Haven’t had a Dream in a Long Time…

…likely, because I have not slept in a long time. Last evening was the third night in a bout of bad sleep luck, and I have a dreadful feeling the tonight will prove no different and I can’t quite put my finger on the pulse of the problem. I manage to tucker myself out to the point of near exhaustion each evening but it seems as though just as I am about to cross the boarder to dream city I am over come with awakeness. It’s maddening.

Maybe I spend too much time during the light hours daydreaming, which has in turn forces my internal night clock from properly functioning, as it is clearly on the fritz. Could it be that all the hours I spend in a day conjuring up false scenarios and make believe conversations with factual people within the confounds of my mind have halted my nightly extended nap and kept the sandman at bay? If so perchance I’ll never sleep again.

I was once asked if, during my spare think time, I spent the while formulating fake dialogue, random banter, plots and events in my head with people, who are either true or false, (but the state of their realness was not necessarily necessary). To which I replied: Of course I do, who doesn’t? Well to my surprise, not everyone. I was stocked. Dumbfounded. Bewildered. What were all these people doing with all their free brain time? Seriously, what else was there to do but play loops of personal mockumentaries over and over in my head while I had nothing worthwhile to use my brainpower towards, like say, math or global domination/peace?

Answer, these creative geniuses use these perfectly awesome hours ‘life planning’. They think about what they will do during the day, writing little internal ‘to do’ lists and organizational tactics. They plan what to make for supper, what book to read or film to see next, where to vacation, how they’ll save the money to do so, and like the hero they are, work on that five year plan they’ve been craving out for themselves over the last I don’t know, Eon. I still don’t believe it. And, as you might suspect, like the dreamer and eternal optimist I am, I of course turned around and asked as many people as I know if they indeed spent their spare time as I did or if they were playing for team boredom.

Of course I ran into a couple of human stumbling blocks who thought that I had lost my cute little marbles and was perhaps bordering on sheer insanity. They had NO IDEA what on earth I was going on about and though I did my best to cover my tracks and laugh off the question I had just asked, I still feel as though they may be secretly judging me. They just simply did not understand and could and would never comprehend my addiction to daydreaming.

Oddly enough I think that I felt as much pity for them on the matter as they did for me. Obviously I later went on the spent the better part of my day replaying the conversation out in my head from every angle possible with every outcome possible while they went about checking of imaginary boxes of things they had accomplished within the last twenty-four hours, and I wish I could tell you which was more satisfying and fulfilling, but unfortunately I feel as though I may never experience the latter brain activity.

I was happy, however, to discover that most of the people I hold very dear to me did, as if it were second nature, spend their days as I did, up in the clouds practicing for real life conversations they might never need to regurgitate. They thought of the perfect comeback, the ideal hello, the best reaction and the most magical moment that might never happen in reality. And its true these times may never replay in the ‘real world’ but on the plus side, because they used their spare thinking time so wisely these moments and conversations could happen spontaneously throughout the day; hour by hour, minute by minute. They could be the glorious hero or tragic victim of their own story whenever they liked. They could let someone know exactly how they felt, without fear of judgment or worry or rejection or embarrassment, as they were their own peer and jury.

In daydreams the sky is the limit and you can only pigeon hole yourself. You are your own worst enemy or partner in crime as well as your cheering or jeering crowd. The (fantasy) world is you oyster; take a bite out of false life. Its cotton candy sweet and equally as filling, you’ll always have room left in the pit of your imagination. Nothing is sweeter and nothing can make you feel as wonderful.

Maybe it’s childish and silly to ‘waste’ my precious life planning moments floating in and out of these various daydreams. Maybe I really should get it together and start climbing that five-year-life-plan-mountain, because to tell you the truth I am not near even beginning that Everest. To be quite honest I haven’t even begun writing the introduction. I truly haven’t the slightly clue what I want to accomplish within the next year, heck month or even week, and to be quite frank I am perfectly content with that, well most days I am anyways. It can be a bit overwhelming at times not having the foggiest notion as to what direction my life is going, but as much terror as there is in those moment there is also so much excitement and spontaneity. I could do anything, be any where, and if for some reason by some chance, I find myself in a place in life I wasn’t wanting to end up, I can always use that time dreaming my way to another place, another life.







Aside: On the plus side of insomnia, I have managed to inch my way through a book I have been torturing myself through and am quite near completion at this point. Note to reader: Dorian Gray is a terrible person and should not be trusted. Keep your distance. I barely want to trudge my way to the final sentence of this story of self obsession and immoral lifestyle but I must see if this slimy despicable hedonist receives some sort of punishment for such blatant and evil doer narcissism. I hate Dorian Gray. Fact.