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 a 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 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 getting 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 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 when 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 “accidentally” 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!