Yesterday I was told that the “aurora borealis”, also known as northern lights, might be seen late at night, even from down here at Björkö. So I set my alarm clock to wake me up at 3:30 AM.

But at first I could not sleep, and when I finally did, I kept dreaming that I needed to wake up to watch the aurora borealis, but for some reason or other I would never wake up at the right time. When I finally woke up (in the dream), I ran downstairs and then outside to the garden, which was now eerily similar to the garden of my old childhood house in Brazil, and I looked up and saw the “aurora borealis”, which in the dream was a giant green map of Europe, as in an old Atlas, taking half of the sky. Right next to it, just over my head, a duck was flying in slow motion. I tried to take a photograph, but of course my camera ran out of batteries just then.

Then my sister (because we were at my childhood garden, so in the logic of dreams it was natural for her to be there) said: “Look!” And I said, looking up, “Yes, it’s beautiful, isn’t it?”. “No!” she replied, “I mean, look back there in the garden, in the pines! There is a creepy naked bald man hiding there!” I looked, and it was true. There was a naked bald man hiding behind a tree. Then suddenly there were other people too, and they were trying to save a woman in a white dress who looked like a silent movie actress and who somehow had climbed and become trapped up there in one of the pine trees and could not come down, and all these other people including the naked man were trying to help her. Eventually they managed to bring her down, and I thought, “This is too absurd, this is not real, this can only be a dream!” So I ran back to my room, to set up the alarm clock correctly on my phone, but of course I could not find my phone. So I thought, “No, wait, this is still a dream!” — and then by sheer willpower I forced myself to wake up — this time for real. It was 3:50 AM. The alarm clock had not rung.

I ran downstairs and went outside, but, sadly, there was no aurora borealis to be seen anywhere. But at least there was a wonderful full moon, so I took pictures of that.

Then I was told that actually the northern lights could have been seen at 11:00 PM, so there was no need to wake up at 3:00 AM, but when I saw the message, it was too late.

Perhaps next time…