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Essays About Dreams In Life: 14 Examples And Topic Ideas

Dreams in life are necessary; if you are writing essays about dreams in life, you can read these essay examples and topic ideas to get started.

Everyone has a dream – a big one or even a small one. Even the most successful people had dreams before becoming who they are today. Having a dream is like having a purpose in life; you will start working hard to reach your dream and never lose interest in life.

Without hard work, you can never turn a dream into a reality; it will only remain a desire. Level up your essay writing skills by reading our essays about dreams in life examples and prompts and start writing an inspiring essay today!

Writing About Dreams: A Guide

Essays about dreams in life: example essays, 1. chase your dreams: the best advice i ever got by michelle colon-johnson, 2. my dream, my future by deborah massey, 3. the pursuit of dreams by christine nishiyama, 4. my dreams and ambitions by kathy benson, 5. turning big dreams into reality by shyam gokarn, 6. my hopes and dreams by celia robinson, 7. always pursue your dreams – no matter what happens by steve bloom, 8. why do we dream by james roland, 9. bad dreams by eli goldstone, 10. why your brain needs to dream by matthew walker, 11. dreams by hedy marks, 12. do dreams really mean anything by david b. feldman, 13. how to control your dreams by serena alagappan, 14. the sunday essay: my dreams on antidepressants by ashleigh young, essays about dreams in life essay topics, 1. what is a dream, 2. what are your dreams in life, 3. why are dreams important in life, 4. what are the reasons for a person to dream big, 5. what do you think about dreams in life vs. short-term sacrifice, 6. what is the purpose of dreaming, 7. why are dreams so strange and vivid, 8. why do dreams feel so real, 9. why are dreams so hard to remember, 10. do dreams mean anything, what is a dream short essay, how can i write my dream in life.

Writing about dreams is an excellent topic for essays, brainstorming new topic ideas for fiction stories, or just as a creative outlet. We all have dreams, whether in our sleep, during the day, or even while walking on a sunny day. Some of the best ways to begin writing about a topic are by reading examples and using a helpful prompt to get started. Check out our guide to writing about dreams and begin mastering the art of writing today!

“Everyone has the ability to dream, but not everyone has the willingness to truly chase their dreams. When people aren’t living their dreams they often have limited belief systems. They believe that their current circumstances and/or surroundings are keeping them from achieving the things they want to do in life.”

In her essay, author Michelle Colon-Johnson encourages her readers to develop a mindset that will let them chase their dreams. So, you have to visualize your dream, manifest it, and start your journey towards it! Check out these essays about dreams and sleep .

“At the time when I have my job and something to make them feel so proud of me, I would like to give them the best life. I would like to make them feel comfortable and see sweet smiles on their faces. This is really the one I like to achieve in my life; mountains of words can’t explain how much I love and appreciate them.”

Author Deborah Massey’s essay talks about her dreams and everything she wanted to achieve and accomplish in her life. She also tells us that we must live our values, pursue our dreams, and follow our passions for the best future.

“Fast-forward 5+ years, and my first published book is coming out this May with Scholastic. And now, let me tell you the truth: I don’t feel any different. I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity, proud of the work I’ve done, and excited for the book’s release. But on a fundamental level, I feel the same.”

In her essay, author Christine Nishiyama shares what she felt when she first achieved one of her goals in life. She says that with this mindset, you will never feel the satisfaction of achieving your goal or the fulfillment of reaching your dream. Instead, she believes that what fulfills people is the pursuit of their dreams in life.

“My dream is to become a good plastic surgeon and day after day it has transformed into an ambition which I want to move towards. I do not want to be famous, but just good enough to have my own clinic and work for a very successful hospital. Many people think that becoming a doctor is difficult, and I know that takes many years of preparation, but anyone can achieve it if they have determination.”

Author Kathy Benson’s essay narrates her life – all the things and struggles she has been through in pursuing her dreams in life. Yet, no matter how hard the situation gets, she always convinces herself not to give up, hoping her dreams will come true one day. She believes that with determination and commitment, anyone can achieve their dreams and goals in life. 

“I have always been a big dreamer and involved in acting upon it. Though, many times I failed, I continued to dream big and act. As long as I recollect, I always had such wild visions and fantasies of thinking, planning, and acting to achieve great things in life. But, as anyone can observe, there are many people, who think and work in that aspect.”

In his essay, author Shyam Gokarn explains why having a big dream is very important in a person’s life. However, he believes that the problem with some people is that they never hold tight to their dreams, even if they can turn them into reality. As a result, they tend to easily give up on their dreams and even stop trying instead of persevering through the pain and anguish of another failure.

“When I was younger, I’ve always had a fairytale-like dream about my future. To marry my prince, have a Fairy Godmother, be a princess… But now, all of that has changed. I’ve realized how hard life is now; that life cannot be like a fairy tale. What you want can’t happen just like that.”

Celia Robinson’s essay talks about her dream since she was a child. Unfortunately, as we grow old, there’s no “Fairy Godmother” that would help us when things get tough. Everyone wants to succeed in the future, but we have to work hard to achieve our dreams and goals.

“Take writing for example. I’ve wanted to be a professional writer since I was a little boy, but I was too scared that I wouldn’t be any good at it. But several years ago I started pursuing this dream despite knowing how difficult it might be. I fully realize I may not make it, but I’m completely fine with that. At least I tried which is more than most people can say.”

In his essay, author Steve Bloom encourages his readers always to pursue their dreams no matter what happens. He asks, “Would you rather pursue them and fail or never try?”. He believes that it’s always better to try and fail than look back and wonder what might have been. Stop thinking that failure or success is the only end goal for pursuing your dreams. Instead, think of it as a long journey where all the experiences you get along the way are just as important as reaching the end goal.

“Dreams are hallucinations that occur during certain stages of sleep. They’re strongest during REM sleep, or the rapid eye movement stage, when you may be less likely to recall your dream. Much is known about the role of sleep in regulating our metabolism, blood pressure, brain function, and other aspects of health. But it’s been harder for researchers to explain the role of dreams. When you’re awake, your thoughts have a certain logic to them. When you sleep, your brain is still active, but your thoughts or dreams often make little or no sense.”

Author James Roland’s essay explains the purpose of having dreams and the factors that can influence our dreams. He also mentioned some of the reasons that cause nightmares. Debra Sullivan, a nurse educator, medically reviews his essay. Sullivan’s expertise includes cardiology, psoriasis/dermatology, pediatrics, and alternative medicine. For more, you can also see these articles about sleep .

“The first time I experienced sleep paralysis and recognised it for what it was I was a student. I had been taking MDMA and listening to Django Reinhardt. My memories of that time are mainly of taking drugs and listening to Django Reinhardt. When I woke up I was in my paralysed body. I was there, inside it. I was inside my leaden wrists, my ribcage, the thick dead roots of my hair, the bandages of skin. This time the hallucinations were auditory. I could hear someone being beaten outside my door. They were screaming for help. And I could do nothing but lie there, locked inside my body . . . whatever bit of me is not my body. That is the bit that exists, by itself, at night.”

In her essay, Author Eli Goldstone talks about her suffering from bad dreams ever since childhood. She also talks about what she feels every time she has sleep paralysis – a feeling of being conscious but unable to move.

“We often hear stories of people who’ve learned from their dreams or been inspired by them. Think of Paul McCartney’s story of how his hit song “Yesterday” came to him in a dream or of Mendeleev’s dream-inspired construction of the periodic table of elements. But, while many of us may feel that our dreams have special meaning or a useful purpose, science has been more skeptical of that claim. Instead of being harbingers of creativity or some kind of message from our unconscious, some scientists have considered dreaming to being an unintended consequence of sleep—a byproduct of evolution without benefit.”

Author Matthew Walker, a professor of psychology and neuroscience, shares some interesting facts about dreams in his essay. According to research, dreaming is more than just a byproduct of sleep; it also serves essential functions in our well-being. 

“Dreams are basically stories and images that our mind creates while we sleep. They can be vivid. They can make you feel happy, sad, or scared. And they may seem confusing or perfectly rational. Dreams can happen at any time during sleep. But you have your most vivid dreams during a phase called REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, when your brain is most active. Some experts say we dream at least four to six times a night.”

In his essay, Author Hedy Marks discusses everything we need to know about dreams in detail – from defining a dream to tips that may help us remember our dreams. Hedy Marks is an Assistant Managing Editor at WebMD , and Carol DerSarkissian, a board-certified emergency physician, medically reviews his essay.

“Regardless of whether dreams foretell the future, allow us to commune with the divine, or simply provide a better understanding of ourselves, the process of analyzing them has always been highly symbolic. To understand the meaning of dreams, we must interpret them as if they were written in a secret code. A quick search of an online dream dictionary will tell you that haunted houses symbolize “unfinished emotional business,” dimly lit lamps mean you’re “feeling overwhelmed by emotional issues,” a feast indicates “a lack of balance in your life,” and garages symbolize a feeling of “lacking direction or guidance in achieving your goals.” 

Author David B. Feldman, an author, speaker, and professor of counseling psychology, believes that dreams may not mean anything, but they tell us something about our emotions. In other words, if you’ve been suffering from a series of bad dreams, it could be worth checking in with yourself to see how you’ve been feeling and perhaps consider whether there’s anything you can do to improve your mood.

“Ever wish you could ice skate across a winter sky, catching crumbs of gingerbread, like flakes of snow, on your tongue? How about conquering a monster in a nightmare, bouncing between mountain peaks, walking through walls, or reading minds? Have you ever longed to hold the hand of someone you loved and lost? If you want to fulfill your fantasies, or even face your fears, you might want to try taking some control of your dreams (try being the operative). People practiced in lucid dreaming—the phenomenon of being aware that you are dreaming while you are asleep—claim that the experience allows adventure, self-discovery, and euphoric joy.”

In her essay, Author Serena Alagappan talks about lucid dreams – a type of dream where a person becomes conscious during a dream. She also talked about ways to control our dreams, such as keeping a journal, reciting mantras before bed, and believing we can. However, not everyone will be able to control their dreams because the levels of lucidity and control differ significantly between individuals.

“There was a period of six months when I tried to go off my medication – a slowly unfolding disaster – and I’d thought my dreams might settle down. Instead, they grew more deranged. Even now I think of the dream in which I was using a cigarette lighter to melt my own father, who had assumed the form of a large candle. I’ve since learned that, apart from more research being needed, this was probably a case of “REM rebound”. When you stop taking the medication, you’ll likely get a lot more REM sleep than you were getting before. In simple terms, your brain goes on a dreaming frenzy, amping up the detail.”

Author Ashleigh Young’s essay informs us how some medications, such as antidepressants, affect our dreams based on her own life experience. She said, “I’ve tried not to dwell too much on my dreams. Yes, they are vivid and sometimes truly gruesome, full of chaotic, unfathomable violence, but weird nights seemed a reasonable price to pay for the bearable days that SSRIs have helped me to have.” 

In simple terms, a dream is a cherished aspiration, ambition, or ideal; is it the same as your goal in life? In your essay, explore this topic and state your opinion about what the word “dream” means to you.

This is an excellent topic for your statement or “about me” essay. Where do you see yourself in the next ten years? Do you have a career plan? If you still haven’t thought about it, maybe it’s time to start thinking about your future.

Having dreams is very important in a person’s life; it motivates, inspires, and helps you achieve any goal that you have in mind. Without dreams, we would feel lost – having no purpose in life. Therefore, in your essay, you should be able to explain to your readers how important it is to have a dream or ambition in life. 

What are the reasons for a person to dream big?

Dreaming big sounds great; however, it’s easier said than done. First, you’ve got to have reasons to dream big, which will motivate you to achieve your goals in life. If you’re writing an essay about dreams in life, mention why most people dare to dream big and achieve more in life. Is it about freedom, money, praise from other people, satisfaction, or something else entirely?

For example, you could watch movies, play video games, relax every night, or give up all of them to learn a complex skill – what would you choose, and why? In your essay about dreams in life, answer the question and include other examples about this topic so your readers can relate.

There are many answers to this question – one is that dreams may have an evolutionary function, testing us in scenarios crucial to our survival. Dreams may also reduce the severity of emotional trauma. On the other hand, some researchers say dreams have no purpose or meaning, while some say we need dreams for physical and mental health. Take a closer look at this topic, and include what you find in your essay.

Weird dreams could result from anxiety, stress, or sleep deprivation. So, manage your stress levels, and stick to a sleep routine to stop having weird dreams. If you wake up from a weird dream, you can fall back asleep using deep breaths or any relaxing activity. You can research other causes of weird dreams and ways to stop yourself from having them for your essay about dreams and sleep.

The same areas of the brain that are active when we learn and process information in the actual world are active when we dream, and they replay the information as we sleep. Many things we see, hear, and feel in our everyday lives appear in our dreams. If you want to write an informative essay about dreams and sleep, look into more details about this topic.

Tip: When editing for grammar, we also recommend taking the time to improve the readability score of a piece of writing before publishing or submitting it.

People may not remember what happened in their dreams. Studies show that people tend to forget their dreams due to the changing levels of acetylcholine and norepinephrine during sleep. This will be quite an exciting topic for your readers because many people can relate. That being said, research more information about this topic, and discuss it in detail in your essay. 

Although some people believe that dreams don’t mean anything, many psychologists and other experts have theorized about the deeper meaning of dreams. Therefore, your essay about dreams and sleep should delve deeper into this topic. If you’re stuck picking your next essay topic, check out our round-up of essay topics about education .

FAQS on Essays About Dreams in Life

There are many great short essays about dreams; you can write your own too! Some great examples include Do Dreams Really Mean Anything? by David B. Feldman and  Dreams by Hedy Marks.

Writing about your dreams in life is a fantastic creative outlet and can even help you plan your future. Use a prompt to get started, like “What are your dreams in life?” or “What do you aspire to be in ten years?” and begin writing without thinking too much about it. See where the pen takes you and start mapping out your future with this writing exercise.

dreams essay for bsc

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Essay on Dreams, Types and Causes

Essay on dreams for matric, intermediate, 2nd year, fa, fsc, ba and bsc.

Essay on Dreams is here for the students of Class, 10, Class 12 and Graduation. In Dreams essay we will discuss dreams definition , what is dream, what causes dreams , different types of dreams and the reasons behind them. The psychology of dreams is also a part of this essay on Dreams . There are different reasons behind the different types of dreams . Hereunder is the complete essay on it.

Dreams Essay for Class 10, Class 12, Graduation and other classes

Dreams are as old as human beings are. They are in reality a psychological phenomenon. Only human beings see dreams. According to the psychologists, we see dreams in our sleep because at that time, our mind is awake and our body is asleep. Our experiences of daily life are projected into dreams. The mind wakes up earlier than the body, It does not need as much rest as the body. As soon as it awakes, it begins to weave experiences of daily life into dreams.

In dreams sometimes, the experiences are real, sometimes there is a confused series of experience. Some dreams are very pleasant and romantic. Due to this reason some places are called “Dreamland” in common talk. One gets up early in the morning very much pleased with what one has seen. On the other hand, some dreams are very fearful. They are called “nightmares”. A person is sleeping soundly others are also sleeping near him. All of a sudden, he gives out a terrible shriek. He gets up startled. He tells us that in his dream he has seen a snake or enemy in the dream. The snake was about to bite him.

There are many reasons for dreams.

First, the old thinkers have given importance to the memory element in dreams. It is with the help of our memory that we visualize the real things of life. Aristotle was of the opinion that dreams were due to the impression left by objects seen with the eyes on the body. Plato connected dreaming with the normal working operations of the mind. The old people thought that the ghosts of the dead people visited the dreamer. Modern discoveries about human nature have rejected the views of the old people.

Secondly, the modern psychologist Freud has given his own explanation about dreams. His book “The Interpretation of Dreams” occupies an important place on the subject. He gives us four reasons tor dreams. Firstly, the dreamer is disturbed in his dream by external objects. A mosquito may bite him, the clouds may roar and the alarm bell may ring. These are the external things which disturb our sleep and make us see dreams.

Thirdly, the dreamer is disturbed by inner disturbance of his body or mind. It happens, in case of his mental or physical illness. In this disturbed state, we see dreams.

Fourthly, we may dream when one of our five senses is disturbed.

Lastly, the ideas stored in our mind, come out in the form of dreams in disguised forms. Freud holds, that there are dreams in which we fulfil our wishes. These unfulfilled desires go into our unconscious mind and come out again at night in the form of dreams. These wishes take a disguised shape. A beggar may consider himself a prince in his dream or an old man may dream of becoming a child.

There are certain dreams which indicate future. These are the dreams of pious and noble people. Such were the dreams of Prophet Jacob (A.S) . Prophet Ibrahim (A.S) and King of Egypt. Prophet Jacob (A.S) saw the sun and stars bowing before him. The King of Egypt dreamt that he saw seven lean cows and seven fat cows. This dream was interpreted by Prophet Joseph (A.S) . He told that the seven lean cows stood for seven years of adversity while the seven fat cows stood for rich and prosperous years.

Hope this essay on dreams explains the types and causes of different types of dreams , you may also like Essay on Honesty.

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74 Dreaming Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best dreaming topic ideas & essay examples, ✍️ interesting topics to write about dreaming, 🔖 good essay topics on dreaming, ❓ research questions about dreams.

  • The Importance of Sleeping and Dreaming Finally, I would not take this pill since I love seeing dreams and realize that this “miracle medicine” will cause too many negative consequences.
  • Dreaming in Christianity and Islam Indeed, I was influenced mainly by the studies that explained this phenomenon from the point of continuous activity of people’s minds that processes daily routine during the night. We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
  • Dreaming, Consciousness and Cognition For instance, the behaviorist supposition that the brain is always awakened and only from the external by sense organ procedures cannot define daydreams; likewise, for the statement that consciousness is the straight or restricted product […]
  • Dreams and the Process of Dreaming Analysis Dreams are said to be like opening a door to the rest of the mind, all of one’s friends, fears, phobias, hopes, wishes, good times, and bad times are there.
  • Lucid Dreaming in Science Fiction and Technology The author provides an interesting and intriguing article about the phenomenon of lucid dreaming and its representation in culture and media.
  • Impoverished and Excessive Dreaming Many patients saw a dog in their dreams that tried to bite them; they began to defend themselves or hit the dog, and, in reality, they hit their spouses or walls/beds.
  • Nature and Functions of Dreaming Still, other researchers argue that one of the key functions of dreams is to maintain our bodily and psychological health. To conclude, it is obvious that many suggestions have been put forward by researchers about […]
  • Kertha Gosa Ceiling vs. “Dreaming” paintings by Aborigines of Australia Over a long period, Aborigine’s paintings have advanced to the point of intertwining with the public dissertation, with a great recognition in Australia and the rest of the world.
  • Concept of Dreaming Theories in Psychology One of the theories that are common is the belief that dreams occur as a result of the human mind trying to incorporate external stimuli while one is sleeping.
  • The Use of Illusion Argument, Dreaming Argument, and Evil Genius Argument by Descartes
  • The Centrality of the Dreaming and Its Importance for Aboriginal Spirituality
  • An Overview of the Dream State and the Concept of Human Dreaming
  • Animal Dreaming And Substantiation A Connection To Humanity
  • Understanding the Unconcious Dreaming
  • How Is the Power of Dreams and Dreaming in the Novel of Mice and Men
  • Dreams, Dreaming and Phases of Sleep
  • Phenomenology of Dreaming
  • The Beauty Of Dreaming: How Dreams Drive The Individual
  • The Dreaming and Traditional Aboriginal Spirituality
  • Freud’s Theory of Dreaming and Repression
  • Sleeping and Dreaming and Theories of Sleep
  • Gender And Dreaming In Mapuche Shamanistic Practices
  • The Benefits Of Lucid Dreaming
  • An Overview of the Controversy of Dreaming, a Cognitive Activity During Sleep
  • The Importance of Dreaming and Sleeping
  • Procrastination and Day Dreaming
  • The Psychological Theories Of The Function Of Dreaming
  • Difference Between Astral Projection And Lucid Dreaming
  • Dreaming as Significant Process in Human Life Experience
  • Exploring Causes of Sleep Difficulty and Dreaming Problems
  • Dreams and Dreaming Nightmares in Children
  • Dreaming Can Bring Misery in the Great Gatsby By F. Scott
  • Varieties of Lucid Dreaming Experience, by Stephen Laberge
  • The Significance of Land to the Dreaming for Aboriginal People and the Impact of the Land Rights Movement
  • Dreaming And Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
  • Understanding the Science of Dreaming Through Oneirology
  • The Importance of Dreaming and the Sub-Conscious
  • Descartes’ Meditations: Dreaming and Evil Demon Arguments
  • Dreaming Various Amount Of People Experiences Different Effects
  • Comparing and Contrasting Psychological Theories of Dreaming
  • The Skeptical Dreaming Argument of Rene Descartes, and the Priori and the Posteriori
  • Dreaming Is Known As The Journey Your Mind
  • Day Dreaming in the Middle of the Summer Heat
  • Synchroncities in the History of Paranormal Dreaming
  • What Dreams May Come True?
  • What Every Athlete Dreams, of but Few Achieve?
  • What Makes Your Friend’s Dreams Come True?
  • What Does the Bible Say About Dreams?
  • When Dreams and Reality Collide?
  • Why Do We Forget Dreams?
  • Why Are Dreams Interesting for Philosophers?
  • What Makes a Nightmare a Nightmare?
  • What’s the Most Common Nightmare?
  • What Are the Most Typical Nightmare Themes and What Do They Mean?
  • Why Are Dreams Important to Duddy Kravitz?
  • Why Do People Dream and What the Dreams Mean?
  • What Are Dreams, and Do They Affect Us in a Good Way or a Bad Way?
  • What Are the Key Similarities and Differences Between Freud and Jung’s Theories of Dreams?
  • What Are You Doing to Achieve Your Dreams?
  • How Dreams Affect Our Personalities?
  • How Dreams and Omens Support the Theme of Interconnection?
  • How Can Dreams Sustain People Through Life, or Can Break Them Down When It Doesn’t Come True?
  • How Do Dreams Have Symbolic Meaning?
  • How Women Follow Their Dreams Without Embarrassment?
  • How Do Different People Use Different Things to Escape Life Problems or Find Motivation to Dreams?
  • Can Dreams Tell the Future?
  • Are Dreams Messages From Our Subconscious Mind or Insignificant Manifest?
  • Are Dreams the Reason for Mythology?
  • Can Blind Person See Dreams?
  • What Are the Most Rare Dreams?
  • How Long Do Dreams Last?
  • Can You Learn From Your Dreams?
  • Do We Dream Differently Across the World?
  • Do We Know When We Are Dreaming?
  • Chicago (A-D)
  • Chicago (N-B)

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Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

Mind & Body Articles & More

Why your brain needs to dream, research shows that dreaming is not just a byproduct of sleep, but serves its own important functions in our well-being..

We often hear stories of people who’ve learned from their dreams or been inspired by them. Think of Paul McCartney’s story of how his hit song “Yesterday” came to him in a dream or of Mendeleev’s dream-inspired construction of the periodic table of elements.

But, while many of us may feel that our dreams have special meaning or a useful purpose, science has been more skeptical of that claim. Instead of being harbingers of creativity or some kind of message from our unconscious, some scientists have considered dreaming to be an unintended consequence of sleep—a byproduct of evolution without benefit.

Sleep itself is a different story. Scientists have known for a while now that shorter sleep is tied to dangerous diseases, like heart disease and stroke . There is mounting evidence that sleep deprivation leads to a higher risk of obesity and Alzheimer’s disease . Large population studies reflect a saddening truth—the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life . Not only that, sleep helps us to hold onto our memories and to learn facts and skills faster, making it important for everyone including infants, students, athletes, pilots, and doctors.

dreams essay for bsc

Much of this I outline in my new book, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams , which summarizes the many findings we have about sleep and its function in our lives.

But what about dreaming? Does it also have a purpose?

Recent work in my neuroscience lab and the work of other scientists has shown that dreams may have a very particular function important to our well-being. Here are the two main ways dreams help us.

Dreaming is like overnight therapy

It’s said that time heals all wounds, but my research suggests that time spent in dream sleep is what heals. REM-sleep dreaming appears to take the painful sting out of difficult, even traumatic, emotional episodes experienced during the day, offering emotional resolution when you awake the next morning.

REM sleep is the only time when our brain is completely devoid of the anxiety-triggering molecule noradrenaline. At the same time, key emotional and memory-related structures of the brain are reactivated during REM sleep as we dream. This means that emotional memory reactivation is occurring in a brain free of a key stress chemical, which allows us to re-process upsetting memories in a safer, calmer environment.

More on Sleep

Explore the neuroscience of sleep .

Learn how meditation can improve sleep .

Discover how sleeping poorly can cause conflict in your relationship .

Learn why sleep is key to peak performance .

How do we know this is so? In one study in my sleep center, healthy young adult participants were divided into two groups to watch a set of emotion-inducing images while inside an MRI scanner. Twelve hours later, they were shown the same emotional images—but for half the participants, the twelve hours were in the same day, while for the other half the twelve hours were separated by an evening of sleep.

Those who slept in between the two sessions reported a significant decrease in how emotional they felt in response to seeing those images again, and their MRI scans showed a significant reduction in reactivity in the amygdala, the emotional center of the brain that creates painful feelings. Moreover, there was a reengagement of the rational prefrontal cortex of the brain after sleep that helped maintain a dampening influence on emotional reactivity. In contrast, those who remained awake across the day showed no such dissolving of emotional reactivity over time.

That in itself doesn’t say anything about the role of dreaming. But we had recorded each participant’s sleep during the intervening night between the two test sessions, and we found that specific brain activity that reflected a drop in stress-related brain chemistry during the dream state determined the success of overnight therapy from one individual to the next.

Dreaming has the potential to help people de-escalate emotional reactivity, probably because the emotional content of dreams is paired with a decrease in brain noradrenaline. Support for this idea came from a study done by Murray Raskind on vets with PTSD, who often suffer debilitating nightmares. When given the drug Prazosin—a medication that lowers blood pressure and also acts as a blocker of the brain stress chemical noradrenaline—the vets in his study had fewer nightmares and fewer PTSD symptoms than those given a placebo. Newer studies suggest this effect can be shown in children and adolescents with nightmares, as well, though the research on this is still in its infancy.

The evidence points toward an important function of dreams: to help us take the sting out of our painful emotional experiences during the hours we are asleep, so that we can learn from them and carry on with our lives.

Dreaming enhances creativity and problem-solving

It’s been shown that deep non-REM sleep strengthens individual memories. But REM sleep is when those memories can be fused and blended together in abstract and highly novel ways. During the dreaming state, your brain will cogitate vast swaths of acquired knowledge and then extract overarching rules and commonalties, creating a mindset that can help us divine solutions to previously impenetrable problems.

How do we know dreaming and not just sleep is important to this process?

In one study , we tested this by waking up participants during the night—during both non-REM sleep and dreaming sleep—and gave them very short tests: solving anagram puzzles, where you try to unscramble letters to form a word (e.g., OSEOG = GOOSE). First, participants were tested beforehand, just to familiarize them with the test. Then, we monitored their sleep and woke them up at different points of the night to perform the test. When woken during non-REM sleep, they were not particularly creative—they could solve very few puzzles. But, when we woke up participants during REM sleep, they were able to solve 15-35 percent more puzzles than when they were awake. Not only that, participants woken while dreaming reported that the solution just “popped” into their heads, as if it were effortless.

In another study , I and my colleagues taught participants a series of relational facts—such as, A>B, B>C, C>D, and so on—and tested their understanding by asking them questions (e.g., Is B>D or not? ). Afterwards, we compared their performance on this test before and after a full night’s sleep, and also after they’d had a 60- to 90-minute nap that included REM sleep. Those who’d slept or had a long nap performed much better on this test than when they were awake, as if they’d put together disparate pieces of a jigsaw puzzle in their sleep.

Some may consider this trivial, but it is one of the key operations differentiating your brain from your computer. It also underlies the difference between knowledge (retention of individual facts) and wisdom (knowing what they all mean when you fit them together). The latter seems to be the work of REM-sleep dreaming.

“It’s said that time heals all wounds, but my research suggests that time spent in dream sleep is what heals”

Dreaming improves creative problem solving, too, according to another study . Participants learned to navigate a virtual maze using trial and error and aided by the placement of unique objects—like Christmas trees—at certain junctions in the maze. After this learning session, the group was split in two, with half napping and half watching a video for 90 minutes. Nappers were occasionally awoken to ask about the content of their dreams; those watching a video were also asked about thoughts going through their minds.

Afterwards, the participants again tried to solve the maze, and those who napped were significantly better at it than those who didn’t, as expected. But the nappers who reported dreaming about the maze were 10 times better at the task than those who napped and didn’t dream about the maze. There’s a reason you’ve never been told to stay awake on a problem.

Looking at the content of these dreams, it was clear that the participants didn’t dream a precise replay of the learning experience while awake. Instead, they were cherry-picking salient fragments of the learning experience and attempting to place them within the catalog of preexisting knowledge. This is how dreaming helps us be more creative.

While the benefits of dreaming are real, too many of us have problems getting a full eight hours of sleep and lose out on these advantages. Alternatively, we may think we’re the exception to the rule—that we’re one of those people who doesn’t happen to need a lot of sleep. But nothing could be further from the truth. Research clearly shows that people who overestimate their ability to get by on less sleep are sadly wrong.

Five ways to enhance your sleep

So how can we be sure to get enough sleep and experience a dream state? While we may be tempted to use sleeping pills to get to sleep, this has been shown to be detrimental to dreaming. Instead of taking pills, here are some simple ways to enhance your sleep:

1. Make sure your room is dark and that you are not looking at bright light sources—i.e., computer screens and cell phones—in the last hour or two before going to bed. You may even want to start dimming lights in your house in the earlier parts of the evening, which helps to stimulate sleepiness.

2. Go to bed and wake up at approximately the same time every day. This helps signal to your body a regular time for sleeping. It’s no use trying to sleep in a lot on weekends. There is no way to make up for regular sleep loss during the week.

3. Keep the temperature in your house cool at night—maybe even cooler than you think it should be, like around 65 degrees. Your body temperature needs to drop at night for sleep, and a lower room temperature helps signal your brain that it’s time to sleep.

4. If you have trouble falling asleep, or wake in the night feeling restless, don’t stay in bed awake. That trains the brain that your bed is not a place for sleeping. Instead, get up and read a book under dim light in a different room. Don’t look at your computer or cell phone. When sleepiness returns, then go back to bed. Or if you don’t want to get out of bed, try meditating. Studies suggest it helps individuals fall asleep faster, and also improves sleep quality.

5. Don’t have caffeine late in the day or an alcohol-infused nightcap. Both of these interfere with sleep—either keeping you awake or stimulating frequent wake-ups during the night.

Sleep is the single most effective thing we can do to rest our brain and physical health each day. Atop of sleep, dreaming provides essential emotional first aid and a unique form of informational alchemy. If we wish to be as healthy, happy, and creative as possible, these are facts well worth waking up to.

About the Author

Matthew Walker

Matthew Walker

Matthew Walker is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley, and the director of the university’s Center for Human Sleep Science .

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Essay Samples on Dream

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Best topics on Dream

1. Explaining Why Dreams and Goals Are Valuable

2. A Glimpse into Life 10 Years From Now

3. Turning My Dream to Become an Enterpreneur to Reality

4. If I Had a Million Dollars: Dreams and Possibilities

5. My Passion for Becoming a Registered Nurse

6. Following Dreams: With Special Reference To Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist

7. Illusion vs Reality it “The Great Gatsby” and Other Literature

8. Passion And Dream Vs. Reality In The Face Of Apple

9. Jungian Psychology And Dream Analysis Applied To The Movie Sleep Dealer

10. My Personal Struggles with Financial Need as a Student

11. What I Would Spend Lottery Money On

12. The Pact and Ways to Fulfill a Dream

13. Why I Want to Be a Neonatal Nurse

14. Waking Up from a Wishful Dream in Inception

15. Analysis of Separate Scenes and Narratives in Inception

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Essay on My Dream for Students and Children

500+ words essay on my dream.

Everyone has a dream in his life which they want to achieve when they grow up. Some kids want to become rich so that they can buy anything and some want to be a doctor, lawyer, or engineer. But only you know that for achieving these goals you have to work hard and stay attentive to it. In this essay on my dream, we are going to discuss the basic things that will help in achieving my dream .

Essay on My Dream

Determination

For turning a dream into reality the first thing that you need is determination. This will help you in a lot of ways. Firstly, it will help you decide the course of action for doing anything. Besides, it will also help you to plan the journey ahead. Also, it will help to take things slow and maintain a steady pace towards the dream.

Moreover, no matter how big my dream planning and setting short term goals will always help. This is important because rushing to your dream will not going to help you in any way. Besides, there is some dream that requires time and they follow a process without following it you cannot achieve that dream.

Staying Motivated

Lack of motivation is one of the main causes that force a person to leave his dream behind. So, staying motivated is also part of the goal. And if you can’t stay positive then you won’t be able to achieve the dream. There are many people out there that quit the journey of their dreams mid-way because they lack motivation .

Keep Remembering Goal

For completing the dream you have to keep your dream in the mind. And remind this dream to yourself daily. There come hard times when you feel like quitting at those times just remember the goal it helps you stay positive . And if you feel like you messed up big times then start over with a fresh mind.

Reward Yourself

You don’t need to cover milestones to reward yourself. Set a small target towards your dream and on fulfilling them reward yourself . These rewards can be anything from toffee to your favorite thing. Besides, this is a good way of self-motivation.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Take Some Breaks

Working towards your goal not mean that you work day and night without stopping. Apart from that, due to continuous efforts, people soon start to become de-motivated. So, taking a break will help your body and mind. For doing so, take a break in between your schedule for some time an engage yourself in other activities.

Stay Among Positive People

Your company affects you in a lot of ways than you can imagine. So, be with people who appreciate you and stay away from people who distract and criticize you.

Don’t Hesitate to Make Mistakes

dreams essay for bsc

To sum it up, we can say that dreaming of a goal is far easier than achieving it. And for fulfilling your dream you need a lot of things and also have to sacrifice many things.

Above all, for fulfilling your dream plan and work according to it because it will lead you to the right path. And never forget to dream big because they help in overcoming every obstacle in life.

{ “@context”: “https://schema.org”, “@type”: “FAQPage”, “mainEntity”: [{ “@type”: “Question”, “name”: “What’s the best way to achieve a dream?”, “acceptedAnswer”: { “@type”: “Answer”, “text”: “There is no best way for achieving your dream. However, there are certain things that can help you in achieving your dream like being clear to your goal, keep trying, being determinant and several other qualities.” } }, { “@type”: “Question”, “name”: “What can be the biggest dream of anyone’s life?”, “acceptedAnswer”: { “@type”: “Answer”, “text”:”From my point of view being healthy and happy can be the biggest dream of anyone’s life. “} }] }

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The Difficult Path: My Dreams and Goals in Life

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Published: Jun 5, 2019

Words: 1934 | Pages: 4 | 10 min read

Works Cited

  • Emmons, R. A. (2003). Flourishing: The positive person and the good life. American Psychologist, 58(1), 100-110.
  • Hubbard, E. (n.d.). Elbert Hubbard quotes. Goodreads. Retrieved from https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/412-there-is-no-failure-except-in-no-longer-trying
  • Latham, G. P. (2004). The motivational benefits of goal-setting. Academy of Management Perspectives, 18(4), 126-129.
  • Pausch, R., & Zaslow, J. (2008). The last lecture. Hachette UK.
  • Stapp, B. (2009). Myths and realities of professional singing. Indiana University Press.
  • Turkay, S. (2015). Setting goals: Who, why, how? Journal of Instructional Psychology, 42(1), 8-13.

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Seven brilliant student essays on your wildest dreams for 2020.

Read winning essays from our spring 2020 student writing contest.

dreams essay for bsc

For the spring 2020 student writing contest, we invited students to read the YES! article “ Alicia Garza: How to Prepare for 2020 ” by Kate Werning. Alicia Garza, co-founder of #BlackLivesMatter offered this advice, “Clarity inside of chaos can help us find direction when it seems like everything around us is unstable.” Lots of things may keep students up at night or make them anxious. Students wrote about what they might accomplish in their wildest dreams for themselves or for this nation—and the steps they would take to make this vision a reality.

THE WINNERS

From the hundreds of essays written, these seven were chosen as winners. Be sure to read the author’s response to the essay winners and literary gems that caught our eye.

You can hear four students read their winning essays on the Irresistible podcast. Be prepared to be inspired! Thank you to author and Irresistible’s founding director Kate Werning for sharing these powerful stories.

Middle School Winner: Theo Cooksey

High School Winner: Kira Walter

University Winner: Athina Amanor

Powerful Voice Winner: Sary Barrios

Powerful Voice Winner: Avery Chase

Powerful Voice Winner: Daniel Cook

“Can I Dream?” Winner: Maitreya Motel

From the author Kate Werning: Response to Essay Winners

Literary gems, middle school winner.

Theo Cooksey

Brier Middle School, Brier, Wash.

dreams essay for bsc

Looking Back to Move Forward

I’ve never really looked at long-term goals for myself, as Alicia Garza suggests in the YES! article “How to Prepare for 2020” by Kate Werning. Other than my goal of reaching Eagle Scout before I turn 18, I tend to live day to day. I’m 13, so shouldn’t I just, well, be a kid? Isn’t goal planning and future planning something adults do? To be honest, when I read the article and learned what the topic was, I locked up like a clam. Sharing dreams of how I could positively change the world makes me uncomfortable. Why would I open myself up to that level of critique, especially in middle school? Although I would love to see advancements to reduce the effects of climate change and uneven wealth distribution, I can’t visualize myself impacting these issues right now.

This led me to wonder why I stopped thinking about my ability to influence the future in a way where anything is possible. What made me narrow my scope and start looking down, rather than seeing my potential? I believed I couldn’t possibly change the world if I could hardly impact myself. If you’re always working hard at fitting into a world by other’s standards, how do you have time to dream of your possibilities? This made me ask, “When did I allow this box to contain me?” When I realized I wasn’t accepted as myself.

When I was young, I possessed an immense personality that couldn’t be contained. I was a giant, perpetual motor hurling questions, wanting answers, always moving. However, over years of school, my personality withered, and my motor followed suit. Going from a storm to no more than a summer breeze, my motor was barely able to push paper. Why did that happen? I quieted my voice, so I wouldn’t be told I was too loud. I suppressed my motor, so I wouldn’t be told to stop moving. I spoke less so I wouldn’t constantly be told to stop talking and stop interrupting. 

After spending so much energy shrinking my personality, I hardly had time to look up and think about what I wanted to do. How do I get back to looking up and out into the world? I believe that this assignment has given me the chance to start doing just that. As I uncoil the past, undo the steps and remember the moments that quieted and contained me, stole my voice, and seized my motor, I am determined to recreate what I lost. I will slowly rebuild my motor into an impervious hurricane that will break out of the box that limited me. My opinion will not be hidden from others.

As I lift my head up, I will start with the small things and my familiar spaces. For me, these are working on what affects me directly, like school and what I enjoy outside of school. I will build the forge in our backyard with my dad to pursue blacksmithing together. I will continue to hone my skills in archery. I will dust off my trumpet and give myself the chance to hit the high notes. I will earn Life Scout rank to put me one step closer to Eagle Scout. By keeping my head up and moving forward with a plan, I no longer need to be the kid who internalized everything.

Becoming a better me now, at 13, will make me a better person who may just be able to influence climate change and build a more equitable wealth distribution system when I get older.

Theo Cooksey, an eighth grader from Lynnwood, Washington, is an avid reader and video game player. Theo plays the euphonium and trumpet, and is an expert in Star Wars movies and music. During the COVID-19 quarantine, he is learning to bake and is building a forge.

High School Winner

Kira Walter

Mamaroneck High School, Mamaroneck, N.Y.

dreams essay for bsc

Turning Flowers to Trees

 Maybe we used to be trees. Rainforests of friendly monsters, scraping the sky, communicating, and reaching the sun. Maybe roots used to run where we couldn’t see them, connecting us to each other and spreading through the world like telephone lines across our continent. But somehow, though the earth stayed warm and the rain fell on our soil, we evolved from trees into flowers. Flowers alone in our own empty fields, roots too short to reach anything. 

At a high school with over 1,000 students, I notice how we pass each other on the street, in the hallway, lucky if our eyes meet for a moment, if our hearts touch for a second. We are isolated. Although I hope for a world where none go hungry, where violence is absent, where rivers breathe with cold clean life, and wild creatures run through lush green forests, I first hope for a world where we can connect. A world where America’s youth doesn’t have to contemplate whether it is better to live in the light or commit suicide in the darkness. 

My wildest dream for this nation is that people will reach out to those suffering, to America’s youth whose second leading cause of death is suicide. It was not too long ago that a friend approached me about trying to take her own life; she locked herself in a bathroom filled with poisonous gas, waiting for her breath to go soft and blow out like a candle in the wind. We had always been distant, but she chose to share her secret with me because she had no one else to share it with.  

According to the Jason Foundation, 3,069 high schoolers in the U.S. attempt suicide every day. Among this group, four out of five leave clear signs of depression. So why do so many signs, such as drug use, sleep shortages or extreme mood swings, go unnoticed? The answer is isolation. People are so separate from each other that the chances of being discovered are nearly impossible. Although many try to ascribe teen suicide to the pressures of excelling both academically and socially, overcoming these obstacles can be easier than they seem. Easier as long as students have someone to support them through struggles. 

Many teenagers who take their lives are members of healthy families and are surrounded by friends, but they feel as if they can’t share their troubles with them. They fear that this would be a burden on those they care about and so they remain silent. Teens let dangerous secrets collect like water droplets in a jar. One day, this jar reaches its capacity, problems overcome them, and alone, they surrender. In Kate Werning’s YES! article “How to Prepare for 2020,” Alicia Garza explains that “clarity inside of chaos can help us find direction when it seems like everything around us is unstable.” I dream our community will teach suffering teens to find that clarity – that we will help them blossom on a path to success. 

In modern-day society, too many people shame others for attempting suicide. They identify them as troubled and accuse them of being too weak to deal with life’s challenges. To combat suicide, I’ll make sure to do the opposite. I’ll reach out, check in with, and cheer up my peers. I’ll try to comfort those in need of comfort. Because in an ever-changing world of frightening dangers and darkness, we need to be trees with roots linked together in harmonious peace. We need to support each other into a new decade, out of the shadows and towards the sun.

Kira Walter is a sophomore at Mamaroneck High School in New York. Kira writes for the school newspaper and plays on the varsity tennis team. She has enjoyed studying classical piano since she was five years old and volunteers for the American Legion in her free time. When she grows up, Kira aspires to continue her passion for writing.

University Winner

Athina Amanor

Spring Hill College, Mobile, Ala.

dreams essay for bsc

Woman with No Nation

“You sound like a white girl.” “You’re an American baby now.” “Wow, you actually speak very good English.” “Did you live in a tree?” 

As a Ghanaian immigrant living in the United States, I’ve heard it all. Statements from my own family members living back home and from friends I’ve made in this foreign land serve as reminders that there really isn’t a place for me. I’m too American to be African, yet I am too African to be American. Even college professors have laughed while a fellow student mocked a group of African languages by clicking his tongue at me and asking,  “What did I just say in your language?” disregarding my offense and reinforcing ignorance. Many of my anxieties and doubts about self-worth stem from these types of interactions. I have adapted, self-monitoring to the highest degree, in order to be more palatable and to fit in. 

As an outwardly appearing “African American,” I fight negative stereotypes when interacting with white people, striving for excellence in both academics and athletics and hoping to outrun stereotypes and shatter prejudices. Within the African American community, I appear as a poser. I walk, talk, and think too differently to be welcomed there either. For my relatives, I speak too “American,” too fast, and I stress all the wrong syllables. I’ve carefully created so many personalities, slipping out of one skin and into the next to appease others, that I hardly recognize my true self. So, when I hear words like,” go back to your country,” a tidal wave of confusion hits me. Sometimes I wish I could, but I know the same alienation I feel here would be waiting for me in Ghana because I would still be seen as an outsider. I am a woman with no nation. I worry about being viewed as second class, about not being awarded the same rights and freedoms, about losing my culture, and about losing irreplaceable familial relationships. 

So, what in my wildest dreams do I wish for this nation? I wish for acceptance. I wish for understanding. I wish for kindness and an egalitarian mindset for all. I wish for the extinction of xenophobia and the predominance of support. I wish for a community in which I do not feel the need to prove I am not a threat, where my culture is not a trend, and above all else, where being me is enough. My wishes may seem far-fetched and on par with beauty queens claiming to want nothing more than world peace, but I am aware that I must make efforts on my own behalf and not simply put wishes out into the world.

In this new decade, I continue to fight for my dream by working with refugees and  building bridges between them and other volunteers as both groups work together to create a safe space filled with the same friendship and sense of belonging that I’ve craved for myself. I continue to make strides towards my dream by rejoicing in differences and staying open to immersing myself in new experiences without judgment. I continue to make leaps in my effort to make my dream a reality by engaging in intercultural, interreligious, and interracial dialogues, fanning the flames of mutual understanding.

And, as I look at the next ten years, I plan to make bounds towards realizing my dream by doing something we all struggle to do in life:  to discover who I am outside of the carefully curated personalities I put on and give that person all the support and acceptance I so willingly give to others yet constantly deny myself. This new decade demands that I stop viewing my self-ascribed status as a woman with no nation as weakness, and make way for the potential it holds. 

Athina Amanor is a Ghanaian immigrant who recently completed her undergraduate coursework in cellular and molecular biology. As a recently retired student-athlete, Athina enjoys staying active by taking long walks, going for short runs, and playing tennis with her older brothers. She hopes that her concern for the human condition and openness to helping others serve her well as she pursues a career in pediatric cardiology.

Powerful Voice Winner

Sary Barrios

dreams essay for bsc

A Borderless World

As I walk into the kitchen, I see both of my grandmas stirring the masa and my mom putting the tamales de carne on the stove and cutting different fruits to boil in the pot for caliente . It’s Noche Buena and my dad, my siblings, and I are hanging ornaments and lights. At the bottom of the tree, we arrange the Three Wise Men and the animals on one side, Mary and Joseph on the opposite side of each other, and place Jesus in his manger at the center of them all. Lastly, we put the star on top of the tree, and turn on the beautiful lights. At 8 p.m., we gather around the table to eat. We pray to God for all the good things he has brought to us in the past year. Then, we pass the tamales de carne around, talk about our family in Guatemala and how they’d decorate their tree with clementines and light fireworks at Christmas, and laugh at my brother’s jokes. Everyone is together in one place, one day, one moment. But that’s all a dream.

Instead, it’s only my parents and me at the table. Some people are able to see their family every single day or at least once a week, but my parents are forbidden to see their relatives. They went through a lot to get here, and they’ve never gone back to Guatemala. While they are grateful for the opportunities here, the borders they crossed are like a cage, keeping them from seeing their loved ones. So when I dream of a better future, I dream of a world without borders.

These boundaries keep our families apart. A few months before I was born, my dad received a call: my grandpa had passed. My dad had a hard time dealing with not being able to see his father during those last few days he was alive. This was devastating. I see other kids with their siblings, playing soccer, bonding, and telling each other jokes, but I only see my siblings every two years if I’m lucky. I can’t imagine how I would feel if my siblings were here. I know I wouldn’t feel as lonely as I do now. 

It’s not easy to be a child of immigrants, feeling scared every second of your life, and constantly thinking about “what ifs.” Last summer, when I was at camp in Maine, miles away from my parents, immigration police arrived on my first day. I wasn’t allowed to contact anyone, and I had a meltdown. It was heart-wrenching to think about being separated from my parents, and yet these borders have stopped my parents from doing the same—seeing their mothers forever. Can you imagine not being able to see your mother?

A borderless world is like an eagle soaring through the sky, completely free. In a borderless world, families would be united and everyone would live without fear of someone searching for them. In her YES! article “Alicia Garza: How to Prepare for 2020, author Kate Werning says, “We are often called to reflect on our lives, and how we want to mobilize for ourselves and our communities.” I often reflect on this beautiful dream that one day our world would be borderless, a dream that I will fight for.   

At the camp in Maine, I learned about the Hawaiian word ohana . Ohana is the spirit of family togetherness. It means that no one is ever going to be forgotten or left behind; they are stuck with each other no matter what. Ohana can also mean “nest,” which is where birds go to be safe with their families. Just like birds, immigrants want to be with their families in a safe space. Everyone together in one place, one day, one moment. 

Sary Barrios is a Guatemalan American student at Mamaroneck High School. Sary’s passion is to help others and give back to those who are in need of more. She has a huge love for her heritage and family.

Avery Chase

Kirkwood High School, Kirkwood, Mo.

dreams essay for bsc

There is a French photographer who said: “I will never be able to take a picture as beautiful as I see it in my eyes.”

Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is a rare disease—there are less than 200,000 patients in the U.S. I was a competitive gymnast at nine years old. At a tournament,  I awkwardly dismounted from the bars and landed on my ankle. That moment changed my life. For the next eighteen months, I saw six doctors, four therapists, and three psychologists, took three  trips to different pain clinics, and missed about 100 days of school to search for answers to “the sprained ankle that could.” I was one of the “lucky” ones. That summer was a revolving door of experts dismissing me one after another.

The pain I experienced was beyond my ankle. I understand that I grew up differently, that most kids don’t divide their family moving cross-country for chronic pain rehabilitation. I have been living with CRPS for nine years—with a brief remission circa seventh grade—and a prognosis of “years to a lifetime.” Some days I’m better at accepting what I know and what I don’t. Other days it’s easier to lie in bed complacent to the pain. No matter what type of mindset, I must constantly strive to recover and hide disappointment every day that wasn’t pain-free. Outsiders haven’t seen the pictures I’ve seen—not through my eyes. Outsiders don’t know what it’s like to watch a 70-year-old squat better than you or realize that the only “record” you hold is “Longest-Stayed Patient,” not “Highest All-Around Score” in a gymnastics meet (where I really wanted to be).

It’s difficult to paint a picture of when my body physically shakes uncontrollably. My eyes scan it slowly, realizing my helplessness. Or the picture of mornings I wake up with a split lip after having habitually chewed it. Or the days I wish I wasn’t a breathing mortgage for my parents. Or the nights I spend praying for the safety switch, trusting my body will scientifically pass out if pain exceeds a threshold. There are still stories that I can’t tell and stories I don’t want to remember.

In psychologists’ offices, I go mad trying to cling onto any word I can to describe my pain, and, too often, I fail. In my wildest dream, I’m able to paint the masterpiece that finally allows people to understand the years and tears. Currently, I am trying for a picture-perfect life. I’m taking steps to overcome my highest anxieties by listening to doctors, pushing through compulsions, getting out of bed, and challenging cognitive distortions. I am living the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I know that the steps to overcome Chronic regional pain syndrome don’t necessarily mean a pain-free life. I can’t change the existence of the problem itself, but I can change the way I deal with the problem. In my wildest dream I can accept myself and whatever I accomplish, even if it is not perfect.  I can learn to accept that CRPS and everything it comes with will always be a part of my life, my disappointments, and my triumphs.

The pain translates to today. Every day, I make decisions based on that gymnastics meet nine years ago and the hundreds of hours of doctor’s appointments and clinic visits throughout the years. I wonder who I’d be if I skipped gymnastics that night. If Boston is simply a city with smart colleges, not just medical treatments. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand a life without my pain. What I do understand though is that being healed won’t change me. I know how it has influenced me, but I doubt I will ever stop learning either. For that reason, my life is a life with CRPS, with and without pain. I am who I am because of these experiences and the circumstances I have yet to face.

Avery Chase lives in St. Louis, Missouri, the city with the most neurotic weather in the country. Avery coaches gymnastics in her free time and has an irrational fear of cats. She plans to attend Kansas University and study social work.

Daniel Cook

dreams essay for bsc

Fighting the Undertow

Have you ever been caught in an undertow? Imagine swimming through waves—feeling the cool rush send a shock through your body— when a force begins pulling you away from the shore. You try swimming back to the beach but feel the current’s grip dragging you farther out to sea. After a minute, your arms and legs begin hurting. You start choking on water as you gasp for air. You attempt to yell for help only to be choked on by more water. Your mind is in a state of panic as your body begins shutting down. Suddenly, you remember what your parents told you, “Swim parallel to the shore.” You turn and start swimming again. Every muscle screams in agony, but you keep fighting. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, the force stops. Relief floods your mind. You slowly swim to the shore and crawl onto the sand. Falling flat on your back, you breathe peace back into your soul. 

Life is full of undertows. Today we are faced with so much political and social injustice that many people feel as if they are caught in an undertow of emotions. I was caught in this particular undertow for a while. As a gay male living in the Deep South, I have struggled with finding my place in society. I have often asked myself questions such as  “Who do I want to become?,” “What do I stand for?,” and “How can I help others?.” With the start of the new year, I have decided it is time to face these questions. 

I am an activist at heart. It is my purpose. With the help of the YES! article “How to Prepare for 2020” and Alicia Garza, I was able to pinpoint objectives that I should focus on instead of aimlessly treading through life, being swept further away from my goals. I want to be able to hold my husband’s hand in public without eyes glaring in our direction. I want to have a place of worship that accepts me. I want to be able to enroll my children in school without the fear of them being bullied for having gay parents. I want a job without having the fear of being dismissed because of my sexuality. I want to be seen as an equal instead of as an “other.” And most of all, I want to live in a world where I don’t have to fear being murdered like Matthew Shepard. 

In order to achieve all of this for myself and people like me, I have to be more active. The article helped me outline steps I can take within the next year to help myself and others in the LGBTQ+ community. These steps include getting involved with a local LGBTQ+ activist organization, getting trained in how to provide safe spaces for people to freely discuss issues affecting them, and reading more literature and research on LGBTQ+ issues while  making these resources more available to the public. If I can conquer these steps, I will have made 2020 worth wild. 

2020 is the year I have decided I will no longer be a victim of the undertow. By focusing on my goals and following steps to achieve them, I will have the knowledge and ability to get out of the treacherous current of fear and anxiety about being who I am. I will no longer drown in the self-doubt accompanied by not knowing what I stand for. I will glide through the waters of hate and social injustice and hopefully arrive one day on the shores of equality, love, and acceptance. 

Daniel Cook is a proud gay man. Daniel was born and raised in Alabama and embraces his Southern roots while also advocating against the social injustices around him. He wants to use his privilege to help others have their voices heard and dreams of a world where all lives are valued and no one is considered an “other.”

“Can I Dream?” Winner

Maitreya Motel

High Meadow School, Rosendale, N.Y.

dreams essay for bsc

Can I Dream?

How do you dream in a nightmare? How do you solve a puzzle when half of the pieces have been stolen? I remember being barely twelve years old when the shooting happened at Parkland. My dad held onto me like I would vanish any second, sobbing while we listened to the news. 

When you’re 12 years old, you’ve thought about death a lot in theory, but rarely in a way that’s grounded in reality. You normally aren’t considering, “Oh, it could happen like this. Someone could have a gun and you could be in the bathroom at the wrong time. Someone could have a gun and your sixth-grade classmates could sneeze at the wrong moment. Someone could have a gun and shoot you. And you won’t be able to say goodbye to your mom and dad or tell them how much you love them. When’s recess?” 

I guess kids used to dream about being movie stars and star football players and millionaires. Now, I look around and we’re praying to make it through high school. And beyond that? Will the planet be liveable? Will our kids be okay? We want answers and guarantees. Are there any guarantees anymore? Our dreams are survival based. How much can you dream before waking up again? 

But I do have a dream.

My dream is to have the luxury of dreaming. My dream is to live in a world where what matters most is that new movie or first date. My dream is for us to be kids again instead of feeling like the future is on our shoulders. If I lived in this world, I could breathe again. Maybe, just this once, I’d get to sleep.

Maitreya Motel, an eighth-grade student at High Meadow School in New York, has been writing and producing her political Vlog “Eye On Politics” since age 10. Maitreya has been a featured speaker at women’s marches, climate change events, and political rallies, and is a member of her town’s youth commission and her county’s climate-smart commission. Her best pals are her two rescue dogs, Jolene and Zena. 

dreams essay for bsc

Dear Theo, Kira, Athina, Sary, Avery, Daniel,  Maitreya,

Thank you so much for sharing your writing with all of us (and some of you have shared your essays in your own voice on the podcast, too!). It takes guts to be real and vulnerable in public—to share your struggles and to be audacious enough to have dreams & compelling visions in a world where there is so much suffering.

At Irresistible , we believe that healing and social transformation are deeply connected— and that a critical foundation for both is radical honesty. To face where we feel vulnerable and afraid and powerless. Where we’ve been humiliated, shortchanged, discriminated against, or told to give up. To really feel into those places, because our deepest truth is what connects us and can become the source of our greatest power. We have to be real with ourselves about what hurts and scares us most, and connect with others’ heartbreaks and fears to move in a journey toward change together.

I see that courage in each of you. Avery, we feel you so deeply when you say “It’s difficult to paint a picture of when my body physically shakes uncontrollably. My eyes scan it slowly, realizing my helplessness.” Athina, we connect when you talk about feeling like a “woman with no nation.” Theo, I remember when I’ve been there too when you say “Sharing dreams of how I could positively change the world makes me uncomfortable. Why would I open myself up to that level of critique, especially in middle school?”

Yet despite the discouragement and pain, you still have big dreams—and I want to live in these worlds you are visioning! Maitreya’s world, where kids “have the luxury of dreaming.”Sary’s “borderless world [that] is like an eagle, soaring through the sky, completely free.” Daniel’s world where he is “able to enroll [his] children in school without the fear of them being bullied for having gay parents.” I want to follow your leadership and the leadership of youth organizers all over the country—you truly are “ Generation Transformation .”

As Kira paints for us, “Maybe roots used to run where we couldn’t see them, connecting us to each other and spreading through the world like telephone lines across our continent.” I see each of you growing those intertwining roots through your commitments to working with refugees, volunteering with your local LGBTQ+ activist organization, and training your bodies and minds toward your goals.

Especially now, as 2020 is turning out so completely differently than any of us could have imagined, the moves you are making toward your visions are critical. I’ve often felt like my hard work trying to contribute to liberation movements has been futile, that the world is getting crueler in so many ways. But I also remember that even though I’m only 32 years old, I am amazed at how much has already changed radically in my lifetime— toward a world of more racial justice, immigrant rights, LGBTQ+ & gender liberation, disability justice, and so much more. It does get better.

adrienne maree brown teaches us that in every small action we take, we shape change. Even under the intense conditions we currently face, this remains true. With our big visions as a strong north star, we find the next right move we can make toward freedom.

Keep dreaming, keep taking action, and keep sharing your story with powerful honesty. I’m right next to you on the journey.

—Kate Werning

We received many outstanding essays for the spring 2020 Student Writing Competition. Though not every participant can win the contest, we’d like to share some excerpts that caught our eye:

My wildest dreams would be a world filled with non-judgmental people, self expectations—not anybody else’s expectations of me—being me and loving it, less school stress, and, of course, free puppies! —Izzy Hughes, The Crest Academy, Salida, Colo.

I want to imagine a place where I can go wherever I want without having to worry about another person violating my body. No one should ever touch another person without their permission. That is what I want.  —Ruby Wilsford, Goodnight Middle School, San Marcos, Tex.  

Type 1 diabetes is not a choice or a result of poor life decisions. It is an autoimmune disorder in which the body attacks itself. How can Americans justify that it is acceptable to pay seventy-two times the worth of a life-or-death product? —Elise Farris, Spring Hill College, Mobile, Ala.

I was born on April 26, 2005, in a hospital in Appleton, Wisconsin, the home of the first hydropower plant and the “world-famous” Harry Houdini Museum. Then, at age three, my family moved to Beloit, Wisconsin, a town on the board of Wisconsin and Illinois. My parents sent me and my siblings to a Catholic school 12 miles north in a town called Janesville, Wisconsin. It was like living in two cities at once. My family lived in one and my friends and their families lived in the other. I thought the situation was fine, but as I got older, I started to notice things. I noticed how my friends felt uncomfortable when we went anywhere else in Beloit besides my house. I noticed how adults grimaced when I said I was from Beloit. And, suddenly, I felt my situation wasn’t fine. —Charlotte Mark, Craig High School, Janesville, Wis. 

Pandemics happen when we fail to be aware of how interrelated we really are—when we fail to note the doors we open, the hands we shake, and the spaces we share every day. Mindful of these connections, we realize that the health of one of us affects the health of all of us. We must care for our fellow beings, even if it means personal sacrifice. —Donald Wolford, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio

I can help others, but I also need to know what to do when dark thoughts manifest in my own mind. —Natalie Streuli, Brier Middle School, Brier, Wash.  

If I’ve learned anything in the past 13 years, it’s that things never go as planned. Having a rough draft of your life is okay, but never expect it to turn exactly how you imagined. —Emerson Reed, The Crest Academy, Salida, Colo.

There are about 40 million food-insecure people in the United States and 13 million of those people are children … I want these people to go to sleep full and knowing that they will get another three meals tomorrow. —John Francis, Our Lady Star of the Sea, Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich.

… I was floating, levitating in midair when the voice began slowly whispering. His voice washed over my body like warm sunlight on a summer day. “This is what inner peace feels like. You tried your best and did the most you can, but to achieve this, you must continue on.” He disappeared and the world collapsed on itself. I was motivated to do better but now looking back I wish I had started sooner.   —Nicholas Tyner, American School of The Hague, Wassenaar, Netherlands

Failure isn’t a dangerous monster we should run from. It is a beautiful seed of a flower yet to blossom. —Jarrod Land, Mamaroneck High School, Mamaronec, N.Y.

I’ve yet to figure out how to complain about my perfectionist nature without it sounding like a twisted form of bragging. As it turns out, whining about being tired of trying so hard just makes it look like you’re fishing for praise. Ironically, you rarely get either.  —Claire Beck, Kirkwood High School, Kirkwood, Mo.

I can never talk to my parents about my feelings directly because what goes into the pot is an argument and what comes out is unsolved problem soup with a side of tears. —Tracee Nguyen, President William McKinley High School, Honolulu, Hawai’i

I’m not exactly sure what I want to be when I grow up, but I am certain that it’s not going to require me to know how to find points on a graph or to understand slope intercept form, well at least not to the point that I need to study the subject for months on end, and why do I need to know how to find the cubed root of a six-digit number on paper? Who doesn’t have access to a calculator? —Lauren Ragsdale, Lincoln Middle School, Ypsilanti, Mich. 

I can’t truly say how many nights I’ve spent tossing and turning because something was crawling around in my head. The anxiety smothering any free thoughts I had, forcing me to stay awake, and to start questioning every choice I’ve ever made. Those nights are always the hardest considering who I want to be: somebody who believes without fear of judgment, somebody who loves who they are, somebody who helps without prompting. —Daniel Heineman, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio

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Dream Essay Examples

My dreams for the future.

As I stand at the crossroads of life, gazing into the horizon of possibilities, my heart brims with aspirations and dreams for the future. These dreams are more than just fleeting desires; they are the guiding stars that illuminate my path, inspiring me to strive,...

The Effects of Daydreaming: Exploring Creativity and Productivity

Daydreaming, the spontaneous and often involuntary drifting of the mind into imaginative scenarios, is a common mental phenomenon experienced by individuals of all ages. While often perceived as unproductive or distracting, daydreaming carries a range of effects that extend beyond mere distraction. This essay delves...

If I Found a Pot of Gold

Imagine stumbling upon a pot of gold, shimmering and glinting in the sunlight. The mere thought of such a discovery is exhilarating, but it also prompts deeper contemplation about the potential impact and choices that come with sudden fortune. If I found a pot of...

Discussion is It Better to Dream Big Or Be Realistic

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams”. In is it better to dream big or be realistic essay I want to analyse this topic and find the answer.  Dreams are not only an inference that just comes when we...

If I Won a Million Dollars: Dreams and Impact

Winning a million dollars is a dream that many harbor—a sudden windfall that can transform lives. But what would you do if you won a million dollars? This essay explores the myriad possibilities of what I would do if I were fortunate enough to win...

If I Were President for a Day

If I were given the incredible opportunity to be the President of my country for a single day, I would use that time to initiate positive change, address pressing issues, and inspire a sense of unity among the people. While one day may not be...

If I Won the Lottery: a Glimpse into a Changed Life

The notion of winning the lottery often evokes dreams of financial freedom, limitless possibilities, and a transformed life. This essay delves into the scenario of winning the lottery and explores the various ways in which such an event could impact one's life, considering the question...

The Concept of California Dream Throughout History

The California dream has been powerful all through the ages. However, this dream did not stay the same throughout history. With the changing time, this dream evolved and to accurately describe this California Dream, we need to analyze it according to particular times in history...

Titanic: a Dream that Turned into a Nightmare

One of the most sought after trips during the 1900s took a sharp turn when it was on its maiden voyage. On April 14,1912, a giant ship weighing 52,310 tons, hit an iceberg at 11:40 p. m. leaving the part of the ship, or the...

Analysis of Different Theories of Dream Interpretation

The purpose of this research is to analyze the different theories purported to dream interpretation. Psychological studies, interview videos, and other research findings were examined for this particular paper. Because of the above procedure, dream interpretation can be expressed in various ways in terms of...

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