To swing on a star

Yesterday, some of my students were telling me about a controlled experiment in which people were tested to determine whether or not eating different types of cheese influenced their dreams. I have no idea where my students were getting their information from, but I loved the concept.

What if you could choose your dreams simply by choosing your bedtime snack?

A bowl of milk, perhaps, if you want the kind of contented dreams that cats seem to have when they are curled on a window sill in the sun.

Pomegranate seeds if you want to carry out that fantasy about illicit sex with the glamorous badboy type.

Watermelon for dreams of sunny days on a wide front porch with your grandmother, still alive, sitting on the porch swing and telling you stories about her childhood.

Peaches, ripe and sliced, for dreams about that nice guy, the one with the great hands and expressive eyes, the man who makes it safe for you to love.

Tea brewed from pine needles for a night of envisioning the countries of this world making peace with each other.

Wild strawberries, dripping with juice, for dreams of outdoor sex, arms and legs tangled in meadow grasses.

Honey for dreams of a safe place, a sanctuary, a retreat, a monastery, a garden that you can keep within yourself.

Dark chocolate for a dream in which the brother who did not talk to you for eight years gives you a hug and says he is sorry.

Perhaps ripe blackberries for dreams in which you put on a pair of scarlet-feathered wings, leap from a bluff, and fly.