The Danger of Daydreaming

Dream [dreem]: a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep.

If you say so, Merriam-Webster. By this definition, I’ve slept my way through life.

I think we like to keep our dreams at a safe distance, reserved only for sleep, where life can’t crush them, other humans can’t take them from us… where they forever remain a possibility.

Once we begin to chase them in the light of day, we have to face the fear that we may never actually catch them. We seem to think that’s the danger of daydreaming; being left with one that never came true. But you must consider that at the end of your life, whether you never tried or you tried and you failed, you’re left with the same thing: a dream that never came true.

If you do try, if you do chase, if you do finally decide to cast a net over those fleeting thoughts by putting pen to paper, you just might succeed. You might understand the only real danger of daydreaming. You might decide not to let someone else define for you what a dream is, but instead decide for yourself what kind of a dreamer you’re going to be:

“All men can dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.” – T.E. Lawrence