dreamworld and real-world 夢境與實境
full moon edition 滿月篇
“I landed in Kathmandu, Nepal, and went on a day tour. While immersed in the snowy scenery, I boarded a plane to glide further up the hill. Nothing made sense here, but I played along. I met up with my best friends at the top of the hill, it is no longer snowy. We met my new favorite house artist duo Polo & Pan, chatted for a bit and suddenly we were in a waterpark of sorts and started going all the way down the river on a watermobile. Perhaps it was a river raft. And I felt the wind bracing my face, the water splashing, the twists and turns, and the adrenaline rush. Before I arrive at the destination, I woke up.” — excerpt from my dream journal.
what do dreams mean
Dreams are an extension of my subconscious — adventurous, spontaneous, and all over the place. Sometimes they are as ordinary as real-life events too, and might even serve as an implication of what will happen in the future. From a young age, I was convinced that dreams are not that separate from reality unless I dream about a gunfight with myself in it. Quoting the popular Chinese philosophy concept that “all beings are interconnected” and putting it in relation to dreamworld and our real-world, it’s not too hard to imagine the interconnectedness of dreams and reality. They can mean everything or nothing, but they are definitely not separate from what we consider as reality.
stressful dreams indicate a stressful life
Last week a Taiwanese Chinese Medicine Doctor friend of mine visited Hong Kong and while we were discussing my new venture, she took my pulse reading. “I see you are trying to live a slow life. But wow your brain is not slow at all. You have frequent dreams?” Why yes I do! And so I’ve learned — frequent and vivid dreams, often stressful, indicate a stressful life. This is not the first time someone told me about this correlation. Earlier in the year I did a sleep study in Taipei, both for snoring (lol) and not feeling restful after waking up. Luckily there are no major issues with the nature of my sleep. However, I was told by the neurologist to relax more in my waking hours, because what is not resolved in your daily life tends to continue in your sleep — even if you’re not aware of your stress.
full moon and dreams
Lately, I’ve also been made aware of the potential effects full moon has on humans. “Aries in Full Moon”, and “Mercury in Retrograde”… things are often exemplified during the full moon. We can even learn from linguistics: the word “lunatic” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunatic) originally meant a person who went crazy in relation to the moon. Though I cannot say with certainty what effects the moon has on me, I share the experience with many online that it’s normal to not sleep well during a full moon, have very vivid dreams, and more.
Despite getting quite exhausted when I wake up sometimes, I am grateful for all the experiences I get in my dreams. On days I get exhausted, I am reminded to be more aware of my stress levels. On days I am not that exhausted, I enjoy the fun, creative, random, spontaneous experiences I had in my dreams. Some days I dream about a friend I haven’t met in a long time, and I will proceed to text them about it after waking up — this is a fun way to serendipitously keep in touch with friends I haven’t met in a long time
shout out to my friend
who also wrote about this in her article about Lucid Dreaming!
May you all have a sweet dream, or an adventurous one. Each one can be very telling, depending on how you interpret it! Do you have restful sleep? Do you like your dreams? Let us know in the comments below!✨😊
一轉眼我降落在尼泊爾的首都加德滿都，並開啟我一天的探索行程。身邊的景色白雪紛飛，而下一刻我已經再度踏上飛機開始繼續滑行上坡。雖然這不怎麼講理，但我依然探索下去著。我和我的好朋友們在山頂上碰頭了，奇怪的是現在已不再下雪。我巧遇了我最近很喜歡的House DJ二人組 Polo & Pan，小聊片刻後我們抵達了一個水樂園，並搭上一個獨木舟向河川下游奔馳，此時我感到風輕撫著我的臉頰、水滴四濺，在水流湍急中、腎上腺素飆高的同時，我醒了。
夢有什麼含義呢？
夢大概就是潛意識的延伸吧，充滿探險感更充滿隨機性。有時夢的卻和現實生活沒兩樣，甚至有時候似乎可以預言未來會發生的事情。從很小開始，我就深信夢跟現實沒有太大的分別，除非我夢到我在槍戰。中國哲學經常形容事情都是息息相關的，那麼把這個套用在夢境與實境的話，也不太難想像他們之間的關聯。夢可能富有含意、也可能不能太深入去追究，但無論如何都跟現實生活不能拉得太遠。
緊張的夢境意味著緊張的人生
上週我的一個中醫生好朋友從台北到香港遊玩，我在介紹香港之餘，也在分享我的茶室以及正在寫跟慢生活相關的文章。她把了一下我的脈搏之後，眉頭一皺：「我看得出來你想要嘗試過慢生活，但妳的腦袋也要慢下來啊！妳是不是多夢？」直接正中我的下懷，我不僅多夢、而且還是特別清晰的夢，經常有緊張刺激的劇情發展，而這則意味著我可能潛意識是很緊張、有壓力的。而且這也不是第一次有人跟我提起這個前因後果了。年初的時候我回台北時做了一個睡眠檢查，因為我有時會打呼、也經常醒來的時候因多夢而覺得很累。在發現我沒有什麼實質上的睡眠問題之後，神經外科醫生也是建議我要在不睡覺的時候多多放鬆心情、多多休息。畢竟醒著的時候的心情、壓力沒有處理好，就是會在睡覺的時候由身體自主處理。
滿月與夢境
近來我也學到滿月時可能會對人的身心靈有不同的影響。從語言學的角度來看，英文的詞 lunatic 意指瘋子，但其由來是源自拉丁語 luna (「月亮」)，因為人們相信月亮樣子的改變會引人間歇性瘋狂呢！我雖然尚未因為月亮而感到無比的瘋狂，但我倒是與近期網路上說法相同，滿月的時候我較容易睡不到、也較容易有無比清晰、精彩的夢境。
即便經長在醒來的時候因為多夢而感到無比勞累，但我也蠻感恩能在睡覺的時候有這麼多精彩的經驗。當醒來很累的時候，也提醒自己要多多注意自己未意識到的壓力。而醒來不累的話，我就更能好好去回味剛剛夢到的好玩、奇特的經驗。甚至經常我會濘到一個許久未見的朋友，我也會在醒來的時候趕快傳個訊息給他們，是個讓我重新聯繫朋友的好機會（我的朋友Charlene也寫了關於夢境的一篇文章，其中也提到這點！歡迎去閱讀她的文章！）
預祝各位都能有個美夢，或是在夢境裡能有個精彩的挑戰。你對於你的睡眠品質、或者是夢境有什麼看法呢？歡迎在留言區分享討論💖
I don't think I've ever given my dreams that much thought. Maybe it's time I change that.
Thanks for the shoutout! Fun fact: The emergency room is usually packed during the full moon because many folks go wild that night.