“Close your eyes, shut your mouth, dream a dream, and get us out.
Dream, dream, dream, dream, dream, dream.”
-Robert Rodriguez, The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl, 2005
Despite them being such a fundamental part of the human experience, there’s a startling lack of consensus as to why we dream. Not to stroke humanity’s already overinflated ego, but our brains are miraculously complicated, so much so that we cannot fully understand them. Freud and Jung believed dreams were subconscious wish fulfillment, yet most modern neuroscientists theorize that they are our minds’ method for consolidating memories. To oversimplify, dreams help us by simulating skills for future use.
Three years back, lucid dreaming sounded rad, so I resolved to wrest control from my subconscious and become an oneironaut. It seemed so simple: “Follow these steps and – two hours nightly – you’ll be playing God in another dimension!” For real? Sign me the hell up. It was 2020 after all. Most everyone was searching for a way to spice up their isolated worlds.
As most sources online dictate, the first step to lucid dreaming involves maintaining a consistent dream journal. Today, scrolling to the bottommost line of my Notes app reads the following: Video footage of me as a kid playing arcade game. Frustrated news reporter fails to get my attention. She says, “Stupid boy! Stupid boy!” Raw anxiety prevailed through this initial dream, yet upon awakening, the one-sided faux dialogue exchange obviously amounted to nothing aside from a laugh or two, but little else.
Contrarily, Robert Louis Stevenson concocted “a fine bogey tale” after one nightmare that evolved into the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Mary Shelley suffered a terrifying “waking dream” that served as the basis for a sleeper hit you may know as Frankenstein. As she described in her journal, “When I placed my head upon the pillow I did not sleep, nor could I be said to think.” And let’s not neglect other disciplines. Paul McCartney dreamt the melody to “Yesterday” after a night at his then-girlfriend’s home. German chemist Friedrich August Kekule von Stradonitz devised the structure for benzene after a wild dream of ouroboros serpents. A good dream can change everything.
Neil Gaiman’s seminal comic series The Sandman details the adventures of Morpheus, an anthropomorphized metaphysical entity who acts as the lord of dreams. It is one of my favorite works of fiction ever – period; the recent Netflix adaptation makes me indescribably happy. I mention it here though specifically because of Issue #18, A Dream of a Thousand Cats, wherein it’s stated that dreams can directly affect reality if enough people (or animals in this case) dream cooperatively. In a similar sense, a powerful enough story can impact how one influences the world. Sherlock Holmes invented a chemical method to determine whether blood was human or animal, compelling forensic scientists reading his adventures to make an identical technological advancement. Star Trek inspired handheld cellphones, and Spiderman’s villain Kingpin used ankle monitors long before they came to be.
In truth, the boundary between dreams and imagination is flimsy, if nonexistent. The two exist in conversation – dreams feed imagination; imagination feeds stories; stories feed innovation. A good story can change everything. Reality is just something that happens when we convince one another to believe in our dreams, so that’s why I think everyone should keep a dream journal.
Or not. I ain’t your mother.
As for myself, I continue to document my dreams while mostly abandoning lucid dreaming – not because I’m lazy (I am tho), but because I fully welcome surrendering a third of my life to give my subconscious a chance to throw metaphorical garbage at the wall until something sticks. I’ll chant “Hasa Diga Eebowai” with the malformed cast of Spongebob Squarepants. I’ll make medieval castles out of precariously stacked Jenga blocks. I’ll go extra-slow carting my ravioli suitcase to the bunker because – Damn it! – this apocalypse is too beautiful and needs to be witnessed by someone before heading underground forever. When all is said and done, I’ll feel honored to be the first to write everything down.
“‘Hush! please,’ said Scipio with a gentle smile, ‘lest you rouse me from my sleep, and listen a while to the rest.’”
- Cicero, The Dream of Scipio - Somnium Scipionis, 51 BC
Written by: Jack Hawkins
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