Dreams

I learned an amazing fact recently: In our dreams, no one is a stranger. What I mean by that is that every face in our dreams, we have seen before at some time in our lives. So for example, the face of the dwarf in my dream about Snow White (yes, I am dreaming in Disney) could be the same face of a man who was standing next two me in line at the grocery store last month. Or, to be slightly more dramatic and less Disney-ish, the creepy serial killer in my hostage nightmare a few years ago could actually be the face of the man who pumped gas into my mom's car when I was four.

Crazy, huh?

A face that our minds have long forgotten, or a face that passed so quickly it was just a blip in the grand scheme of things, can actually turn up years later in our dreams.

As a psych major, I know that dreams are essentially the results of neurons firing randomly in every such way. Okay, that's cool.

But dreams are so much more than that. They have an almost spiritual quality.

Okay, you say. But what does a dream about Snow White mean to humanity? Okay, you have a point. Not every dream necessarily has some life-altering message or meaning behind it. But some definitely provide immense clarity.

Or closure.

I have dreamed about deceased loved ones many times. I love when those faces pop up. And they can be faces from many years ago. But just when I thought I had forgotten the shape of a nose or a laugh or the rise and fall of a voice...

There it is. Right there.

And then I wake up.

It's kind of ironic that our brain cells almost get in the way of memory. But every once in awhile, you have that dream that clears the fog, reminding you of what's important.