I have a dream...

In the last week or so, I've been having some of the most vivid and frequent dreams that I can remember for quite a long time. This is also the first time that my dreams have had a reasonably consistent theme to them. Don't know exactly what they mean yet, if anything, but it still got me thinking.

Dreams are some of the weirdest phenomena that our minds experience. Nobody really knows for sure what they are for. Sure there have been, and still are, scientists strapping guinea pigs (both the figurative and literal varieties) to all manner of brain wave readers in the effort to understand what exactly happens when we drift off into Sleepyland, but in the end, dreams still have that oddly mystical quality to them.

Where else can a person experience both the highest pleasures that actually cause disappointment when you awake or create such terror that you swear that you'll never fall asleep again? It would be nice if folks like Freud were right and every component of a dream came neatly gift wrapped with a meaning, but I just can't buy it, at least completely. I wonder what it was like for the first man to have a dream. Did he wake up with a jolt and think, "What in the hell was that?!" (in the appropriate communication method for an early homonid of course).

The purpose for dreams is just as diverse as the group that has them (read: everybody). Some people are inspired to create beautiful works of art, some believe that they are speaking with God, some completely change their lifestyle, and some merely dismiss it as a systematic rehashing of the waking hours. Which one is the right one? Depends, are you asking a scientist or a holy man? An artist or a skeptic?

Who is to say that dreams even have a single definite purpose? Just like a lot of other things in life, we get what we want out of something. You see an image of St. Christopher on a potato chip? Good for you; put it on your dashboard for some good juju. If you look at a potato chip and see salty, oily goodness: chow down, then have another because you can never have just one.

Just remember this: we could just as easily be the subjects of someone else's dream. Right now. As you read this sentence. The person could wake up and then ---*