You often hear people say that something was “like a dream.” To me it’s ironic that the phrase is considered to be an indication of something better than reality. After all – dreams are fragmentary by nature and while you might enjoy the images flashing through your mind you rarely if ever remember it upon waking and most certainly are unlikely to remember even the greatest of them years from now. And of course there are the obvious deficiencies in that the only sense that is utilized in the process of dreaming is our cognitive processing. There is no way to smell or touch in a dream. We can have the cognitive sensation that we are engaging in these sensory experiences, but it seems a poor substitute for the real thing. A bit like buying a knock off because you can’t afford the real label.
Dreams are an often pleasant byproduct of reality – something to keep us from being bored while we recharge I suppose. But I must admit I have never caught myself saying something was “like a dream.” To me in saying such a thing it is a denigration rather than an elevation of an otherwise pleasant and entirely real – fully experiential- experience.
K's Pensées 