Dreams Anonymous

It’s 3:16 A.M.

My eyes are bloodshot from sleeplessness; I stumble into my room and crash my head against the soft, plush pillow laying on my bed. I pull the blanket over my head and close my eyes, trying desperately to get some sleep before the sun rises. In the fleeting moments before I pass into deep slumber, my mind is finally free to wander after an arduous day filled with school and work. My thoughts stream in a blurring sequence of images, each of which help me recall what I learned and experienced in the day. My mind races between the Lakers injury report I saw on ESPN at the breakfast table to the article I read on my iPhone about the future of nanotechnology between classes. My mind then flashes to the Socratic Seminar I presided over as President of my school debate team and then to new piece I learned from my Tabla guru. Combining that with the unfamiliar faces at school, the new Drake song on the radio, and the universal grumble about college application essays I hear in the hallways leads to an unimaginable volume of sensory input that the human brain has to process, sort, and hierarchize every single day. This self-improving organ, which enables us to make sense of this world and has allowed us to go the moon and...