Last night I saw a beautiful, creative and adventurous dream. I did what I like, shifted from one place to another on my will and manipulated the objects inside my dream. It was really fun for the most part. I think it’s not just me, this phenomena happens with other people as well. This is also not the first time I experienced such awareness while sleeping. Ever since childhood I clearly used to remember everything I saw in my dream almost everyday but most of these dreams were totally out of my control. I would completly freak out for seeing huge crocodiles in wild river, lizards being thrown at me by people who I trust, my family getting killed at gruesome encounter and even some scary episodes of haunted dreams. For a very long time I just wanted to stop this as I used to wake up scared and being emotionally affected by what I saw.
My consistent thought about what my dream really mean’t and why I really saw a particular person or animal in my dreams intrigued me and I started looking for ways of controlling this subconscious mishap. For instance; I used to see a lot of big reptiles in my dreams. Because of being an overthinker then, I realised that whatever things I come across during my day, be it inside my mind or in real; I see a twisted version of same things that turn against me in my dream. For the solution, I started telling this to myself right before I sleep that tonight I am going to see a lizard in my dream because I saw one in real life. I would actually trick my mind by stating the obvious that somehow it just did not reach the thought twisting part of my brain for that night. As a result, I would not see any scary dream that day or even after several days.
Pracitising this on a daily basis and studying a lot about meaning of dreams prepared my mind for lucid dreaming. So by the time I completed my college I started having lucid dreams. In the beginning it was once in 3 months or so but later it became common for me. For those who don’t know, a lucid dream is something which all of us experience atleast once in a lifetime, this is a dream when you know you are dreaming. Presently, I have reached a stage since few years where I am aware of being in a dream most of the times and I manipulate the things happening inside that dream. This is not regular for sure but yes, I happens more than once in a month and this has helped me in ceasing the horrendous dream I saw in the past. I even read somewhere that it is rare to get frequent lucid dreams and I think of myself being fortunate to achieve this in my life atleast.
May be I am among those few people who can play with their dreams. But a big fat bummer is that no one believes me. I tried sharing this with my friends but they think it is not possible. Their thoery is that I day dream, that is why I remember everything so clearly and that is the reason I am able to manipulate what I am experiencing because I am actually imagining it during my sleep. I told my family about it but they would just not get it. So, I hope with this blog, I will atleast be able to find people who can relate to what I experience and may be I can come in handy for a good sleep-dream research.
The topic for today’s blog is not my fantastic ability of playing with my subconscious(just joking) but how I used this phenomenon in my personal study to understand the importance of being in the present. A humble request to all my readers to please leave a comment about your thoughts after reading this article.
So, I got up this morning with a lot of questions in my mind, I have had these questions for a long time but only today I figured out all the answers very quickly. These questions are:
Question 1: Why do we need to see dreams?
Question 2: Difference between day dreaming and visioning?
Question 3: What are the different ways in which we day dream?
Question 4: How can one overcome this habbit and finally get the best productive output of their time?
Table of Contents
Answer 1 Day Dreaming
We see dreams so that we can realize the reality and the feeling of being alive. What we see in our dream is actually our mind’s activity to show a 3-dimensional view of our wild thoughts, fears, aspirations and maybe sometimes our own weirdness. When you are in a dream, things are totally out of your control and escalate very quickly; whereas, in real life you will see that a lot of things are under your control. Dreams are fade and surreal but life is crystal clear if you pay close attention to it.
Dreams are often used as way to escape the harshness of reality by people who undergo extreme emotional pain. When we are not strong enough to face what’s inevitible in our life, we sleep and we dream. Our creator gifted our minds with this ability so that we can make the most out of our reality. Overcome our fears in day to day life and achieve what we saw in a dream that we just failed at.
I think that life would’nt have evolved if we were born without our mind being so complex and creating newer pictures in form of a dream, now be it with close eyes or open eyes. So, dreaming is important but not day dreaming. Seeing a dream when you are asleep is normal but dreaming about something while sitting in your classroom or your office or even while spending time with someone is the reason why things get out of your hands under real circumstances.
Answer 2 Learn to Vision
We all love day dreaming, ain’t we? Just in the middle of the day thinking about driving that Porshe or a thought of getting along with the person we are attracted to. I have just stated some very obvious day dreams but there is a plethora of things that you will having in your mind while thinking about what you actually day dream about during your awake hours. Most of the times we are either lost in correcting our past or we are thinking of all the future possibilities of things that matter to us.
So, now you all will also agree to the point that we actually day dream about the same thing more than once and most of these dreams turn out to be the exact opposite in real life. There might also be some people who understand this happening inside their brain and then they try to do a cheat by thinking negatively about everything they desire. Thinking that this way they might get the positive outcome in real life.
At last there will be people who just get trapped in this habbit of day dreaming so much that they start enjoying it and never achieve their dreams in reality. This is sad and so if you are doing this then you need to stop the madness this instance my friend. You need to start converting ur desires into a vision.
A vision is very different from day dreaming but has a a very thin line of difference when it comes to practical implementation. When you create a vision about achieving your goals (it can be anything positive that creates a milestone in your own life) then you actually plan and act on it.
A vision is seen once inside your head whereas a day dream is like a record playing in repetition. You think about how you are going to achieve what you desire when you are visioning, this helps you in create a plan in order to attain success. Your plan will be made keeping in mind your reference points, mini goals and obstacles that you must eradicate to get to the final point.
Day dreaming does not brings all these thoughts, it just brings in the final happy picture in your mind and even before you know it, you get into a habbit of living that happy image inside your mind over and over again. In short, a vision is like a herb that helps you find happiness and day dreaming is a dangerous drug that gives you instant pleasure but actually moves you apart from achieving your goals.
Day dreaming is dangerous, it makes you unproductive, unaware or reality, your chances of being unsuccessful at even small things increases and most importantly you will start feeling being depressed and in a constant state of sadness. There are other side effects of extreme day dreaming as well, like you might get into depression when the things you imagine are not happening in real.
I read “The Secret” during last semesters in my college days and after a few days I got recuirted for my dream job back then. The book says that in order to make your dreams come true, you need to live it once inside your head. Some similar authors emphasize on repetition of this process or they might present the idea in a way that the reader grasps the concept wrong. People create vision boards which is again a sign of action towards the thngs you desire. They create this board and it reminds them to work regulary towards achieving a certain goal.
It is not the same with day dreaming because everything just stays inside your head, your own world inside you that never comes into reality.
When you dream with your eyes open then you must get a feeling of urgency on taking the first step towards the dream. If you have already felt like living that dream then most probably you won’t act on it. Practice saying your dreams aloud and think about coming out of your comfort zone in order to achieve that dream. This technique might help you understanding the difference between day dream and a vision.
Answer 3 Stop Overthinking
Do you know that being anxious, stressed, tensed and over thinknig is also a type of day dreaming. Only difference is that it is the negative type of day dreaming and it is actually out of your control if you are unaware of how to control this toxic behavior by yourself.
There is so much similarity if you notice. If you really need to stop stressing over things that might happen in future then you also need to stop day dreaming. Just like when you get lost while creating the sweet scenes of your day dreaming, you also get lost in a chain of overthinking that leads to a lot of time waste and you also end up in a cranked up mood. Day dreaming stops you from working towards your goals and taking up the challenges in order to create opportunities in life. You imagine achieving something and then you are done for the day. Same thing happens when you think negatively, you imagine a failure and then you either get sad or you make a mistake which ruins things for you.
By explaining you all this, I do not advice to just stop thinknig like shutdown your mind and become dumb or just become a happy maniac because that’s crazy. You see, your mind is not that simple to control you know. It takes planning and action even to get a right mindset. So you need to first realise mistakes that you are making consiously inside your mind. Later you can work on removing these basic flaws that are stopping you from becoming the best version of yourself.
Everything is good if you set a controllable limit to it. Have you ever been in a situation when someone is debating or arguing with you on something, and then he/she says something that hurts you instantly. The words they say remind you of a feeling that instantly puts you in a vulnerable position for that time being, all the related negative memory comes in your mind and you are reliving it. You actually feel weak and then you are defeated, left with nothing to say because nothing comes to your mind at that time. Later you are thinking of all the things you could have said to the person in order to feel good but the fact is that moment has passed. You were day dreaming then and you are day dreaming now.
I cannot tell you how much this affects us. It is like a need of the hour for each one of us who is feeling down, of feeling sad and just want to get of this pathetic state where there is no hope of improvement.
This is the time you need to be present, now is the time you live in the present
Answer 4 Life is in the Present
Time for my last answer and time to come live in the present. So, I got this answer when I was watching Inception movie for the fourth time in order to understand it once and for all…LOL.
Anyways, I have already watched Inception like 5 times because
1. I love Leonardo (well who doesnt) and
2. because I felt like watching a sensible movie after so long.
I watched the hindi version of this movie with english subtitles and with complete attention. I will write another blog to put forward my understanding of the movie. So this hindi audio-english subtitle combination actually helped me in getting to my final answer of how to stay in the present. I learned my lesson and here is a little piece of wisdom for my readers as well.
Once you stop day dreaming and negative thinking, you start seeing what is happening at the exact moment. You feel energetic and positive towards creating your own future. There is no sense of urgency about less time to complete what is aready left unfinished. Being in the present is when you are able to give a 100% attention to whatever you are doing.
You start noticing even the smallest details around you. By the time you will reach this answer, you will truely understand the power of being in the present. Well not exactly during reading for sure but when you will be practising about what I just told you in this article.
Being in present does not mean disregarding your past mistakes, achievments or just ignoring your future aspirations. Living in the present moment is about making oneself aware of our own enviornment, involved with what’s happening now, figuring out the challenges and being completly composed at the same time. Your successful friends and family members will try to explain this concept to you but you will not get it untill you give your own efforts towards understanding it.
This is a one big solution for all your problems. Being in the present it a great power that demands great responsiblity from you before you hold possession of it.
One of the best advantages is that you have your emotions under your control and you will find yourself doing things in a well structured manner. The task which you felt to be daunting will become interesting if you keep your mind away from what happened in the past or could have happened.
There will be skills which you find difficult to learn but by practise of being in present you will become a fast learner. Just one small habbit of understanding your inner thought process can help you harness the power of taking things under your control.
End Notes
After asking myself so many question and persistently searching for answers, I now know for sure what the old trutle tells Panda in the movie Kung Fu Panda.
Yesterday is a history, tomorrow is a mystery but today is a gift that is why you call it present.
The Old Turtle
The road to self awareness is not easy. You will face a lot of challenges. My personal advice is to never give up on your self because only you know what’s the best way for you. Only you can act on your plan and get yourself a gift of present. After reading my article do give a thought on what you day dream about.
Untill then, Keep Smiling 🙂