Archive for the ‘Dreams’ Category

Feeling Depressed? You may be having a quarter life crisis! It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are a lot of things about yourself that you didn’t know and may or may not like. You look at your job. It is not even close to what you thought you would be doing or maybe you are looking for one and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and are scared. Everyone that you have grown up with around you seems to be doing so well, yet you are nowhere near where you thought you would be at this age. You start to panick and ask yourself how did I get here?

Bearing all the hallmarks of the midlife crisis, this phenomenon – characterised by insecurities, disappointments, loneliness and depression– is hitting twenty- and thirtysomethings shortly after they enter the “real world”, with educated professionals most likely to suffer.

“Quarterlife crises don’t happen literally a quarter of the way through your life,” said lead researcher Dr Oliver Robinson, from the University of Greenwich in London. “They occur a quarter of your way through adulthood, in the period between 25 and 35, although they cluster around 30.”

This tends to be the age where regets about decitions made in School, College or University become more appart. The classes one didn’t take, or could have tried harder in, the teams one didn’t try out for, and wished they had and so forth can sometimes cause a lot of regret and even resentment of those that are doing things one wishes they’d done.

Some people will respond to a quarter life crisis by rushing into various landmark type goals in life (ie, getting married, moving out from your parents house, getting your first house, getting your first real job, having kids). You wonder how you will ever find job security/afford a house at today’s prices/find a partner if you’re working all the time/get out of your parents’ house if your debt is costing you every dime you make/afford rent while it keeps going up/find a job that pays the bills/pay off your debt/all of the above. Usually all of the above.

Basically, you wake up one morning and think to yourself, “Man - I’m totally screwed.”

Have you ever though about all of the awesome things you could possibly have done in your life but haven’t yet? I mean all the things you either want to do, need to do, or have to do? We’ll as I’m having a pondering moment, I’ve decided to list my top ten ambitions (in no particular order) that I aim to achieve, preferably before I’m 30, or dead.

1. Parachute: It’s something I’ve talked about for years. I think that the feeling of free falling must be pretty cool, but if I’m honest, I’m not the greatest fan of heights, so the chances of me actually getting the courage to do it are slim to none. I reckon that to actually achieve this goal, I’d have to go up in a plane filled with water that had a shark (possibly with a fricken’ laser beam attached to its head) in a cage in the corner that would be released at 20,000 feet. It’s called the ‘jump or be eaten technique’…possibly.

2. Win the world cup as captain of Scotland: Now this one is a daft dream that is unachievable, but with Boyd out of the squad, there is room for one more…

3. Buy over Bolton Wanderers: Its football related again, but I’d love to buy over the hard-hitting Bolton squad, buy a bunch of amazing players for squillions of pounds, and take them to the top of the Premier League. Actually, scratch that, I’ve got more chance of lifting the world cup…

4. Own a Monkey: If it was cool for Michael Jackson and Ross from Friends – it’s cool enough for me.

5. Drive in a Destruction Derby: This would be awesome! I’d love to have a go at smashing other cars up, and I reckon I’d be good. I had all the top scores on the Playstation 1 game of the same name, which gives me at least a fighting chance.

6. Break the Internet: Could you imagine how funny that would be? The world would stop spinning. I heard that if you type ‘Google’ in to Google you can break the net, but to be honest, I’m too scared to try it.

7. Play a dual guitar solo with Jimi Hendrix: Now I know this is impossible, but I’m hoping that before I die, time travel will be invented and I can head back and chill with the great man himself.

8. Invent a hangover-less beer: Could you imagine if you invented this? You would genuinely become the worlds most loved person to millions, and the most hated to caffeine tablet companies. On a serious note however - with the amount of money poured – no pun intended – into beer development, a cure for this is more likely than a cure for many terminal diseases. So with the money I’d make from my hangover-less beer I’d help with number nine in my list…

9. Invent the cure for disease: So after basking in the glory of my beer-orientated invention, I’d ensure that the billions of pounds needed every year to fund cancer, aids, and various other diseases, is spent so that one day everyone can live without fear of suddenly becoming ill.  No need to thank me, thank the hangover-less beer.

10. Hit a golf ball on the moon: This would be cool. I can barely hit a ball 200 yards, but if you whack one into space it would essentially take off and not come back. You might feel a little guilty if 50 years later as Apollo 100 is about to land, and you’re well struck ball comes screaming through the window. It’d be a bit late to shout “fore!!” however, so I’ll just write it on the ball before I send it on its maiden voyage.

Writers block is one of my favourite things. I enjoy the fact that to find something interesting to say, you need to delve into the deepest recesses of your mind to try think of a memory, or a funny story you’ve read.

As I’m suffering from a bout of writers block today, I’ll tell you about an insane dream I had two nights ago, which is oddly fresher in my mind now that it was yesterday morning.

I was walking through what looked like a derelict city, bits of paper, and dust were flowing around me, but nothing was going in my eyes. The cloud got really thick round me, and I was struggling to see a foot in front of me. Then I saw my self from a third-person perspective. I watched myself grab at the cloud and tear in apart as if it was candy floss, as I tore through, a shot of bright yellow shone through and I stepped out into what I think was a fairground. Back in first person, I saw a clown who was juggling a cat, a dog and a mouse at the same time, and each animal was also juggling a cat, a dog and a mouse at the same time. One of the cats said jump back, so I did and then I was looking through a kaleidoscope at a broken mirror. Then I woke up.

I expect a psychologist would have a field day with that one.

Dreams are crazy, I’ve always had a vivid imagination, and my brain does overtime at night. I used to have a recurring dream when I was young that involved me sitting in the middle of a white cube, about ten foot square, with no visible way out, no windows but bright light. I noticed a small balloon in the corner of the room, and as I approached it started to inflate, the balloon gets bigger and bigger until I’m pressed against the wall and the balloon starts choking me, then I’d wake up, freaking out. I put that one down to being asthmatic from birth, I’m not sure if it was an asthma attack or whether I was just struggling to breathe, but when I woke up I genuinely thought I was choking.

Now these two examples may be a bit weird, but I think dreams can be an amazing form of escapism, sometimes you can wake up and feel brilliant because of a good dream about winning something, or meeting someone long forgotten. Your dreams are unique to you, and its nice to know no-one can take that away from you.

The best thing about dreams is, they are free, and in today’s world it’s about the only thing that you can’t put a price on.

I think Yeats said it best:

“But I, being poor, have only my dreams. I have spread my dreams under your feet. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”

Sleeptight.