Date: 12-30-2024
Author: The Dreamer
Source: www.notyourdream.com
Social anxiety is a complex and deeply personal experience, and for me, it often feels like a barrier not just to connection, but to my own sense of possibility. It’s as though the weight of being around others intensifies the question: Am I truly free to dream, or am I constrained by this invisible, unspoken force?
Sometimes I wonder if this anxiety stems from something larger than myself, something universal yet fragmented. I think about the concept of God, or whatever it is that we call God. What if this divine essence isn’t one singular being but is instead split into all of mankind? What if God—or the universe, or the creative force that fuels everything—can’t bear the sheer enormity of human negativity in a unified form? Maybe that’s why it’s dispersed among us, making each person a piece of something greater but also something incomplete.
This idea often finds its way into my dreams. In them, I’m not just myself—I’m part of everyone else. It’s a feeling of both infinite connection and profound isolation. In the dream world, where my anxiety doesn’t hold the same power, I can sense the echoes of all those fractured pieces of divinity. They’re reaching for something they can’t quite grasp—wholeness, maybe, or an understanding of their place in the universe. But in waking life, that connection feels more like static. The negativity, the misunderstandings, the judgments—it’s overwhelming, and my anxiety takes root there.
It’s strange to think that the very thing that makes us human—this collective experience, this shared burden of being—might be what fuels my discomfort around others. What if my anxiety is a kind of resistance to this shared energy, an attempt to shield myself from the chaos of it all? Or maybe it’s the opposite: a sign that I’m too attuned to it, that I’m absorbing more than I can handle.
There are moments, though, when I catch glimpses of something beautiful in this perspective. If we’re all fragments of a greater whole, then my dreams aren’t just mine—they’re everyone’s. My fears, my hopes, my longing to connect, are threads in a much larger tapestry. And while that doesn’t erase my social anxiety, it shifts how I see it. Instead of being a flaw or a failure, maybe it’s a signal. Maybe it’s telling me that my dreams are bigger than just me, that they’re intertwined with the dreams of others, even if those connections feel fragile or difficult.
Navigating social anxiety is never easy, especially when it feels like it’s tied to something so vast and intangible. But there’s a strange kind of hope in the idea that we’re all carrying pieces of something larger, even if we don’t fully understand it. Maybe my dreams, and my struggles, are just one way of exploring what it means to be part of that greater whole.