Their faces creep in the shadows.
Deep down they hide in the depths of
my dreams. I am haunted by some.
They appear as themselves or as shapes,
or maybe they have become strangers now.
Some are reminders of the past,
of the person I was before.
Some are wishes of time that is lost.
Childhood memories, adult conversations
that I never really understood.
These faces are all locked away until they
are right there in front of me,
so close that I forget that are gone.

4/9/14 5.50 am

I awoke really early a few weeks ago, with the worry that somehow I had completely forgotten to give my Nanna an invite to my wedding. It was for these few beautiful seconds that I believed she was still alive. In the slumber of my dreams, I had been recreating our time together. We were sitting in a garden, talking about nothing in particular, but I felt like she was right there in my grasp. Then to awake to the horrible realization that she had indeed passed over 6 years ago, saddened me. I didn’t want her not to be here. I wanted to go back to the days I spent having long conversations with her. She made everything seem so easy to understand when my head was sometimes so full. I had a yearning for the clarity and appreciation of life she gave me. I’d like to think she was somehow checking in on me, or maybe my mind was just using her as a vehicle for guidance.

I’ve always been intrigued by the depths of my dreamscape and self awareness. As a teenager, when I was constantly questioning everything, I’d move from idea to idea of how my subconscious and dreams were linked. Were dreams a portal to parallel worlds or fragments of past lives, or were they just simply parts of my emotions, my fears, my desires and concerns all weaved together in some blurry confusion. As I’ve gotten older and read more, it is just as mysterious, if not more. Maybe we dream to assist our body with rest and repair or maybe it is to make sense of each day, reduce stress and our pent up emotions. All I know is, as my heavy eyes close and my racing conscious mind slowly fades away, I love venturing to other worlds and being visited by other people’s faces.

I know lots of people say they don’t dream at all but in fact everybody does, its just some people don’t remember them. I’ve always had the most vivid of dreams and yes my friends and family would probably agree, some of them are downright bizarre. Some have also felt so real, that I’ve woken up questioning whether it actually happened. Did I just scream at my mother, did my friend just die in a car accident, who the hell is chasing me? Heart pumping and covered in sweat, you wake maybe even crying….these are the ones I wish I could avoid. Or then there are those really good ones that you want to try and jump back into…you know….those sexy ones…..or powerful ones…..or where you are flying…..whatever floats your boat, because dreams are full of endless possibilities and can be used as a way of finding out more about yourself. There must be a reason why lots of people try to have lucid dreams after all.

As I sleep, lost friendships and lovers also fleet in and out of these dark spaces. Not knowing why at that time they choose to surface, sometimes just as an abstract presence, sometimes as if to pass on some secret message they never got to tell. Maybe it was because I didn’t want to hear what they had to say at the time. All these thoughts of past and present, all these faces fading in and out-maybe they represent parts of myself, maybe they filter all the thousands if not millions of messages I receive daily, so I can make sense of them. But maybe you have dreams when something really important in your life is about to happen and you can feel that those that have left you, can experience them too in some way. You bring together all your memories to create something new that is only yours to interpret.

A few interesting facts about dreams and sleep cycles:

http://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/sleep/dreams/5-reasons-why-you-dream.htm#page=0

http://psychcentral.com/lib/stages-of-sleep/0002073

Or a wacky film I love all about dreams, subconscious and our memories: Sunshine of the Spotless Mind