Think about the last dream you had. Were you questioning where you were? Did you look around and think, “Hang on… this is a bit strange”?
Probably not. You just accepted it and went with the flow. Most of us live our waking lives exactly the same way.
So here’s my answer to how to find meaning in life: it was never missing. You stopped looking at it with curiosity. Meaning floods back the moment you slow down and question things the way a child does… and your dreams are trying to show you how, every night.
You don’t question your dreams (or your life)
When you wake up, you carry that dream-state with you. It’s only when you tell someone else about the dream that they see it fresh. They weren’t in it, so they see what you couldn’t.
Culture works the same way. You’re born into a place where everyone eats the same food, listens to the same music, has the same customs. It’s only when you visit somewhere completely different that you get the culture shock. That other way of living was always there. You just didn’t have the perspective.
It’s only when you start questioning what’s in front of you that things begin to change.
When questioning comes from anger
When I was a teenager, a friend got me into punk music, and I fell in love with it. The message behind it was all about questioning. Why so much injustice? Why are governments so corrupt? Why are big corporations so greedy?
Questioning is healthy. But mine was coming from an angry place.
I think a lot of people are there right now. Angry and upset at what’s happening in the world, but not doing anything about it. What’s left is a heavy feeling… apathy, shame, a sense of disconnect. You can see the problems, but you’re stuck.
The moment everything connected
What changed it for me was Eckhart Tolle, a spiritual teacher who teaches people how to be in the moment and let go of their worries.
I was sat on my bed reading one of his books, and he said to bring your awareness into your hands. So I did. My fingers started to tingle. I could feel the energy in my hands. It felt good.
I got lost in the words. Then I got lost in the spaces between the words. The awareness spread from my hands into my body, then outside of me, into the book, into the room itself. I felt connected. Whole. All the little worries we layer on just… let go.
It taught me something I’ve never forgotten. Being aware of yourself feels good. That’s the baseline. We only lose it when we pay attention to things that don’t really matter.
How to be more present: the walk to work
At the time I was teaching English at a school just down the road. A one-minute walk. I’d normally rush it, head down, thinking about my classes. That walk had completely disappeared from my life. You know when people say “I don’t even remember driving to work”? Like that.
The morning after reading that book, I stepped outside and felt a gentle breeze. The sun was warm on my skin. I could feel my feet touching the ground. I noticed patterns on the pavement… shadows of leaves. I looked up and saw the light shining through hundreds of little leaves, all slightly different colours, rustling. The tree was gently swaying. It was breathing. It was alive.
I felt alive.
In one minute, meaning flooded back into my life. Not because anything had changed. I was questioning from a different place. Curiosity instead of anger. “Wow, look at that. How does that feel?”
There’s meaning everywhere. We just rush past it.
Fight for what’s right, or find peace?
I told all this to one of my oldest friends, funnily enough the same friend who got me into punk. He looked at me and said, “Isn’t that just being passive? Don’t you want to fight for what’s right?”
I didn’t have an answer. He had a point, and that question stayed with me for a long time.
What I’ve learned since is that you don’t have to choose. It’s not one or the other. It’s both. It’s a rhythm.
Scientists say the universe is expanding and will eventually contract. On the most personal level, you breathe in and expand, breathe out and contract. Only breathe in and you’ll burst. Only breathe out and you’ll collapse. Day and night. Leaving for work and coming home to rest.
Fighting for something is the outward energy. Peace is the return, where you bring it home and see it with fresh eyes. You need both.
Ask like a child
I said earlier that how you question is more important than what you question. The best example I know is my little boy. He’s two and a half, and he sees magic everywhere. “What’s that? What’s this?”
He’s not angry at the world. He wants to discover it. Underneath every question is joy.
As adults, we pile on worries, stresses, labels. That’s what happened with my walk to work. I’d labelled the whole thing: that’s a road, that’s a tree, end of story. The meaning was always there. I’d just stopped looking.
That child you once were hasn’t gone anywhere. There’s still a part of you that sees wonder in everything, or wants to.
Your dreams refuse to be labelled
This is exactly what dreams do. They resist labels.
Sure, they give you symbols. But it’s never “water means emotion, teeth means anxiety, end of story”. Symbols work on lots of layers at once, which is why Googling your dream always feels flat. (Here’s how to interpret your dreams yourself instead.)
Your dreams take all the things you’ve stopped giving meaning to and bring them back up. “Here. Look at this again, in a different light.”
They’ve been speaking to you every night. The question is whether you’re willing to look at them with curiosity.
Questions people ask about finding meaning in life
How do I find meaning in everyday life?
Slow down and look at something ordinary as if you’d never seen it before. Meaning tends to be hiding in exactly the things you’ve labelled as unimportant: the walk you rush, the people you see every day.
How can I be more present?
Start with your body. Bring your awareness into your hands, your breath, your feet on the ground. It sounds simple because it is. The hard part is remembering to do it.
What if life genuinely feels like it has no meaning right now?
That can be a really heavy place to be, and if it’s been going on for a while, please talk to someone you trust or a professional. You don’t have to work through it alone.
What do dreams have to do with finding meaning?
Dreams bring back up the things you’ve stopped noticing and ask you to look again. Paying attention to them is a daily practice of looking at your life with fresh eyes.
See what this looks like with a real dream
If you want to see what it looks like when someone actually sits with a dream, I’ve interpreted a real one from start to finish. It’s free.