Memories & Dreams

This chapter is an attempt not to make a distinction, but rather to create a similarity.  Memories and dreams are more the same than different.

I was sitting in an office once and I picked up a magazine which had an amazing slogan in one of its ads.  It read, “Dreams are only memories to be.”  Now, that’s positive thinking.  How would we dream if we knew we were simply creating our future?  Would we dream more often?  Well, psychologists know that visualizing the future helps to determine our future.  That’s also a good reason why we shouldn’t worry.

Remembering something is the act of playing something out in our imagination that has happened before.  Of course, that is a little subjective because what we recall may not be the absolute truth.  We usually tint the scenes with our own biases.  Knowing that, we should practice more “memory management.”  Memory management is making conscious decisions to recall certain memories (those memories which empower us) and not others.  Moreover, it is then coloring those memories in ways that empower us rather than hold us back.  We can all find an experience from the past that supports our current conviction.  We can all also find an experience from the past that does not support our current conviction.  The challenge is knowing that at any given time we are recalling a memory, it is not the only memory available to us.  In the moment, we think it is.

Dreams are created too, from our imagination.  The difference is only that the dreams look into a possible future rather than the past.  Since the subconscious mind can’t tell the difference between something from the past and something from the future, in both cases, we are simply conditioning ourselves to focus on the things that we imagine.  That’s why I say, when you dream, dream big.

Memories and dreams are only a matter of perspective.  If anything, dreams are more important because we have a clean slate to work from.  That is, rather than coloring a historical event, we can create a completely new event from scratch!  Now that’s powerful.  That’s also why imagination is more powerful than knowledge.

To those of us complaining about our pasts, stop it.  We have no excuse to do that anymore.  If we don’t like our memories, let’s create new ones.  Start dreaming.  It will create the best future for us.

I don’t know how “day-dreaming” ever became a negative term.  It is one of the most powerful and cheapest techniques for self improvement.  An anonymous person said, “Those who hear not the music think the dancer’s mad.”  Let’s not let other people stop us from dreaming just because they don’t understand the true benefit of it.  I can’t tell you how many times I dreamt of writing and promoting this book before it became a reality.  Now that you’re reading it, it’s a memory.

Let's love the world together...

Love,
Danish Ahmed, blind visionary