I awoke fresh and alive, as though I had just come in from a brisk walk.

My big round alarm clock read 7:41.

Where had I been? What had I been hearing?

A female voice seemed to echo back into my dream. Some kind of a formula... or a process. A sentence, half finished.

Pulling my pillow over my head I tried to go back to sleep, mentally stretching back into my dream.

Then it hit me as though I was still dreaming.

But I wasn't!

I could hear the pleasant voice of C.I. presenting so many new ideas that my mind was reeling under their impact.

Then there was that girl, Lea. What clarity!

"Clarity"? Where did that word come from? "Clarity."

It had a nice feeling attached to it, yet it now meant something new-something it had not meant before last night's dream.

Lea was "clear." There was no game-playing, no being what she thought I wanted her to be, no pretense, no expectations, no defenses, just a very bright, capable, honest, straightforward woman joyously experiencing and respecting herself, others, and life itself.

Hers was not the shallow, brittle beauty of a Hollywood starlet, but a deep almost spiritual essence that seemed to radiate from her. While her physical beauty was obvious, it was the sparkling multifaceted depths of her mind which aroused and excited me with a completeness that I had never quite reached before.

Hugging my pillow, I felt Lea warm against me and, once again, argued with myself. Why cover my bare body? Just so I wouldn't be embarrassed? Why be embarrassed? If the body is just the outer garment of the essential self.

And there was another new term. "Essential self." It, too, meant something new; something more complex. This dream was a more interesting education than any class I'd ever attended!