7-3-I-Search-Ava

media type="custom" key="802187" = How do Spiritual Dreams Connect with Reality? = by Ava

**Introduction**
I remember I went to sleep one Sunday night. I was sad that my weekend was over so soon, but understood that by falling asleep, the next weekend would come sooner. I closed my eyes and soon was in a deep sleep. Suddenly, images and sounds began to enter my mind. These images were blurry but soon came to focus. Standing before me was a skeleton holding my friend's hand. She was frozen with terror, but managed to mouth out the words, "Help me."

My surroundings seemed familiar. I was in my school yard. My friend managed to get out of the skeleton's grasp. She ran to me and she and I witnessed the skeleton screaming. Then, I noticed that the skeleton's left leg was fading away. The skeleton floated toward my friend and I. "You're late... You're late," the skeleton was saying. Actually, it was my mom who was saying that as I found myself in my bedroom. "It was just a dream," I reassured myself. "You're late for school!" my mom yelled. I quickly got ready and ran to school. That same day during recess, my friend from the dream went to the hospital. She had broken her left leg. I remembered my dream and was shocked. I've always heard stories on dreams becoming reality, but I thought they were fake. I then learned dreams and reality have a connection. That day I started to wonder what dreams mean. Are they really omens and can they really predict the future? How do spiritual dreams connect with reality?

**Body**
First of all, what are dreams? I don't mean dreams as in goals or achievements. I mean the dreams we have while we are sleeping. Dreams are certain images that form in your mind while you are sleeping. Dreams seem so real that you are able to hear and talk in them. Your emotions in your dream can be so powerful that you can cry from what was happening in your dream! How do we dream in the first place? There had to be a scientific explanation to this peculiar process so I researched it. I started my research on Monday, April 7th. I went to [|Wikipedia] and searched for dreams. Dreams are linked to rapid eye movement (REM). Rapid eye movement occurs while we are asleep and dreaming. During this stage, our eyes are moving around as much as they are while we are awake.

What do dreams have to do with real life? Is it really possible for dreams to predict the future? On Tuesday, April 8th, I used [|Google] to search sites that pertained to dreams. I arrived to "[|dreams.ca]." In my research, I learned that dreams that can predict the future are called premonitions. An example of a premonition is if you dream of a car accident and the next day, you get run over by a car. There was one woman who was a passenger of the ship Titanic who had a premonition. A day before boarding the ship, the woman dreamed about something bad happening. She warned her husband, but he didn't listen. She and her children wore warm clothes and the Titanic hit the iceberg the next day. She and her children survived, but her husband didn't.

Dreams can also influence people to change their future. Many dreams show what can habit if a person continues a bad habit. I interviewed someone who had a very profound dream. My sister, May, loved candy as a child. Her favorite kind were lollipops. One night, she had a dream that she got these huge, heavy, shiny steel braces because she ate too much candy. That dream scared her so much that she lowered her sugar intake greatly. The dream had predicted the future. This example of a premonition may not seem serious, but dreams have prevented or ended many bad habits such as smoking or drinking alcohol.

May had a dream one night winning the Mega Millions with the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Afterwards, she went on a huge shopping spree. She woke up the next morning and found out that she got a great job. Hearing this, I realized dreams may not always tell us exactly what happens, but gives us a general idea. Dreams are sometimes like omens and indicate what will happen in the near future.

**Conclusion**
In the end, I came to a conclusion that dreams are mysterious events and you can't tell which dreams are going to allow you to see into the future. Even our most brilliant modern scientists cannot fully explain dreams and its relationship to reality. Dreams are created from our long-term memory. So could dreams predict the future? No one knows, but I will start recording my dreams and continue being amazed by how dreams connect with reality.

**Works Cited**
"Dreams - Pratical Dream Analysis & Waking Life Meaning." __Dreams Foundation__. 9 Apr. 2008 <[|http://www.dreams.ca/nightmares.htm#Premonitions>.]

"Dream-Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia." __Wikipedia__. 9 Apr. 2008 <[|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream>.]

Myint, May. Interview conducted in her bedroom on Tuesday, April 7, 2008.

Rock, Andrea. __The Mind At Night: the New Science of How and Why We Dream__. New York: Basic Books, 2003. __Google Books__. 15 May 2008 <[|http://books.google.com/books?id=Djl43V5TTDcC&source=gbs_other_versions_sidebar_s&cad=7>.]