The Dreaming Phase: Turning Dreams Into Reality

OK, in talking about step one of turning dreams into reality, we have step one, which is dream. In order to turn dreams into reality, you have to first start with actually having a dream. And I believe dreams are very special, interesting things. I think they're a combination of our brain doing behind-the-scenes processing whenever we are in a state of rest, combining, recombining, taking on new forms. But I also think that there's kind of like the beyond-our-understanding aspect of it too, where that has to do more with the spiritual or just right place, right time, quantum, whatever.

But ultimately the first step in turning dreams into reality is you have to dream first. And so the way that I dream, you know, these are just different examples of what I use in order to dream or what the products of these dreams are: mood boards, different pictures that I grabbed from various sources, whether it be screenshots on Instagram, saving pictures from Twitter or X, Pinterest—basically saving the things that I like and want to remember that I like. Videos, videos that I see on YouTube, videos that I see on Instagram, whatever the case may be. Usually it's some type of speech or lecture or seminar or whatever the case is.

Creating a collection, creating an archive of all those different resources and sources to live and refer back to. Visualizing, imagining a different version of the life that you live now where certain things that didn't exist before now exist. It doesn't have to be exact. It doesn't have to be exactly what the final end product is going to be. That's what we're trying to discover through trial and error, making mistakes.

I think over time I have learned to kind of really lock in and hone in on the way that I like to dream. I spent a lot of my time growing up kind of sticking to myself, being in my own head. I had a lot of moments where I could be alone, and so often I was, you know, in my own head. And because of that, I think I've become very in tune to my process for dreaming and finding inspiration. I save a lot of pictures and videos and take a lot of pictures and videos because I don't want to forget what it is that I'm looking at, what I'm taking in.

In one of my THINKPEACEs before, I likened my creative process to the water cycle. About how ideas are kind of like—ideas and inspiration, things that I'm interacting with in the real world are kind of like the little water droplets that gather, and depending on the conditions of my environment, they'll either come out as a drizzle or as a storm of just ideas pouring out. And my goal is to try to capture as much of that rain, those ideas, as possible.

I think part of the reason why dreaming is so important as well is because it's one of the purest forms of imagination. Nothing held back, not worrying about anything, not worrying about anybody's outside perspective, just allowing things to flow and form naturally. Full of joy. It's kind of what we're missing today. I feel like people don't feel like they can dream anymore. But that's why I love dreaming. That's why I think dreaming is so important.

When I was in school, dreaming for me, dreaming of the future for me looked like watching YouTube videos and imagining myself painting sneakers, imagining that I was Virgil Abloh, I was Ye. What would my life look like? Nothing's held back, no fear, just dreams. Dreaming gives you the audacity to think that things are possible.

I dreamed that I would become someone who works and manipulates sneakers in an artistic way before I ever picked up the paintbrush. I dreamed that I was a clothing designer way before I ever designed any clothes. I took all these images of things that I was seeing in the real world and dreamed that it was possible.

When I was doing the 10-week program for the Reebok opportunity, I dreamed of myself winning before I even started the first assignment. And then when I got to the point in the ten-week project where I had about a week and a half left, I hadn't completed my assignments and was trying to figure out even what shoe design I wanted to do. There was a moment where I thought about just giving up and then I dreamed about winning the shoe, getting the notification that I had won, and this was before I even came up with the design for Duality. Dreaming is so important. It's such a crucial step on the journey to turn dreams into reality.

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