The French romantic, poet, novelist, and dramatist, Victor Hugo said, “There is nothing like a dream to create the future”. Humphrey Bogart, as Sam Spade in the Maltese Falcon, made the statement, “the stuff that dreams are made of” referring to the Maltese Falcon like a tangible “dream”.  Finally, to round out purely arbitrary sources of references to dreams, Carly Simon wrote a song “The Stuff That Dreams Are Made of”.  The focus of this dream reference points to maintaining a relationship.  The refrain reads,

“It’s the stuff that dreams are made of
It’s the slow and steady fire
It’s the stuff that dreams are made of
It’s your heart and soul’s desire
It’s the stuff that dreams are made of”

Dreams may create the future.  They sometimes unveil one’s hopes and desires.  Dreams may also be the fuel to keep one in pursuit of a task after others have quit.  The most important question: “What is your dream?”

There are several definitions of the dream.  One describes the dream as a series images, sensations, and thoughts that usually take place during sleep.  Another speaks of a dream as a cherished ambition, ideal, or aspiration.  Then there’s the one shadowed in disbelief as a self-deceiving and unrealistic fantasy which, given the proper circumstances, quenches the fire of nearly any dream.  How strong is your dream?  Is it strong enough to stand against its arch enemies, fear, ridicule, and doubt?

List upon list can be produced identifying those who never gave up on their dream, Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln, Leonardo Da Vinci, Albert Einstein, and Mary Anderson are some.  Who’s Mary Anderson you say?  She may be little known, you can thank her for your windshield wipers the next time it rains… or snows, when you’re in your car.  That’s right while some were leery of her bogus idea of the windshield wiper in 1903, she followed her dream and saw it through to a reality.

Our dreams, while we sleep, can often open doorways to a new future, a better life, a key to overcoming an addiction, a new concept for a book or song, or even an invention.  Some dreams remind us of events from our past that need to be addressed, so we can move forward with our life.  Some also sense or see something or an event yet to take place.  Then the daydreams we muse over like that new career, the new home, our soul mate, or furthering our education.  How do these come into reality?  This subject has also been addressed from authors, to psychologists, teachers, and seers.  The consensus among many of these would say that we create our reality (our dreams) through manifestation and putting the laws of attraction into practice, which is entirely another subject.

The focus of this writing is to instill within the desire to follow your dreams.  Don’t lose sight of them for a moment.  Pursue them until you see the dream become the future you seek or until they lead you to the real dream that will change your life.  Dreams are not objects to pursue until the journey becomes to difficult to follow, and then we give up.  Dreams give us purpose.  Dreams create destinies.  Dreams offer us a zeal and zest for life’s pursuits.

So, what is your dream?  How strong is your dream?  Will your dream continue despite opposition and doubt?  Our dreams should be sown with high ideals, watered with ambition, and fertilized with aspiration until we harvest the fruit of our labors… when our dream comes true.  That’s the mark of a true human being, one who believes enough in themselves and their dreams, so much so, that nothing and no one can stand in the way of their future, their life, and the desire to help one another.