Food for Thought: What are you dreaming about in 2019?

Thought that I would post a slightly different topic for this week's Food for Thought that you might find interesting. It does relate to education and in part to what we are encouraging through increased student agency and our Studio programmes. We are providing the opportunity for students to discover passions and to some extent this relates to future aspirations/ goals or even dreams.We all have them, but most of us can never remember them, or live them, DREAMS. There are hundreds of books published about interpreting and living our dreams and almost as many TED talks on the topic, but what are dreams? Some people share their dreams like Martin Luther King and they change the world, others like Thich Nhat Hanh dedicate their lives selflessly to their dreams. (This link is to an article about Thich Nhat Hanh, 92, who is regarded as many as the father of Mindfulness who has returned home to Vietnam to spend his last days in his country of birth)

So what are dreams? Here are a few theories from a TED Ed talk, Why do we dream? As you will learn there are many theories about why we dream and it is clear that capturing some of that dreaming may benefit us and greater society as well.

The problem for so many of us is that we can't remember our dreams. Hence, my interest in this article from AEON which talks about research and how we are beginning to understand more about capturing what we have been dreaming about, a term known as lucidity.

"Aside from the sheer joy of being able to bend an imaginary world to your will, there’s a range of additional psychological benefits to lucid dreaming. For one, it can help with nightmares: simply knowing that you’re dreaming often brings relief during a nasty episode. You might also be able to use dreams to process trauma: confronting what’s haunting you, making peace with an attacker, escaping the situation by flying away, or even just waking up. Other potential applications include practicing sporting skills by night, having more ‘active’ participants for studies about sleep and dreaming, and the pursuit of creative inspiration. With practice, our dream state can feel almost as vivid to us as the world itself – and leaves you wondering, perhaps, where fantasy ends and reality begins."

Do you remember your dreams? When do you dream most? Have you had dreams come true? What are you dreaming about for 2019? Do you encourage your students to pursue their dreams?

Hence to end a brief post, Why Millennials should follow their dreams. This quote in the post I found to be the most interesting:

“Family, friends, society push you away from your dreams because there is a lot of risks associated with pursuing them, and they say it’s unrealistic – but they only say that because they can’t imagine doing it themselves, you should not let that reflect on you.”

Should the quote have started Education, Family, friends and society in general......?