Let me tell you something interesting. Have you ever got any mind-blowing ideas or a piece of art from your dreams? Well, I get most of my ideas from my dreams. I still remember a few months ago I dreamt that I was writing a poem and presenting it. I woke up the next minute and typed down all the lines I could remember on my phone. I am not going to show you that poem but instead here are some of the famous works created in dreams!
Note: These are few from a lot.
The sewing machine: According to the book The Aha! Moment: A Scientist’s Take on Creativity, Elias Howe got the idea to pass the thread through the point of the needle instead of the end during his sleep after his desperate failed attempts at stitching fabric together. He dreamt about cannibals cooking him while dancing with a spear having a hole and a sharp tip.
John Lennon’s “#9 Dream”: The chorus of “#9 Dream” repeats a nonsensical phrase Lennon heard in his dream, “Ah! böwakawa poussé, poussé,”.
Albrecht Dürer, “Dream Vision”: Durer described below his painting on how he had a vision in his sleep, how he woke up trembling, and finally how he painted it as exactly as how he had seen it in his dream. (Source)
The Periodic Table: “ I saw in a dream a table where all the elements fell into place as required. Awakening, I immediately wrote it down on a piece of paper,” Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev wrote in his diary. (Source)
The ‘Terminator’: James Cameron came up with the idea for ‘Terminator’ during a fever dream.
Unbelievable right?!?! Okay now, don’t feel useless because all your dreams are about dinosaurs, vampires, zombies or unicorns. Be proud you can dream something. And also appreciate the unicorns (they’re so adorable and magical!).
Speaking of which, blink your eyes twice if you spend more than half the time you are awake for daydreaming or procrastination. If we had an AI to recognize the reader’s actions in Medium, I’m pretty sure most of you might have either blinked twice or kept staring at the monitor because you are daydreaming/procrastinating while reading this article. And others probably belong to the “successful” category. Why do we daydream or procrastinate? Two words: Escape reality.
While it is said that daydreaming is a type of divergent thinking that increases your creativity and problem-solving skills, too much of it can lead to procrastination which can reduce your daily productivity. Always remember, ‘Too much of anything is good for nothing’.
It is implausible to write an article on dreams and miss out on dream catchers. We have all come across a dream catcher. Beautiful and enchanted it hangs in the air filling our heart and soul with pleasant warmth and happiness. Are you familiar with the story behind Ojibwe dream catcher legend? According to the sources WeRNative and PowWow, the story travels a long way back and starts from a lady known as the “Spider Woman”. Long ago, the Clans of the Ojibwe Nation were all located in one area called Turtle Island. The tribe was protected by a mystical and spiritual woman known as the “Spider Woman”. When the Ojibwe Nation dispersed to the four corners of North America, she found it difficult to continue serving as their spiritual protector. That is when the first dream catcher took birth and came to life. The women of the tribe followed her example. They would recreate the maternal keepsake and weaved magical webs to protect their family.
When hung in a place where the morning sunlight can touch it, the dream catcher attracts and captures all kinds of dreams and thoughts into its webs. Good dreams pass through and gently slide down the feathers to comfort the sleeper below and bad dreams are caught up in its protective net and destroyed, burned up in the light of day. This is so sweet, right?
Conclusion
Dreams might be interpreted scientifically and spiritually in many manners in the coming days and nights as well. Let it continue. But we all have got some dreams buried deep inside our minds which we wish to turn into reality right? How can we do it? This is the best time to quote one of the most prominent personalities the world has ever seen. Yes, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam once said, “Dream is not what you see in sleep, Dream is something which doesn’t let you sleep”. So let us, as the future of the society, interpret dreams as our passion and goals that have to be achieved, to build a better world for all of us to live in. All the very best wishes to every single dreamer out there and hoping your dreams would come into life once and forever to maintain the love and kindness of the world. Keep dreaming and stay happy.
Interesting huh? Read our ‘Thought Trains’ section for more such intriguing and wonderous articles. Don’t forget to follow us on Medium(PaperKin) to get updates on all latest stories and catchy poems and join us on social media to stay in the loop! Follow us on Instagram(@paperkin_blog) and Twitter(@kin_paper)!
