Three years ago I posed a series of five questions to people at the local college as part of a paper I was doing in a philosophy class. They're those kinds of questions for which there are no right or wrong answers if they are answered honestly and responsively. But they reveal a lot about the one who answers in terms of that person's language of relating to life and thought.

Which people on campus had the most detailed and emphatic set of answers?

Transgender people hands down. Why so? I think it's because transpeople typically have done immense introspection already... far more than the typical college student of any age bracket. Here are the questions:

1. How do you dream?
2. How do you believe?
3. How do you love?
4. How do you hope?
5. To what do you aspire?

Please note that by asking, "How do you dream?" what is not asked is what you dream about. The truth is, nobody dreams the same way as another person. The question relates to how you approach dreams in yourself. For example are your dreams mundane flotsam to be ignored? Is it an intentional practice? Do you dream lucidly? Are you eidetic? 12% of adults actually see what we are thinking in our visual fields if we think a certain way. Are you a hypnagogist, incubating the dreams that occur at the onset of sleep?

Likewise with believing, loving, and hoping, the questions are not about objects thereof, but how these traits are developed in yourself. Aspirations could mean anything at all from the material to the ethical to the purely abstract to things theological or altruistic. Whatever these things may be, they are you.

I'd like to see what some of our people may come up with either in response to these 5 questions or about thoughts about them. The results should be interesting, even illuminating.

I dream often, if im worried about someone the dreams can be really horrible, I have also had sightings of things that have just happened or will happen in the near future, love the dreams where my beloved ones come back, ive watched a movie then dreamed about the whole movie again a good few times thats a bugger, ive had hypnotherapy and got help with a reacuring dream that got unbearable about 12 years ago and was able to stop it, ive had dreams from a very early age and had reacuring dreams from then, i think it started when i was very introverted as a child, I'm sure emotions have to find a way of escaping if confined

All mine end badly....

I dream a lot and then forget. Then years later, in the middle of the day and out of the blue. A dream comes back to me and still makes no sense. I often dream lucidly, choosing to switch off a dream to begin a new one. I can pick up, or believe I can pick up on a dream after waking, go back to sleep and continue the plot. I believe in the absolute, that blind belief is key, steadfast and unwavering, doubtless and with an expectation of outcome which is predefined and will occur through solidarity of thought. Pragmatism is what I believe in, and that natural change through cycles of what we refer to as time, bring about conditions where the once impossible becomes the norm. This is seen all around us all the time - everything we see, touch, taste, hear which is artificial, ie man made, is the result of changes put in to play through the power of thought, because that's where it all begins; imagination becomes reality and the world is changed again. For love, the same. And for hope, there's still no difference - where there's life there's hope. Remember that and it's all in context. Hope isn't about longevity or survival, it's about understanding and interaction with others. Aspirations change, but then it seems they just fade, when I realise, that they're been mostly achieved, just different to how they seemed they'd be before they were achieved. When you are without, not being without is an unknown quantity. Achieving what you want requires focus, but that focus must be interesting and significantly mind expanding in order to fulfill it's usefulness and adapt to a world which has changed so much since the first glimmer of thought about the here and now was formed. Or something like that.