A white egret orchid.
In the language of flowers, it symbolizes the phrase: "My thoughts will follow you into your dreams".
Every night, we visit a world that no one else will ever see. A place shaped by our past, present and future, filled with faces we recognize, shifting landscapes that exist only for us, and symbols that we only can truly decypher.
This world is built by you, and you alone, every night, or every time you let your mind drift a little. It's the most deeply personal thing we have, our last truly private place, in a world where everything is tracked, shared and analyzed without our consent.
It's sometimes fuzzy, blurry, you may not even know it's there, but it is. The most honest mirror on your life and your most inner thoughts. RIght here, just a memory away. They feel random, crazy, unrelated, silly - and they sometimes are - but they sometimes mean more than we can admit.
It's maybe why they try to run away as soon as we wake up, why they can be this cryptic. When we stop and look at them for a second, we understand not only the world we evolve in every night, but our way of seing the world.
The You You Are
During the day, we see ourselves. We're "Concious". Aware of our surroundings, but most importantly of our own presence. We notice what we do, how we're moving, where we are. We constantly juge ourselves based on social rules, and our own values. We feel seen, hated, loved, forgotten sometimes, but we shape how we act and how we feel based on the behavior of others.
During the night however, we most of the time never really know we Are. Do we even think, when our subconcious is so busy minding the theatrics and playing all these characters? We percieve the world around us, hear the people, feel things. But we most of the time aren't aware we really Are, letting us be the most honest version of ourselves.
Of course sometimes your own self betrays you, puts you in uncomfortable positions where even in your most vulnerable moments you're juged. Juged by none other than yourself, repeating what you fear other minds may think of you, speak of you, treat you. Even with those echoes, those reflections, those ghosts, you're still alone in there, and it's not about to change.
We spend a lot of time sleeping, and society thinks it is lost time, unused, useless. Because we don't exist for others. Dreaming is a selfish act, one that shouldn't be given to those that live just so others can enjoy. It's becoming a luxury in a world that constantly forces us to think that drinking and eating are things you need to fight for, while some feast like they breathe. We're all equal in our dreams, all discovering the same wonders and facing the same hard truths, alone.
Everybody dreams, surprise, surprise, and if you don't feel like you dream at all, it may mean you're too busy thinking of others, emphatically or selfishly. Take a second to think about how you felt during the night, every day, try to remember, just grab that one minute for yourself before opening your phone. At first, there will be nothing. But after a while, you'll be rewarded for your patience by the most honest and beautiful doorway to better understanding yourself.
That doorway we all share, and even though some forget the key, dreaming is what makes us ultimately human.
Our Mind Isn't Data to be Sold
The recent developement of AIs and the data collection revolution that happened before it changed drastically how the internet treats us. It connected us, created trust, just to break it when we started to take it all for granted. You don't need to say you like the smell of lavender for fragrance ads to pop up on your feed. They already know you like analog photography, because you follow lots of photographs fond of that style. They know your favorite color is blue, because you always use blue hearts. They know who you love because you told them so. And now they may know your dreams, because you asked them to analyze them.
You may rightfully think it's nothing, that dreams are random, that they don't define you, that tomorrow will come new ones, and that they're not valuable because you get so much of them. You'd be honestly right. For the most part, at least.
Because one day you look back. And you realize that they know your subconcious beter than yourself. You let them in.
The machine doesn't need to hear your dreams to know how your brain works when awake better than yourself. It doesn't need to know what happens when you're asleep to know how to make you buy something you didn't really needed. It already knows it all. But there's nothing more personal, more innocent and honest than your dreams, and that, even an algorythm knows it. And one day, it'll know how to use it against you.
The Step Back
Dreams are a beautiful piece of humanity. A marvel that, even though it rarely shapes us, makes us think, discover, remember, or enjoy the simple pleasure of living a story. It's something we all share, deep within us, and while we have little time left for small beautiful things, I think it's worth the minute.
It's no secret that being more aware of your emotions, of how you feel and react to the world around you, makes you happier and mature - but dreams are as important. They don't define how you feel in the moment, they are a mirror of how your subconcious processes your surroundings. It's a messed up patchwork of your thoughts, emotions and identity that most of the time doesn't make sense at first glance, but always holds the keys to yourself.
And when the algorithms are out to get you, when they're trying to understand how your brain works better than you do, it's even more precious to both learn your own mind, and keep it to yourself so you, and you only, stay a step ahead.
Now take a second to think about what your mind does when you're asleep, about those worlds, because they're the very last place that'll always be yours.