They are places that don't exist in the real world, just in the dreams. The funny thing is, I often dream of these same places in other dreams.

I have only two distinct real-life memories of my father, (he died when I was four), although I don't remember his death. In the first, we had gone to Cuba to visit his family. I remember crawling onto his lap to look out the window of the plane at a vast field of palm trees below. He had the starboard window seat. On the trip back I remember getting off the plane wearing a full set of cowboy clothes my aunts and uncles had bought me in Havana.

My only other memory of him is the night I drank the kerosene. I was driving with my mother and father, in the back seat, and whining I wanted a Coke. There was a case of empty Coke bottles on the floorboards and I pulled one out to mime taking a drink of cool, refreshing soda. It was half full of kerosene instead, (probably used for cleaning purposes) and I got a full hit.

I remember intense pain, of being unable to breath, and I remember getting my stomach pumped at La Clinica de Trelles in Ybor City. I recall the ER staff pinning me down while a rubber hose was shoved down my throat, the walls were tile, painted a sickly institutional green.

That's it, that all I have of my father. I know what he looks like, but only from photographs.

I used to run a lot when I was younger, even competing in the occasional 10k race. But I had trouble with shin splints and haven't run in years. But I dream about running all the time.

But my best dream was the one where I run into John Lennon. I am walking, on a cold winter day, down a Manhattan sidewalk. Lennon is walking straight towards me, staring at the sidewalk, hands in his pockets, long hair bouncing with each stride, a huge fur coat open in the front and almost at his ankles. We almost collide, but at the last moment we both stop, a foot apart, staring into each other's eyes. He was wearing those little round wire frame glasses.

All I could think to do was stick out my right hand and say; "How do you do, Mr Lennon. I have admired your work very much."

He took my hand, shook it, and replied, in that wonderful Liverpool accent; "My pleasure. Thank you very much. Can I buy you a beer?"

Hemingway's Old Man dreamt of the lions he saw as a young sailor in Africa. I sometimes dream of my old Pelican sailboat.