Dream Music

by Taylor Daukas

I’ve heard of people who, upon waking from a dream, 
attempt to transcribe the music they’d heard while they 
were under. People talk about this music as if it were a 
transmission from without, instead of within. As if dream 
music came from a different source than waking music. 
I envied their dreams because I never used to hear at night. 
Then the gate broke. To start, I was sitting between my 
brother and sister, they’d formed a post-punk duo behind 
my back and showed me their song. I was offended, in part, 
to be left out of the band, but mostly I was jealous, because 
I couldn’t understand how he got his drums to sound like 
that. I could still feel the drums when I woke up, but 
couldn’t hear them. Utterly useless for transposition 
into the waking world. The next night, still dreaming, 
my grandpa showed me his favorite delay pedal to use on his 
vocals. I felt like I’d found my soulmate except it was my 
grandpa. Later, again, dreaming, in a thrift store, I played a 
drum machine and heard a card flipping beat, from real 
life, which a friend of mine had played on my song. Later 
still, a neighbor, who was not really my neighbor, just a 
man, led me out to the parking lot and handed me a fuzz 
pedal he didn’t want anymore. We went upstairs and made 
out in my kitchen. Now there are people, all these people, 
at work in my dreams where I’d only hoped to catch a 
gleam of Pure Music. As if God hadn’t worn his own body.

Taylor Daukas is a writer, musician, and collage artist living in Nashville, TN. “Real Sky,” her illustrated chapbook, is forthcoming from Renascence Books in 2026. 

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