I Think Dreams Are Like Playgrounds

Permission to Play

When was the last time you dreamed for dreaming's sake?

I'm asking because this weekend I spent my entire Saturday swept up in a dream, and I'm still buzzing from it. The idea for a business enveloped my heart with intense rapture. Was I the man to make it happen? Did I have the funds? The location? The vocation? The knowledge? The possibility? Probably not. But did it sound like so much fun to create a world around? A thousand times yes.

And so I did. Latte-quenched and heart swollen, I dreamed—the way rivers dream of oceans, the way seeds dream of forests.

I envisioned the branding. I felt the company's story and the emotions that people would experience stepping into my establishment. I imagined all the things that would bring me to life to see in a space like this. And as one domino fell softly onto the next, the dream revealed itself to me more and more. It grew and whispered its direction and its secrets into my ear as though it was guiding me—guiding me towards itself, towards the revelation of its entirety.

Not just the dream, but the business. As though it had been living in the ether, in that nowhere space between imagination and reality—that cathedral of possibility where all unborn things wait in holy silence. In the liminal, explosive space of a singular decision to do or not to do. I was simply a passenger aboard the ride of its revealing.

I felt its colors—warm amber and deep forest green. I tasted its flavors—rich and complex as first love. I walked through and sat at tables and consumed its goods. I listened to its music and I loved its employees. As the hours passed, I watched it expand and fill in blanks of uncertainty. I allowed the impossible to unravel into absolutely, like watching darkness surrender to dawn. I saw the chaotic become clear. I surrendered to the story that was unfurling before me in community, and in self.

I committed my heart to the unknown. To the knowledge I had yet to learn. To the pragmatics of business plans and budgets. I envisioned investors and spaces. I saw the steps. I planned the plans. I practiced the pitches. I drew the blueprint. I dreamt into every single detail that was possible for me to dream into.

It became a reality in my mind. Eyes closed, I was the owner of this operation and I was proud and alive with purpose.

I'm here now writing this after a day at what I would consider a theme park—a day of dreaming, of imagination. I didn't get my chores done. I have nothing concrete to present you, nor do I have a business for you to frequent. But god, did I have a joyful afternoon.

When was the last time you gave yourself permission to dream? For hours? To fall in love without hesitation, despite the possible heartbreak at the end? I want to live permanently in the "what if" of life. I want to see every love right to its end and even then push the limit, even if it stings a bit when it doesn't appear when I open my eyes.

There is magic in dreaming. In loving. In committing to vision. There is infinite play in what doesn't already exist—so play, my friend. And play often. Play in the primordial soup of your imagination, where every thought is a universe waiting to be born. Allow the evolution of your soul to sprout legs into the invertebrate hope you have nestled in your heart. (Weird analogy, but I'm keeping it in here.)

We live in a world that demands productivity, that asks us to justify our time with tangible outcomes. But what if the dreaming itself is the outcome? What if the expansion of possibility, the stretching of our hearts toward what could be, is exactly the work we're meant to be doing—the quiet revolution of imagination against the tyranny of the already-known?

Today reminded me that dreams aren't just destinations—they're playgrounds. They're spaces where we get to be fully alive, fully ourselves, fully open to wonder. They're where we practice being the people we're becoming, where we rehearse lives we might choose to live.

I spent today falling in love with potential. With the version of myself who could create something beautiful from nothing—who could be the architect of wonder, the curator of joy. With the community that could gather around an idea that doesn't yet exist. With the feeling of purpose that comes from building something that matters.

Will it come to fruition? Maybe. If I choose it fully, then yes, it would. The contemplation is always on that choice. I don't fear what dreams I can bring to life—they are all exquisitely possible. I simply discern between the lives I'm choosing this time around the sun.

But here's what I know for certain: the dreaming itself changed me. It reminded me of my capacity for vision, for hope, for the kind of love that builds worlds. It reminded me that imagination isn't frivolous—it's sacred. It's how we expand beyond the boundaries of what already is, how we become cartographers of the impossible.

So I'm curious about you, reading this. What dreams are living in the ether of your imagination, waiting for you to give them an afternoon of your undivided attention? What worlds are you capable of building if you allowed yourself to play in possibility without the weight of immediate practicality?

Maybe it's time to visit your own theme park of dreams. Maybe it's time to fall in love with what could be, just for the sake of falling in love. Maybe it's time to remember that you, too, are capable of creating realities from the raw material of imagination.

The world needs our dreams, even the ones that never leave the coffee shop where we first conceived them. Especially those ones—those tender seedlings of possibility that we cradle in our chests like prayer, like promise, like the first light of morning breaking over uncharted territory.

Today I dreamed for dreaming's sake. Tomorrow, I'll decide what to do with all that love I generated for what doesn't yet exist. But today? Today was perfect exactly as it was—full of possibility, overflowing with hope, alive with the magic of what could be.

Dream well, friend. The world is waiting for your particular brand of impossible.