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Last night, the ghats at Dashashwamedh: evening aarti, the bells, the river full of little floating lamps. Seventy-one years old, and in my dreams I am still nine and holding my father's hand.

Brigid is a goddess of poetry among her other trades, and every so often I wake with a line that doesn't feel like mine. Last night's: 'The well remembers what the bucket forgets.' I keep a pencil by the bed now, not a pen, because pens die at 3am and pencils don't. Wrote it on the back of the electric bill. No idea yet what the rest of the poem is. I'm in no rush. She's never once handed me the whole thing at once.

Every so often someone at the mosque teases me and asks me to interpret their dream. My name is Yusuf, after the prophet who read the king's dreams, so I suppose it's fair. I am very bad at it. I mostly just make tea. But I'll share one of mine. We're taught to tell a good dream only to people who love you, and this place has started to feel like that. My grandfather, who died when I was nineteen, was pouring tea in a garden I've never seen. Tulips everywhere, which he never grew. He handed me the glass by the rim, the way he always did so I wouldn't burn my fingers, and said nothing at all. I woke with the smell of bergamot in the room. I don't need it to mean more than that. He was well, and he was still looking after my fingers.

Dreaming in Latin binomials

Plant systematics midterm tomorrow, and last night a yarrow plant the size of a person sat on the end of my dorm bed and said, very slowly, 'Achillea. Millefolium.' Then it said it again in case I wasn't listening. I've been making flashcards for two weeks and apparently my brain has converted them all into houseguests. Pretty sure this is either studying working or a visitation from the entire Asteraceae family. Either way, I am not getting that one wrong.

Sleeping in the god's house, Melbourne edition

In the ancient world, people travelled to the sanctuaries of Asklepios, at Epidaurus, at Kos, purified themselves, made an offering, and slept in a special hall hoping the god would come to them in a dream. It's called enkoimesis, incubation. I am not at Epidaurus. I am in a one-bedroom flat in Brunswick with a sheepskin rug from IKEA. But I wanted to try a small, honest version. I wasn't asking about my body. That's what my GP is for, and Asklepios, son of Apollo the healer, would agree. I was asking about my brother. We haven't properly spoken in almost two years, over something stupid that grew into something big. So: a bath, clean clothes, a honey cake on the shrine and a short hymn read aloud (badly). The lamp was only lit for the prayer and blown out before bed. Then I slept on the rug beside the shrine, which my back has opinions about. I dreamt of a dog. A big, scruffy, yellow dog, very calm, who walked me down to a harbour that looked like Piraeus and sat beside me on the steps. That was all. We just sat. Dogs were kept at Epidaurus and were part of the god's sanctuary life. I knew that, but I didn't think of it until I was writing the dream down this morning. What I felt wasn't advice. It was the feeling of not needing to fix everything before sitting down beside someone. I texted my brother at lunch. Just an old holiday photo of that harbour and 'remember this?' He replied with three laughing faces and a photo of his own dog. It's a start.

A letter unread

The Talmud says a dream that isn't interpreted is like a letter that isn't read. Which is a lovely line until you have a nervous one at 4am and your study partner is asleep. I dreamt the challah wouldn't rise. Over and over, every Shabbat, flat dough. Very subtle, my subconscious. So on Sunday I did a small, informal version of hatavat chalom, 'making the dream good': I told it to three friends from study group over bagels, and they answered me that it was a good dream. One of them added, 'and also you need new yeast.' Both were true. The new yeast worked. So did the friends.

Tía Nena and the white flower

Sunday night my tía Nena came to me in a dream. She passed in March. She was sitting behind me on the porch steps of her old house in Hialeah, braiding my hair the way she did when I was little: too tight, and with a lot of commentary. When she finished, she tucked a white flower into the braid and said, 'Don't forget me on Mondays.' I don't forget my eggun on Mondays. But I've been rushing, I'll admit it. So yesterday I took my time. Fresh water, a white rose just for her, her name said out loud and slowly. Some of what that dream means I'll take to my godmother, and that part stays in the room. The braid and the flower felt fine to share. She'd want people to know she still fixes my hair.

Uncle Roosevelt's dream book

Uncle Roosevelt kept an old dream book on the kitchen table, the kind folks used to buy at the drugstore, cover held on with tape. Back in the day plenty of people used those to play the numbers. Uncle never did. He said the Lord and Aunt Ruby both frowned on it, and he wasn't sure which one scared him more. He just liked reading what the old folks thought dreams meant. Last week I dreamed about fish. A whole washtub of catfish sitting on my porch. Now, any Southern grandmother will tell you what dreaming of fish means. Sunday after church my niece pulled me aside on the steps. Baby due in May. Didn't even need the book.

In our house, dreams are mail

Hollywood taught a lot of people that anything involving Vodou and dreams must be frightening. In my family it's the opposite. Dreams are mail. Grann would ask us at breakfast, 'Who visited?' the way other grandmothers ask whether you slept well. Last week I dreamt of her lakou in Jacmel: the yard swept so clean you could see the broom lines, the mango tree, her voice calling my name from the kitchen in the tone that meant food was ready and I was late. I told my manbo, because that's what you do. What she said back stays between us. But I wanted to share the swept yard and the mango tree, because that's what Vodou looks like most days. Family, memory, and somebody calling you in to eat.