Whatever that idea was that came to me in the middle of the night, it’s gone. It seemed so vivid, and I felt so lucid, that I was sure I would remember it. This one time, I would remember the idea that would change my life. If that’s what it was.

I was convinced it wasn’t a dream. I didn’t even consider the possibility, as I lay there on the couch letting this idea set like concrete. First of all, had it been a dream I wouldn’t have remembered it, and it was clear and detailed. Whatever it was. Besides, I was fully conscious and alert, without the whisper of sleep fogging my brain. So even if I’d considered the possibility, I would have dismissed it out of hand. Definitely not a dream.

Since it wasn’t a dream, I didn’t have to write it down. Dreams I forget, but big ideas — big, life-altering ideas like this — didn’t have to be recorded because obviously they weren’t that ephemeral. Not like dreams, anyway. And it was the middle of the night, so I couldn’t have written it down without turning on lights and finding paper and pencil.

One thing I’m absolutely certain of is that it was the middle of the night. I know this because I looked at the clock and fixed the time in my mind. That’s what I thought at the time, and I remember thinking it at the time. I just don’t remember the time itself. It could have been 1:something or 2:something or 3:something. Don’t ask me, because I couldn’t tell you.

Whatever time it was, I got up off the couch, went to bed, and slept soundly the rest of the night. I think I woke up one time with half the idea still in my head. I was satisfied that I would remember the rest of it in the morning.

Honestly, though, I don’t know for sure that it was an idea of the life-altering variety. It might have been. It might have been the thing that would get me out of whatever rut I’m in, or it might have been the thing that would make the world a better place. It could have been the solution to a problem I didn’t know I’d been wrestling with.

Or it might just have been a brilliant theme for a journal entry. I haven’t a clue. Now. I did then, I knew exactly what impact the idea would have. In the cold light of day, not so much.

It wasn’t this, I can tell you that. It wasn’t the idea that I could write about something that came to me in the middle of the night and then vanished as if it were a dream. In fact, it probably was nothing more than a dream. But if you’d asked me at the time, I would have told you it wasn’t that. Most assuredly not a dream.