Throughout the course of my life, I’ve found the concept of a “dream” to be a very curious thing. What is a dream? Do dreams serve a purpose or are they just random movements of the mind that do nothing more than entertain my subconscious while I’ll rest my physical body? Is it possible that our individual dream worlds serve a practical purpose in our lives? I look to Scripture and see men like Joseph and Daniel who have the gift of interpreting dreams; does this mean that all dreams have the capacity to be interpreted? Is there such a thing as a meaningless dream? I have many questions, but no means to arrive at fulfilling answers. I have opinions but no facts. I would like to believe that every dream serves a purpose, but how can that be when I remember less than 10% of my dreams? They say that we dream every night and we need to dream in order to maintain sanity, but I often wake up with no recollection of anything at all. How is it that I can’t remember? It was my dream, created within the construct of my mind, so why can’t my mind recall the contents of my dream on command? There seems to be a disconnect between dream world and awakened world. Frustrating.
I’ve seen how dreams can take the form of both blessing and curse; it is a reality I am all too familiar with (considering my past issues with nightmares and night terrors). But those dreams were a result of me filling my mind with damaging images (specifically, the movie “Scream”). It has been my experience that the images I’ve seen with my physical eyes have inescapably become material for images in my dreams. But good or bad, right or wrong, remembered or forgotten, I do believe there is one all encompassing purpose for dreams: mental health. I believe it cannot be doubted that God has given our amazing minds the ability to dream as we sleep in order to maintain mental health through the use of continues brain activity (I am not sure what this means for those who are born mentally challenged). But I do believe dreams rest and reset the mind just as sleeping in itself rests and resets the physical body. And I do believe I am presently about to practice this unavoidable ability. Goodnight.
