Gratitude For EVERYTHING: No Exceptions!

I've figured out something curious about my energy cycle just recently. Getting enough sleep, usually at least 6 or 7 hours at night is important, yet much more than that seems to be a lot worse for me. More than 8 or 9 can leave me depleted of energy, almost depressed, which is not me!
      So what's this obsession with sleep? I adore sleep! It's that great mystery of voluntarily slipping over the edge of the abyss into oblivion--the radical shift for apparently being present, awake and at least somewhat aware in your life, and then dissolving into seeming non-existence. Every night this happens.
      "Gone. Gone. Gone beyond," as it says in the Heart Sutra.
      Oh yes, there are dreams, of course, though to me dreams seem less like significant messages or symbols than simply parallel universes where I connect with glimpses of complete alternate lives in other worlds. Similar, though never quite identical Bruces experiencing realities that I may recognize, and yet those world differ to varying degrees: ever so slightly; quite a bit; plenty; a great deal; or radically.
      Physics these days has room for the possibility of infinite parallel universes, though most scientists would tell you there can be no actual communication between these endlessly branching timelines . Without getting technical, I simply beg to differ . . . as I seem to experience many many parallel universes in my sleep, during dreams.
      Of course, dreams can be highly significant and even direct messages. Certainly Jung got that right, though more often I'm inclined to just let them be what they are.
      Recently a dream struck me and took my breath away. I've mentioned in an earlier blog that not long ago I began painting in oils again for the first time in 20 years. A few years before that, my father who lived up in Colorado passed away. he had always encouraged and appreciated my creativity.
      I never dreamed about him since he died, until a few months back. I saw him and we were simply chatting. "I really like your new paintings," he said, "especially the ones you're going to do in the future."
      Now that's a message to be grateful for!
      Of course, one of the most amazing things about the voluntary oblivion of sleep is that you always come back, or at least so far that's my experience. Sometimes it surprises me: from nothing to everything and back again.
      Here I AM again!
      Gratitude is something I'd like to extend impersonally, not only to what I like or consciously appreciate, but to everything in existence. I mean, who AM I to judge what should or should not be? My likes and dislikes are trivial in the scheme of things. My gratitude doesn't mean much if I limit it according to my personal preferences.
      So. I'm grateful for EVERYTHING: no exceptions!