Sand Gets In Everything

Sand has a way of getting into everything.

Something interesting has happened to me. Now, I’m not normally into manifestation, astrology signs, and what not. I’m more of the “yeah I didn’t hear anything you just said to me about why I give off Capricorn vibes” type of person. Recently though, thanks to Netflix’s The Sandman adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s brilliant comics, I have been dreaming. Nightly.

This may not seem like much to anybody. But whether it’s due to stress, erratic work schedules, smoking, or whatever else, I’ve never been a dreamer. I did as a kid, back when my imagination was something I wouldn’t want back as an adult, honestly. One of the reasons why I haven’t tried any hallucinogens through my young adult life is because of the fear of bringing back my childhood imagination. I was probably one of the more wuss-made kids you’ve ever known.

What changed? I started watching Netflix’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s brilliant comics series, The Sandman. It’s difficult to describe The Sandman. And I won’t really try that hard here. But it all starts with the lord of dreams, Morpheus, being captured for nearly a century. This throws “the Dreaming”—not to mention life on planet Earth—all out of whack for humans. Morpheus eventually escapes and spends the rest of the series trying to mend the Dreaming, regaining his powers, and finding purpose through various times, places, and dream worlds. Look, it’s hard to explain to someone who has never read it or watched it. But just know there are a lot of crazy visuals and explorations of dreams. Good, bad, trippy, beautiful, all of it.

So a couple weeks ago I’m going to my brother’s place to watch it with some friends after waiting forever for an adaptation to bring the comics to life. And it’s finally here. After a couple episodes, naturally, we start talking about dreams. Our craziest dream. How often we dream. Our weird sleeping habits now, or what dreams were like when we were kids. I mentioned, just like I always have, that I don’t really dream at all anymore. Or remember my dreams, which I guess is technically the truth. I didn’t think much of it then.

But following that night, I have remembered my dreams damn near every night. The first night seemed like a coincidence. The second was pretty eerie. The third night in a row of having a vivid, long-lasting dream, I woke up startling my wife about what the hell is going on? It doesn’t scare me, but it seems to have shown even more the power of Gaiman’s story. 

Now I write down all my dreams as soon as I wake up in the morning. Half asleep, with one eye peeking over so I don’t waste any time and forget something hilarious or stupid that happened. Like my friend telling me where my wife was while I was held captive and imprisoned away from my home. Or going to fill up my car with gas and the gas continually overflows all over the floor and me not being able to stop it. Or, hilariously, a co-worker asking me if I wanted her to get me a piña colada after just getting back from Puerto Rico in the real world. Also something as dark as somebody unidentifiable getting their head eaten through by a rat.

It’s been a trip.