I wonder why we forget certain dreams. I don't mean the dreams of our waking life, but rather the dreams that we experience in the purest depths of our sleep.

Michael Ende wrote in The Neverending Story that our lost dreams were deposited in a deep, lightless mine, in fine layers of countless images. Absurd images, normal images, boring or lovelorn images, all kinds of images that had only one thing in common.

They were forgotten.

Sometimes I ask myself if I were to delve into that deep mine... What images would I find of my own dreams? Most likely, I would see innumerable scenes of my own life, normal stuff, things, big and small, that bear great or no importance to me.

Maybe my trip to Korea will be sandwiched in there. A few girls here and there, some of my old friends and acquaintances, places I've visited, food I've eaten. Sunsets and Sunrises. Everyday stuff.

Yet I know, for some unnamed, unexplainable reason, that underneath all those layers of commonplace happenstance, I would see an image, a basic quality of my life. I am certain that it would be there, not flickering for an instant, but constantly wallowing at a slow, measured pace. This image would be something like a river. That is my guess. A strong, misty river full of stones and surrounded by mountains and scattered houses... The mountains would have the soft, earthy, yet penetrating smell of soil freshly rained on as it opens its arms to receive the emanating mist. The sky above it would be slowly yet powerfully swirling in between deep blues and bright oranges, creating a canvas whose background is not hidden behind, but is included within the very depth and strike of the contrasting colors.

The river would run its course, softening its seams into a changing sky where there would be night and Cassiopeia becomes something else... A motherly figure outlined by the stars that smiles without showing her face. Her arms carry a basket, and her head is hidden winsomely in the sky, surrounded by spices and mountainsides full of multicolor, bittersweet leaves.

I do not remember this. I am not sure this would be the exact image. Yet I'm certain it would be there, comfortably holding the rest of my forgotten dreams.