Dreams Don’t Come True (And that is probably good)

There are a lot of weird things about the human experience. Sometimes you have to go out of your way to find the strange things in the world, but the strangest thing is something we all do every day: We dream.

I object to using the word “dream” to describe things you would like to happen. People say they’d like to see their dreams come true. I say they are better off sticking to goals or fantasies. You can have goals of fame and wealth, or you can have a fantasy of telekinesis, and have these come true without having anything to do with dreams. But once dreams are involved, things can get out of control. Dreams are weird.

I know I wouldn’t want any of my dreams to come true. Sure, I could fly, but then I’d have to take a test I didn’t study for. If dreams came true, then all the important presentations in the world would be given naked. But that wouldn’t matter, because people would be shifting and disappearing all the time, the sky would be burgundy, and you wouldn’t be able to step anywhere without falling off a cliff. Or maybe it’s actually an ice cream shop. This is my greatest effort to describe how weird dreams are, and we all know it doesn’t even approach an accurate description. Dreams are the strangest things ever.

Sometimes I think dreams are an alternate reality. Like our consciousness slips into a parallel universe. But I don’t really think this is true. That would mean all parallel universes are insane.

Maybe dreams are just the scraps that sift to the bottom of our minds over the course of the day. If this is the case, it means that we are insane.

Or it could be that dreams are messages from the Universe, or from the Gods themselves. But that means that they are insane.

It is almost scary going to sleep. You know you are going to dream, but you don’t know what it will be about. It could be great. It could be terrible. Either way, you know it will be strange. You will see things in your sleep that would wreck everything if you saw them while you were awake.

Dreams are so consistently weird they are terrifying. And yet you would rather stay in crazy-world than wake up.