Pogue,

I am sure you’ve watched Pretty Woman. Remember, Richard Gere and Julia Roberts? Great film! And you will recall that at the beginning, and the end, there’s a guy walking down the street, loudly asking, “What’s your dream? Everybody’s gotta have a dream” and he’s right, you’ve got to have a dream. A dream invariably tells of a better future, inspires us and, hopefully, helps us improve our situation however good it may be at present. It also has the potential to call us to be better people. That said, I am mindful of the existence of nightmares but lets leave those for another day.

In one of his songs Van Morrison has a line that tells us;

There’s a dream where the contents are visible.

Queen Of The Slip Stream

That’s what I’d like to think about for a few minutes. You see, for dreams to be effective they need to possess a degree of reality. Oh, it’s fun to send your thoughts into the fantastical and allow yourself to play there for a while. But if you are going to engage with the world on a daily basis you can’t remain there. I know there is a lot of popular thought that declares if you can visualise, or dream something with consistency then you can bring it into being but I’m bound to say that this doctrine is fanciful, right up there with the Queen of Hearts insistence on believing six impossible things before breakfast in Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Yes, they will always be people who dream fantastic things and see them fulfilled, The lottery win with a declaration of, “Look what I’ve brought into being”. But we need to remember all those who held the exact same dream with consistency, bought the ticket and never saw it come to fruition.

“Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said. ‘One can’t believe impossible things.’

I dare say you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

― Lewis Carroll

However, if the goal of the dream is something that sits within the probable, albeit at arms length, then there is a possibility of achieving the same. The dream becomes an aide, a tool to enable us to fulfil the vision. And here’s the thing. The majority of dreams are achieved with a lot of effort. We dream of climbing mountains, breaking records, succeeding in our chosen careers and we put effort into achieving this. We train, we study, we put in the long hours all the while being focused on the desired final outcome. Our focus is there and this aides us in maintaining the effort required.

In the fulness of time, if we achieve our goal, we can justifiably claim that we have brought our dream, the dream we held consistently in our imagination, into being. Not by some form of magic but as the fruit of our efforts. Yes there is an awful lot to be said for the power of our minds (and a lot I’m sure we don’t yet understand). And as we focus so called synchronicity seems to come into play but think of this. We’re driving and I say to you, “How many yellow cars have you seen”. “ None” you reply, mainly because your attention has not been on particular car colours. Then, seemingly as if by magic, yellow cars begin to appear. It’s not magic but rather the point of your focus has now expanded to include yellow cars. There’s no more there than previously, you’re just looking for them now.

Having said all this I may undermine my whole case by inserting that I believe there is magic in the world, or maybe more accurately, phenomonem that we are yet to understand. The power of consciousness and the possibility of each of us living at higher levels of consciousness where upon we will see and interact with the world differently. But again, an increase in consciousness is preceded by effort and discipline not magic.

I guess I am encouraging you to dream, indeed dream big dreams and hold onto them. But realise dreams are brought into being by effort and discipline over a period of time, either by you or another. Even so-called “living the dream” requires work to maintain.

So, you have a dream? As said, “Everybody gotta have a dream” to give life meaning.

Yours, living the dream with a little work,

Wic