When a Dream Feels Like Recognition

Have you ever had a dream that doesn’t immediately disappear when you wake up like so many of them do? I have them every now and again. I like dreams. I think dreams are important. In one vein, perhaps it’s our subconscious speaking to us letting us know what’s going on deep in our thoughts that we don’t allow to persist in our waking moments. Maybe it’s actually a whole other life that we have individually that exists outside of our awoke reality. Or maybe it’s nothing at all. It’s just another illusion that our mind is playing on us distorting reality simply for its amusement. Well, I’m not that cynical surprisingly (or not so surprisingly). I tend to believe that there is some magic in our dreams that connects us to other things. And it moves on a metaphysical and quantum level operating with no rhyme or reason we humans can perceive. Ok, enough of that. Let me tell you about my dream.

Most dreams fade very quickly. The images often dissolve, the details are become a blur or are very blurry at best, and usually by the time we wake up, poof! They are gone. We cannot remember things that we know made us shake and shift while we are under. They seem to just drift away slowly as we start to get up, or they may have slipped away just before opening our eyes. Sometimes, however, a dream may leave something behind. It might not be the complete story or even a setting we can completely envision or imagine. Despite that, the feeling is left behind. I just had one here recently.

What was amazing about my dream on this occasion was that while I was dreaming and while it was going on, I was very much aware. Part of me stood quietly inside the moment knowing that I had not yet woken up and yet everything around me still felt real and vivid. I was in control to some degree. I had the type of conscious thoughts I have when I am awake. There was an interaction and conversation in that presence. And in the middle of that dream, there was a simple moment where someone I care about deeply chose me. To be transparent, it was a lady of whom I still carry a deep desire and feeling about. And what made it so special was that despite the odds being against her and I coming together romantically in my normal life (which also carried over to doubt in the dream), she chose me.

It wasn’t dramatic like a movie. And there was no big declaration scene, it was just two people coming together. I approached her, she was interested, and then we were together. It was just a recognition. It was the kind of recognition that makes the world feel calm for a moment and in that moment. Here, I felt seen, understood, and connected. Nothing needed explanation. Her touch felt real; my heartbeat was rapid like it was real; and that it was that girl that I fell in love with immediately in high school kind of real. What additionally made this one more genuine and unique, was that in the dream, I realized that I needed to wake up. I had to pull myself out of the dream. Have you ever had a dream so real you had to wake yourself from it because you knew it wasn’t real?

At some point, I realized that I needed to wake up. So, I was able to pull myself out of the dream. I was so engaged; I didn’t even know what time it was. I could’ve been sleep for 30 minutes or 8 hours. This time, though, when I opened my eyes from something so marvelous, something unusual happened. It’s happened before, but those times are rare, far and few in-between. The dream ended, but the feeling didn’t.

That feeling of happiness, excitement and presence of mind followed me long after I had awoken. That sense of connection stayed present in a way that was not and could not be ignored. It might have been because of the dream, or it might have been simply because I was already emotional about her, but in the Kind Rebirth space, moments like that do not erase easily and are worth paying attention to.

Perhaps dreams aren’t predictions. Perhaps they aren’t messages about the future. Whatever it is and when it arrives, the mind creates that quiet room where emotions appear clearly and all that noise of everything and everyone else are drowned out. Dreams can reveal many of the things that we are capable (and incapable of in our awoke life) of feeling. They can show us what connections look like to our heart when there are no worldly distractions, and we are not performing for the world audience. Waking up that awareness still present is a shift. And that shift is a kind rebirth of its own.

Dreams may fade with time, but a revealed awareness does not have to. Sometimes the real meaning behind a dream is simply a reminder that certain feelings are still alive and well and living inside of us. For me personally, it still provides a little hope, too.

So stay mindfully hopeful and let that reminder sink in.

Stay Mindful…

Rebirth.