I love the notion of wondering who was supposed to get the dreams and am now imagining the dream world alive outside ourselves, seeking a sleeping soul to manifest in.

It's a concept I've had for years; I wrote a poem about it at Brandeis, which I reproduce here because why not?

She had gotten somebody else's dream
by mistake. At night, her memories
were not her own; her face in mirrors
shone alien within the silvered glass.
Another's embarrassment made her blush
nude in a swingset or chasing crows,
black feathers between her unfamiliar fingers;
lost in a forest of thorn and ivy,
someone else's nightmare splintered her sleep.
By day she scanned strangers' faces,
looking for some indefinite trace of her everyday
grained into foreign eyes: her fears reflected
in a passing mouth, her hopes measured
in the nervous tap of an unknown foot.
She did not know what she would say.
"You've been having my dreams."
"Can I have my subconscious back?"
But it would be worth a thousand nightmares,
the churn and terror of idiosyncrasies
that were never hers, to recognize, and speak,
and meet the gaze of the stranger whose skull she shared:
to hear the contents of her dark-and-light dreamings
come transformed and refracted from another's mouth.

(Star*Line 25.5, December 2002.)

Enjoy all your festivities!

Thank you! So far, so good!