I have been dreaming for as long as I can remember. Unfortunately, I don’t always remember my dreams. Immediately upon waking up, I feel little confused as to which is the real world and which is the dream world. In moments like these, the dream world seems more real than the real world that I had pleasurably avoided while sleeping. As a boy, I used to dream about eating candy or Twinkies. In my dreams, I had every toy I ever wanted. My favorite toy in the first grade was G.I. Joe, but I didn’t have one. Some of my friends had G.I. Joes, so I would play with them at their house. So, at night, I would end up dreaming that I was playing with my very own G.I. Joe. I remember in one dream where I realized that I was about to wake up, but I wanted to take G.I. Joe with me to my waking world so I could play him after school, or whenever I felt like. In my dream, I consciously placed G.I. Joe under my bed before I woke up. I kept reminding myself, while I was dreaming, that when I woke up I would finally have my own G.I. Joe. I really believed I could do it. But, alas, I woke up and I soon as I remembered what I had done in my dream, I looked under my bed. But G.I. Joe was gone. AWOL! I tried it a few more times–unsuccessfully!
Of course, I’ve also had some scary dreams. They seem to have different themes depending on my age. From Kindergarten through about the fourth grade, I used to have dreams about running, but not really get anywhere. Usually, I was being chased by someone from the neighborhood who wanted to beat me up, the Werewolf, Dracula, or some other creature from a horror movie. I almost always woke up before I was ever caught. I would also dream that I was walking to school, and I would be about halfway there, when suddenly, I would realize that I was completely naked. How could this happen in the first place? I’m sure I would notice as I left the house that I had forgotten to put on my clothes. Especially if it was snowing as it did in some of these dreams.
My favorite dreams from that era when I was about ten or eleven involved some of my female classmates. I dreamed the most about a mexicana named Yolanda Gonzalez. I never even thought about Yolanda once while I was awake. I didn’t sit by her and I never went out of my way to talk to her. Then, one night, she walked into my dreams. She was interested in me romantically. Why didn’t I ever see her in that light before? In my dream, I called her, “Querida” just like Gomez called Morticia in The Addams Family. When I woke up, I realized that Yolanda did resemble Morticia somewhat. They both had long black hair and large beautiful eyes. The next time I saw Yolanda, I was absolutely sure that she loved me! She had told me so in my dreams. I sought her out. We would talk when we would “accidently” bump into each other in the playground during lunch. Well, maybe it wasn’t true love, but she did take at least a liking to me because I was paying so much attention to her. After Yolanda was no longer in my life and dreams, I dreamed about other girls whom I never even had considered in my conscious world. I even dated one of the girls of my dreams.
As I grow older and wiser, I now dream about sleeping in late and realizing that I should be at UIC teaching my Spanish class! Sometimes I dream that I teach two classes and then go home. Suddenly, I realize that I left UIC before I taught my third and last class. But by the time I realize this, it’s too late to go back to teach it. Who knows what I’ll dream of when I reach my next stage!
Chicago USA 