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I don’t remember dreams, but I remember dreaming. I wake and wonder what went on in the night.

Many theories exist about dreams. They’re my unconscious desires that I can act out because I couldn’t do them in reality, or I’m processing random signals from my limbic system, or I’m storing memories temporarily while they shift to long-term memory, or I’m preparing for real life threats, or I’m clearing out useless information to make room for tomorrow, or I’m playing dead like a possum practicing for threats.

As a writer, I’m periodically exhorted to write “in my dream state,” first thing in the morning. I do write in the morning, but forget the dream state. I don’t appear to have one or I suppressed it long ago.

What I’m good at, though, is day-dreaming, and that came home to roost recently with my grandson. When I was a kid in my Scottish primary school, if a teacher called on me and I hadn’t answered right away, someone would have hit me.

When my son was a kid, the same behavior elicited a comment on his report card: “He needs to pay more attention in school.” I don’t know what the school expected me to do about this, but my responses were: a) don’t bore my kid, and b) yay, he’s got an imagination. Not what they envisioned, I suspect.

My grandson, who started kindergarten last fall, got his first report card in December. The comment was, “He has a rich interior life.” I burst out laughing when my son told me this. It sounds like a euphemism for “he doesn’t answer when I call on him,” and I’m delighted to learn that my grandson is following in the family footsteps.