THE LOST ISLAND

THE LOST ISLAND

I had a strange dream last night, I just returned from a one year research expedition to the south pacific. Most of my time was spent traveling from island to island in search of a fabled island kingdom from many years ago. My journeys lead me to a small uninhabited island far out to sea. I set up my camp on the now uninhabited island and lived and worked there alone for almost 6 months. As I mapped and explored the tiny island I began to accumulate more and more artifacts and written records found in caves. It was evident there was once a rich civilization here.

My guides and collogues on the research ship, recanted stories of a kingdom and civilization that had existed in this area hundreds of years ago. It was rumored that the natives of this island had left the much larger island of Europa, where they felt oppressed, and had little food and opportunity, seeking adventure and freedom.

Records from early supply ships that returned from this new land suggested that the brave few that had left were creating a new utopia. They had elected a new king and group of leaders that wanted peace and prosperity for their people. This greatly angered the King and leaders of Europa, but the distance was great and they soon cut off any supply ships and left the inhabitants of the tiny island alone, to wither away.

It became evident that the new kingdom would not just wither away, in fact the island thrived. The land was rich, and natural resources were plentiful; the people rugged and strong. The island nation developed a reputation for building the best quality canoes and its farms helped feed many other islands. The nation brought in wealth with its many exports. The leaders were bold and unselfish; they toiled and sacrificed to bring peace and prosperity to their people.

After many years the leaders and people began to loose focus, they abandoned many of the principles and ideals that compelled them to make the dangerous journey to this island in the first place. They leaders became greedy and imposed high taxes on their people. The people lost their motivation to work hard and produce. They were comfortable, and lulled into inaction.

The leaders wanted more, and tried to impose their ideals on other island, some quite distant from their own. This policy stretched the resources and weakened the economy of the island nation. Warriors were sent to these other islands to fight great wars and many of them never returned.

After many years the island began to loose some of its initial appeal. The canoe builders let their quality decline and soon the demand for their canoes decreased, in fact some of the islanders were now importing canoes from abroad. Many of the inhabitants began sending their wealth back over seas, followed by their ideas, and eventually the wealthier and most ambitious subjects left the island altogether. Over time more and more of the people left this island, and today I find only the remains of a once great civilization here.


My time here has come to an end. As my comrades and the research ship pick me up I feel sad and shed a tear, as I leave the island myself, I wonder what could have been, if the people had stayed true to their original intents.

Wow.. I wonder what that all meant? Good thing this was just a dream ……..

P.I.B.
CONTCAT ME: pooritalianboy@gmail.com

DREAM ON

DREAM ON

"Each night when we sleep, our minds are liberated. Absent the restraints and adherence to logic and thought, we can freely mix fact and fiction, reality and fantasy, we are free to dream." P.I.B.

I've heard it said that we all dream every night, but just don't remember most of them upon waking. Some dreams seem very vivid and real, invoking pleasing thoughts, some conjure up painful images that awaken us in the middle of the night, covered in sweat. Yet others are like fleeting glimpses or memories and seem to evaporate from our minds, as we desperately try to hold onto them when we open our eyes. Some mornings when we awaken, we are able to recount our dreams in great detail, and other times we are at a loss to recall more than a few details.
Its seems like all but the most vivid or horrific of our dreams, quickly fade from our conscious memories within minutes after we awake, a sort of dream amnesia, almost as if their content is created for and reserved by our subconscious memory. Sometimes if we recount them right after awakening we can transfer the images from short term to long term memory, thereby retaining them. Some people suggest keeping a “dream journal”, close at hand to record the elusive thoughts before they evaporate into the vapor.
Dreams seem to be a combination of our past experiences, thoughts, and emotions. The images may have a direct meaning to us, or be metaphorical. Dreams are a mental cocktail of our hopes, our desires and our fears. Sometimes profound but often nonsensical, our dreams, and even our need for dreaming, is not fully understood. Perhaps they represent a form of self exploration.
Time and reality can be altered in our dreams as we mix people and places from our past with current happenings in our lives. I believe our brains are such a powerful and complex organs that they never really rest or shut down (until we die), instead our stored and primal thoughts take over when the cognitive portion of our brain relaxes. Even in this state we can still measure electrical activity of our neurons.
Scientists have established that dreaming only occurs during the REM portion of our sleep and is often accompanied by rapid eye movement. Sometimes we have re-occurring dreams that repeat themselves over a period of months or years. We seem to have little or no conscious control over the content of our dreams, but rather we are carried off and immersed in them as unwilling participants every night.
We also dream during our daylight and waking hours but these "daydreams" are more directed, structured, and controlled. Here, we imagine, plan, and hope, our dreams are carefully orchestrated by our conscious thought and tempered by reality. Just like our night dreams I feel people need to dream. Our minds require an outlet for our pent up thoughts, that can't be expressed during our waking hours filed with the demands of life and conscious thought.
There have been books written that attempt to interpret our dreams, but I'm not sure if these are not mere attempts at explaining why and what we actually dream about. Our minds are so complex, and our dreams so varied and unique, I wonder how anyone else can interpret their meaning when it is a mystery even to the dreamer. Others suggest that our dreams are premonitions or some primal déjà vu'.
One thing is for sure, even if our bodies are in bondage, we all are free to dream.
P.I.B.
“Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives.”

William Dement, in Newsweek, 1959