NottHeads - Health & Fitness

Dreams give you a template and opportunity to visualize what often can not be realized. When I was a little boy, I use to watch Jac Cousteau clips on TV along with Sea Hunt. I had read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne; reading was my avenue to adventures, imagining myself being the lead character. I wondered what it would be like to be one of characters in the books and television shows diving in the ocean. All this was an interesting distraction from the reality of my everyday life.

One day, one of the local taxi driver's who was ex-military told me of his adventures as a diver. His story stimulated my imagination of what it must be like exploring the undersea world below the waves. This was a real person, who was telling me the stories of his adventures, adding detail to what I had imagined it would be like. My dreams were enhanced, becoming even more vivid, but still just dreams. Seeing my enthusiasm and interest in diving, he offers to teach me. As a child of a domestic worker and laundress who rented rooms to chauffeurs and other domestic workers in our town, my parents told me lessons were not possible. That day, I thought my dream would never come true. The closest I would get exploring the world beneath the waves would be that submarine ride at Disney World, things changed.