What's in a dream?

(Originally written on March 11, 2013)

I have a lot of dreams when I'm sleeping, as I imagine that many of you do as well.  No, I have never once had a dream that I can remember in which the Cubs win the World Series.  That probably comes as a shock to anyone who knows me well; it does to me too.  I wish I had an explanation.  Actually, I very rarely have dreams that depict the future.  Almost every dream that I have is about the past, where I am either reliving something that happened a long time ago or I am communicating with people who have passed away.

For whatever reason, this seems to happen pretty regularly.  I've had countless dreams in which my grandparents were alive again (my grandma died in 2006 and my grandpa in 2009).  It usually isn't one of those deep conversations where they give me advice, tell me what heaven is like, or anything of the sort.  Usually it just involves them being at my parents' house, and we're all there just eating, watching baseball, and talking politics like we so often did.  I also have a lot of dreams where my childhood dog, who passed away in 2009, is alive again too.  Besides that, I have regular dreams where I am in college or in high school again, and even a few in elementary school.  (I have to say, it's a big relief when I dream that I have a test the next day, then wake up and realize that it wasn't actually happening!)

Sometimes, I wake up at night after this happens, listen to the silence around me, and think about those past memories or a person that I miss.  In the few minutes it takes me to fully wake up, I have to convince myself that those things actually did happen and think about what my life used to be like.  Even when I'm wide awake in the evening by myself in my apartment, I sit and think about this.  It's hard not to get a little emotional in times like these.

I've heard a lot of people talk about dreams in which they are living through some future event; in some cases, wondering if God is trying to reveal or tell them something.  Again, this virtually never happens to me, and I've thought for a long time about why this is the case.  I'm not really knowledgeable in psychology.  But I remember learning in a class years ago that dreams can be based on recent memories (such as when you go to bed and are thinking about things that happened throughout the day, you might have a dream about it), or they can be based on subconscious thoughts in your mind.

Very recently, something hit me.  Could it be that I am way too caught up in the past?  Do I allow the mistakes I've made and what others have done to me affect my life way too much now?  I've always been someone who is concerned about the future and trying to make the best decisions possible.  But I'm also not much of a risk taker.  Sometimes I'm too comfortable living in the past and not trying something new, or I get hung up on things I've done wrong and let that affect my confidence now.

I've been saying for years that I should focus less on the past, and I think I've gotten better at it.  But perhaps this is a sign that I still have a long way to go.  I cherish many of the great times that I've had in my life, and I miss a lot of the people who have left us.  But I can't go back and relive all that.  I'm only 28 years old.  There's a big future ahead for me, and I want to take full advantage of it.  And just maybe, I will someday have a dream in which it's 2013 again.