Hopes and dreams. Can you imagine? How far will you let your dreams take you? What makes you stop?
We all know how nighttime dreams can be – unrealistic, crazy, make no sense, are hard to understand…..they take us to places we wouldn’t ever go in “real life.” There has been a ton of research into sleep and dreaming. Dreaming during sleep is apparently very important.
But I’m thinking about the dreams we have when we are awake. How many dreams do you have that are unrealistic, crazy, make no sense, are hard to understand…?? How do you view this kind of thinking? Do you let yourself think creatively? Are you comfortable considering crazy thoughts and pondering possibilities?
How do you feel when others come up with ideas that seem unrealistic? Does this make you feel uncomfortable? Do you discount this kind of thinking if it’s too “out there”??
Tristan Prettyman says, “Love is a crazy dream.” (War Out of Peace)
Seems to me, that in our culture, there is a lot of pressure to be realistic and practical when considering possibilities. It’s one thing to be creative with art and design and dance and things that we think of as “the Arts” but it’s quite another to be creative with how we live our lives. The rules of behavior are much more entrenched with “shoulds.”
If a friend told you they were going to sell everything and go live in Africa to work with the people there, what would you think? When you hear of the young man who seemingly has a very bright future, who risks it all to come out as transgender, does this make you uncomfortable? When you hear the story of the woman who meets and falls in love with a Sherpa from halfway across the world, does this seem strange? How willing are you to support and embrace others who are willing to step out of the comfort zone and live their dreams?
What if a friend shared a crazy dream they have? Would you immediately judge it as unrealistic or silly or delusional? Would it make you uncomfortable?
The ability to think in dreams is exhilarating, if you can do it without the fear of disappointment that the dream won’t come true. How will you ever know that “dream come true” feeling, if you never allow yourself to dream? Are you too afraid of the potential disappointment, to allow yourself to hope and dream? Can you support others, to help enable them to engage in dream thinking? Why not?
No one ever changed the world without dreaming. Case in point: Martin Luther King Jr. and “I Have a Dream.”
I allow myself to have some really crazy dreams. I love to “play” with dreams — why not? (Actually, I prefer to move at The Speed of Dreams!!) But I only share these dreams with a select few people, who I know will not have knee-jerk reactions to these ideas.
I don’t think you can say it much better than Zach Gill and ALO in the song Barbeque:
The road is long and windy like a good mystery unfolding
It twists and turns in colorful subplots and sunburns and fake out endings
And sometimes my patience in the whole process starts bending
As I attempt to unravel the web
by traversing and rehearsing and perversing
along the doubt-laden extension chord thread of my life
And in this life we’re free to dream whatever we want to
But that doesn’t mean that your dreams are gonna come true
Instead as a way of getting us to move
Life dangles your dreams in front of you
And unable to resist the temptation, we continue
And it’s clear to me that this life is gonna be
All about the dangling possibilities
that keep turning in and turning out
Yes it’s clear to me that this life is gonna be
All about the dangling possibilities
The road is long and windy
Full of twists and turns
But before you can rise from the ashes
You’ve got to burn baby burn
Welcome to your barbeque
Where we roast all the dreams
That never came true
Welcome to your barbeque
Pig out and dream anew
meaningofstrife 
I’m there, most every day!
🙂 Yay!! woo hoo!!