dreaming

That's what keeps me going: dreaming, inventing, then hoping and dreaming some more in order to keep dreaming.

We all keep dreaming, and luckily, dreams come true.

Dreaming men are haunted men.

We should be dreaming. We grew up as kids having dreams, but now we're too sophisticated as adults, as a nation. We stopped dreaming. We should always have dreams.

We are near waking when we dream we are dreaming.

We should never discourage young people from dreaming dreams.

Dreaming or awake, we perceive only events that have meaning to us.

I won't stop writing until I am known as the Kurt Cobain of literature!

So here is why I write what I do: We all have futures. We all have pasts. We all have stories. And we all, every single one of us, no matter who we are and no matter what__ been taken from us or what poison we__e internalized or how hard we__e had to work to expel it __ we all get to dream.

I had a dream about you. You were an escalator, and I was a flight of stairs. You thought I was a Luddite, and I thought I was as ostrich, because I hadn__ figured out how to put the fly in flight. One day you broke down, and then you saw that you and I weren__ so different after all.

I had a dream about you. We installed Dr. Robert Jarvik__ artificial heart in a mannequin and brought it to life, only to later kill it because a creature that__ all fake heart and no brain is what__ commonly called a __olitician,_ and must be destroyed._

First you have nothing, and then, astonishingly, after ripping out your brain and your heart and betraying your friends and ex-lovers and dreaming like a zombie over the page till you can't see or hear or smell or taste, you have something.

Inside" ChildrenInside each of us are the children we were at each developmental stage. With regard to our creative dreams, these inside children can prevent us from living them by "acting out" in order to try to get our attention. Your inner 5-year-old is not going to patiently wait as you learn intricate metalworking techniques or study impressionist painting. Yet, your inner 10-year-old may be perfectly suited to learn and observe new skills.What's really needed is parenting of these inside children so that we bring them to age-appropriate activities.

Our creative dreams are subject to grudge-holding when we decide that other people somehow have made their dreams real and we have not.

Inside CriticsThe critical voices in our own heads are far more vicious than what we might hear from the outside. Our "inside critics" have intimate knowledge of us and can zero in on our weakest spots. You might be told by the critics that you're too fat, too old, too young, not intelligent enough, a quitter, not logical, prone to try too many things...It's all balderdash!Some elements of these may be true, and it's completely up to you how they affect you. Inside critics are really just trying to protect you. You can:Learn to dialogue with them.Give them new jobs.Turn them into allies.You can also dismantle/exterminate them.

Identifying Your DreamSome people can easily identify one primary dream. For others, a dream is more elusive. These people often have many dreams at once, or a general idea of a dream that never takes a specific shape.

Initially, I feel expansive when I try something new, and then contract as soon as I encounter difficulty or the unknown. I am learning to experiment with my tolerance of difficulty and the not knowing, in order to go further with my creative dreams.Whenever I experience contraction, I explore it by asking, "Where did I stop and why?" Building a creative dream life is not just about achieving, succeeding, or "meeting goals." It is also about floundering, stumbling, tripping and failing.

Building your "dream life" is filled with things that can feel like the opposite of a dream:MistakesDelaysStarting overFailureThe building part is actually more of a rebuilding that is a continual process. The building is not linear in nature but far more interesting. You might start a creative dream, take the "next step", and find yourself completely bored, dissatisfied, or just not inspired.