Manifesting Your
Daydreams
The concept of daydreaming is widely misunderstood. I believe that this confusion began when we were young. When we were caught not paying attention in school, our teacher would snap at us and tell us to stop daydreaming and focus. Because this was usually the only time adults mentioned daydreaming to us, we began to associate it with a bad behavior that would get us in trouble.
For most children, the only other time they are exposed to daydreaming as an activity is when they are watching cartoons. In the occasional cartoon, a character may be portrayed daydreaming, but it’s typically a fantasy that is bizarre and out of this world. The character is quickly brought back to reality and forgets about the fantasy.
What if I told you that daydreaming is actually a powerful tool that can bring about positive changes and helpful answers to your daily life? For example, have you ever had one of those days when there is something you need to accomplish, but no matter how hard you try, it’s just not working out? Maybe it’s a deadline at work or a solution to a personal problem, and you just can’t figure out what’s best to do. Your thoughts about what would be the best solution are blank, and if you seek the advice of others, their opinions only serve to confuse you further.
As a writer, I’ve had days like this when the writing just won’t come out of me. Outwardly, there’s no difference in the day from yesterday when I was writing. I’m at the same desk, same computer, doing the same ritual to write, yet today it just won’t come. Sure, I can type words, but the energy is not there. In that mode, I am not, as some would say, inspired. Others would describe this situation as having the dreaded writer’s block.
In my early days, I used to try to force it. “I’m a professional writer,” I would say to myself. “I’m smart and capable. I can figure out this problem. I just need to think harder so I can still write today. I’ll force myself to stay here in this chair and write something. It will come.”
Yet each time I did this, the answer to the problem was never the right one, and the writing that came out of me—well, let’s just say it made its way to the delete pile the next day.
There’s a reason why sometimes your mind has had enough and has put up a “Closed for Business” sign. Maybe it’s overloaded and clogged with too much data. Maybe it’s like a computer: it’s running a backup of your mental hard drive and can’t accept any more data at this time. Whatever the reason, you are not in the zone, where your best work comes from, and it’s time to clear your mind.
When your mind is blocked, a mental refresh can allow us to get a new perspective on things. Daydreaming can be very helpful in this process.
Exercise: Using Daydreams to Open the Mind
to New Ideas
Step 1: Clear Your Mind
It all begins with clearing your mind. The important bit to focus on is that it’s time to walk away from the thought, the problem, the writing, or whatever it is that’s not working for you at that time in order to relax. By doing so, you are giving your mind the time it needs to process other data that it’s working on. You may be thinking, How do I walk away from my thoughts? Won’t my mind know that I’m leaving? The next step will help with this mental adjustment.
Step 2: Leave the Room
To change your mind, the first thing to do is leave the room that you are in. According to a 2011 piece in Scientific American, there are studies detailing the “doorway effect,” which states that when you pass through a doorway from one room to another, a psychological change occurs within you. These studies describe this as the reason people often forget what they were talking about or even why they left the room they were in after they walk through a doorway.
When you think about this, you’ll realize you’ve done it before. You were thinking, I need to go get this item, and it’s in another room. So you’re walking through a room and thinking about things, perhaps even conversing with another person. Then you walk through a doorway, enter another room, and maybe again walk through another room, and all of a sudden you stand there in the room, looking confused, and think, What did I come in here for? You truly can’t remember for a minute; sometimes it’s even longer. You have forgotten why you came into the room and what you were looking for.
Many times you’ll walk back through the first doorway, and after a minute or so, it’s like a reset happens in your brain and you remember. Of course, you think, I was going into the room to get that or to do this. This time when you leave the room, you focus hard on what you are going to do. Many people will walk even faster from that room, with their head tucked down a bit as they quickly rush through the doorway and into the other room to retrieve the item. It’s fascinating how our minds can be affected by a great variety of stimuli and can change instantly.
Once we walk out of the room where we were desperately trying to solve a problem or find an answer, we can take advantage of this doorway clearing, to leave that energy behind for a moment. We can then walk through another doorway and go outside for a breath of fresh air and take a quick walk or stretch our body to relieve the tension. We are clearing our mind in order to make room for new data and to think about the problem in a new way.
Step 3: Shake Your Body
This is where daydreaming can be most effective. Once you’ve left the room where you were working, it’s time to find a comfortable spot in a different room or an area where you can sit quietly without interruption. Turn off your cell phone and find a private space where you won’t be disturbed.
Now I want you to shake your body. Shake your shoulders, stretch your legs and arms, and shake them. Dance around and shake, and if you’re not a dancer, just shake your body for a minute or two.
Yes, it might feel awkward to you if you’re not a person who is used to dancing around, but shaking is an ancient practice that helps release physical tension and stress from the body.
Step 4: Relax
Once you’ve shaken your body, sit comfortably. Don’t lie down, as you don’t want to fall asleep and wake up hours later with everyone wondering where you’ve disappeared. Once you are seated, close your eyes and take three deep breaths in and out. Relax.
Step 5: Visualize
Create a picture in your mind of anything you find pleasant. A favorite place you love, a trip you’ve always wanted to take, a beautiful scene in nature, or a memory of time spent with someone you love or respect. Enjoy this journey. Take in the sights, sounds, and smells.
If you’re doing this right, you’ll notice that your body language has completely changed, and not only are you relaxed, but there’s a big smile on your face that has occurred naturally. You are smiling while watching your dog run on the beach, riding the carousel in the park that you loved when you were young, or driving that convertible up in the mountains.
Whatever your pleasant memory or fun thought about something you wish you were doing, it should make you feel great. This is your daydream, after all. You don’t even have to practice lucid dreaming—you know how to picture something in your mind and make it your own.
Step 6: Travel to a New Dream
Once you begin daydreaming, you may stay with this scene, or you may find that your thoughts drift and that as you grow tired of one scenario, a new thought pops into your mind. You think, Oh yeah, I used to love doing that, and in the blink of an eye, you’ve moved from being a young kid at the playground to the age you are now, dancing at a jazz club from the 1920s that doesn’t even exist. You look amazing in your outfit, and everyone’s dancing with you.
Step 7: Consider the Problem
After about five to ten minutes of playing in your daydreams, think about the problem you were facing earlier in the day. In this relaxed state of mind, ask your new, fun self what they would do with this problem. Allow yourself to see whatever fun and silly ideas your dreamy self wants to explore. The point is not that the exact answer will come to you but rather that the mind is relaxed and open to exploring all types of new ideas. Stay in this fun space for another ten minutes or so, having conversations with the people in your daydream and asking them what they would do to solve the problem. When you finish with your daydream, you may have received an inspired idea, or when you return to your work, inspiration may strike as you get back into the zone with renewed energy.
What Can Daydreams Do to Help?
In daydreams, something magical happens because you don’t put any obstacles in your way. You can do anything with grace and ease.
In a rudimentary way, you are freeing your mind. It is not confined by the restrictive boundaries that you clog it with on a daily basis. Typically, when you have an irrational or illogical thought, you immediately dismiss it and admonish yourself for even having this thought. As an adult, you’ve become that teacher from your elementary school who told you to stop daydreaming and to pay attention. Now in your adult life, you are doing this self-limiting act to yourself with your thoughts and with your dreams.
Does this thought jar you? Are you realizing that you’ve been doing this to yourself, that you’ve been blocking your own creativity by creating these rigid walls around what you might perceive to be reasonable?
Good. I hope I’ve awakened you at this moment so that you’ll begin to question and examine your thoughts and see how quickly you shut down anything that doesn’t immediately sound reasonable to you. It’s time to embrace what is truly possible and question the limiting beliefs that you’ve adopted over the years.
Do you know why some people are so creative and come up with the most imaginative ideas and inventions? It’s because they think outside the box! The “box” is that wall that most people put up around their thoughts, shutting down any ideas that don’t appear to be immediately logical, useful, and reasonable. People who have learned to ignore these self-limiting thoughts and run with the wild ideas that come to them understand that in order to create and find new solutions to problems, they cannot live with these boundaries.
If they’re pretty good at this, they think outside the box.
If they’re visionaries, they don’t even have a box.
Take some time and think about this. Where do your thoughts go, and how are they boxed in?
Exercise: Taking Your Daydream to the Next Level
Let’s revisit the daydreaming you used to find new ways of thinking, imagining yourself in all kinds of scenarios. It’s time to take a break from what you’re doing there in the dream and bring some focus into the picture.
Step 1: While still in your daydream, imagine yourself grabbing your favorite snack and finding a comfortable place to sit, on a bench, on a beach towel, in your mom’s kitchen—anywhere that you feel safe and cozy in this dream.
Step 2: Now imagine a person that you greatly respect, whether it’s a brilliant person from anywhere in the world or just someone who always gives you good advice. Picture them now here in this setting, in your daydream, and have a chat with them. Tell them about the problem you’re working on and ask them what they think about it.
Step 3: You don’t have to go into all the details. Because this is your dream, they already telepathically know about the problem. Relax and listen to what they have to say, and you may find that they give you the exact answer you need.
Step 4: When you come out of the daydream, it’s time for action. Try out some of the ideas you had while daydreaming.
Here’s an example: Let’s say that someone is short on cash and is trying to find a way to make some extra money to supplement her income. In her daydream, she goes back to the home of her beloved great aunt who passed away several years ago. In this daydream, she’s sitting at her aunt’s kitchen table talking with her, explaining her cash-flow problem.
Her aunt is listening to her and begins to stir a bowl of batter, making something in her kitchen. As her aunt continues to busy herself in the kitchen, she begins to toss around ideas that her niece could try in order to generate new income while working from home. The daydreamer knows the solution is there if she can just put her finger on it.
As the daydreamer is thinking about this, her great aunt has left the kitchen and is now standing in the living room by her little writing desk. She loved that desk and would never let anyone touch it. In the daydream, she’s looking at her niece as she’s talking, and she keeps tapping on her writing desk, repeating her niece’s words back to her.
“Yes,” the aunt says while tapping on her desk. “If you could just put your finger on it.”
When she comes out of the daydream, the daydreamer thinks about that writing desk and remembers that it’s at her mother’s house. She decides to go over and see her mom, and while she’s there, she asks her mother if she can look at the writing desk. It struck her as important in the daydream, and she wants to have a look at that last fond memory of her great aunt.
Her mom says it’s down in the basement, and as she heads down the stairs to its location, she get a little excited. It feels like a bit of an adventure.
She finds the writing desk and opens the drawers to peek inside. Inside the big drawer, she sees a stack of index cards tied together with a ribbon. She pulls out these cards and unties the ribbon to find all her great aunt’s recipes. She was such an amazing cook, she thinks, and then it hits her: this is what she can do. She can use her aunt’s recipes and start a business of her own on a very small scale by baking for family and friends. She asks her mom if she can have the recipe cards and shares her idea with her. Her mom, who has no interest in cooking, loves the idea and tells her that the recipes are all hers and to run with the idea.
In that moment, the creative ideas come pouring in. Her sister, who works long days at a corporate job and never has time to cook, would gladly hire her to prepare delicious, nutritious meals a couple of times a week that she could refrigerate and heat up for the family at night. Her cousin has three children and always needs baked goods to bring to after-school events and parties. Then there’s her mom’s best friend, who has been ill and has been trying to find a service to deliver meals, but she’s only found a company who delivers from chain restaurants where the processed food is not agreeing with her or her dietary restrictions.
All of a sudden, she realizes that by a simple word of mouth to family and friends, she could be booked out and get this business off the ground with little cost and instant revenue. Not only has this solved her problem of how to quickly earn some extra money, it has the potential to create a business that she loves. And it all began with a daydream in which she was having a good time and visiting with someone that she loved.
Other Daydream Ideas
This is just one example of the power of daydreams and how they not only awaken your intuitive/creative mind but also establish the connection with your superconscious/higher self for inspiration and information.
If you don’t want to imagine seeking another’s advice for the solution to your problem in your daydream, place yourself in the comfortable setting I described earlier. Remind yourself that there are no wrong answers in your daydream and that there are hundreds of solutions to every situation. Imagine that you have no boundaries and have the power to do anything to this problem that you’d like. Maybe you picture that you are a superhero and have the power to dissolve the problem with your laser-beam eyes or to become invisible in this situation that you find distressing.
Daydreams Can Bring Clarity
to Our True Desires
When we let go of the sometimes-confining boundaries of the logical mind and create a daydream scenario in which anything is possible, what usually comes out is the truth of what we really want to do were we given a no-holds-barred or no-boundaries permission to solve the problem. If you imagine you are a superhero with the power to dissolve the problem or become invisible, you may find that this is what you are wishing you could do to actually solve this problem. This may indicate to you that you need to make plans to leave this situation.
For example, perhaps you are at a job where you are truly unhappy. You’ve tried everything you know to be recognized and appreciated for your hard work, all to no avail. No matter how hard you try, your boss does not reward you for your work, and when he does notice you, he only seems to pile more work on you than on the others in the office, making you wish you could be invisible at times so that he wouldn’t give you more to do. Your coworkers aren’t bad to work with, but the company atmosphere has become so toxic that everyone is beat down and depressed, and all they know how to do is complain about what’s gone wrong that day. Finding the energy every day to get up and go to work is taking more and more motivation, and you feel trapped and stuck in life.
Daydreaming that you are a superhero is your mind’s and your soul’s way of reminding you that you are stronger and more capable than you remember yourself to be. You have the power to change this situation by making plans to leave this job and to find new work where you will be recognized for your efforts and talents.
Sometimes we need to be reminded that it’s okay to take our leave and go on to something new. We can become stuck when trying to fix a problem, thinking that it’s too much trouble to put ourselves out there interviewing for a job and having to start all over again. While it does take effort to make that move, we soon realize that it was less stressful than what we were doing to ourselves working at a place that depleted our energy, destroying our hope and general satisfaction in life.
As the old saying goes, the only constant in life is change. Many times when we have a negative experience that we want to blame on others, it is actually the universe guiding us, prodding us, pushing us, and, at times, shoving us forward when it’s time to have a new experience. That’s the true power of daydreams. They can help us communicate with our higher consciousness and connect to our soul so that we can find a creative solution to our problem.
Let’s return to our process of using daydreams to open the mind by walking through a doorway. You may find that when you walk back over that threshold, back through the doorway to your office, instead of pulling out your hair and stressing over how to get recognized for your efforts at work, you’re taking the rest of the day off to update your résumé and look for a new place to work that excites you.
Or rather than spending the rest of the day stressed over how to make a bit of extra money, you’ve made three phone calls and have booked enough work through family and friends to make not only the money you needed for next week but also some extra to go do something fun.
That’s just the beginning of what you can do with your daydreams. Inventors, entrepreneurs, visionaries, artists, writers, all creative types, and engineering types rely on the power of the daydream to assist them in their work. Now you know the secret of what daydreams can do for you. If you’re ready, you can take it a step further and create an action plan for manifesting the daydream into reality by using the power of visualization.
Visualization Dreams
Visualization is the art of taking your creative idea and creating a roadmap of how you’ll manifest this idea into being. The most important part of this process is to realize that you are creating a roadmap, but like all journeys, there are some detours, pit stops, and surprising adventures along the way.
Let’s return to our example of the home baker who began looking for a simple way to make some extra money to supplement her income to pay her bills. Through her daydream, she was led to her great aunt’s recipes and began baking goods for family and friends. Everyone is excited by the idea, and the money has started to come in. She is busy filling orders and doesn’t have time to think about much else. She’s loving this new creative journey and making more money than she originally needed. Deciding that she should indulge herself—after all, she’s working so hard and making more money than she needed—she buys herself some things as a treat.
This continues for six months, maybe even for a few more, and she’s getting comfortable with how things are going. She begins to rely on this income. She’s even bought a new car, as she can easily afford the payments now with the extra money coming in.
Then one day, a few months later, it all starts to fall apart. First, her cousin calls: her husband has been offered a new job in Seattle, and they and their three kids are moving across the country in a month. There goes her baked-good orders for the after-school events. A couple of weeks later, her mother calls to tell her that her friend has really appreciated the meals she has provided for her, but she’s decided to move in with her daughter, so it won’t be necessary to continue with the meal service.
In the span of two months, she’s lost two-thirds of her business, not by doing anything wrong, but simply through the ebb and flow of people and their needs. She still has the business from her sister, but even her orders have slowed down, as the kids are asking more often for their favorite pizza and takeout from restaurants for dinners.
Caught off guard, our daydreamer begins to lament about how the universe is against her and that everyone lets her down. What she really needs to think about is that while her business began with an inspired idea, the daydream is only the first step. Unless she also puts her daydream energy into creative visualization, it cannot grow and continue. In this state, it will dissipate, just like a dream. So our friend at this point has a tougher journey because she didn’t understand how to take the second step and visualize where she wants her business to evolve and grow.
Let’s help her get back on track. Here’s what she needs to do:
Exercise: Manifest Your Daydream with a Vision Plan
Step 1: Create a Vision Plan
She needs to create a vision plan of where she sees her business going in the future. This can be drawn out on a big sheet of paper or in a notebook. In this vision plan, she draws a circle at the top to represent the business. From the circle she draws three lines that lead to three sections below the circle. She writes “Year One” at section one, “Year Three” at section two, and “Year Five” at section three, using a different color marker for each of these years.
Step 2: Reflect on Past Experience
Now it’s time to brainstorm. She begins by writing on another sheet of paper, noting what went well on one side and what went wrong on the other.
On her went-well side, she writes that she discovered that she loves to bake, that her great aunt’s recipes are amazing, and that people enjoy her personalized service. On the went-wrong section, she writes that she overestimated that business would continue in its current capacity forever and that she spent her earnings on herself rather than reinvesting in the business. She also was too scattered with what she baked and realizes it would be better to have weekly specials that served all her customers rather than bake unique items each week for each customer. Lastly, she realizes that she never gave any thought to expanding her customer base. Instead, she relied on her current customers to always be there, which is not sustainable or even practical.
Step 4: Daydream for Year One
Now that she has a better idea of what works and what doesn’t, she can create her vision or visualization board. First, she goes back to what she’s learned, beginning with letting go of the stress of the situation by daydreaming.
She finds a quiet space and shakes it off. Moving her body, she releases the fear and anxiety that has been building up in her. When we are stressed, we constrict our body and our mind, and it shuts down the flow of new energy and ideas, so it’s important to do this mental reset first. She laughs as she shakes and dances and reminds herself that this all started with a dream and that the answers for what to do next will soon be clear to her. She then relaxes and prepares herself for a little time to daydream.
During her daydream, she reflects upon all the wonderful times that she has had with her business and notices the sweet memories of people who have enjoyed her cooking. She’s resetting her mind and opening it to explore new ideas.
Step 5: Brainstorm
Emerging from her daydream, she has reset her thoughts, and her creative mind is back open and ready to work. She begins with brainstorming a one-year plan of what to do to grow the business.
Tapping into her daydreaming thoughts, she realizes that she already has the answer available to her from her current customers.
For example, she shouldn’t have just relied on her cousin to place orders for after-school events almost every day. At all those sporting events, after-school events, and everything else her cousin’s kids were involved with, she had missed a ripe opportunity to reach out to all of the other moms who were there at these events to offer them the same service. These moms had already sampled her baked goods and loved them. It wouldn’t be a hard sell to get them to sign up for her baked goods like her cousin had, and she had one month before her cousin left town to drop in at all of these events and offer samples to all of the moms with her business card attached with instructions on how to place orders with her, including an offer for a 20 percent discount on their first order.
The same thought occurs with her mom’s best friend. While she is now settling in at her daughter’s home, she and her mother have plenty of friends who need this service and would greatly appreciate it. She takes her mom and her mom’s friend out to lunch, and two hours later, both of them are on the phone acting as her new sales reps, recommending her services to all of their friends.
Two days later, she surprises her sister at her office at ten in the morning with a big basket full of goodies and a carafe of coffee and offers this midmorning pick-me-up treat to her sister’s coworkers (after obtaining her permission, of course), giving her sister the first muffin. Attached to every baked good is the information on how to order baked goods from her for a variety of events. A week later, her sister calls to tell her that everyone loved her treats and that she wants to order two big trays of baked goods for a big meeting coming up next week.
Step 6: Note New Ideas
With just a few moves, letting go of the stress and fear and opening back up to her creative energy through daydreaming, she’s completely changed the direction of her business for the next year. She has written these ideas in the section marked Year One on the vision board and put them into action so they may manifest into being.
Step 7: Daydream for Year Three
Feeling confident, she picks up a different-colored marker and begins to work on the three-year plan for the business. To visualize this, she’ll need to practice daydreaming again. This time she’ll need to imagine how far and how big she’d like the business to grow.
During this daydream, she’ll run through the scenarios of seeing herself owning a bakery or a catering service and moving from baking in her home to a commercial kitchen or food truck. As she daydreams about this scenario, she’ll experience pleasant sensations and see herself hanging a sign with the name of her new business outside the front window of the bakery, or—wait—it’s just changed in her dream, and it’s a café, where she also serves sandwiches, soups, and coffee to go with her baked goods.
In the blink of an eye, she’s just seen where she wants to go with her business. Now she’s ready to visualize on her board where she goes in three years. Looking over her list of what’s worked and what hasn’t, she realizes that this new goal means more to her than her original idea, which was just focused on how to make a little extra money to make ends meet. Now she is focused on pursuing her dream and seeing it come into fruition. She realizes that the extra money she was making and then spending on impulse items as quickly as she made it will now be funneled back into the creation of her new dream.
On her Year Three section of the vision board, she notes the profits being saved for the down payment and capital needed to open her own café. Because she’s put the plan in writing on her visualization board, her goal has now moved from a daydream into a plan that she can visualize coming into being.
Step 8: Brainstorm and Daydream for Year Five
At this point, she can write out some ideas of what she might want to do by the fifth year. The ideas at this level are meant to be creative concepts and big dreams. She most likely won’t know yet how to get to that level from where she is currently, and that’s okay. Even if she tried to write a concrete plan, so many changes are going to happen along this journey that she may find that her business looks completely different from what she imagined it would be by year four. The point of visualizing year five at this point is to encourage her to dream big; if she could do anything she wanted, this is what she would create with her business.
In her year-five visualization, perhaps she dreams of having some of her baked goods discovered by a national company, and they buy her out and produce her baked goods using her great aunt’s recipes, which have been enhanced by some flavors of her own along the way. Or maybe she dreams of having built a franchise of cafés that began with six stores in her state and is now looking at going national. She may dream that she expands her brand in the grand style of Martha Stewart, where she incorporates entertaining and decorating and builds an empire of her own. Year five is meant to hold these types of dreams, which, given the chance, you could take as far as they can go and as far as you would love to see them go.
This is the power of creative visualization and manifestation. It begins with a daydream, and then, by taking action and creating a plan, you can visualize your daydream into being. The dream becomes your reality.
While I used an example of a woman with a baked goods business, the steps shared here can apply to anything in your life that you would like to create. This exercise works for everyone, no matter what your plan looks like.
If only teachers understood the creative potential of giving students ten minutes to daydream after finishing the day’s lessons—it could change our world.