Why I stopped thinking about dreams

The other day, a friend of mine described the importance he once placed on dreams. He kept a detailed dream diary. He partook in lucid dreaming. He thought deeply about how real life events affected his nighttime journeys.

I, too, once viewed dreams with reverence.

Now, though, I've come to view them as an irrelevant part of my psyche, which surprises me. Constant musing and quiet contemplation are my modus operandi. I've been known to lose myself in daydreams for hours at a time. My life priorities revolve around the beauty of human understanding - the ability to learn from and teach others. It's why I value friendship. It's why I spend so much time steeped in academia. It's why I incessantly ponder all manners of concepts.

And yet, not so with the very mechanisms of our understanding - the chemical reactions by which the lessons we learn each day are etched into our consciousness. Never have I kept a sleep diary. Never have I lucid dreamt. Never have I paid much more attention to my dreams than for idle amusement - or amazement.

Let me tell you about a dream I had. I found the one. We glided through the wind on an Alpine prairie. We waded gleefully through cold saltwater pools on a pebble beach. We lay staring through the depths of the nighttime sky, hands held in the dewy grass.

I can see her face clearly, even now, yet I've never met her in real life. I have no idea who she is.

It all goes back, I realized tonight, to when I once lost myself too far in the forest of marvels that is our dreams. I was in high school and fell in love, or so I thought. It was mere infatuation with a girl in my class, turned into a nighttime obsession. Each night I'd dream of becoming her friend, making her laugh, holding her hand.

One day, we had to select members for a group research project. I spoke with excitement to a classmate about doing one on dreams. At the time I was fascinated by the ways consciousness mirrored our realities. My classmate said her friend was interested in a project about dreams as well. It turned out her friend was the very girl I'd fallen for. She asked if we should form a group.

My heart raced. I panicked. I backed out.

"I'd love to, but let me first see if my friends over there still need a teammate."

Perhaps it was a pivotal moment. I've replayed it many times in my head with some bitterness. In so doing, I've associated the topic of dreams with the disappointment of that conversation. Considering dreams on any meaningful level now elicits powerful regret, so I've never bothered to since.

I still do let dreams occasionally determine the course of my actions, but I never think to analyze them. A lost introspective opportunity, I say. It's an attitude I'll now rectify.