While Awake, the Dreams Continue

Waking Dreams

by David Rivinus

At night, while we’re asleep, we dream. We may not remember what we have experienced in this state, but the pictures and impressions are stored in our subconscious. They are communications from our deepest selves, offering course corrections, insights, warnings, and sometimes, congratulations.

Then, there is the day, while we are awake. Are the experiences we have during our waking hours different than the dreams we have during sleep? Surprisingly, perhaps, the answer is no. These experiences are exactly the same. They offer the same kinds of spiritual communications that we get from our sleeping dreams.

How does it work? The answer is that we are living in a paradox. On one hand, waking life demands that we interact with it objectively. We cook our meals, go to work and raise our children. Simultaneously, these same life experiences offer us an overlay of metaphors that are nothing more than dream symbols. These metaphors contain the same sort of imagery we experience during sleep. The trouble is that most of us don’t pay attention to them.

Here is an example of one of these waking dreams. A middle-aged customer, going about the normal affairs of his day, is interested in a new communication product and visits an electronics store. There are aspects to the new product that intrigue him, but he can’t make up his mind if the gadget is really going to benefit him or if it is a gimmick. The store is full of customers, one of whom is a gentleman driving a motorized wheelchair. It takes a while before one of the store clerks is able to answer the man’s questions. When the answers start coming from the employee, they are so full of aggressive sales rhetoric that the man feels more overwhelmed than he did when he was simply trying to understand the benefits of the product on his own.

Suddenly, the sales clerk’s monologue is cut short as the man feels an impact from behind. He instantly understands that something is amiss, although he is not exactly sure what is wrong. Nevertheless, he has the presence of mind to jump out of the way, as the motorized wheelchair he’d seen before comes plowing through the space that he had been occupying only seconds earlier. It runs uncomfortably over his foot, but that is the only mishap.