Climbing Naked

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before." -Edgar Allan Poe

Do dreams really have meaning for us? Have you ever wondered why you dreamed of flying to some far off place only to find yourself climbing a mountain naked? Can those dreams really be turned the reality of goals and achieved?

We all know that dreams come in many different types; from the fun and enjoyable to the scariest and disturbing kind. The eight most common dream themes are;

Processing Dreams - rehashing of the events of your day; in other words "sleep-working." It is a way for our subconscious to digest the bazillion bits of information we are exposed to all day.

Venting Dreams - nightmares where you're being chased, falling, or failing a test. Think of it as a way to work through issues in a safe place, your mind.

Integration Dreams - dreaming you or someone else is behaving in some extreme way that you either greatly admire or seriously judge. It could be that the behavior you are judging may be something you are afraid to embrace or secretly dislike.

There are also recurring dreams, precognitive dreams, prophetic dreams and wish-fulfillment dreams. One that some people seem to have quite often are "Breakdown or Breakthrough Dreams." These are dreams containing the bad stuff such as a disaster, death, lions, tigers and bears, oh my! These tend to be indications of change on the horizon, but can be quite scary to say the least.

You know, Edgar Allan Poe had an uncanny way of pulling some of his own darkest dreams into the light of day. He turned those dreams into words that told stories to excite and scare us at the same time. He was a poet of his dreams.

Many people dream of similar things without ever having read the works of Poe. We have the content of our dreams that could be turned into something more. Even the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud said that whether we intend it or not, we are all poets. That is because on most nights, we dream.

While dreams are truly amazing, can we be the poet of such a wonderful thing? I believe it is possible, if only we could remember them after waking up. But how do we explain these dreams or understand them? What makes a dream real such that we can create a poem for our lives?

There are different theories in the scientific community to explain what these dreams are. In one called Evolutionary Theory, we dream in order to practice our responses to threatening situations. Those dreams where we are naked in public, being chased or fighting off some unknown thing; theorists believe we are practicing our fight-or-flight responses.

In yet another theory, dreams are thought to create wisdom. With the vast amount of information coming at us while awake, there is too much to process. As the theory goes, while sleeping we are better able to sort through those memories. This in turn allows our brain to determine which ones to retain and which to lose. To put it another way, we are getting smarter while we sleep.

A third one indicates that dreaming is like defragmenting your computer's hard disk drive. Think of the brain like a machine that gets in the groove of connecting its data in certain ways and some of those connections or pathways are not always the most useful. When we go to sleep, the brain works in a much more random way. The randomness of the brain activity searches and creates new connections.

Other thoughts suggest that dreams are like psychotherapy. During our waking hours, we experience a flood of different emotions throughout the day. But how do we learn to deal with those emotions. It is theorized that dreaming places those more difficult emotions into pictures for us. Dreams are a safe place to work through those emotions.

A last theory is really an absence of a theory. Maybe dreams have have no meaning at all. Dreams could merely be the random firings of a brain that doesn't happen to be conscious at that time. Those left over remnants of a dream that the concious mind remembers and is what the concious mind trys to make sense of.

So if you find yourself dreaming of running naked, flying with a birds eye view of the world or dreaming of climbing without knowing why, your brain may or may not be trying to tell you something. Dreams in the unconcious mind can impart new and fresh ideas into your concious world. Those dreams can create new ideas and new goals for your life. They are pathways into finding lost information within our minds.

There is a large amount of information to absorb in our "awake" world. But there is a whole world of information that exists inside our brain. Dreams can give us access into that world every now and then. It is in that discovery, can we find a new way of moving our lives forward with the help of those dreams? Why not turn those dreams into goals?

When that happens, you just might find yourself flying to some far off land and climbing a mountain naked. You just never know.

Stay inspired my friends!

Raise The Bar

"What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals." -Henry David Thoreau

My wife and I are currently in training for a half-marathon on Thanksgiving Day. A total of 13.1 miles awaits us along with thousands of others. The Atlanta Half Marathon is among the largest half marathons in the US and this will be its 33rd running. We run the annual Fourth of July Peachtree 10K (6.2 mile) Roadrace each year and various 5K runs. But this is pushing us further.

Raising the Bar

Each of us are not great runners but we push ourselves. We want to achieve this goal and it certainly raises the bar of what we can do to what we want to do. As many say, it isn't going to be easy. Achieving many goals in life is not an easy task. Yet you would be surprised by what you can do by stretching beyond the expected.

In training for this half marathon, you have to figure out what your limit is. Or better yet, figure out what you "think" your limit is. And then you push beyond it. The Livestrong organization offers three tips to help you push beyond what you "think" is your limit.

Getting beyond limits.

These tips as noted above come from Livestrong.com and apply to training in order to run faster. But you can apply these to any goal or dream that you have in mind.

- Practice Interval Training

When you keep doing the same thing over and over again, this does not challenge your mind or body. What you need to do is find little or small goals to achieve. Try many different levels of achievement. If ridding yourself of debt is the big goal, try paying off one small bill first. If losing weight is a goal, try putting down the soda and picking up a bottle of water. All little things achieved add up to bigger things down the road. They reinforce a sense of accomplishment and create the movement towards the bigger goal.

- Build a Foundation

Really work on understanding what you "think" is your limit. Without knowing where you are, how can you ever get to where you want to be? It also involves establishing consistency in your every day life. Back to my previous example, if you are trying to get out of debt, put down the credit card, consistently pay an amount weekly or monthly to that card to pay it down. If losing weight is the goal, start every day with a bottle of water and end it the same. Knowing what your limits are and being consistent will give you power over those limits.

- Allow Time to Recover

Do not set unrealistic deadlines for your goals. If you are $10,000 in debt, setting a goal of being debt free in two months is probably unreachable. Adjust it to pay off that smaller one in two months, take a one month breather (save the money from that breather month, don't spend it), then start on the next credit card. Breaking your big goal into smaller goals, pacing yourself and rewarding yourself (in the right way) will keep you on a path that eventually allows you to realize the big goal.

What happens next?

The next dream or goal of course!

Stay inspired my friends and just remember, "you can do it!"

Random Thoughts - 10/05/2012

For Friday, again I give you my random thoughts from the week nearly completed.

To Live Each Birthday

Today is my father's birthday, celebrating 82 years of surprises, the ordinary and the extra-ordinary. He is the man (very young man) to the far left in the picture below. My sister Pam is being held by our Grandmother. So many years ago, so many years passed but many of them seem like yesterday.

Happy Birthday Dad. Love you much.

And while I am on the subject of birthdays.

It is also my grand-daughter's birthday. Mckenna is now eight years old. A full and rich life will be her's to have and hold. A joyous and wonderful time it will be.

Happy Birthday Mckenna. Grandpa and Grandma love you.

Speaking of Reliving Your Memories

It was the great folk singer Bob Dylan that wrote, "Take care of all your memories. For you cannot relive them." Well, some times you get to come close to doing so. Just recently I was flying home to Atlanta from San Francisco. It was on this flight that I had the pleasure of sitting next to a lady by the name of Margaret.

Margaret was probably in her late seventies, but the gentleman in me did not ask. What makes this interesting for me at least, is that she looked so much like my long deceased great Aunt Minnie. Even her tone of voice and bubbliness at times caught me off guard. There were even times that the German gruffness would surface.

We talked of her airport experience, her visiting her son in San Francisco and of returning to Florida. There were the typical praises for her son and the worries as well. She wondered if another son living in Florida would find her at the airport when she arrived. And through the conversation, I had a feeling that I was once again talking to my Aunt Minnie.

Once in a great while we get to experience these memories coming to life once again. Take care to embrace the moment and simply enjoy it. Thank you Margaret for letting me relive some of my youth with Aunt Minnie.

Stay inspired my friends and we'll talk again next week.

Small Drop of Water

"When you love people and have the desire to make a profound, positive impact upon the world, then will you have accomplished the meaning to live." -Sasha Azevedo

Today I redirect to a great article written by Randy York (Huskers.com), about Jack & Isaiah. You will be inspired by these two little boys and how the biggest impacts on life are created by the littlest of gestures. You will be amazed by how even the smallest drop of water can have a huge impact on the world around you.

Stay inspired my friends.