The Meaning of Life

It's incredibly draining to live through the day doing something you really don't enjoy or even care about.  But if you follow your dreams, at least you will exhaust yourself doing what you love most. Now, you may not think that this will measure up to much in the global scheme of things. But believe me it does. When you get the most out of your life, savoring every last drop, it will transform everything about you from ordinary to extraordinary. When you do what you love, you can pull back the bed sheets every morning feeling excited about beginning another day, and you'll be filled with a heartfelt joy that is highly contagious... But best of all, ...you will inspire someone to go after their dreams, and that, my friend, is how you change the world! -Bradley Trevor Greive, The Meaning of Life

Are You a Dreamer? (Waking Life)

This is a short scene from Waking Life, an animated film in which a man goes through a dream meeting various people and having thought-provoking conversations.  It is, indeed, quite thought-provoking, isn't it?...

Yesterday is a Dream; Sanskrit Proverb

"Yesterday is a dream, tomorrow but a vision. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore to this day." -Sanskrit Proverb

Keane's "Bad Dream"

 Enjoy a wisteria-loaded power pop ballad about dreams, the kind nobody wants to have.

A Dream is Not...

A dream is not a story, not a movie or text or a theater play.  A dream is a happening in space, an articulation of space. -Robert Bosnak, A Little Course in Dreams

It was a strange dream, she said

It was a strange
dream, she said

& I don't
remember a thing
except it kept
my attention the
whole time.

-Brian Andreas, from Strange Dreams: Collected Stories & Drawings

For Those Who Say They Do Not Dream: REM and Dream Progress

A fact about dreaming that shows This Endless Present is a good outlet for everybody!  It is taken from The Mind at Night: The New Science of How and Why We Dream by Andrea Rock.  Show this to people who claim they do not dream!

"...Experimenters proved that even those who claim not to dream do in fact concoct dream scenarios throughout the night.  If awakened while REM is still in progress, subjects remember their dreams, but if they are awakened several minutes after REM has ended, the memory of the dream typically vanishes."

John McCauley's "Goodnight, Irene"

"Goodnight, Irene," a song written in the 19th Century (alternatively known as "Irene, Goodnight,") has been recorded in many versions by various artists.  Most recently, it appeared on Deer Tick's "Born on Flag Day" album as the hidden track following the song, "Stung," and moments of silence.  

Here is a video of John McCauley (Deer Tick's frontman) doing a solo live performance, in which the lighting is so dim the title of the song seems quite appropriate.

Being Alive = Infinite Potential

"You're alive, Bod. That means you have infinite potential. You can do anything, make anything, dream anything. If you change the world, the world will change. Potential. Once you're dead, it's gone. Over. You've made what you've made, dreamed your dream, written your name. You may be buried here, you may even walk. But that potential is finished." -Silas, The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman

Reminder for I#3 & C.G. Jung

Just a reminder to all of you out there in dreamland and wherever else you may be that submissions for the third issue are due at the end of this month. (May 31st, at midnight.)  You can do it!  And another note to enforce your creativity:

"A great work of art is like a dream; for all its apparent obviousness, it does not explain itself and is always ambiguous." -C.G. Jung, Collected Works