To dream what one dreams is neither wise nor foolish, success nor unsuccessful. No precautions can be taken against it, except, perhaps, that of remaining
permanently awake.
—Margaret MacDonald—
Dreams, like desires and feelings, simply happen. They happen to everyone from early childhood to old age; they’re part of the life of the human mind, and we can’t
really control them. All we ever can control is our behavior—how we act on our dreams, our desires, and our feelings.
At times some of us try to control the uncontrollable, and stay”permanently awake,” to fence out or repress the sadness, desire, or rage that we don’t want to feel. By
doing this we make ourselves doubly unhappy; for human beings are creatures of feeling and fumbling. To try to engineer the unruly parts out of our lives is just to
create another way to feel bad, for the attempt is doomed to fail.
Accepting our roughness, the violence and vulnerability that live within us, is to let go of shame. Why be shamed? All others are the same as we. We can’t choose our
feelings, but we can choose how—or whether—we express them.
If I fence out my dreams and feelings, I turn them into enemies.