There is a relatively common myth that if you die in your dreams or hit the ground in a falling dream that you will not live to tell about it. Although this myth has been disproved many times, it still holds incredible traction as something that people can imagine being true.
This may have something to do with the fact that the mind can be such a powerful thing and our dreams are often an expression of that.
However, the dreams we would like to discuss today are the ones we have when we are awake. They are the dreams about the best-selling book we will write, the audiences we will speak to, the huge promotion, the exotic cars, or the multi-billion dollar business, just to name a few.
We have been studying and researching the habits of thinking in over 50,000 clients for the last 15 years. This research along with countless other studies, has lent itself to some incredible insights about the gifts and risks associates with certain thinking habits.
Among all the gifts we discovered, there are three that can be so powerful and so potentially dangerous and destructive. They can literally blow apart our lives. This article is going to focus on one—the gift of vivid visualization. What is that? It is the ability to go somewhere in your mind that is different from your current location or circumstances.
Most of us do this more often than we realize. In fact, our research has shown that in entrepreneurial, independent, and ambitious thinkers, that 97% of them share this gift at a very high level and far too often they are using the gift destructively. We commonly refer to this destructive use as “fantasy.”
Fantasy is a process in which we use our gift of visualization to escape into the future to a time when our dreams have already come to fruition. Once there, we create and play out vivid scenarios about what it will be like “then.”
Though very real to the mind, fantasy exists only in our mind. Sometimes it is as if we have moved into mental “castles” in the sky. Unfortunately, the destructive physiological repercussions that inevitably occur are extreme.
Henry David Thoreau wisely counsels, "If you have built castles in the sky, you need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations underneath them."
Before we dive any deeper into fantasy, it is extremely important to emphasize that the creation of any good thing begins with visualization. The basic difference between the intentional creation of a dream and the destructive use of fantasy is why and where we choose to focus our visualization. This decision is driven by our secret desires and real intentions.
The Dilemma
When we engage in fantasy, we seek a life free from stress, frustration, pain, and self-doubt. In fantasy, we use our visualization to get a clear vision of possibility, but instead of focusing on the required steps to create the vision, we can’t help but want it to magically “manifest.” We may even believe that if we visualize our dream with enough intention, it will. We spend productive time revisiting our dream over and over and over. Our dream and its fruits become a frequent, enticing, and even consuming destination.
The Solution
When we intentionally create, we seek and get a clear vision of possibility—something we want to create. When used correctly it will inspire a vision that ignites passion and drives massive action. We will naturally focus on the millimeters between where we stand and where we want to be. We will work without counting the costs or tracking the time and do whatever is required to create our vision in tangible reality. Our dream is a target.
When Dreams Go Bad
Remember the myth about dying in a dream? Just like nocturnal dreaming, you are highly unlikely to die from these fantasies, but that doesn’t mean they are not killing you!
Research has shown that when someone with the gift of vivid visualization starts to experience something that hasn’t been created in reality, his or her body responds as if it already exists. This results in our sympathetic nervous system releasing the hormone and powerful drug norepinephrine. If this drug were available in prescriptive form it would be a controlled substance. It creates a strong sense of euphoria and an emotional high. No wonder it feels so fantastic to dream about what life will be like then.
When we utilize this gift to fantasize and go to this place in our mind to escape, avoid, or prematurely bask in the fruits of our dreams (the vast majority do) then we are in for a rude awakening. When reality shows up differently, and it always does, the body goes into an autonomic (something we cannot control) and defensive posture to protect the fantasy. Instead of releasing norepinephrine, the sympathetic nervous system releases the antithesis, the adrenal hormone cortisol. It is released to speed up metabolism and heal wounds. It can feel like a lightning bolt of anxiety. To add insult to injury, our amygdala, the fight or flight center, releases an army of fear dendrites to shut down energy rich parts of our brain. In short, our empathy, intuition, practical judgment, and common sense are seriously impaired. To top it off, the hippocampus, the short-term memory center, is locked down—nothing in, nothing out. We are battle ready, but who is the enemy? Is it a grizzly bear or some other fierce adversary? No, it is ironic battle of reality attacking our expectations—our concrete conditions for happiness.
It may be hard to hear and embrace for some, but we cannot create a fantasy big enough or altruistic enough to ignite passion no matter how grand or seemingly noble it may appear. In fantasy, we are wired to skip the process for which passion exists—to support us in doing the work to create it in tangible reality. Noble causes may move us to tears that wet our pillow at night, but without a plan for creating it and a willingness to do the work of creation, it is still fantasy.
A few questions to consider
How frustrating is it when life shows up differently than your expectations?
Does it ever feel like you are losing out, surrendering, or giving up or giving in when asked to get real about the comparison between your dreams and your current tangible reality?
Have you ever screamed aloud, "I can almost touch it! I can almost taste it! Why can't I have it? What is wrong with me?”
Have you ever been so excited about a business opportunity, position, idea, or a relationship only to crash into an invisible brick wall—all the stress, pain, frustration, focus, and the boring, mundane, repetitive "work" required to create it?
Do you ever avoid these barriers by spending productive time thinking about what it will be like when you are successful?
Have you been suffering from the "ease” dis-ease?
Have you ever experienced the rollercoaster of emotions associated with fantasy—emotional highs and emotional lows?
Are you where you thought you would be at this point in your life?
Did you think you would be further along by now?
Does it ever feel like you will have to give up, give in, or surrender to accept "what is" or to be grateful for what you have?
Do you ever find yourself erupting in anger over things that really aren’t that important—at least retrospectively?
What now?
How can we change the grizzly bear of reality into a source of unyielding passion?
We will want to become very clear about our own secret desires and real intentions. This is where we can find the triggers for a desire to escape and also find the fire that will ignite the passion needed to sustain the work. We invite you to take the IC Assessment and learn more about your own habits of thinking. This is only the first step of many and will assist you in identifying the gifts within your unique results and expose the challenges that are holding you back. There are very real guidelines to using your mind constructively and we look forward to exploring them with you.
