JUST LIKE JULIA

Life is a dream that you live one day at a time.

A few years ago, the teachings of Alan Watts came into my world. One of the most poignant quotes that resonated with me was this:

“Let’s suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream that you wanted to dream. And that you could, for example, have the power within one night to dream 75 years of time. Or any length of time you wanted to have. And you would, naturally as you began on this adventure of dreams, you would fulfill all your wishes. You would have every kind of pleasure you could conceive. And after several nights of 75 years of total pleasure each, you would say “Well, that was pretty great.” But now let’s have a surprise. Let’s have a dream which isn’t under control. Where something is gonna happen to me that I don’t know what it’s going to be. And you would dig that and come out of that and say “Wow, that was a close shave, wasn’t it?” And then you would get more and more adventurous, and you would make further and further out gambles as to what you would dream. And finally, you would dream … where you are now. You would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today.”

Alan Watts

Each moment is a piece of the puzzle that you are putting together. Each breath is a thread in the tapestry that is being woven. Time seems to stop still in the moments that I settle into the dream and realize that all of the previous moments have led up to this singular point in time and space. When I wake up in the morning, I am entering a new version of yesterday’s creation. Physically, things may be the same, yet all the living components within the scene have infinite possibilities. I find that there are so many surprises that come up within a day. Even just to enjoy the quiet moments. The days that feel like a lazy Sunday. The days that move with grace and ease. The days when I wake up and pop out of bed with an energy that wants to move mountains. I have greater clarity on how this life dream is playing out. I have feelings of flowing with the day. Moving through the emotions that come up within the dream. In another perspective, I notice that it is easy to fall into a trap of doubting the dream. Of doubting what I am creating. In the moments when you are aware of where you are and how you are feeling, you can tune into how you feel about the living dream you are in. All of us are creative beings with the potential to do anything we want. Maybe the responsibility of being in charge of our own happiness seems to weigh heavy. Perhaps this is a common thought: to be unsure of the something that you are creating out of nothing.

Being in charge of our living dream is the general purpose I have discovered in life. Perhaps there isn’t one sole mission. Maybe it is a succession of little joys that piece together like scenes from a movie and the only realization of how well we have lived our own individual dreams comes when the credits roll in. Everyone and everything that comes into our experience is part of this larger co creation. We have the propensity to create friendships, enemies, drama, laughter, fun…It all depends on your focus and self control over knowing what you want to create.

After my experience with Bufo (a psychadelic toad medicine), my realization was that human consciousness exists from nothing. As a child, when you are born, your sight is usually the last sense to come into focus. We start to interpret the world through our sensitivities to noise, smell, touch. From there, we receive external inputs in which we process through our own unique lens. We can take this in any way that we wish. We can interpret all of these signs and signals in any color that we want, painting over our experience with emotions and feelings. A Change is Gonna Come by Sam Cook plays over the speakers at this garden cafe I am writing in. We can change our dream in any way that we want. Life, in its essence, is formless. It is only with matter, physical life, that it exists. Even in that sense, we can change our lives in even the most subtle ways. Our energy can shift the mood of a room or how we feel about ourselves. Our words can shape a conversation or influence the people we are interacting with. Our daily decisions can change the scenery of what we experience.

How often do dreams turn into nightmares? Can you shift your version of a nightmare into a dream? Same goes for the ideas of heaven and hell. Maybe they aren’t actually places we go to when we leave this earthly plane. Maybe it is the creation of our own personal heaven or hell that we are living in. Something I learned is that you don’t actually have to change anything in your physical experience in order to experience what you want. All you need to do is be aware of your own mental thoughts and processes and be able to shift them to a different perspective. Things that we find annoying or things that we hate or dislike…take the focus away from those parts. Find things that you like and enjoy. Free will grants us the choice to perceive from any emotional vibration that we want. We can choose to see the world from a lens of fear, anger, disappointment, appreciation, gratitude, love…etc.

Find things that inspire you. Don’t let your current reality dictate where you want to be or how you want your life to look like.

What would you do if money or time or responsibilities weren’t a factor? What makes you happy? What brings you the greatest joy when you think about it? How are you experiencing your life dream? What is happening? What would you like to shift?