I often wake up and remember a wild dream that I was having, but it rapidly fades away, and unless I make some sort of effort, a few moments later it’s usually gone.

On a few occasions I’ve tried to quickly write down what I could recall of those wild dreams, but on reviewing what I’ve written later, they are more gobbledygook than anything else.

I remember once I had a dream about Sondheim and I tried to write it down but all I could recall of it was something like “Sondheim did something and then I did something and then Sondheim said something and then something happened and then…” Well, you get the idea.

I usually dream about people that I’ve been talking about or thinking about in the previous few days. Often I dream about being at work again but from what I can recall of the dream it’s not really the same office that I used to work in let alone the same people, it’s a complete fantasy work situation.

One time I woke up after dreaming I was out of a job after being laid off, and it took me a moment to remember that I’ve been retired for years.

But I also take short naps during the day and sometimes I have short little quasi-dreams during those naps. 

They aren’t really full fledged dreams. Sometimes just a snippet of audio. I recall one time I just remember hearing a group of Black women chatting. Another time it was what sounded like corporate CEOs talking in corporate-speak and I couldn’t understand a word of it.

Other times, there is a visual component, and sometimes I can remember, if not the whole dream, which usually is just a fragment anyway, but maybe the last moment of it.

Like earlier the other day.

The scene was a bar and there were several people sitting behind the bar being served by a bartender. I don’t remember what happened but suddenly— 

And when this happened it was like the point of view shifted. I was no longer sitting behind the bar but now I was viewing it from an angle behind the bartender. It was as if it was a movie where the editor had spliced in a different take of the scene.

—the bartender tossed a glass of liquid into my face.

As I said, when the bartender did that, I was viewing the scene from behind him. Very strange. And then the dream, such as it was, ended.

This was a nap, so I wasn’t fully asleep nor was I fully awake, but somewhere in between. Still, I couldn’t quite recall what had happened before to make the bartender do what he did.