I Dream Of A World Without Dreams

I had the most uncommon experience recently of dreaming a dream which I still remembered hours after I woke up the next day. This is not the first time I've written about dreams, but is without question the first of any depth. I don't want to get anyone's hopes up, but if I'm really able to get to the bottom of this thing, humanity might finally learn the answer to why we dream at all.

Isn't it fascinating that we've learned so much about the deep reaches of space, no small amount about the depths of the sea, and so very little about the contents of our own minds? We understand hypothetical extraterrestrials better than each other's points of view most of the time. The human body we understand well enough to take apart, repair with a very reasonable likelihood of success, and put together again. The brain we can sometimes repair, but the mind is no more within our grasp where such things as dreams are concerned than it was three thousand years ago.

By far the more ordinary thing is to experience an exceptionally vivid dream which remains in my consciousness for only moments after I awake. It's gone by the time I exit the bed or reach writing materials. This one was different somehow, and not for any reason I can properly explain. Some may possibly remember a notable experience I had on set working a music video. The subject of my recent dream was the director of that video. The day when I was in that accident was a very unhappy one, and neither it nor the difficult days which followed were made any easier by him.

I want to stress from the start that it was not a nightmare. It was more a reminder of a few unpleasant experiences. One wonders what might have provoked the dream. I've had no encounter with the person, or anyone else who I feel I would associate with him or the fateful project in my subconscious. The whole thing was fading into the distant margins until this dream. Why it should come up in this way is not upsetting to me, but merely a curiosity of a mystery which it would be satisfying to unravel.

In the dream, he sought to enlist my participation in another project. I did not refuse outright, but really played hardball on compensation. In reflecting on the dream, I was proud of myself for being firm. It seems as if he took this as a refusal, and was upset by it- perhaps hurt. I felt affected by that- a little bit guilty. I would call that an unjustifiable reaction on my part. That's where it ends. It was just a snippet of a dream, but rich in material to ponder. Considering my nature, I'm apt to substantially move on before the close of business today, but for some time that dream will sneak into my thoughts for a moment whenever there's an opening. The mind and its slumber are really beyond me.