Alive

A few nights ago, I found myself sound asleep and entranced in the sweetest of dreams. The kind of dream that will make you think for a week solid, but in a good and constructive way. The kind of dream in which everything is so vividly clear to you, so tangible. This is real life.

Unlike other dreams, I could feel everything. I could feel my adrenaline rush, feel the physical effects of it as the goosebumps ran down my arm. Feel the wind whip around me as I rose upward into the air.

Flying is such a common subject for a dream, maybe because it is one of our biggest wishes. But there was nothing ordinary about this dream. My mind was completely alert. I could feel my thoughts, could sense them running through my brain, could use them. I could control where I flew with my mind. I could use my thoughts to change the immediate environment around me.

However, if my thoughts strayed, everything would go awfully awry. I would spin out of control as I flew, the weaher would become opaque and ominous, and I felt a sense of fear so tangible that I coul feel my heart race and the sweat drop off of me. But when I once again believed that I could fly to my desired destination, I started to glide smoothly and on track again. I was completely happy and contented.

When I awoke from this dream, it felt as if a part of me had died. As the day trudged along, I began to realize that I had felt more alive in this dream than I have at any time in my entire life.

But it made me start to think: What if I could change everything with my mind? Change even those around me just by switching my mindset? Have the ability to make everything and everyone better.

Then last night I watched "What The Bleep: Down The Rabbit Hole" and it pushed my curiosity of this subject even further. It had an example that showed two different crystals that had been made from water from a waterfall. One was left to crystallize normally, but the other, a Chinese priest placed a blessing of love on it. Lo and behold, the crystal with the blessing of love on it turned out to be way more beautiful as opposed to the one with no blessing on it, which appeared to be dull and mundane.

And then, the movie presented to me the best idea that I had ever heard in my life: "If our minds can do that to water, imagine what they can do to ourselves."

Right then, everything changed for me. Everything was figured out. Everything turned around. My thought process, how I lived my very life. I saw how the negative environment which I had become so accustomed to reflected my views, which ultimately resulted in my all-too-frequent negative outcomes.

They say you are a product of your environment, and it's so true. But I feel that it is also true that our environment can be a product of us.

The conditions of our environment which we have believed to be true for our whole lives bring us to develop our addictions, which can ultimately destroy us. Everybody is addicted to something. Mostly everyone, at least. Anything can be an addiction, anything that we depend on to make us contented except our own peace of mind and life itself. Whether it's drugs, food, our beliefs, the need to feel loved, or the need to feel significant or insignificant. Our addictions do nothing but provide us with the feeling of a monsterous ego or a sense of crushing inferiority. Whatever addictions we do have, all I know is that they provide us with our much desired and sought-after comfort zone.

But it's when we break this idea of a comfort zone that we see what life really is: our thoughts and decisions.

I began to realize that life is nothing but a choice. From the day that we are born, we are thrown into the front lines of a battle to overcome the obstacles and roadblocks which are presented in front of us; no matter how great or how small. A battle to eradicate all enemies which stand in our way, enemies which present themselves in the form of our own personal demons. And our choices dictate whether we win or lose the battle.

We wonder why miracles happen. We attribute it to the supernatural and divine, a gift from "God." But in reality, miracles really happen because we choose for them to happen. Because we know that they will happen.

Just remember, if our thoughts can physically change water, just imagine what they can do for us.