I wanna dream too

Can someone tell me if there's something wrong with me because I just can't remember my dreams. Or is it that I don't dream?

My husband remembers everything he dreams about and can recall an entire dream step by step, word for word. When they're worth repeating or make an impact on him, he recounts the ENTIRE dream to me. Some mornings he follows me around the house while I get ready for work to tell me the darn thing. It used to be he would go into the bathroom as I applied my make-up to tell me what he dreamed but if I stood there to listen to everything he'd make me late for work so I had to keep moving, asking him to follow me as he talks and talks and talks. Yes, really.

Being a musician, sometimes he dreams original songs. In other words, he writes dreams in his sleep. So a long time ago I purchased a small tape recorder and when he has those dreams, he wakes up, goes into another room with his little recorder and sings the lyrics so as not to forget. Is that incredible or what?

Karina, our 15 year old, has the same ability. One dream she had took two days to recall. I must tell you that I just couldn't take the entire dream in one day. The kid tried my patience as I listened to the first part. I really wanted to say "enough is enough already" but I didn't have the heart to crush her "dream". So I asked if maybe she could continue the following day so that I could get a few things done. Do you think she forgot? Heck no! The next day she asked if she could finish but of course she needed to recap the darn thing so that I would remember where we left off. Why couldn't I lie and say I knew exactly where we were, why?!

I've tried remembering mine and must admit there have been a few times when I do. Somehow they just don't seem all that exciting. I forget too many of the bits and pieces so they seem so abstract. How do you build excitement when telling something that only has bits and pieces to it. Maybe if I told someone who's a bit out of touch with reality it would make sense and be funny even. But to the average person, what's so good about a dream you can't even tell in it's entirety.

I know, I know.....keep a notepad near your bed and when you wake up start writing....I've heard all that before. Doesn't help. I still can't remember a darn thing. The pad will sit there and collect dust, I assure you. Not only that, the stupid pad is just a reminder that I must have fallen into a coma and never made it to REM.

Read this: REM sleep is when dreams occur. We have 3 to 5 REM periods per night. They occur at intervals of 1-2 hours apart and are quite variable in length, ranging from 5 minutes to over an hour. REM sleep is characterized by rapid, low-voltage brain waves, irregular breathing and heart rate and involuntary muscle jerks. About 80% of sleep is NREM sleep. If you sleep 7-8 hours a night, all but maybe an hour and a half is spent in dreamless NREM sleep.

So does this mean that I don't have the benefit of muscle jerks? What! I'm being robbed of low-voltage brain waves, irregular breathing and heart rate. These people have me all wrong because my entire sleep seems to be spent in NREM. Obviously when they did their research they didn't study anyone like me or those percentages would not be in print as they are.

I wanna know who I can go to with my story. Do you think Oprah cares? I know she'd send me to Dr. Oz who's really a wizard in disguise anyway. What could he do about it! Send me to Dr. Phil? He's certainly not gonna care, he's not even friends with Oprah anymore.

I may as well come to terms with the whole thing and thank God for those few dreams of flying I had as a teenager and memories of my flamenco dreams. I still have the sheets I kicked my heels through as a reminder of my very few REM nights. I'll be forced to live vicariously through my husband and daughters dreams. I have no dreams of my own.

I suppose this should be a letter to Dear Abby or whoever is solving dilemmas these days. There's got to be an answer for my dreamless nights. And don't tell me to sleep with a potato between my toes or some old wives tale like that. If you give me any advice on how to achieve my dream, please, please don't make it anything to do with a vegetable or animal. Ok, maybe garlic but eggplant is out of the question!