Generally speaking, I love dreaming. It amazes me how creative my mind can be when I put it on auto-control. My dreams may be influenced by things I have heard or seen during the day, but that seems to be the exception. Usually my dreams begin at some strange, arbitrary jumping off point and head into who knows what direction.

It is a rare occasion that I have a nightmare. Over the years I have somehow learned how to affect a modicum of control over the direction of my dreams and am able to guide nightmares into safer territory. At other times my unconscious seems to recognize my dream as a nightmare and backs the camera up, letting me be more of an observer than a participant, lessening any impact the dream might have on me.

When I was young, I had one recurrent dream where I was falling down the stairs to the basement. It certainly qualified as a nightmare. One night I was drifting into that dream once again, but as I started to fall down the stairs, I started to fly. That experience killed that nightmare and turned it into a dream I would seek out. It’s been a very, very long time since I had a flying dream. I miss them.

To be sure, I have had dreams where I am in some situation where I am trying to shout out some warning and wake myself up when I finally blurt out the words in real life. Or I am struggling to move my arm to grab something and wake up when my arm finally breaks free of sleep-induced paralysis and strikes out. Those are rare.

The dreams that affect me the most are those which have guest stars – people in my life who have passed on. They are also infrequent, as far as I can recall, but when I have one I am always deeply moved. It is no wonder that primitive people felt that they were communicating with the dead in such circumstances. Such a presence in a dream can be so amazingly lifelike that it does feel as though the person was actually there. I suppose it is that kind of dream that can truly keep a person alive in your mind.

When my father was diagnosed with cancer and given a three month death sentence, he eventually began to slip into a sort of reverie. We were given pamphlets by support people which explained what a dying person in my father’s condition may go through and he seemed to follow the script. I often wonder if he was revisiting old friends and relatives, or reliving old times, and if they were in the nature of a dream. I cannot imagine being in the state he was in and not having my mind taken over by these kinds of dreams.

I wonder if this is how we go in the end; we literally slip into our dreams, never to wake from them again. If so, I hope they are good dreams.