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When I try to describe my vivid dreams to others, I lose little pieces of them, like a memory you cherish and eventually wear smooth with overuse in your mind, until you realize your experience of it is a memory of a memory, and not a reliving of the actual event you held so close in the first place. The dreams lose their power when they come from my mouth, and so I don’t speak of them if I want to hold onto them. The horrid ones, the nightmares of paralysis and pain, I guiltily spill sometimes, not wanting the poison of them to infect the minds of others, but knowing if I don’t dump them out of me, they’ll shred me and color everything I see and do and am during the days after I have them.

Occasionally, I have dreams that bring lucidity to my waking moments—dreams so overt in their symbolism that my conscious mind is forced to see what I may have been avoiding for weeks. Sometimes this lucidity is painful, but often the light it sheds on interpersonal relationships or conflicts is invaluable.

I need the dreams. The dreams shape me. The memory of dreams helps make me what I am.