In My Dreams, I’m Always 25…

Lately, I’ve been pondering something strange but persistent: in my dreams, I’m never my current self.

Not in age. Not in weight. Not in health or hesitation.

I’m always… well, me—but the version of me that feels most like me. No back pain. No fatigue. No awareness of aging. I don’t second-guess what I’m capable of. I just am. Strong, moving, doing, becoming.

It made me wonder—do our brains hold onto some internal image of ourselves, some subconscious blueprint that gets locked in around age 25?

Science has some thoughts on that.

By our mid-20s, our prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain responsible for decision-making, self-awareness, and our sense of identity—is fully developed. After that, the architecture is in place. The rest is refinement. That’s also the season of life when many people settle into who they believe they are and what they’re here to do.

Psychologists call it narrative identity—that invisible thread we use to stitch our life story together. And once we find that thread, we tend to hold onto it. Even if our bodies change. Even if time marches on.

So maybe, when we dream, we return to that version. The most whole version. The one that feels like freedom. Like purpose. Like us at full capacity.

And here’s the deeper layer I’ve been turning over:
What if that version is more than just a psychological default?

What if that’s our soul’s imprint?

What if that “ideal self” we return to in dreams—the one without limits or fear or fatigue—is a glimpse of who we really are, eternally? The version Heaven holds. Not in vanity, but in essence. Whole. Restored. As we were meant to be before time and gravity got their say.

Maybe the reason I always dream as my younger, healthier self isn’t just nostalgia.
Maybe it’s memory. Soul-memory. A whisper from eternity that says: This is still you.

Because even as our bodies age, something inside us never does. Something eternal remembers.

And when the world fades—when these earthly bodies fall away—maybe that’s the version of us that remains. The soul, shaped in love, refined by fire, and finally free.

So I ask you:
If you had to picture your truest self—the one that might walk into Heaven tomorrow—
What would she look like?

What age would she be?

Would she still carry worry? Or would she finally be light?

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🌀 Just something I’m pondering. Maybe you are too.