Can True Happiness Exist in Awakened or Dream States?
I have often read in books and through daily motivational emails , as well as just listening to people about not waiting to be Happy, just be Happy and Happiness will come to you.
This sounds like good advice and always begs the answer of how do we just feel Happy in a world that is constantly presenting itself with situations that are contrary to that State of Happiness.
Our lives are constantly bombarded by the rigors of Survival, Debt, Timetables, Requirements imposed upon you by others or agreed to by ourselves. The world is full of one crisis after another. People being killed or left homeless by the thousands, due to reasons ranging from the actions of Man and Nature. People killing and hating, is to Mother Nature an old movie people have bee playing out for countless of years. Cycles that people just happen to be in the way of.
Just prior to awakening on an early work day, approximately an hour and a half earlier than I really needed to, but finding that I had not set my alarm it turned out to be a good thing. Anyways, prior to awakening, I remember a dream and it even now fades as I write this, but in this dream it started with the thought of being truly Happy and one of the most loving feeling I can ever remember experiencing.. It was a time when my Grand Son was about a year and a half to two years old and when he came to stay for a visit as he often would.
I had renovated a spare room with a single bed and as was the case about then, he was reluctant to go to sleep by himself, so I would lay with him and read or talk or just enjoy laying there until he would doze off and while I might stay and sleep, most often I would move back to my own bed.
There was a particular time that I was overwhelmed, either through a remark he made or just that feeling between us as we laid closely together awaiting sleep. This feeling was like a rushing wave of what I can only describe as one of the most loving feelings I've had. Being that he was my first Grandson and still young and at such an innocent age, along with his ability to feel love in an unaltered state. A state that primarily children seem to have the ability to feel. I guess this all contributed to my feelings.
This loving feeling was strong and life altering for me and almost a heightened bench mark that has been hard to achieve ever since. Although, since then, I have experienced a similar feeling with my now 3 year old grand daughter. Lying next to me, under the weather, as I read her to sleep and she holds my arm tightly and drifts off into her own dreams. Neither of my grandchildren live with their fathers.
This brings me to the feelings within Dreams. So often Dreams can take us in so many emotional directions. In what usually is such a short time and yet they can range from the worst of feelings to the best of feelings.To some feelings that can't really be described, nor pinpointed as to where the source of them ever came from.
I find that as life presses on and we seek this state of Happiness, despite our physical world's pressures, more and more I enjoy the often short Happiness that I find in a Dream.
In this morning's dream, it started with that thought of about the loving feeling I had with my grandson and seemed to move right to a conversation with a woman I know. The funny part of it was this woman, while seeming one person, was a composite of many women I have know.
During our conversation, which I don't even remember what the topic was, I blurted out my feelings of how beautiful a person she was in looks and personality. The exact words I've already lost in my awaken state. I then felt that I needed to explain myself and told her how I felt, that too often we feel things that we never share with the people that we know and love how we feel about them and before we know it the opportunity to do so seems to be lost forever. This time I just felt it couldn't be lost and had to be said.
While I don't remember what her reply was, if any, was to my words, I do remember the complete radiance that seemed to emanate from her upon telling her how I felt. The woman or I should say combination of women were not in a relationship with me, and this was not a romantic moment, but rather just a loving emotional moment.
The dream carried on for a little longer and all I can remember is awakening with a very good feeling. Being that it was a normal work day I still had many of the normal, worldly trials and tribulations to face, and yet, as I awoke from that good feeling of unhindered love and Happiness to the reality of being awake, I felt wonderfully released of burdens throughout the day.
While I can take the day and be thankful for it, be Happy for all that I have, including myself within my own physical life, I felt that the feeling of the dream, like many others I've had in the past, was just something that had to be captured and expressed. Thus this posting.
It may have very little meaning to anyone but myself, but to me it helps me to define a feeling of Happiness that is not dictated by the when and if factors, when I get something or somewhere or if I achieve a particular goal. Instead it was just a Happiness unbounded by any constraints and felt for a few moments within my Dream.
My challenge is to create that state of Happiness throughout my waking life, despite all that may try to prevent it. I think if I were to compare this to a religion, it would be like that Angel sitting on one side while the devil continues to try and prevent you from believing in such a thing as Happiness.
In ending, I am determined to find the Happiness in my waking life and while it might not equal that of the dream state of Happiness, it can be found in any situation when you don't allow yourself to dwell on the Unhappiness that comes and goes through our daily lives.
--Jiminy Nicks
8-24-2010
