Now and again I have had bad dreams, but I
have not had enough of them to make me lose
my delight in dreams. To begin with, I like the
idea of dreaming, of
going to bed and lying
still, and then, surprisingly enough, finding
myself in
another kind of existence
.
As a child I could never understand why grown-
ups took dreaming so calmly while they liked
so much to talk about any holiday. I cannot
understand people who say they never dream
and appear to have no interest in the subject.
It is much more surprising than if they said
they never went out for a walk. Most grown-up
people do not seem to accept dreaming as
part of their lives. They appear to see it as a
strange little habit, like sneezing
. I
have never understood this.
My dream life does not seem as important as
my waking life, probably because there is far
less of it. But to me it is important, as if there
were at least two more continents added to the
world. Then again, the dream life, though
funny and confusing
and not good
enough in many ways, has its own advantages.
The dead are there, smiling and talking. The
past is there, sometimes all broken but
occasionally as fresh as green grass. And
perhaps, the future is there too, waving at us.