As a kid, dreams were so vivid. I would awaken from sleep with a jerk, bleary eyed and confused, and realize I had escaped the unadulterated pleasures of my unfettered imagination. I would close my eyes tightly in a vain effort to return to the parameters of the previously romantic notion. It hardly ever worked. Rare was the night I could return to the sleepy fantasy I had so carelessly abandon.

Plenty of people put stock in nocturnal dreams, and what they reveal about your hopes, your fears, your future, and your psyche. I’m not well read enough to offer interpretation, praise or disembowel Freud on this one. At this place in life, I’d rather not overanalyze, and prefer to enjoy to dreams for the escape from reality they offer.

Most of my nocturnal dreams are positive or neutral. As a kid, there were recurring locations. Most were not real places, but accessed from my childhood home, either through the attic, or crawl space. In my dreams I explored these fictitious spaces that seemed to extend for miles.

In my twenties the dreamscape changed. I ceased exploring, and fell into the trap set by college and wage earning. These dreams were non-restful and stressful. In college, I threw pottery in my sleep and awakened to the buzzing of that fucking alarm clock and felt absolutely exhausted. If I could have brought all THOSE pots back from my dreams, I could have easily stocked a crematorium, and a flower shop. My first full time job, fueled computer dreams. I would spend hours plotting points on paths for die cuts, and later writing html (Can you tell I have trouble letting go of things?

Recently, I woke Mister Hombre up talking in my sleep. Make that, talking loudly. Apparently, I was talking to my father in the dream, and I wasn’t being heard. I woke up, firmly saying, “I’m going to be fucking clear about this…” It was with the strained tone, you have when you fight to emerge from drowsiness. The Mister laughing, and we were confused and amused.

Dreams I remember fondly are light and airy. Sometimes I am ice skating, gracefully. I can leap, but most importantly, I can land (I can skate. I am NOT graceful. Think daschund walking a tightrope.). These dreams feel weightless, as if all the burdens of ordinary life have been discarded for the moment. In some, I can fly, or at the very least float. I wake up feeling relieved like I have released some unnecessary, but tightly held burden.

The best dreams usually include friends I don’t get to see often enough. These are people I long to spend time with, but life, families, jobs and geography always seem to interfere. Last week, one of these friends came to me in a dream and it was wonderful. We were hanging out in a grassy meadow lounging on a blanket, talking about nothing and everything, leaning shoulder to shoulder, and laughing. The memory is so crisp, like it really should have happened…maybe it did.

Study of hands from sketchbook. Gel pen on colored paper. Probably my hands.