What Does An Astronaut Dream About? | Short Film Showcase

On the odd occasion that I do remember my dreams, and quite often I have a dream where I'm back in space. I'm floating down one of the very long mere modules, so I would be going past. It's a nice sort of slow rate, really sedate.

Then there's a window approaching, and as I look out, I see the earth with some blue sea and the gorgeous brilliant white clouds and that curvature of the earth. My eyes, used to the bright lights inside the space station, didn't see the stars, so it just looked black on the top.

Floating in the opposite direction, coming to join me, is first Sagaie and then my other crew mates who were up there. We just stay around this window together. We don't say anything in my dream; we're just there. I can hear them breathing, and I can feel their warmth because we're really quite close to each other.

We're all just… everybody talks about how beautiful the earth looks. I always felt, in a strange way, both at once disconnected and connected to the earth because I really didn't feel like I was part of it anymore. I was actually looking back at the earth, and yet I knew that was my home—that was where I wanted to return. I absolutely wanted to go back.

Astronauts just look out and see the physical geography, and we talk about the countries that we can see. Of course, you're looking at them in different orientations. After a day or two, you stop talking about that, and you start to talk about things that you're missing on earth. It's all to do with the people that you remember back on earth—our families, our friends.

When we go over countries, we don't think about the geography below; we think about the people who are there and hopefully future meetings with them. So how does that dream end?

I just remember then usually I gently wake up, and that's it. Yes, and I'm always very disappointed that I've woken up because I wanted to be back in space.