A while back, I awoke in the night with words in my head. I wasn’t having a dream with images and colors and actions. Only words were there. I didn’t see the words; I heard them.

This sort of thing happens to me occasionally. Sometimes I wake with words in my head. Sometimes, as I’m drifting off to sleep, I hear words.

Nothing pops me out of almost-sleep faster than my mother’s voice saying my name. Of course, I immediately realize my mother is not in the van (or wherever I happen to be sleeping) with me. These days, my mother and I aren’t in the same state or even region of the country. Yet my nearly sleeping brain tells me I’ve just heard her voice saying my name. Is this a memory my transitioning-to-sleep brainwaves translate into an auditory hallucination? When this happens, am I closer to sleep than I think and actually dreaming?

Usually, I don’t remember the words my brain has given me in the night. Years ago I had a dream journal and a pen with a little light in the tip. The light allowed me to see just enough to scribble my dreams (or dream words) on the pages of the journal. Using a small amount of light allowed me to stay more asleep than awake. I could drift off again easily once the recording was done.

I tried to find one of those pens a couple of years ago when friends gave me money for Christmas and said I should buy something I really wanted. I wasn’t able to find one of those pens on the internet. The woman at the local school supply store couldn’t find one through any of her suppliers.

I haven’t been writing down my dreams in the last few years.

But these words came through so clearly, and I was able to hold onto them throughout the night. I wrote the words down in the morning.

Here are the dream words: He who keeps his eyes closed is always in the dark.

I wondered if I’d read this sentence somewhere, but a Google search brought no results. Perhaps I read it on the slip of paper from a fortune cookie. I have no recollection of seeing it before, but there it was, spit out from my sleeping brain and hung onto all night so I could write it down in the first fragile daylight.

He who keeps his eyes closed is always in the dark.