It is 2 o’clock in the morning.  I wake with a start and sit bolt upright. I realise that I haven’t got back to a client about a project.  For months.  The project has been left, discarded, forgotten.  My husband shifts besides me and turns over.  I start back tracking and going over the project in my mind but it’s slipping away.  I can’t recall the details.  I’m perched on the edge of the bed, head in heads trying to remember but the more I think about it the more it slips away.  Now I cannot remember the client.  The client does not exist.

I have these dreams regularly.  Sometimes nightly.  The strange thing is that I never immediately recognise them as dreams.  The mind is a strange place and not always kind.  Afterwards I’m restless and sleep fitfully, going through schedules and writing emails in my head.  When the alarm clock goes off at six I’m exhausted and feel I like I’ve worked through the night.

My husband hardly ever dreams.  Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that he doesn’t recall his dreams.  I know that I dream every night because I remember them.  Sometimes it’s just a left over feeling and other times the dream is still there when I wake up.  In the room with me.  In the dark.  These dreams are usually accompanied with screams and a frenzied attempt at an exit.

The dreams occur so often that you’d think I’d become aware much quicker.  But I don’t.  Every time I’m convinced that I’ve forgotten something or that someone or something is in the room.  I call them smart dreams.  They evolve, finding new ways to deceive and trick the mind.

And then sometimes there’s my dad.  He’s in a crowd and he’s laughing.  I can see him clearly – his eyes, his hair, his features.  I can hear his voice, his Salford vowels.  I can see him much clearer than I remember him during the day.  But then my mind starts turning and questions come to the surface that I never get chance to ask. I wake up. I don’t feel sad. I feel happy because he’s happy. For these dreams I’m grateful.