“A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.” —Steve Martin
Welcome to Issue 4!
Have you ever had a dream so vivid that when you woke up it felt like you were there? What about a deja vu, when you’re completely certain that you’ve dreamt of that moment before at some point in your life? Dreams are more than just a series of images and sensations. Some people have vivid dreams, others dream lucidly. Some believe in the meaning of dreams, and others looks into the science of how dreams help us learn, heal, and grow. Dreams are symbolic channels and frameworks for our imagination to run wild while our conscious mind takes a break from this world. Our subconscious minds dive deep to make meaning of these symbols and create new possibilities, providing a spiritual escape from our daily rise and grind.
When I was a kid, I read a book series (which I can’t seem to remember the name of) that told a story of a teen who would actually enter a whole other world everytime he went to sleep. He came to understand that his dream world was an actual real world that he could only access if he was getting really good sleep at night. I know…great story to get kids to actually sleep. But ever since then, dreams fascinate the hell outta me. Dreams are incredibly important for our brain and mental health. So much so that a team of researchers in 2010 at Harvard discovered that dreaming can actually reactivate and reorganize the stuff you’ve learned most recently. We now also know that sleeping and dreaming are incredibly important for health reasons. From Neuronation to the American Sleep Association, they all agree that health and dreaming are interconnected to one another. For one, studies have found that shorter periods of REM sleep (where you’re dreaming) and a decreased blood flow to your brain are correlated with Alzheimer’s Disease. Then there’s the research showing that REM sleep happens to be the only time our brain isn’t influenced by noradrenaline (anxiety-triggering molecules). Dreaming activates the structures in our brain that are key in emotions and memory, which means our emotional memories can be process by our brains in a stress-free environment. Talk about free therapy!
Then there’s the more magical side of dreaming. The meanings and hidden answers that we uncover when we dream. Or when we see our lost loved ones, reconnect with them, and know that they’re safe. Whether you’re a believer or not, it’s tough to argue with the impact dreams can have on our daily moods, our memories, and how well we learn. Sometimes looking into the meaning of dreams can be fun. For example, I recently dreamt of a friend I haven’t spoken to in 3 years. I looked it up on Dream Moods and it means “aspects of your personality that you have rejected, but are ready to incorporate and acknowledge.” I don’t know how I feel about it, but it’s pretty cool.
Every time I think about dreams, a really beautiful African anecdote comes to mind: “Dreams are voices of ancestors.” I like to think that my dreams are connected to my grandma I recently lost. She was a source of a lot of happiness and imagination in my childhood. Mix that with the magical and scientific parts of this incredible thing our brain does every time we drift away and I say, sign me up! – Lili
✉️▪︎ Share this issue
📱 Websites & Apps
DreamJournal → A free service to create your online dream journal, with over 15,000 other users
With over 200,000 dreams recorded to date, this platform is a great tool to start recording your dreams. You may update your dream journal as often as you'd like. Your journal may be kept private for your own viewing, or be made public. They only display the information you want displayed. It's free, it's fun, and it's easy to use!
📚Articles & Books
Beyond The Wall of Sleep → Face what scares you most, and find a source of inspiration
“"Beyond the Wall of Sleep" follows a young doctor who believes, based on a few experiments on his patient Joe Slater, to uncover the mystery of the nature of dreams and to break the wall that separates people from this unreal world, and in doing so finds more than he hoped for.”
👣 Things To Try
🧘🏽♀️Qigong Meditation → a mindfulness exercise focusing on breath and improving sleep. Try the practice here!
💭 Food for Thought
The Moral Bucket List → Read
“But if you live for external achievement, years pass and the deepest parts of you go unexplored and unstructured. You lack a moral vocabulary. It is easy to slip into a self-satisfied moral mediocrity. You grade yourself on a forgiving curve. You figure as long as you are not obviously hurting anybody and people seem to like you, you must be O.K. But you live with an unconscious boredom, separated from the deepest meaning of life and the highest moral joys.”
🎨 Aesthetic Inspiration
Paulina Bart → Embirdery Artist
Under the Instagram handle @Paulina.bart, Embirdery artist Paulina Bartnik brings beautiful birds with vibrant feathers to life through detailed embroidery. Owls, Ravens, Starlings, Rosellas, and Green Headed Tanagers…doesn’t matter the bird, she can create it.
📖Did You Know?
Passion Flower → used for pain, insomnia, and anxiety
Native peoples of the Americas used passionflower as a sedative. Passionflower is promoted as a dietary supplement for anxiety and sleep problems, as well as for pain, heart rhythm problems, menopausal symptoms, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. It is applied to the skin for burns and to treat hemorrhoids. But these haven’t been studied extensively. 1
🎞This Week’s GIF
🌿 Herbs & Plants for Health
Herbcyclopedia → it’s a living library that you can add to!
▪︎ Check out what’s already in the library
😺Thank You for Reading and Say Hi!👋🏼
I’m Lili and you are receiving this email because you signed up for It’s Kismet through one of our freebies. It’s Kismet is a weekly curated list of content I thought was worth sharing with more people.
If this email was forwarded to you, subscribe using the box below:
If you found anything inspiring in this Newsletter, have something to share with me, or just feel like saying hello, reply to this email and let's start a conversation! Know someone who would enjoy something from this issue? Have a friend or two who is looking for some inspiration?
https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/passionflower