Real Dreams
by Juliette Sterner

What do you dream about?

 As a child, I had a recurring dream that I was, and was observing at the same time, a white horse stepping into an icy, rocky stream.  Recalling that dream now, my body remembers the anticipation and shock I felt decades ago.  Even then, I knew dreams must be important.  If not, why have them?  Why remember them?  Why would some come back again and again?   

 When I had to write my first big essay required for high school graduation, I chose to research dreaming.  The title, taken from Hamlet, was: "To Sleep, Perchance to Dream."  Ok, I admit I may have been searching for an academic excuse to do more sleeping.  What I found is that dreams come in the stage of sleep that is essential for our health.  If we're deprived of this dreamtime sleep, well, it's not good.  We need to dream, even when we don't remember them, they don't give up on us.  We dream on!

 I happen to be a good dream rememberer.  Sometimes a dream will play peekaboo with me hours or days after I've had it, never fully revealing itself until something I do or hear will pull it out of the shadows so I can get a good look.  I know these dreams stick around on the periphery for good reasons.    

Sometimes, I am abruptly awakened from a dream that I want to go back into, or at least recall.  If I arrange my body in the same position, I can often evoke the dream. 

 There are times when I want a dream so much, I can't wait to get to sleep.   On the new moon, full moon, equinoxes and solstices, my birthday, and the day my period starts, I pay particular attention to my dreams, often asking for insight as I settle in bed.

 I have scores of notebooks filled with dreams recorded sporadically over twenty or more years.  One summer, it became clear to me that my dream life was going to be more meaningful than my waking life for awhile.  My handwriting, at best virtually illegible, couldn't keep up with my dream recollections, so I bought my first computer.  Many computers later, I still sit down at the keyboard, close my eyes, and let the dream flow directly from my head to the screen. 

 So, what do you dream? 

 Dreams are precious gifts, and when they make such an impression on us that we remember them, right away or days later, they are calling for attention. 

 What I see in your dream isn't necessarily what you see in it.  A dream can be like a poem.  What the writer intends and what the reader gets may not be the same, but that's ok.  I can learn things about my life from your dreams, and you can learn from what I see.  It's all association.

 Having said this, what I write about your dreams will come from my associations, from what I know of cultural associations, and from what I perceive about you.

 Write me your dreams, I'm a dreamer too.  

Please note, as of December 2004, we are no longer accepting dream submissions.

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Revised: December 10, 2004