Dreaming Awake: Exploring our Daydreams

I was trying to daydream, but my mind kept wandering.

~ Steven Wright, writer, actor, stand-up comedian

Many of us daydream. Inside the classroom. While watching TV. While doing our thing in the bathroom. While riding the bus. While staring blankly at our computers at work. During meetings. But pray, not while driving!

Daydreaming is a magical experience. In your daydreams, all of your wildest and fanciest dreams, desires, and wishes are possible. It is a level of consciousness which occurs as our minds begin to wander and our level of awareness decreases.

When you daydream, you are accessing your right brain. It is one way of opening up the intuitive and creative side of the brain, having spent too much time in logical left brain activities throughout the day. Daydreaming serves as a temporary distraction from the rigorous demands of reality. It relieves stress, fosters creativity, and invigorates the mind, body and spirit.

Daydreaming, which is light-hearted in nature, assists in the understanding feelings and possibly in fulfilling goals. Thus it can be utilized to envision what you want to happen or hope to happen. Tiger Woods, for instance, has supposed to have used daydreams to improve his golf game.

There are common themes in daydreams. They are indicative of one’s true feelings and unconscious thinking, and may help in fulfilling your goals. Here are examples:

Disaster. Such daydreams reflect fears and anxieties. It is better not to worry so much about these uncertainties, and instead try to focus on the more positive aspects of situations.

Escape. Daydreaming about exciting adventures on exotic and far-away lands hints at the dullness and monotony of situations where you presently find yourself in. Or you may be too stressed out and you want to loosen up a bit and enjoy the smell of roses.

Glory. You may be feeling helpless and ignored that you yield to daydreams of heroic acts. This indicates that you are looking for attention and respect.

Love. This is the most common daydream subject. It intimates that you are looking for love at the moment or that you may be craving for attention.

Though considered light-hearted in nature, which consists of no more than silly fantasies or wishful thinking, you can actually make your daydreams – unwittingly – come true. By repeating it over and over again in your minds, you can use it as a tool to your advantage and make positive events happen. By frequent repetitions, you essentially come to believe what you want and hope to happen. And believing in that thing brings you halfway there.