It has been an unusual time for me to sleep. I have had three very real subconscious experiences in the past week. What tends to happen to me when I sleep and have these subconscious episodes is something I need to really focus on in the real world is manifest in a dream. A lot of times this is done with a 'guide' who is someone I dislike, or at least someone whom I have a conflict with. The dream is never about the dream or the person, but is symbolic of the the real issue.

I won't go into the whole of the last dream I had but it involved the Evil Professor. I thought the conflict was about my film abilities but when I took the three dreams as a whole (the other two were nothing about film making) I realized all three dreams, as a central theme, had to do with fear of an unknown I have no control of in terms of knowing the outcome. In other words, I fear what everyone else fears. It's beyond skills, economics or growing old. It's a fear of being able to control a destiny I think I should have.

If you went to my younger self, around age 25, and told me where I would be at age 48 (I'll be that age in less than two weeks) I would have been scared out of my pants. Living alone, with a cat, without a house and a secure job; that to me was an old person's nightmare. At age 25 I was sure by the time I was 50 I would have had a secure job, I would have been with the love of my life and I would be embarking on a round the world trip. I didn't figure I would have diabetes. I didn't figure I would be living in an apartment looking at a lot of items that haven't been replaced since I was 35. I didn't figure I didn't have a car not because of principle (thought I like to tell myself that is the reason) but because to even imaging having a lifestyle that allows me some perks I have to forgo a car. I would have never imagined that the most exciting thing I do in the year is head to the San Diego Comic-Con and even that trip, because of the popularity of the event, feels more like a job interview than a vacation.

Life rarely works out the way we want it in the long term. We always strive for more, even when we have achieved what others would call success. Barack Obama is President of the United States but there are people who think he is illegitimate as a President and citizen. Rick Santorum has a wife and a lot of children, he was a Senator and had ambitions to become President, yet he came up sort and in the eyes of a lot of people that makes him a failure. Mitt Romney makes over $50000 a day from his investments, he will tell you he is successful businessman and he well on track to becoming the nominee of his party for President of the United States, yet Romney still cannot emotionally connect to a good portion of the people in his own party.

No matter if you are a player on the big stage of life or a lonely cog in the machine, there are going to be goals you will set for yourself that you will not be able to meet because you don't have control of all the forces in your life. The question you have to ask yourself is have you done all you could do to put the outcome in your favor?

The takeaway I had from those dreams is you can't define yourself and your life by a script. There is no path that guarantees you will have everything right. I remember watching then reading the book Lathe of Heaven, and no matter how much the dream scientist tried to get the dreamer to come up with a perfect world, there were always unintended consequences that marred the perfect world. The thing that kept me going from the fallout of the Evil Professor was, and still is, if I hadn't taken the leap of faith to follow him I never would have gotten the experience I did in film making. I would have been like a few people I know; dreamers who talk about the work they want to do but never move forward to do it. I have been lucky enough to see how my excitement for film making looks in the eyes of another person. That inspires me to move forward.