Just a Dream?

Where does it come from, this innate experience to conjure ideas and feelings and stories and adventures in the midst of the night? Why do we dream? According to iRobot, dreaming is what separates us from machines, from inanimate objects. But that can't be the reason, just a distinction between us and those that can't think. So then what's the explanation? I have often said that the shades of the night invite demons to our minds. But that applies more to the idle wandering that your brain cycles through when you don't have something to keep it active. And besides, not all dreams are bad, so it can't be just those plaguing thoughts that linger too long into the night.

Do dreams give us a chance to play fantasies out, in hopes of experiencing some phenomenon that may or may not ever happen? Maybe my mind uses the lull that my body creates to explore things that my body will never allow me to, thus giving me the sensation of really doing it.

Do dreams just allow us to replay and reenact major scenes or life-altering occurrences from our daily lives? Maybe I cycle through these memories like paging through an old photo album, pausing and watching to relive it, feelings, sights, and notions abound.

Do dreams give us an opportunity to portray events of the future? Maybe I just started getting to know someone, and my mind wants to see how things will turn out, so it uses the information available to predict some happenings that could very well pan out. This would either guide you to reaching that outcome, or prepare you in how to react when it does come.

Do you find what you love and continue to imagine it? Do you face your fears, or simply run from them again and again? Do you dig up cherished childhood favorites or dwell on a face that passed you in the hallway?

I think dreams are amazing. They truly show the depth of our mind and how it can work. It can hypothesize and synthesize entire conversations with people we haven't spoken to in years. It can imagine an alternative world that defies the laws the define our own. It can make us fall in love with someone that doesn't exist. It can make us terrified of something that will never hurt us. It can make you physically react. Sweat. Shake. Wake up. Its wicked smart.

But how much stock do we put in these hallucinated escapes? While I would like to say that dreams are the medium that our sub-conscience uses to pass messages, I just can't buy into it. We would remember more of them if that was the case. Something else would figure it out. We wouldn't always be falling off of cliffs. So I'm going to go with a whole bunch of hogwash. That's right. Dreams are like creepy tour guides... fun to look at and they can take you crazy places, but don't you dare trust them. You can't live your life based on fiction. Find something grounded and depend on that.

Romeo:

Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!
Thou talk'st of nothing!

Mercutio:

True. I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air,
And more inconstant than the wind,