Adonis Diaries

Sleep dreams remind us of conscious habits that we have changed or habits that were transformed. Lately, my night dreams have been exhausting:  they forced me to wake up and get busy before “re-integrating “my bed. For example, I am taking off my cloth and realize that I am wearing four layers of pants, undershirts, and shirts.  Then, here I am removing four pairs of socks!  I am putting on a pair of mismatched socks and I am never able to make it right.  It is very exhausting taking off your cloth in dreams.

I like to interpret this recurring dream as if my brain is warning me: “I am filing and classifying your daily actions and sensations, and I have been discovering there are many drawers pretty inactive. Would you reconsider activating the dormant drawers?”  It is as if the computer program is automatically taking off icons that are not being activated to clear the screen of unused icons.

This recurring dream is reading me perfectly.  For a while now, I have been reluctant shouldering responsibilities and let life flow one day at a time; I neglected socializing (simply because I can no longer afford it, even if I long for a change in the routine from time to time); I stopped making any effort earning a living:  Whatever I earned didn’t make a dent on the quality of my life.  My daily habits and routines have altered for a long while and my brain is reacting when faced with locked drawers that he used to activate or refresh.

Sleep dreams keep you current on the immediate needs of your body while sleeping.  For example, recurring dreams that “I have to go” and searching for toilets and finding them all dirty or overflowing.  I have to get up and rush to the toilet.  The dreams are so disgusting and tiring that you are forced to waking up.  There are dreams where you are cornered and about to be stabbed.  I wake up to discover that one of my arms are numb or barely breathing; it is like my dreams were telling me: “Wake up man, you are about to die”

I am wondering: If I fail to obey my sleep dreams and resume my routine then, what would happen? Is the brain pressured to changing the default setting? Is it going to start short-circuiting the inactive drawers or registers that it tagged?  Is it going to send the drawers to the waste bin?  Is one of the consequences that it would be very hard for me later to surmount barriers in order to resuming previous routines, regardless of all the good intentions, all the determination, and will to going back?

I have the impression that the brain in sleep phase gives priority of processing and classifying saved impressions and sensations to active physical events of the waking period; “intentions” for actions might be processed automatically during the waking phase and have no bearing on the sleep phase.

It seems to me that mankind didn’t feel the urge to fly by watching birds: the urge was created from the sensation of flying during dreams of hovering inaccessible regions.  Man didn’t set on adventurous peregrinations simply because he was feeling bored and entrapped: he went forth because of sleep dreaming sensations that opened up the way and guided his decisions.

If we could recollect the kinds of recurring dreams in our childhood then we could comprehend our journey. We say: “I have no idea why and how I ended up doing what I did and why my life turned out that way.” It is probably we don’t know: we were never encouraged to taking our dreams seriously; we failed to recollect our dreams and investigate their meaning.

I hear a few people saying: “Sleeping is such a waste of time.  I’ll have eternity to sleep it off when I die.”   A few say:  “No lack of sleep ever shortened a life”, meaning “what is written is written by fate”.  If dreams are not the most essential part of life then how we could have experienced the most colorful sceenes, the most animated, the most “feel intense” events, the weirdest and most imaginative occurrences?  

Maybe we feel mostly depressed during our waking periods simply because our potentials and capabilities appear far degraded of what we experienced during sleep dreams.  Our sleep dreams are telling us the story of our life:  Have we followed the suggestions of our dreams and have we shut it down, and neglected to recollect it?  

Our sleep dreams are disgusting and nerve-wracking when our daily behaviors go contrary to the dream guidance.  Our dreams are of the kinds of happy and colorful when our behaviors are compatible with the hints of our sleep dreams. Our dreams are chaotic and exhausting when our daily behaviors tend to fight off the control of the dreams.

Maybe we should start listening seriously to our dreams.  Methodical recollection of dreams, finding connections and interactions among the dreams with our waking actions can aid greatly our conscious decisions. Investing time to interpreting our dreams and stop feeling apprehensive and scared of what we have dreamt of can relieve our unconscious anxiety. Dreams are the best catalyst to change:  Time to be serious with what sleep dreams generate and taking dreams out of the esoteric domain into the scientific field. 

Sleep dreaming is basically what we are; it is too potent to be ignored or maligned as a by-product of our daily actions seeking outlets for the body and mind to resting efficiently. Psychoanalysis profession should re-focus its practice from remembering “unconsciously hidden” memories, into the main sources of disequilibrium that reside in recollecting sleep dreams that we have been fighting off.

I have this theory that many species disappeared and vanished for three reasons.  First, most of the dead species were confined in a specific localized habitat and they vanished because of natural calamities in the habitat that wiped them out; second, mankind was too swift in disturbing their habitat that the slow process of sleep dreams could not react in a timely manner for the species to re-adapt and mutate to the altered habitat; and third, the species lacked sleep dreams or this function was degraded to permit evolution and adaptation to new environment.  Is mankind fate of the same kind with the short-term mania tradition in this century?

How so often you hear someone ironically asking: “Are you daydreaming?”, meaning “Are you trying to recall your night dreams?”  Show me someone who claims not finding time to daydream and I tell you that he is either a certified liar or technically brain-dead and you should avoid him like the plague.  Until I decide to experiment with hallucinogen drugs then, sleep dreams are more real to me and more vivid than real life actions.

Are we what our sleep dreams are?