There are those who scoff at dreams and call them a waste of time. But dreams are as much a part of you as the beating of your bean. The gift of dreaming, of fantasizing, is precious because it expands one life into countless other lives, like a myriad blossoms on a single branch. Those who cannot dream are to be pitied by those who can. They will never know the magic of slipping through from Realtime into Dreamtime : of seeing through dimension after dimension unknown to our five senses, as though one curtain after another was drawn aside to reveal a passionate world of colours, deeds, achievements and abilities.
All people throughout history have known the importance of dreaming. When their dreams have been recorded we call them myths, or legends, or fairy stories. They are pan of the treasure of our secret world, able to transport us instantly to Valhalla or olympus. They explain to us everything we long to know, and give substance to our instinct that there are worlds beyond our world.
Dreaming, or fantasy, is our only escape from reality until we pass through those great gates which lead to the ultimate dream. And yet there is only a shadow curtain between reality and fantasy. The fantasies of the past are the realities of the present. In l903, H. G. Wells wrote a book entitled The First Men in the Moon, and his contemporaries enjoyed it as a flight of fantasy. But, within the lifetimes of many humans born in 1903, the first men actually walked on the moon. No doubt we will see many other Wellsian fantasies change to reality, and perhaps travel through time as easily as we now travel through space.
Everything we accept as part of our lives was once a fantasy. The mythical or legendary beings could travel in chariots without horses, speak to each other across the universe, make fire obey them, and cure diseases with their magical powers. We have automobiles, aeroplanes, electricity, radio, laser beams, miracle drugs and submarines. Our human ancestor regarded a11 such things as fantasies.
A scientist might deplore the notion that there is any link between science and fantasy, but fantasy always comes first. It is the creature of imagination, and without imagination there would be no science. Every invention is the result of fantasy.