It starts when we're all very young. It starts before we fully understand what is happening. Through the stimuli placed in front of us, we mold and shift our views. And then someone asks the question "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

Most people want to be rich. It's a vague term which means very different things depending upon who is speaking. Even the rich want to be more so. It's an insatiable dream, and we all attempt to accomplish it in some way. Some people hang out in law school or medical school for a decade or so, hoping for the big pay day. Some invest in stocks. Some invest in the lottery. Some just send letters back to the Publisher's Clearing House. No matter how down in the dumps we get, there's still the belief that it could all turn around any day now. It's the Horatio Alger in all of us.

Some of us want the dream job. During my last year at the University of New Mexico, there was a large basketball player named Kenny Thomas who decided to play for the Lobos. Before he even played a game, people were predicting him to be a high draft choice in the NBA Draft. During his four years at school (he didn't actually graduate), his performance on the court ranged from horrid to stupendous. As a bizarre side note, Kenny got smaller every year. He was 6'10 as a freshmen, 6'9 as a sophomore and junior, and 6'8 as a senior. He was listed in the NBA Draft reports as 6'6. The more you see a person, the more the legend shrinks. Despite several disappointing performances in big college games, lackluster results in draft camps and a hyped up DWI case, Kenny Thomas was selected by the Houston Rockets as the 22nd pick of the 1999 NBA Draft. As a first round pick, he is guaranteed a three-year contract worth over a million dollars. Kenny accomplished his dream, and we're a lot like him. We've all had as many ups and downs as him, and the dream can still come true.

Some of us want the nice dream. The nice house with the nice yard, living in the nice neighborhood, with a nice spouse, two nice cars, two nice kids, and a nice entertainment system. More than anything, just wanting everything to run smoothly with as few speed bumps as possible. Accumulating everything they desire until they step back and look at the house and the car and the kids and decide "Maybe we should put an addition on the old homestead." The dream always makes you think bigger. Insatiable.

Then, there's the fringe dreaming. The most exciting and dangerous of them all. The kind of dreaming that forces people to think differently, to react differently, to respond differently. This category is so wide and unpredictable that schizophrenics can stroll anonymously among the crowd. It could be painting a picture, playing a song, pulling off a bank heist, taking up a cause, protesting another one, stealing a car, writing a manifesto, drinking until oblivion appears, biking across the country, collecting underground comic books, stumbling around Las Vegas in the midst of an ether binge, cruising in a car late at night with a loaded .357 riding shotgun, wearing clothes which belong to no particular fashion, just to be different, just to stand out, just to be unique.

No matter what dream we choose, it's all part of the American Dream. When our forefathers (and even our foremothers) decided to make this country, the main theme was "We should be able to do what we want without explaining ourselves to a lousy king." Over the past 200+ years, the dreams have changed, but idea hasn't. We still want to be successful in whatever we attempt to do. We want to be different, we want to be the same, we want to keep up with the Jones's, we want it all. And strangely enough, in America, we get it all. The dream comes true for enough people to make us all keep trying. And if you stare long enough at the horizon at dawn, there is a point where you will lean over to whatever is next you and ask the question "Oh say, can you see?"

Chris Jungle dreams in color.