Long stories short...

"Dreams come true. Without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them."-John Updike

In college I took a psychology class and learned that having vivid dreams is often a symptom of psychosis. Before that, as a child in church, my pastor said that dreams were the way our hearts communicated to us our wishes and fears. Now, years removed from either of those explanations I wonder if they are both a little right.

I don't dream about being a fireman or of marrying a prince anymore, and I suppose this is a loss caused by the aging process. Now I dream the little adult dreams; I dream about the pretty two-story yellow house on Wingfield across the street from Hendrix College, about paying off my car and using the extra money to take a cruise, about losing all my extra pounds and buying cute little summer dresses. But these are small dreams, attainable dreams, dreams that are really just plans waiting for the time when I decide to fulfill them.

As adults, do we lose the ability to dream vividly? Do we surplant our dreams with common sense? Do we tell ourselves that thinking about the impossible just shouldn't be done?

I dream of publishing a book, one I write with my name on the glossy cover. I do, I admit it. It's a big dream, one that may be no more attainable than marrying a prince (I'm pretty sure Murray isn't hiding a secret about being Belgium royalty or something like that). Something like 30,000 query letters are sent to literary agents every day. The math isn't good, but that's why it's a dream. Sometimes dreams do come true...just ask Cinderella.