Had one then, and I have one now, intimately interwoven with our gazillions of other dreams. And like Martin Luther's mine isn't a normal sleeping dream.

Oh, I had those too, at least as a kid. And they often weren't that friendly! I most vividly remember one involving a gold fish, and a game of running man, or rather running boy back then: I was meandering thru some huge building, that for some reason felt like a school. I still remember entering one room and finding a really big goldfish in a tank on some sort of high table: it was so high I actually had to look up to it!As I did, it winked at me, and I was totally terrified, because that day in school I had just learned that fish can't blink for lack of eyelids!

I really broke the land speed record for humans that night, and not just because of the goldfish: every corridor I ran through had the lights going out right above my head! Woke up sweating from head to toe, and I don't know for sure anymore, but I don't believe sleep was still a safe place that night!

But time heals all, and nightmares became more and more sparse. At some point they stopped, but what remained was flat, inconsequential. I dreamed, and sometimes remembered fragments, but that was it....

Then the Web told me about lucid dreaming, where you learn to detect you are dreaming, and then jump in and shape it to do whatever you want. I tried the various things, like electronic gadgets or certain foods before sleeping. Somehow though, it wasn't for me, because I never got the hang of it. I'm funny that way, I just can't do what some others do just like that. Those images full of colored dots that turn into a 3D image when you look at them in a certain way? Can't do it! But I can construct the birthing process of a ball lightning right in my mind, no paper and pencils required.

After the lucid dreaming craze, remembering dreams became a rarity. And if I did, the stories were all weird somehow, but at the same time totally acceptable. Except that one time, quite some time before I actually heard I would become single again:

First person perspective, lying face down on top of a huge white arch. And I do mean HUGE! I reckon ground level would have easily been a mile away, just follow the direction of gravity. And someone had actually taken that first step: Linda was dangling from my outstretched arm, and being the voluptuous being she was, something wasn't quite right! I tried whatever I could, but just imagine that feeling of slipping fingers, and the woman you love becoming smaller and smaller, heading for something you know you can't save her from...

So when the divorce loomed, I did just what the dream showed, simply because it hadn't been really clear to me what it meant to tell me. Afterwards I figured it probably had nothing to tell me, other than providing a dress rehersal so the eventual crash wouldn't break me.

I still don't remember many of my dreams, but I'm dead sure my nights are not spent just lying around either! At times I used to wake with this nagging pain, right between my shoulder blades, which felt like my legs feel when I've been running. Could it be that the wings I use at night give me trouble in the morning, even though you can't see them then?

Isn't it weird, that some said to me I'm a Guardian, and that both my novels have me playing a similar role? In fact, I even feel like that during day, like at the station: standing mostly alone, eyes never fixed on anyone in particular, but at the same time seeing them all! The moment someone makes eye contact, it's time to move on....

And of course dreaming the whole day through, because those are the dreams I do remember vividly!

I've given up trying to remember my nightly dreams, simply because waking life has already been feeding me a steady stream of wild syncs anyhow. And I know for sure that whatever I do in my sleep is all working towards whatever dreams I may set for myself while awake. And if you know it's all good, why ask for confirmation?

And since this article took me the whole trip home, I figured it was finished and sent it before leaving the train. This one had actually quite a problem stopping in the right place, because he parked those thousands of tons of steel right at the end of the platform, about a hundred meters later than usual. And then, opening the door and getting out, I nearly bumped into this:

It may be hard to believe, but this ad is for Coelho's new novel called the Guardian. At least that is what 'Beschermengel' stands for in Dutch. And if you think I just heard about the book and decided to mix it in, then you can find the timestamp of my phone camera in the bottom right corner, honestly! Isn't that a coincidence weirder than dreams? Writing about being a Guardian, and then stepping off the train right in front of that ad board I'd never seen?

Love your Dreams, always!

Dré