Journey With Me!

I think that dreams say a great deal about who we are… on the inside. Before you start preparing for some kind of mental health episode of some sort, I’ll leave that to the professionals, thank you very much! My thoughts and considerations will be looking at our character, our personality, or we can label as our true self, if you will. As I always tend to do, let me explain what I meant by my initial statement.

First off, I want to break dreaming into two categories here, one being a waking daydream, while the other is a sleeping dream. Waking daydreams are the ones in which we control the dream in its entirety. Obviously, the sleeping dreams are when we’re not awake, therefore we have no conscious control of what goes on in our dream, nor any control of the outcome… we just gotta ride it out, so to speak.

When I write these thoughts out, I’ve no intention of trying to figure others out, based on their dreams! I guess I’m writing out something that I’ve discovered about my own personality and tendencies, that’s all. Some say that they don’t really dream much, while others dream often and deeply… people like me.

Being a child from trauma, I sought fantasies and daydreams from a very early age, as a way of safety or escape, if you will. To this day, I can vividly remember things from those years, most especially the dreams and recurring nightmares that I experienced. Weird, right?!

Anyway, I had one of my re-run daydreams from when I was small, just the other day. As I was thinking on the memory of my dream, I noticed something sort of funny about myself, or, the way that I saw myself in the daydream. It made me want to look back through some of the other dreams, just to see if I did that in all of them. Guess what I discovered? I did, in fact, see myself in a particular way, when it was a sleeping dream and another way when it was a daydream… just two starring roles… two!

In every waking dream that I created, I cast myself as the assistant, the helper, the heroin through heavy lifting! I was either Charlie instead of Willie Wonka, or the Mad Hatter instead of Alice, or the child who helped Dr. Doolittle. Even to this day, I never see myself as the heroin or hero in anything… always, always, always, I dream myself behind the scenes. In my stories, it feels better to focus on my desires for the cast members in the tale. I think that’s why I prefer you to see me through Tilly, Eustace, or any of this site’s characters when I write. They seem to capture who I am, there within the pages of their stories.

The sleeping dreams are a far different representation of how I saw myself back then, and even now, today. That little girl only experienced the nightmare portion of the dreams, for many, many years. I was a frequent bed wetter, and struggled with severe anxiety. I had no one to talk to, no one to comfort or rescue me from my hell. I’m sure that this is why my waking dreams were so intense and real to me. I even learned how to wake myself out of my night terrors. I actually began to flip myself from my bed and onto the floor, so as to force myself awake. That child was always running, fighting and/or in pain during those dreams. Over the years, I changed in appearance as I grew into a woman, wife, and mother, but I still continued to be the victim… or the villain. Yes, I even saw myself become the villain, but what could I do? I had no control, there in the depths of my darkness.

Ok, no more of that part, as it’s not who I am now! Now? God holds my dreams in the palm of his hand, shielding and comforting me through anything I may experience during my sleep, which is now rarely more than a goofy recap of what I’d watched on television the night before. It’s funny, because the transformation within this wild child has been miraculous, to say the least!

Waking daydreams are now filled with a purpose, not my own, but of one who is so much greater!

Night dreaming is no longer a place of fear, but of peace, protection, and security!

I’ll not forget the child of my past, no no, as she is the one who survived!

I’ll not forget the lost wild one, for she is full of fiery spirit, and tenacity!

While I may not ever be a hero of anything special, Charlie did end up with the factory, so that children would hold onto their dreams!

That child who followed Dr. Doolittle… they carried on the doctor’s work to care for others, whether it was a Push-Me-Pull-Me or the captive sea lion… always the less fortunate!

What do I daydream about now? I dream that everywhere I go… I smell like cookie dough, pulling children’s imaginations along with me, just like the pied piper! For all the rest of you… I pray that I leave a trail of cookie crumbs in my wake… get it, wake… hehehe!