To sleep, perchance to dream...

As the mind-body connection gains traction, could dreams be the gateway to a more holistic approach to wellbeing, asks Yasmina Floyer

- Yasmina Floyer

We spend, on average, a third of our lives asleep, but the summer sun finding its way into my room well into the evening leaves little room for thoughts of slumber. Blades of light that pierce through even the smallest gap in my closed blinds can pull my mind away from rest, and while I virtuously choose not to roll into the next episode on Netflix in favour of calling it a night, sleep is nevertheless hard to come by. But if sleep itself is difficult, what of our dreams?

My earliest recurring dream was when I was in primary school. It began with me playing in the street, when, suddenly, a red car filled with monsters would pull up. They'd drag me into the car and then drive at speed into a brick wall. I would wake up just before impact.

I had this dream for years, until one night something shifted; rather than a crash, the car broke down just before it reached the wall. The monsters got out and there was a grand unmasking, redolent of the Scooby-Doo cartoons I'd watched growing up. These monsters were simply adults in disguise in Halloween costumes. I wasn't scared of them anymore, and they weren't trying to hurt me. This shift coincided with my gaining fluency in English, my second language, and discovering a love for reading nurtured by weekly trips to the local library. After the Scooby-Doo version of the dream, I never had it again.