Anyone who knows me knows I’m a die-hard Star Trek fan. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Captain Picard’s archaeology professor tempts him to follow a heart-deep dream of Picard’s — the dream of ancient, archaeological exploration. To sway Picard’s decision, the professor quotes: “Dream not of today.” Captain Picard identifies the quote as “the night blessing of the Yash-El.” What a beautiful blessing, to not dream of today.

“Today” seems to be something we frequently try to escape. When we speak of “today” we also speak of the past, for we frequently try to escape that, as well. Why? Why are we trying to escape the past? Why are we trying to get beyond “today”? On the negative side, it’s partly because today and the past hold all the things we don’t like about life. On the plus side, it’s because humans are dreamers by nature.

But why escape into our dreams?

In Shaman tradition, the mind’s primary function is to dream. We’re always dreaming, even when our eyes are open. When we’re ‘awake’ the mind is dreaming its version of reality and that is what we are interacting with. We rarely see the world for what it is — we only see what we believe the world to be. We impose our story of people, places and things on the world. With a world of people inflicting their dramas on each other, it’s no wonder we live with so much strife and tumult. Dreaming of today dooms us to repeat all the things we don’t like about life, again and again.

The art of ‘awakening’ is the art of quieting our minds so our eyes can see truth; true reality. From there, we are able to learn how to dream properly so that rather than inflicting our nightmares upon the world we are able to dream freely. A quiet mind allows us to hear the inklings of our hearts. As we follow our hearts, we dream of beauty, love and light and incorporate those into our true reality. We achieve our greatest dreams by waking up and being conscious, conscientious dreamers.