Journal of Sacred Work

All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.   
  – Edgar Allan Poe (left, 1809-1849)

   During his short life, Edgar Allan Poe contributed to many nightmares as well as dreams with his immortal collection of stories and poems. Plagued in later years by tuberculosis, alcohol and drug problems, he must have wondered often about the truth of his own quote. Is all we see or seem/but a dream within a dream?
   Commenter Karen York recently posed a question to Journal readers that many of us ponder: Why it is so hard for us to remember our dreams?…

   But the reverse is equally fascinating. Why, in our dreams, do we seem to ignore, or forget, the realities of our waking life? The dichotomy between our dream world and our waking world is more than confusing. Yet the mind faces so much trouble resolving this dilemma that most of us simply accept it and move on.
   Dreaming is so fascinating that we often seek to recreate the experience in our own way.  Via daydreaming, we secretly purchase a ticket to another consciousness. In daydreams, eyes closed or not, we imagine ourselves into our chosen reality – the beach, a spot beneath a tree by a mountain lake, a hammock. And we can imagine ourselves into any age or time. We can ride our horse into Wild Bill Hickok’s Wichita, take a raft down Mark Twain’s Mississippi, or scan the earth from the edge of the moon.
   Daydreams are convenient because we can dive in and out of them at will.

   Teenage girls can dream of being in Elvis’s arms or Paul McCartney’s lap and then snap back to attention when the teacher calls their name. Old men can dream of their youth recalling, perhaps, the dreams they once harbored.
   Dreams have the same great characteristic as any concept. They can be perfect. We can imagine ourselves into the boat on the Amazon River and never have to face the reality of mosquitoes or snakes. We can dream of a perfect mate or a perfect career and never have to face the harder truths that reality may provide.
   Sometimes, I ask caregivers about their dreams. The dreams of young doctors and nurses may have been tinted with colorful shades of romance, drama, heroism or sainthood. As experience comes, those dreams may ease. Better, dreams may become enriched by the powerful reality of what happens when caregiving is lived as an art. There may be frustrations, but the rewards are so much greater.
   Most of all, dreaming is a wonderful gift. Our minds have the capability to leap free of the earth’s restraints. Sometimes, we are even fortunate enough to build a foundation beneath our dreams so that, one day, we can gaze about us to discover that we have contributed something to the world that wasn’t there before. And this something that was once only a dream, may now be helping, somehow, to make Love’s light shine brighter. So daydream on.