The Psyience of Sleep

Sometimes I feel like what we call real life is just the stuff that happens in between dreams. As if in unconsciousness we find truth, no matter how odd it seems upon waking. While dreaming, things always seem to make sense. In my dreams I have written a beautiful song of the purest melodies...that when I awoke had faded into warbling, random notes. In my dreams I have known the pressure of a bullet punch through my chest and strike my heart, genuinely if not gratefully surprised to find my body intact, my heart still beating once my eyes opened. In my dreams I have met my soul mate, a boy with brown hair and green eyes who I walked with in grass fields, talking endlessly. A boy who I simply understood was the one - yet his face became a white blur and in the waking world, my life moved on.

Some people think that I am lazy and too much in love with sleep. Others think I fear "reality" and seek to escape from the monotony of structured life. And while all of this may be partially true, it's not the core truth. I love life and all of its simple pleasures. Boredom is a state of mind that rarely exists with me and surprises me when I hear it claimed by others. You have to live with a curious heart and an open mind - you have to choose your own adventures.

But dreams allow you to push beyond the limits of the terra firma. Absolutely anything can happen. In sleep I find the antithesis of peace, although chaos is not exactly the right descriptor. What I look forward to most is the anticipation of discovering what imaginative realms lay waiting for me. It's like watching a new movie every night...a movie that I am invariably the star in.

My favorite movies, books and even music albums have always been the ones where there is a sequel. No, strike that. "Sequel" sounds like something produced only to capitalize on the success of something else. It's about a story told in series. All of the plots planned out ahead of time. I love series because the characters, the emotions, stay with you. You travel with them and get to keep them a little longer. You get to know them and they become a part of you.

The same is true with dreams for me. I have many recurring dreams or themes in dreams, some of which pick up where they left off and some of which twist in entirely new directions. Two such types of dreams have been with me for years now: flying dreams and water dreams. In the water dreams I am sometimes nightswimming alone, or else I am on a coastline, or a lake. The water dreams usually take the form of some monster thriller, like the ones my brothers and I remember so fondly from our childhood.

But the flying dreams, I must admit, are my favorite. With each dream, I seem to become more adept at it. I clearly remember the first dream I ever had. I was attached by a long red string to my massive 4-pound childhood Yorkshire terrier, Buffie. She began to run through a field, and my body lifted into the air as if I were a kite. In the next dream, I learned to fly by myself. I flapped my arms up, down, up, down...just like a bird. I didn't need to run - I would simply stand in place and flap harder and harder until finally I began to lift off of the ground. Eventually, through many dreams, I learned that once I got high enough in the air, I could coast and soar downward by stopping my arms...and then flapping them again to soar back up higher. I recall flying like this through cities...narrowly navigating to escape smashing into skyscrapers. And now in the most recent dreams, I fly more like Superman...or the Vampire Lestat. I simply take off quickly, my body gliding through the air - no physical motion needed. It's as if I have learned to will myself through the air.

Recently I saw a movie with one of my favorite Spanish actors, Javier Bardem. In The Sea Inside, Javier's character is paralyzed, but in his dreams, he can run...and fly. When I saw the flying sequence in this movie, my heart fluttered. It was exactly what I feel in my dreams. The sensation came back to me so vivid, so rich.

But what gets me is, though I know I cannot fly, I can always call to mind the sensation at any point throughout my day. It's a beautiful and liberating feeling. One that gives me strength and perspective whenever I need to remember that life is bigger than what we can only see. And that in the blackness of sleep we find ultimate illumination.