I write about dreams, about believing in yourself
and reaching for those dreams that inspire you.
The tagline for Beneath the Rainbow is
‘It’s those silly dreams that keep us alive.’
And it really is!
© Bekah Shambrook
Were you the child who got told off at school for gazing out of the window, watching the clouds sail across the sky whilst you should have been learning Pythagoras?
Did you spend time staring into space as dust motes danced through rays of sunshine?
Do you lose yourself in your own mind as rain drums on your windowpane?
Has your boss tapped you on the shoulder as your muse tempts you and files rest unopened on your desk?
Unorganised thought, seeds of inspiration, moments of clarity – can all accompany daydreaming. There is a place for allowing our minds to wander, a place for letting our unconscious play, and it can benefit us.
Some of the greatest minds have come up with their ‘Eureka!’ moments through daydreaming, Richard Branson and Albert Einstein being just two of them.
Scott Barry Kaufman a psychology professor from NYU suggests expanding the list of intelligences to include “spontaneous” cognitive skills like intuition and sudden insights, which are only accessed by letting your mind ramble. So when you got told off for daydreaming many years ago, or just yesterday, know that daydreaming skills are another type of intelligence!
You use the most intricate parts of your brain when you tap into your memory banks and you can experience things that are locked when you are thinking about specific things or tasks.
Free your mind!
© Lisa Shambrook
I’ve found it a natural way to help release stress and anxiety. It’s perhaps the opposite, or maybe companion, to mindfulness in that daydreaming lets your mind wander in an unstructured way, and free thought can be very inspirational.
Giving yourself to your mind’s ramblings can help you unlock the stresses of the day and help inspire you.
It’s also said that depression often kills daydreams, leaving the sufferer feeling flat and low. I’ve had times when my conscious has wiped out my dreams, leaving me only with nightmares, and life becomes one dimensional and hope fades away.
When daydreams or musings exist in my mind there is always hope.
© Lisa Shambrook
Dreaming in the cold light of day binds both the conditions above, it provides motivation. Remember those famous words “I have a dream…”? Martin Luther King Jr acted on his dream and changed history. Read the transcript of his speech and feel the inspiration, the strength, the hope, and motivation and discover your own dreams.
Daydreaming about our own lives helps us imagine, visualise and make choices about events before they happen, or they can inspire us to make changes.
They can literally change our lives.
© Lisa Shambrook (and this is my cat Raven…see what I did there…)
Where does creativity come from? It’s a mixture of dreams and motivation and action. Daydreaming is our imagination and our imagination is boundless, we can see anything in our mind’s eye and we can free-associate, which leads to both creativity and problem solving.
Our mind can see and go far beyond that which we can physically reach, thereby opening huge potential, wild ideas and even the surreal. It can break us free from the confines of logical thinking and introduce us to the lateral, the unusual and the downright odd.
‘Perhaps imagination is intelligence having fun,’ said George Scialabba.
Daydreaming can create works of art, music, movies, books and much, much more.
So, take some time out and daydream…
Great advice found in the Nov 2012 Reader’s Digest
After all, Eleanor Roosevelt said
‘The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.’
Go and find yours…daydream until your muse inspires you…
© Lisa Shambrook
“Those silly dreams are what keep us alive…”
Old Thomas has a dream…one that seems way out of his reach. When he talks about it, it’s with a wry smile and a sigh. Others live his dream while he watches on the side-lines. Will he achieve his last dream, the one that keeps him alive?
Find out in ‘Beneath the Rainbow’ available on Amazon in Paperback and eBook.
The Last Krystallos 