If you’ve just woken up and you aren’t feeling quite like yourself today, it is understandable. Maybe it was a dream that made you feel this way. Or. It could be something else. One contributing factor is scientific. And that would be the fact that around 50,000 cells in our bodies die every three seconds. Then they are immediately replaced by new ones. Every three seconds.
I’ve talked about it before, but it still amazes me. According to research, our bodies replace somewhere around 330 billion of those cells every day. But who’s counting? And it is everything. For example, every ten years or so, the human skeleton repairs and replaces itself. New bones every decade. But the skeleton in the closet probably remains the same.
With all of that, there are some other things to note. Women’s hearts beat faster than men’s. Women also blink twice as much too. I’m not sure why. Maybe because women often can’t believe what they are seeing, causing us to blink more, as well as increasing our heart rates.
But here we are. Breathing. Rejuvenating. Blinking like crazy. Walking around in this world, perceiving things, and thinking them through. In our waking hours.
However, about one-third of our lives are spent sleeping. If we are lucky. Yes, the slumber. The snoozes. The zizz.
And that is when we dream. Now, personally? I love to dream. I have vivid dreams, and many of them are quite lengthy. I only wish I knew what they mean.
If you feel like you don’t dream much, it might be deceptive. Research says that most people will forget 90% of their dreams. I’m guessing I don’t forget any more than 88.8%. Give or take a one-hundredth of a percentile.
Anyway. I wish I knew what those dreams meant — what they mean. Sometimes they feel completely real. Last night, for example, I had one that felt convincing while I was in it. I’d had part of the dream a few times before. In it, I had to be able to fit through a certain passageway. Well, I didn’t. And the solution was to have this Chinese doctor remove three of my ribs.
That’s just a glimpse of the thing.
Now, I know you can look up the “meanings” of dreams. Like. If you are flying on a plane, it means this. Or if you are naked, it means that. Yadda.
I don’t think they have any idea what these things truly equate to.
When it comes down to it, there is absolutely no definitive evidence about what dreams consist of.
Yet, “experts” generally say that dreams represent a collection of thoughts, struggles, emotions, events, people, places, and symbols that are relevant to the dreamer in some way.
Reeeaaallly? Really? Clearly, they haven’t poked or prodded me because the things I dream about sometimes don’t seem related to anything even remotely of this Earth.
There are many theories of the function of dreams. But again. While scientists know a great deal about what happens physiologically when people dream, they really don’t know squat about the meaning or the underlying psychological pinnings.
As far as I’m concerned, here’s what they’ve discovered without question. People burn more calories while sleeping than they do watching TV. I don’t doubt it, the way I dream.
We’re weird. Let’s just face it.
Like this. Some people can hear their eyeballs moving around in their heads. Honest to goodness. It sounds like something out of a dream, but it is true. I’m glad I’m not one of those, I’ll tell you. I’d never get anything done.
But for now, no matter what, I guess I’ll keep on dreaming those good little dreams.
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“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”
― Edgar Allan Poe
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“Hope is a waking dream.”
― Aristotle
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“We know what we are, but not what we may be.”
― William Shakespeare
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The replacement of us. Only in our dreams.
