by Zachary Maichuk

Created on: May 21, 2009   Last Updated: May 22, 2009

The transformative power of dreams has recently been made apparent to me, regrettably, as I have noticed the effect of the loss of our dreams on our society. As someone who has worked both in the mental health field and in various fights for social justice, I have begun to realize that many of the problems we face on both personal and societal levels stem from the fact we are losing our ability to truly dream. This may seem like a dark path to take to discover how dreams can change your life, but one of the lessons given by the myths, legends, and other dreams passed within our culture is that to gain wisdom, one must face dragons, demons, and other manifestations of the frightening and uncomfortable.

The realization of our loss of our ability to dream came as I pondered current difficulties in the fight for social justice. Many campaigns these days are finding themselves opposed by impenetrable walls of resistance. Contrasting this to the movements once made decades earlier, I remembered the famous speech made at the height of the civil rights era, and recalled the power of the phrase "I have a Dream" repeated over and over by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In those four words, he did more than just make a logical case why people should be treated equally; he painted a picture of what a world of equality would look like. In his world, all men were brothers, where power was not being stolen from one to be given to another, but where there was a greater power found together. The problems being had by those seeking change today have come in part by a failure to create such a dream. Without the dream, there is no way to let the others know what the new world will look like, no way to guide people in the roles they will play in the new world, and no way to let them know why that world would be better. But today, those dreams do not seem to be there, and it is costing us dearly.

This loss of our ability to dream is evident in other areas of society where problems and struggle emerge. There is, for instance, a colloquialism that urban males in the most impoverished areas do not expect to live past the age of 18. In my work with this population, I have had occasion to ask and have had the colloquialism confirmed. These children on the street have no dreams of the future, for they feel there is no future to dream of. Without such dreams, is there any wonder why there are so many youths trading education and long term plans for the fast but dangerous rewards that could

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