Simon breathed deep as he waded through the golden field of hay and wildflowers. Acres of glittering hills spread out before him as they swept up towards the base of the snow-capped silver mountains. Dark coniferous trees fenced the fields. Birds called from within those trees, but there were no other signs of wildlife. 

“It’s so peaceful here,” he sighed to himself as he reached out and plucked a strange red flower from its stem. “I wish I didn’t have to wake up.” 

When he looked up from the flowers, an ornate door stood before him. It was the same door that had brought him to this place when he had first fallen asleep and floated through the blackness of his mind. Simon reached for the handle and passed through, back into the blank slate of his unconscious mind. He could hear the ticking of his heartbeat in the darkness and closed his eyes as he prepared to wake up. 

The clock on the nightstand said 6:58 when Simon rolled over and opened his eyes. It was technically not time for his alarm to go off yet, so he stared at the ceiling and contemplated the place he had visited in his dream, composing the image in his mind. He had never been there before and he wanted to savor all of the details before he forgot them. As the final details were put into place, the alarm started sounding and Simon let out an exasperated sigh as he sat up and turned off the alarm. 

Next to the alarm clock was a pad of sticky notes and a pencil. Simon sketched the image in his mind on one of them as he sat there poised to get out of bed. He ripped the page off of the stack as he stood up and crossed the room to add the newest addition to the wall of different places he had seen in his dreams. Some of the scenes repeated from multiple angles or with different characters in them, but many of them were unique settings.  

Simon stood back from the wall and admired his work, four months now he had been tracking the places he visited in his dreams. With dedication, he had become quite adept at lucid dreaming and being able to remember these different visions. The best recollections usually came in the afternoons when he napped after work, but the more intriguing places were definitely the places he saw during the long sleep of night. 

Simon turned away from the wall, smiling to himself, and headed to the closet to get dressed for the day. After donning jeans and a crisp yellow polo shirt, he sat down on the edge of his bed to put on his socks. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a spot of color at the edge of the pillowcase. He reached out. His fingers closed on soft flower petals and Simon saw it was the flower he had picked in his dream.