I remember two dreams from last night but only snippets from a third. Here’s what I recall about the two.

First, there was a writing dream. A young man again, I was in my early twenties.

I love how my dreams often make me younger. *smile*

I was sitting with my wife at a low, light gray counter. She was on my right. To my left was a young girl, white with long brown hair. I think she was about 12. Nobody I knew.

In front of me on the counter was a yellow legal pad. A male voice outside of my dream frame was suggesting that I write a book about writing fiction.

I was laughing and denigrating the idea. “I’ve had a couple short stories published, and I self-published a few books,” I rebutted. “That’s not really a good position as someone giving writing advice.”

But as I was talking, I was scribbling ideas on the yellow pad. Using a red pen, I wrote down four columns.

My wife said, “I think you should.”

And the out of dream voice said, “The girl will type it up for you.”

And the girl was saying, “I’m bored. Is there anything for me to type?”

That all made me laugh harder. On the yellow pad, I jotted down ideas in the four columns as I laughed.

Dream end

The Race Dream

I was in some coastal area with my wife and some friends. (The friends weren’t anyone from real life.)

A storm was coming in from the ocean, building up. The winds were growing higher, and the surf was rising and becoming more violent.

But a race was being held in the water. I don’t know what distance was involved but people could parasail, surf, bicycle, swim, or run to win. The race would go along the coastline.

I had a friend there with a saddled brown horse (with a black mane and tail) and several young children. The friend BTW looked like a young Viggo Mortensen. The children were begging him to enter the race. He was uncertain but they talked him into it. So he climbed into the saddle. After pulling the two children up onto the saddle with him, he urged the horse forward to join the race.

I watched, amused and also wondering, “Is that safe?” I saw that the surf was much worse than I thought it was. I was considering how he would do this, envisioning the horse galloping sometimes through waves breaking on the shore, but mostly urging the horse along on the firm, wet sound just above the water line.

I heard people mocking my friend, “Oh, look, here’s another one who doesn’t know how to surf.”

The starting gun went off and the race began. I watched as the racers went south, through the crashing waves, as sunlight broke through thinning gray storm clouds.

Knowing the race would be away, I went to the house where we were staying. This was actually a large, lovely terra cotta mansion. I was standing out there, having drinks with friends and my wife. It was a small group. Two of the friends were from my childhood, and two were adult friends.

One childhood friend asked, “Why did they call you the professor when you were young.”

I laughed it off. “Probably because I read a lot and had to wear glasses.”

My wife said, “No, it was because you were smart.”

My other childhood friend said it was because I always got good grades.

As we were talking, I noticed a blonde teenage girl standing off to one side, listening. I realized that she was going to back and tell her friends about this conversation.

Turning, and shifting angles, I found a view of the ocean. The race was still going on. I saw about forty competitors and thought I spotted my friend on horseback but wasn’t sure.

Dream end