While preparing to write this memoir I've noticed that my life may not be as interesting as the next person's. I do not remember a time when one action I took or one trip I went on changed my whole life. What I do remember are my dreams. The poet Edgar Allan Poe once said, "All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream." Of all the quotes that involve dreams this one represents how dreams affect me to the point where they seem to become reality, or a forecast of what is to come.

Dreams are extremely sacred to me; unconscious in themselves and untouched by the outside world, my dreams are pure. On occasion they make me realize things that I myself refuse to admit. This was the case one night when I was about seven. I had discovered a hand-held video game in the playground, a toy that I knew a boy had lost and was looking for. I decided to take it home anyway. That night I had a very dark dream that I believe occurred to place a certain amount of guilt on me. I know this because whenever I have a guilty dream I feel like I am falling into a hole that seems never ending, imagining things that might happen because of me. That night, while I was falling, I imagined the boy's mother getting extremely angry at him for losing such an expensive game and I saw the mother take away something that must have meant a lot for the boy. He cried after he lost it. That dream led me to give the game back the next day.

At times it is hard to realize the difference between a dream that is meant to tell you something and a dream that comes from an overactive imagination. When I was younger, watching scary movies caused me to have realistic nightmares. I remember one nightmare where I was running away from Freddie Krueger, when I finally got up enough courage to turn around and try to punch him. When I woke up I saw my mom holding her mouth. She came into the room because I was screaming and instead of punching Freddie Kruger, I punched her.

Then there are dreams that are scary because they foretold future events. One of these dreams happened to me a few months ago. My father was standing alone in a blue atmosphere, staring at something. Suddenly he closed his eyes and fell down. I went up to him and tried to wake him up. It was not until two far-off hourglasses emptied that he opened his eyes. The dream was startling. I did not know what the dream meant until three days later when my father fell into a coma from a diabetic attack. I was saddened and worried, but not as much as I would have been if I had not had the dream. Two days later, as in the dream, he woke up.

Scientists, doctors and other intellectuals have not come to fully understand the origin of unconscious dreams. I believe I have: they exist to steer life a little and, like almost anything, they can come and go. There was a period of about a year and a half, when I was much younger, when I did not or do not remember having a single dream. As I look back I see that time had a slight taste of uncertainty and a bit of dullness. Afterwards it allowed me to see dreams in a way that I could have never foreseen.

Links:

The Association for the Study of Dreams

Dream Central