Dreamtime

The Australian aboriginals have a creation story that revolves around the idea of Dreamtime, a period when mythical heroes walked the formless land and imbued it with sacred properties. My version of Dreamtime isn't nearly so profound - it happens, with regularity, from about 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. This is when I get the best sleep and have my most vivid dreams - dreams that often help me resolve a storyline problem or gives me a whole new emotional framework - I don't want to say idea because it isn't thought out. The dream is emotional and felt, and the deeper the feeling, the more compelled I get to put it on the list of 'to be written.'

The aboriginals built a complex set of rules and beliefs around the dreaming. When a child is born, he becomes a custodian of the land of his birth. His elders teach him the stories and songs of that place. Part of his education teaches that each thing is connected to the land and to the other things - making no difference if the thing is living or not, galah or granite, human or a clump of needle sharp spinifix.

I get this feeling in a second place - when I run and it's going right. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi termed it flow but (I think) he meant it as an inward turn where concentration and task met in harmony. This is similar but different in that awareness flows out and embraces everything and feels, quite irrationally, like it touches the whole world. I don't mind the irrationality - I can live with it as the cost of the feeling.

It may be that my version of Dreatime is different from the aboriginals' - but I'll wager less different than you'd expect given the chasm of cultural differences.