Dreams are not something I often remember. Whether that’s a product of my anxious, unfocused mind or not, I’ll probably never know, but the fact is, they slip from my mind like water through fingers. Maybe that’s not a perfect analogy. Dreams always seem like something I can hold onto but never can—unlike water, which is always beyond my grasp.

There is, however, one dream I remember quite vividly. I still remember when I had it: freshman year, so about four years ago, in October. It was a Saturday morning, one of my first at college, of course. The dream was like something out of Alice in Wonderland. I found myself in some…strange world. I was with a girl, and there were a lot of people around. But they were moving kind of like…drones. Like they all shared a single mind, I guess. The world was kind of strange, too. I remember a river…or maybe it was more like a creek. And there was grass on my side, and on the other, but on the other side there was also a building. Or more like an entrance, because the “building” was built into the side of a mountain, or something like that. Everyone was marching into the building.

I don’t remember how it happened—or why—maybe I never even knew in the dream—but somehow the girl became lost, and I had to save her. That’s where the real meat of the adventure began. Like I said, the world was Carollesque, like something out of Alice, because I met the most interesting people along the way—weird characters—and had to solve some really weird puzzles in order to make any progress. I’ve never dropped acid, but I imagine it felt like what an acid trip would be like.

Unfortunately, the dream never resolved (then again, do dreams ever end?). Back then, my roommate got up freakishly early on Saturday mornings, and his alarm was this annoying clock that played some country song. Needless to say, the alarm went off, and the dream, like a mirage, was lost.

I remember frantically trying to write down everything I could remember about the dream, because somehow I knew that it would make an amazing piece of writing, but even then, in the aftermath of the dream, I couldn’t remember it all; even worse, what few notes I had have since been lost, and now I only have distant, but fond, memories of the dream—enough to tantalize me, but not enough to develop into a real story.

This dream came back to me this morning while riding the bus to school/work, because I’m reading a great book, Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. It’s an amazing book, and almost trance-like in nature, like you’re in a dream while reading it. There’s a lot of interesting things about Murakami’s style that I really admire, but I’ll save the discussion of that for another time. For now, pick up the book and check it out for yourself.