When We Build a Dream

It starts with a slight feeling. Perhaps a tingle? We ignore it for a time but when it returns we recognize it. Don’t know what it is but we know we’ve experienced it before. And then again it appears, over and over.

One day walking along a fall sidewalk, scuffling through the fallen gold and red leaves, a smell reminds us of a prior time. Sort of déjà vu, you know? An inkling of having experienced this ‘thing’ before. And we have, of course. It is the reminder resounding. For emphasis. For insistence. For us to awaken to it.

One night, oh maybe around 2:30 am, a dream or at least a stream of consciousness forms a thread in the mind. Over and over again it plays. A bright beam of light – or something – seems to add a vibe to the experience. It is suddenly more real.

Jerking awake we know something has happened. A slow examination of rising from sleep tells us we had a dream of some kind. And then the theme appears and sticks with us.

The theme. The idea. It has form. It has relevance to what? Oh a few things bugging me these days, but more importantly it shadows the promise of being useful, perhaps a solution to those nagging issues.

With that added to the theme the idea grows in significance and suggests a dream is building within. Nurturing that thought might take me a few more days. Then again, there are times the idea is recalled at 5 am and I can write about it then and there. Giving it form and flesh it is able to define more of the unrecallable dream. We keep it. Ditching it would take so much time for regret and rebuilding the thought pattern. You know you will recall this, just not all the details. So don’t ditch it. Hang on to it. Nurture it. Develop it.

I remember when I was a 12 or 13 years old, I had dream series. Sort of like a soap opera but made by me just for me. I recall being excited to go to bed and continue the dream. Now, 60 years later, I don’t have an iota of an idea of what that was about. Just one of those mysteries encountered growing up. I wonder if it had anything to do with puberty and its upsetness? Most likely, but then, that’s for someone else to analyze!

In one phase of my career I kept a note pad next to the bed so I could write down ideas that came to me in the middle of the night. Later I kept a Dictaphone machine handy for the same reason. Eventually I didn’t need the tools, just the memory.

Nowadays I can recall enough dream material to help me write copy about the dream. Soon we have something suggesting a plan to pursue. Such are business solutions, client suggestions for them to attempt, or a fresh approach to handle a community problem. Funny what comes to mind when you are relaxed, asleep even. When the mind is allowed to just be it comes up with some amazing things.

Like Hercule Poirot (Agatha Christies’ amzing genius Belgian detective). He was always having a hint of a dream or idea that broke through ‘the mist of thought waves’. Eventually that mist breaker provided the answer to the mystery itself. How handy. How very handy!

So dream on and keep track of them. That’s the only way they can be of use.

October 8, 2015