Stop being realistic

the world needs more collective dreaming

photo: @michaelanthonyhall

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One of my favorite things to do is ask a person, “What would be your ideal life?”

I like to give people this space to be free and imagine. It tells you a lot about a person. A lot they might not reveal normally.

I love watching people’s faces transform as they think of an answer. Their eyes upwards, searching. Their brain thinking while dreaming — one of my favorite states to see.

But, in this hybrid thinking-dreaming state, I also see how people cut this circuit. They bring themselves back down to what they consider “reality” and try to reroute their answer to a more realistic option.

I gently bring them back into the dreaming state. I remind them this is all hypothetical. How this is if the world was completely on your terms. Enjoy the freedom.

I watch this gust take over them. Like suddenly the world has blown away and a new world is occurring in front of them. Privately, with me as their witness. It’s gorgeous to witness someone enter a state of desire.

I think it’s important to do this. In this micro-way to remember we have agency. Even if it just starts in our minds and is explored in conversation.

Conversation can be the brink which changes everything. Speech is one of our first forms of technology. It’s how we share ideas, information, and form action.

I recently had a conversation with my friend and stylist Chris Chidi for the electric blue podcast and she said something so major for me that cracked open my entire relationship with daydreaming.

She said when she begins her creative process with styling, she begins from a daydream. She goes into that place of free-flowing desire and begins to explore what that could mean in tangible form.

Like, you know when you’re listening to a song, and suddenly colors and feelings take over you? Or when you have a crush and you start imagining life scenarios with them? What if we took those moments more seriously? What if there was something inside of those blips for us to dissect?

Less looking at them as direct representations of reality — like maybe the crush you’re obsessing over isn’t actually about how you want them — but how there’s something about them that means something to you?

Can you inquire further within yourself and find out what that is? Why it has placed itself inside your mind as a daydream?