Dreams may be broadly defined as electrical impulses in a sleeping person's mind, forming sensations, images or thoughts.  They easily slip through the synapses when we are awake;  forgotten as we move through our days.  A dream may also be a vision in a conscious person's mind or "hopeful thinking" about a given circumstance, a wish, a prayer for something desired, a longing or yearning etc.  The word "dream" functions both as a noun and a verb.

     Somehow within our sleeping minds, a Higher Power, or possibly a group of Guiding Angels, work overtime to bring to our realization a symbol of what we need to do to change our lives, to grow and/or to make a difference.  We could have consecutive nights or weeks of varying images of a central theme.  And all we can reply to a psychiatrist's prodding is "...oh, yeah, I guess I'm dreaming at night;  I'm not sure."

     At the same time, we could (for some unforeseen reason) become involved in a support group or individual therapy.  Writing could become part of our idle pastimes.  Searching for some spiritual meaning in otherwise mundane daily awarenesses becomes an habitual concern.  New Age music, incense, mystical trinkets, metaphysical books and maybe even a "guru" enter the picture.  As our personalities come more aligned with our spiritual selves, we become more attuned with what our unconscious dreams may just be tryihg to "force us to examine more closely."  Alas, these realities experienced when asleep are phenomen with which to be reckoned.

     Now this vague, slippery, once-meaningless cognition is put to a real human test.  Will it be forgotten and left on the astral plane?  Or will it come into our earthly-existent focus?  Can you count the number of dreams that you have had, and forgotten?  In this lifetimes?  In all past lifetimes?  Of course not!  How many daydreams have you had that have actually materialized into a plan of action?  Oh, it doesn't have to be monumental.

     Some well-known people have been actually known to talk of their dreams, such a Martin Luther King.  Are there any current activities in your daily living that originated from a "vision" you had when asleep?

     Dreams can be a rudimentary beginning of things to come.  Once dreams are committed to plans of action, they lose their "dream-like" quality and consistency, and become a sprout of reality called a Plan.  Then an Action is used to water and till the plan, and the wispy dream becomes  concrete Reality that can be touched or heard or seen.

     There are those dreams that never really materialize, or go awry - they never grown into their intended final product.  And when this happens, the mission or plan is aborted - started, but never carried to completion.

     While most dreams are forgotten in the waking hours, another large percentage are brought through that mystical spider-web of unconsciousness into the waking awareness of the dreamer, yet remain in the suspended-animation of thought.  It is in this state of "dreaming" that many novels' characters are trapped and plagued with doubt.

     Damsels dreaming of lost loves, young boys dreaming about being war heroes, bored housewives dreaming of an exciting handsome stranger sweeping them off their feet are a few examples that come to mind of people who frequently indulge in the idle pleasure of keeping company with their fantasies.  And that's okay!  Life can become a "3-D" fairy tale with the occasional use of daydreams.

     Writers do their dreaming on paper, if fiction or poetry is their form of self-expression.  It is my opinion that once a dream is committed to paper, it has the purpose of informing readers or sharing the writer's own self with an audience.  Writing may just be a form of dreaming with a group of anonymous people.  Writing, and its cousin, Reading, may be a form of "group dreaming" called spiritual sharing.  And that's pretty neat.  It feels good, in a non-physical sense.

     Architects dream while creating mathematically-correct replicas of things to be built.  Young ballerines-to-be dream of their idols adorned in tutus or tights performing electrifying routines.  Valedictorians dream aloud with classmates of their futures at graduation ceremonies.  And so on.

     The expectancies of a generation push and strive towards realization as a part of the rhythm of Life.  It all sounds so exciting, but what is there to get all excited about?  Dreams aren't real...Yet.

     The reason for the occurrence of dreams in our unconsciousness or subconscious is as about as comprehensible as the reason for synchronicity.  Dreams can have a short germination period as just being overnight, or a lifelong incubation.  Dreams are as important to the human race as water is to crops;  dreams feed and nurture us.  We hold onto Hope, and overcome impossible Obstacles in our lives through our dreams.  We are able to conquer incurable illnesses, and change the course of spiritual journeys with dreams.  The list is endless as what dreams can mean to us.  If water is the universal solvent, then it stands up to any questioning metaphysician that dreams may be considered a spiritual solvent.  What needs to be solved remains yet unseen.