I haven’t visited my dream world for awhile. It is easy to get there, all I have to do is dream. There’s no need to pack my bags, stand outside and wait for the taxi, no need to queue in the airport and take that 24 hour flight from Australia. Even before I was born, The Everly Brothers already knew the power of dreams and the ease of getting it. Just sleep, and before too long, we will reach our dream world.
“When I want you in my arms
When I want you and all your charms
Whenever I want you
All I have to do is dream
Dream, dream, dream”
Of course, dreams aren’t limited to just winning that special person’s love and attention. We can have whatever we want too. In my dreams, I can fly, even faster than Superman. Once I even sparred with Bruce Lee and won. There I’m a better hunk than Keanu Reeves. In the 1960’s, I was the dreaded assassin, more lethal than the One Armed Swordsman, my hero, Wang Yu. Oh yeah, life was good. More than good! Perfect actually. Should I take back what I said about heaven? I used to say I’d never wish to go to heaven. Existence there is perfect for eternity. Perfection to me ultimately is boring. There can be no variation, not even the weather. Variations mean inclement and therefore disruptive. It’s going to be the same perfect day tomorrow and forever. Predictable, therefore boring. No, I don’t want that. In my dreams, I can make it less perfect, less predictable. For a change, I can even lose my fair maiden’s admiration for me. It will be greatly sweeter when we make up later! Until we change our thinking, our experiences will be recycled. But dreams, like life here on Earth, can develop into fascinating stories. There’s no need to change my thinking, just change my dreams. The only difference is, there in my dream world, I can never die.
Sleeping was easy for me before I read Matthew Walker’s book, Why We Sleep. I’d snore ( just so softly) almost as soon as I hit my pillows. And destination deep REM here I come! Deep REM is the phase of our sleep where rapid eye movement occurs. That’s when we dream. After reading the book about sleep, I realise how important it is to have the 8-hour sleep. And that’s when I began to lose sleep over it.
The lack of sleep will make us vulnerable to cancer, Alzheimer’s, depression, anxiety, obesity, chronic pain, diabetes, stroke and heart attacks.
Data supports his argument that continued loss of sleep causes cognitive, emotional and physiological stresses leading to traffic accidents, botched surgeries in hospitals, avoidable fatalities in military engagements and, in the case of exhausted parents, child neglect and abuse. Those who are sleep deprived exhibit behavioural problems such as impatience, inappropriate anger and hostility.
From his decades of studies into sleep, Matthew Walker concludes that all our body’s major organs and processes within the brain are optimally enhanced by sleep and detrimentally impaired when we don’t get enough.
Sleep is the fountain of youth.
And my fair maiden in my dream world would be wondering why I haven’t visited lately. I can hear her muttering “urghhling” under her breath. Just briefly, I thought I was back to reality.
Urghhlings 