I WOULD never presume to know what someone is thinking, but recently I have mused on Martin Luther King Jr’s decision to use the word, “dream” repeatedly in his “I have a dream” speech.

I re-read the full iconic, powerful text recently and I tried supplementing “dream” for other words like “hope”, “want”, or “desire”.

It will not surprise you to know, “dream” sounded better every time.

Mr King was also tapping in to, and indeed talks about, the American Dream and again, I mused on this phrase too.

Dreams by their very nature seem personal, something we involuntarily experience in the privacy of our own minds when in our most vulnerable state - sleep.

It interests me this notion of having a shared dream and whether in reality this means the same to each person. A dream of mine came true recently when my debut children’s book was launched.

Written in collaboration with Aberthaw Cement and launched at Rhoose Community Library, it is about dreams and a little girl who follows hers.

Based in part on my own daughter, it was illuminating to listen to the dreams of the children assembled for the first two readings.

They were all so eager to share and it was glorious to hear the enthusiasm and ambition from such an engaged group.

In being able to fulfil one of my dreams, I started thinking about how we get to that point. While some may say our sleeping dreams are a predictor of our waking reality, I am yet to see evidence of that.

More it is how our waking dreams become a reality that fascinates me.

To make our dream come true, it seems to be about positioning ourselves to make best use of the luck or opportunity that comes our way and so often through sheer pig-headedness, determination and hard-work do we make it be so.

Certainly in my case, I have spent hours, hours and more hours, writing alone, dealing with rejection, dealing with indifference, dealing with an achy back and feeling that I might never get anywhere and, I am sensible enough to know, one children’s book does not a lasting writing career make.

But I also know that our dreams are the very heart of us.

Dream is so often the very best word for what we truly desire, because by very nature of the fact that it is something emoting from our very core, it is us laid bare and honest.

Whether they are a shared waking dream; nationally discussed dream or deeply private dream, it is usually through stubbornness, tenacity and graft, that we make it a reality.

Although, whether that reality lives up to the dream, is a wholly separate article.