Thinking about dreams

When did we first begin to dream?

I think (though I could never prove it) that before even any language has imprinted on our souls, unlatched they come from the senses and create their own patterns, networks, worlds. Or perhaps -- do they go hand in hand? 

That is:

Have we been dreaming (interspersed with momentary peregrinations through this sometimes consistent, occasionally coherent, never

 quite explicable nonstop broadcast of light and matter) ever since we -- we, you and I, our essences, our souls -- began? Or put it another way: have we had souls -- no, not had, been -- ever since we began to dream.

"Well, maybe it's like Casy says. Fella ain't got a soul of his own, just... a little piece of a big soul."

Maybe. Maybe.

If Isaac and Gottfried stumbled over their pebble independently, if Elisha and Alexander could imagine telephony, is it so strange that we might dream the same dream?

So,

what I am trying to say with a tongue confused and inadequate

and

what I am trying to think in thoughts like knots the brainchildren of Maurits and Daedalus

is

when I say to you good-night, maybe what I mean is something closer to 'see you around, whether in what we might for lack of a better word or the patience to define it call reality

or otherwise.