Dreams II (CHRONOLOGY OF DREAMS: the early years)

Do very small babies have dreams? They definitely see dreams in their sleep, which mother has not felt a taste of heaven by seeing a lingering smile on the face of her sleeping baby. But having a dream, I don’t know. May be they dream their mothers will hold them, nurse them whole day without doing anything else. May be they dream their Papas will take fewer pictures of them, family and friends of family will stop staring them to decide whom they resemble, strangers will stop poking them, they may be able to touch the toys hanging in the cradle. May be some more. With certainty we can only say if babies start talking some day with advancement of science.

After growing up a bit (say from 2 to 4 years of age) they may dream they can watch cartoon or whatever they like whole day without papa and mama changing the channel or they can eat chocolate and instant noodles whole day. It is so easy to dream when you are a small kid. This may be for various reasons. Firstly, you don't think anything is impossible, for instance you can dream to become a dog because you think that is perfectly feasible. Secondly, your friends and family don’t laugh at your dreams. The more impossible your dream is the more awe inspiring you will be among your friends and the cuter will it be considered by your family. Thirdly, on practical side age is on your side, you really have lots of options.

Then you grow up a bit (from 4 to 8 years of age) and certain dreams will be eliminated. Suddenly you are aware somehow it is not possible to become a dog or an alien. However, you still think you can be a Spiderman you just need to find a radio active spider and the rest is as easy as pie. Your friends and family start having a faint smile (if not a full on laugh) at some of your dreams hence you start feeling hesitation and even shy talking about some dreams. For instance when everyone clearly can see you have two left feet you are scared of saying you can be a dancer. And after some time the dream of becoming a dancer is totally off your list. Still you have dreams for yourself.

This is just the beginning of fall of dreams. For some unfortunate souls this leads finally to total absence of dreams, and curse of an empty and hollow life.

Then comes the pre-teen or tween years (from 8 to 12 years of age) and may be the first step towards adulthood. You and your parents start taking your career and studies pretty seriously.

As a teenager you almost stop dreaming out of the box. May be there are a few ones which are not really unrealistic it's just you want to be a singer instead of engineer or you want to take languages instead of sciences. Most of the times these dreams are crushed by elders without any remorse. Very few teenagers and/or their parents are brave enough to go in the untrodden path, to follow the dream of heart. Given all kinds of hardship and impossible to achieve scenario generally teenagers won't even accept it themselves forget about telling others about out of box kinds of dreams. Still you have dreams for yourself.

This is also the time when reality of your socio-economic conditions start to hit you. If someone is from a poor family he/she knows the limitations of his/her dream. It takes a Kalam to dream big in this kind of situation and I am sure there are many Kalams out there, but not as many as I would like to be. Then if a girl is from a repressed family she knows she has no scope for a career or love. All she can dream about is a grand wedding, nice mother-in-law or understanding husband may be. Still there are dreams.

Then comes twenties. The most crucial and now or never time in one’s life. Career is all that u think. A career to save yourself or your family or the world. You may also think about finding an ideal partner and settling down. No time for frivolous dreaming. it's time for practical dreams.

Here, some people may take a stance on a certain dream leading to rift with parents. This certain scenario may arise when your dream partner may not be the ideal partner for you as dreamt by parents. Besides this, in rarest of rare case people may dream a real dream. Like I remember when I was a kid this young girl from my neighbourhood did not want to marry instead she wanted to open an NGO for less privileged people. The parents were initially shocked but finally supported her and even donated property for her cause. Now opening NGO is so common and such a high profile thing. But back those days we did not know what is the meaning of NGO and those people who leave a real career to help less privileged ones always supposedly starve to death themselves. In 1980’s a young girl from a small town, hailing from middle class and high cast dreaming and achieving this dream has less probability than finding an alien. Afterall in 1980’s so many people spotted aliens especially in USA and Europe. Whereas, in 1980’s, in our small town no other young girl had this dream not even in 1990’s. I don’t know what is happening there now.

Everybody in their twenties may not dream big and unusual but still they have some dreams for themselves. My point here is whatever your dream is, lame or wild, it always keeps you ticking. It gives you a reason to wake up in the morning. Every morning you are excited to wake up because you have something to look forward to. It keeps the spirit in you alive without which you would be dead.

Usually twenties is the time when dreams for some people start to die. This death leads to unhappiness, depression, substance abuse and many worse stuffs. For some this happened because they reach their peak early and now they are left with no more dreams. Whereas, for some other the realization that their life is nowhere going according to plan and nothing is in their hand.

This is where they are wrong. There are always scope for more dreams, you just have to meticulously develop it for yourself after all you know yourself best. Well did not mean to sound preachy, only want to convey the information I have tried it so can you.