Yesterday I hit a wall. Okay, so the constant dropout of internet connect didn’t help my state of mind after almost nine hours of trying to make a few simple changes to my website, but still, I used that forbidden phrase more than anyone should in an entire lifetime… ‘I can’t.’

Luckily for me I have an incredibly patience man who also just happens to know almost everything about almost everything and so came to my aid. But not without me shouting and refusing and shedding a few tears in the process. And even after a quick fix on the things I’d spent most of my day trying to work out, one thing was very clear. The wall I had been banging my head against had wiped me out. Completely. And I couldn’t let that happen again. Even though I felt that I hadn’t moved forward because I hadn’t succeeded, this morning, with the above quote waiting for me in my inbox, I realised what I could change, and thus learn.

It’s true that I’m very likely to find more things that seem impossible for me to work out unassisted (probably tech issues), but I can use my time more efficiently moving forward. There are so many things on my ‘want and need to do for 2012’ list that I really have no excuse for not shuffling things around when something gets the better of me. Today I have allocated distinct time slots for the things on my this. Of course I’m not going to be completely strict to the minute, but it will give me an indication if something is going way beyond what it should, which might just highlight my need to put my hand up and ask for help. Might. Overall this should result in me still getting things done, less stress and ultimately avoid smashing full force into that wall.

Last night I had a conversation with my man about morning people vs night owls. After returning from a working trip in a different time zone, he seems to think that he’s naturally a morning person that has tried to have the best of both worlds. And me? I’ve always thought of myself as an owl, not so much because I dislike mornings, but because I find it so damn hard to wake up. “It’s because I dream so much!” Is that even a reason?

And so, this morning, after a very slow start and a mind begging to be let back into its own world of dreams, I got to thinking about the mechanics of the waking mind vs the art of dream construction.

There are so many dream dictionaries available, and yet every time I try to decipher my dreams from them, I get stuck. I mean, how can you understand the meaning of a dream that has characters and sub characters, plots and parallel universes, zombies and love, by a book that labels categories as simple as ‘black’ or ‘rat’? So maybe our dreams aren’t meant to be understood literally, but instead perhaps they are an extension of ourselves, and in the life of a creative, perhaps a valuable one.

You knew that though, right? But what if the space of sleep in as equally important as our waking space, in terms of our growth and creative development? Should then, we go to bigger lengths to experiment what ‘works best’ in enabling our potential through sleep and the art of dreams? And how can we use that part of us to better the waking self? To push our boundaries, to go beyond what it is that our open, conscious mind knows and somehow tap into what our subconscious, turned off self knows. Maybe if we listened, we’d find a place of harmony, where we wouldn’t separate the days and nights as separate entities of time, but rather as one continuous stream of being, simply in different stages. And if we can build on that idea, what does it then mean for the notion of ‘time’ and the approach we take to any given task with a designated timeframe? If, that is, our days are no longer separated by the rising and setting of the sun, but rather the progress we make on any one thread, idea, project, development.

I recently had a conversation in a dream that links directly into a body of work that I’m currently embarked on. And I took note. What I said in my dream was a solid explanation for the fundamentals of the work, and something I hadn’t voiced in my waking life.

Perhaps, then, we should take a bit more notice as to what goes on into our sleep, when all our rules and structures are broken down and we’re able to go somewhere that might actually help us reach a new level on waking. Worth a thought, at least?

On the second day, I was making my way over Tower Bridge, or trying to. If you know the far South steps of the bridge, you’ll know that they’re narrow. Solid wall on both sides, only room for one person going up, one person going down. I was then also wearing very, very stupid quarter length wellies, that, it turned out, rubbed at my carves like hungry mice.

Third step up, I tripped. The cameras in my bag broke my fall. I made a mental note to check them the second I got underground and tried to get up when I realised a man was fussing over me. Arms wide, mouth open. I wasn’t the only one stopping the step traffic. Embarrassed, I beamed a smile at his gawk and hurried to my feet and round the corner.

All I wanted to do was get on the tube, bury into my book and get home to take the stupid rubbing wellies off. As fast as the rubber boots would let me, I weaved in and out of the tourists who, it seemed, were all enjoying the English rain. There were so many cameras about, all different shapes and sizes and I couldn’t help but smile as some people held phones out, snapping their London trip into the little mobiles. I thought about all the sittings people would do to look at these ‘cool’ images of London, all the new posts to facebook. I thought about the cameras in my bag, unused for the whole day. But it was wet, I was wet. And cold.

I made it home, took a burning shower and, regardless of my efforts, I felt just as grouchy stopping through the puddles as I came from underground the next day. I had decided to leave my cameras at home. A day indoors awaited me.

It was still raining. People were still taking pictures. People were still in my way. And yet, as I hit the foot of Tower Bridge (North side) the light whipped my bad mood away. The rain slowly stopped and the clouds broke, letting a beam of light pour over the bridge and onto windows to my left. Damn. Now I needed my camera. I smiled at the man next to me, he was taking a picture with his phone, of himself, castle in the background. I decide to join him. I dug into my bag for my phone.

I snapped the light that turned my mood, I snapped people taking pictures of their partners, people taking shots at arms length, followed by a quick check; are we both in? Mid way across the bridge I spot a man jumping up and down, pointing down the crack and into the river. When I aimed my phone at him, he stopped.

I noticed the true excitement of people, I imagined this being their first time in London, this bridge a highlight. I enjoyed watching them take their photos. It was interesting to see the angles they chose, the bits of the skyline they thought the best to take home. I tapped the camera button a few more times, eager to capture my suddenly pleasant view on these previously irritating tourists.

They were posed with Union Jack umbrellas, some leaned over the bridge like a winter-coated page-3 wannabe. Others aimed for ‘photographer-on-the-fly’ with their clunky digital SLRs, pointing at family members to ‘keep walking, act normal’.

Even though I used my phone, I still thought them worth sharing. It’s a lesson we all need to relearn, everyday. Enjoy each sight as if it’s the first time you’re seeing it. Embrace other people’s excitement, join in. Do not let their excitement get in your way. Sometimes we need to take a step back. Walking with our heads down from place to place, rain or no rain, is surely going to turn us blind. Living this way, we’re missing daily miracles and an abundance of beauty. It’s time to start enjoying what we have, to open our eyes.

Tower Bridge is an awesome thing to see, it’s just a shame I waited so long to see it, again.

I broke his concentration. He believes it’s hardwired into us. I questioned out loud whether a child that grew in a society without smiles would still have the ability to do it themselves. If they never heard laughter, would they still laugh when something tickled them? Would it even be a tickle that would set it off?

Later in the evening we watched a programme that opened on a conversation in which one character complained how women always leave lights on. This made me laugh. And my partner? Silence. Now, was it just that I found this particular guy funny or was it that it simply applied to me? I could almost hear my dad, ‘why is it that our house is the only house on the whole street with every light on?! Do we really need them all on?’ Suffice to say my dad was blessed with three women in his house.

So this morning I couldn’t help but give ‘laughing’ a quick google. I found a few articles that quote Robert R. Provine, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. After numerous studies he concludes that it is, as my man so aptly put it, hardwired in us. He believes that laughing actually came before spoken language, and by several hundred years at that.

He goes on to say that laughter rarely has anything to do with humour. Believing that the feeling of togetherness, a sense of community, a joined feeling that connects us to people, is the reason for our laughter. And that of course would make sense for both my smiling and laughing attacks yesterday. Both very warming thoughts and yet neither even remotely funny.

As a writer, reader and a person who loves all things word related, I started to think about the idea of laughter as the first kind of human communication. To show something as funny we show characters laughing, and yet, what if instead they laughed at times of unity, hope and community growth. Would we find this odd, even though it seems that is where we get most of our smiles from in reality? I began to contemplate if there’s a way to incorporate this earliest form of language into literature, art, media. But without words? Is this possible? So far, I have no idea. But I am certainly going to work on the idea and see where the trail takes me. Afterall, it seems I owe it to my humanity. And evolution.