A little bit of everything

Dreams

18/11/2015

What are dreams? I heard once that when you dream of someone, it's because they are dreaming of you. I think that that's just something that people say to feel better about themselves, to think that someone might want them in the same way they want them. Dreams are our own mind's work, they don't depend on what other people do or think. 

I also heard once, that our dreams are created because our mind is trying to organize our thoughts. It's like this: when we think about something at some point during the week, or if something happens to us, those memories are slowly stored in our brain. Therefore at night, our brain is supposed to organize those memories, sending them from one place of our mind to the other. That way, we have a whole bunch of memories bundled up at once and the way for our brain to represent that is by putting it in the form of a dream. Could that be it? I don't think we'll ever know what happens to us, and I mean deep inside of us, at night. 

Someone once told me that dreams never last more than a couple seconds. That even if when we wake up, we might feel like they lasted an eternity, we have tons of dreams during just one night's sleep, that barely last a couple of seconds. The one dream you remember when you wake up is the one you had last. Could that be it? Are my dreams just thoughts going through my mind all at once, that barely last around, what, 15 seconds? I wonder. And after hearing  all of these, why is it that we call our goals in life, the things we look forward to, dreams? Are we comparing our ambitions, and the things that we want in life to something as fleeting as a dream is? 

Even if dreams don't just last a couple of seconds, they do last one night. When we say that we have a dream, that we want something, why are we calling it that, a dream? I believe, that maybe we are trying to call it a dream because we believe it to be something that cannot be reached. We call dreams those thing that we want, but that we're not sure that we can ever really achieve. "I want to follow my dreams" you say. But why? When you look at yourself in the mirror, you think about what you are becoming, about what it is that you want to do with your life; about your dreams? When you are sleeping, and dreaming, do you dream of those things that you want? Maybe. I don't think that's right though. "I dream of becoming a singer". Do you actually dream about it? Are you calling it a dream because you think that it is impossible? 

Please, someone explain to me, or at least try to explain to me, what the difference between a goal and a dream is. And think about this: What if you get to achieve that dream. What if you get exactly what it was that you wanted. What do you do then? Is your life now fulfilled? You have what you wanted. Are you satisfied with what you have achieved now? Probably not. Some people might think "Well, I'll just find a new dream then". But is that really what life is about? Following your dreams and when getting those, find new ones? Is it ever really over? Of course people should follow their dreams. Of course people should have goals. If people, all around the world, had no motivation at all, I am 100% sure that humanity would go to waste. 

So I look at my reflection, day after day, and wonder, what it is that life is about. About what it is that I have to do with my life. If everyday is the same, if everyday I follow the exact same routine, am I accomplishing anything? I get up, I go to school, I eat, I study, and I sleep. "You'll have time to do what you want" they say. Well sure, I have maybe fifty or sixty more years of my life to do everything I want to do; to follow my "dreams". But is that honestly how that life should be? Everyone doing the same thing? School, college, working, retire, die. Sure, you're supposed to fall in love, get married, have kids and stuff in between, but is anyone really any different? 

We go through this life, everyone saying "we're all different" but knowing that we are all the same. We are all people, driven by money, society, and our ambition to live a good life. Nevertheless, try to think about that last one: living a good life. What is our idea of a good life? Not having problems of any kind, to be happily married, or just in love, to have a family and friends, to make a good salary, to work doing what you want and love. 

There are billions of people on Earth. Billions. You will probably never get to meet one or two thousand of those people. There are people all around the world, with a whole bunch of different problems, maybe worse than the ones you have. There are people living way better lives than you. And there are a whole bunch of people living life just like you, who have the same opportunities you have, who have the same routine every day and don't even know what they're here for. After all, we are all the same. We are all here for the same reason; what that reason is, I have no idea. Is there a reason for having a whole bunch of humans born, having them live a life which will most likely go unnoticed by many others, and then having them die, as if they didn't even exist? 

I say this because, in a hundred years, except for those who left some kind of mark in this world, nobody will remember that guy who lived across the street and had a dog that he walked every morning at eight. No one will remember the girl working as a waitress at the bar downtown who probably had a family and maybe lived a life full of happiness and love. Is that what we're here? To fill the void while something bigger than us happens to the worlds in a couple million years? I'll never know. 

So when you look at yourself in the mirror next time, when you think about what your dreams are, think, what are dreams? Try to understand what the concept of a dream is, why something as untouchable, as unpredictable, and as fleeting as a dream is being compared to those things that you wish to do in life. Why you are trying to tell people that what you want is something that you think can't be achieved, so you have to call it by something as a dream. 

A dream, which is something that can never be proven why or how it happened, something which will never be recorded or remembered a few days after it happened. Something that as it comes, it goes, and that you slowly forget as the day goes by, or that you probably forgot when you woke up. Is that what I want my goals in life to be? Do I want no proof in life of what I have achieved, for those things to never be remembered? The next time you say "follow your dreams", think about what you are saying and try to understand, WHAT ARE DREAMS? Because as of today, I have no idea. And I don't think I ever will.