Alan Gelband was once extremely lonely and unfulfilled when he met a brilliant person who told him the key to happiness is balance. Based on those life-changing conversations, Alan wrote Sleeping Dreams. This is a journey that begins by admitting our deepest desire for an ideal mate. The journey continues by questioning reality in general and moves toward breaking the very barriers that stop love from happening: our negative emotions. Through poems, we meet our negative emotions and give them names and discover methods to deal with them. The first blocking emotion is anxiety. Anxiety about the future moves into fear about the future. The paralytic force of fear brings jealousy, in which self-pity occurs. This creates anger, which poisons our love and leads to guilt, and that feeling of guilt is the high-water point of negative self-indulgence. However, after understanding negative emotions, we are free to realize that present moment consciousness, affirmative action, and conscious love move us into the wide-open spaces of spiritual, physical, and emotional freedom. In this part of the journey, we float on a peaceful raft, balanced by our positive physical actions while working on our relationships, assertive business activities, and a growing spiritual awareness. It is on the raft and not on the shore that we create our ultimate connection and find our ideal mate.
