What is a Dream?
People tend to dream a lot when they are young. It's a common problem. The youth of all generations dream. As they age the dream fades. Much like a magical land, the older one is the less one is connected to sleep and dreaming.
I've often wondered where people go when they dream. Being a somewhat spiritual person I like to think that people dream in their soul. Why though?
Collective Consciousness
There has been some debate about humans making discoveries at the same time. As if the act of making a new method of thought is shared. People usually quote inspiration. What if they are dreaming together?
It's a suspicious idea, no one wants to believe they are not smart, and certainly, no one wants to let others take credit for their hard work. Yet we dream of what we do not understand.
In my world, it is common knowledge, correct or elsewise, that dreaming is how one processes daily information. That dreaming is the minds method of creating memories, and/or storing them. This could certainly be true, however, I suspect this is only a piece of the mystery.
When we dream about problems or decide to think in a dream (which many choose for meditative discovery), it becomes clear that we often are not where we would normally be in waking moments. Dreams, almost by definition, are irrational. We go places we've never been, we do things we can't comprehend, and we often wake up feeling rested.
The Bargain
For the sake of the argument, let's assume there is a Collective Consciousness, and that we dream, at least in part, in other's memories. What would other people get out of that? Would anyone give that freely? Why do older people stop dreaming? [In this case not a physical dream, but the ideology of wonder].
Maybe it's how we grow up.
Consider children dreaming a lot as toddlers and infants. The need a lot of sleep. Childhood, where humans sleep the most, is some of the fastest periods of learning of human existence. A pliable new mind may not explain it completely. Almost certainly intelligence can be inherited, and brilliant people have brilliant children. Knowledge, it seems, is easily instilled at this age. Yet maturity seems to strike more on environmental factors.
What does it mean for a Human to "Grow-Up?"
Imagine a world where your neighbors dream with you. Where the people you love teach your children in their sleeping moments. How could we ever prove it? Impossible, out of the reach of technology, within the realm of metaphysics. Let's do it anyway.
If dreaming lets us talk to older wiser people, what is it like to talk to a "crone?" Imagine a crone from a fairy tale. Ancient women that give wisdom, curses, or other tidbits of interest to lesser mortals. Children love fairy tails.
Maybe you've done it. Maybe one night after having a child, or younger person ask you a question, you dream. You come up with the perfect piece of wisdom, and in the following days, you take time to tell them it. Often they ignore it or do it without giving you credit. The arrogant ones say they already figured it out.
I wonder... what if they did. Just with a nudge.
