In Dreams

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on …” William Shakespeare, The Tempest

If we are the stuff of dreams, we are made on some pretty strange stuff. Researchers are still trying to figure out why we dream. One odd result of that research is the discovery that people who grew up before the advent of color television are much more likely to dream in black and white than in color, while the opposite is true for those who grew up with color television.

Speaking of television, in a recent interview, spy novelist John le Carre – whose real name is the much less dreamy David Cornwell – revealed that his nom de plume was born of a flight of fancy. He also confessed to an ongoing relationship with his favorite fictional character, George Smiley. That relationship might be dismissed as imaginary, until one considers just how profitable it has been for Cornwell.

In supposedly rational western thought, such flights of fancy and wild imaginings are too often dismissed as daydreaming. But to do so is to cut ourselves off from our subconscious minds and from possible solutions to real-world problems.

Other cultures are not so dismissive of sojourns into this other world; Native Americans speak of them as waking dreams or visions. It is said that before the battle at Little Big Horn, Sitting Bull had a vision in which he saw soldiers “as thick as grasshoppers” falling upside down into the Lakota camp. Had Custer been informed of that vision before the battle, he would likely have dismissed it as wishful thinking. It’s pretty clear from history which man engaged in wishful thinking.

I find the creative process to be much like a waking dream. In that altered state, I can choose to go places that exist only in my imagination. But I am equally liable to go places my concious mind could never have imagined. Indeed, I oftentimes look at what appears on the page and wonder where in the world did that come from?

Waking dreams are, of course, very different from sleeping dreams, where one has no control of where the imagination decides to go. A unicorn or a purple cow are perfectly “logical” in that world. So is flying and time travel. Speaking of time travel, did you ever notice that in sleeping dreams, there’s no pining for the past and no planning for the future? Everything happens in the moment – in the now.

In dreams, those we loved and lost and those who’ve passed on … are still very much with us. I sometimes wonder if life wouldn’t be better if we lived in dreams.

In Dreams

In dreams … there’s only black and white
In dreams … there’s only wrong and right
In dreams … there is no in-between
And so … I live my life in dreams

In dreams … there are no shades of gray
In dreams … there are no yesterdays
In dreams … there are no memories
And so … I live my life in dreams

In dreams … there is no wondering how
In dreams … there’s only here and now
In dreams … there’s nothing too extreme
And so … I live my life in dreams

In dreams … there is no need to cry
In dreams … there are no sad good-bye’s
In dreams … there are no final scenes
And so … I live my life in dreams

And so … I will live on … in dreams

©2017 Tom Cordle