Instead of dreaming about having some thing, dream about what to do with it.
When I was younger I wanted a BMW. Any of the Z series, I wanted a German engineered sports car. But when I thought about what I'd do with it, I saw only one vision: me getting out of the car in a public place, wearing a suit and shades.
Besides that, there was nothing I was looking forward to that would justify that expense, as compared to my current income. So I haven't bought that BMW, yet. The cost doesn't justify my one dream.
I did have lots of vivid dreams of owning a house and making rent from it. Of owning multiple properties in locations over the world. Unlike the BMW, these are well in progress.
Now I have dreams of running a business I helped create. How to hire employees. How to give all-hands speeches. How to make business deals and financial decisions. Let's see how that pans out. And a business might make that one image of me getting out of a BMW worth my income some day.
Your dreams are personal. They're the haven you go to escape and hope.
Don't ruin it by telling too many people. Either people will hold you to them, and thus turn the dream into another chore to avoid. Or they won't care, which makes telling them not worth it. Or they will persuade you out of it.
Some people want to believe that by saying it out loud, or posting it on a dream board, or telling your friends about it, will manifest the dream into the universe, and increase the likely hood of it coming true.
Maybe. Even if this were true, the followers of such pseudo-science admits that you aren't aware of all that you are putting out into this "universe." So if you were to start expressing your dreams, how do you know that you didn't sneak some of your ego and your fears into it?
Don't take your chances, keep the dream pristine and clear. Don't use it to gain attention. Don't whore out your precious dreams.
Keep your dreams 60-80% achievable, the rest fantasy.
By having dreams that are couched in reality, it remains tantalizing to you. "If I only just did this and that..." should be what eats at you. The fantasy part of it is the "what if" of the dream.
What if the business I create wasn't just profitable, but super successful and I became a celebrity?
If there's too much fantasy, then you wouldn't take this dream seriously, and it'll drift away just like any of your childhood fantasies and imaginations.
And if there's too much reality, then it's not a dream, it's a task. A chore. Another responsibility. Lame.
Don't be pressured into dreaming bigger than you want to dream.
This goes back to how it's your dream. Americans like to pressure each other into having "big" dreams. They sometimes make you feel bad for dreaming small.
It's ok to have small dreams, medium dreams, big dreams, whatever you want.
Don't ask for someone's opinion on your dream. You can ask them how it could be achieved, but don't take advice about what you should be dreaming of. It has to remain your dream, not someone else's.
You can borrow someone else's dream if it really appeals to you, that's fine. You can give your dreams away to others who it might appeal to as well. But it's a transfer, not an amendment process. Once amended, it stops becoming yours.
Have dreams
I can imagine that lots of people have stopped dreaming. I can understand that life is unfair, and people unjust. I know that dashed hopes are the worst feeling. I also feel the fear of losing and failing.
But I think that healthy, functional people have dreams, especially during times of adversity. I know lots of stories of famous people, and not famous people, who had nothing at one point except their dream.
Dreaming is something worth maintaining as a child. It's sad for humanity, the day that a child gives up on a dream. But it's not too late as an adult to bring them back. To nurture your dreams slowly, and get back into the practice of imagination.
I think it's natural to dream. Your brain wants to do it. If you have a hard time dreaming, then look for blocks. Look for fears. Look for things that you've told yourself as a child, maybe after some powerful experience. Look for ways that you're preventing yourself from dreaming. Maybe you think it's childish, maybe you think it's a waste of time, maybe you're afraid of being stuck "in the clouds."
Please, don't be afraid. Let go, it'll be alright. You won't suddenly become immature, or stupid, for dreaming. No ones going to laugh at you, and those who do, are sad people who deserve pity.
Sweet dreams.
