It occurs to me that in explaining our “Dreambox Discoveries” name,  my description of Dreambox origins lacked a few key details: Why boxes, and why call them Dreamboxes?

Part of my mom’s Dreambox. Horses were a big part of her life as a youth, so we included several of them. Also a watch part in tribute to her father.

I’ve always loved boxes of all sorts. On the outside, they can take on a vast variety of appearances, shapes and sizes. On the inside … well, who knows what’s inside? Boxes carry a bit of mystery that I’ve always found alluring.

The idea of these boxes was to adorn them with random trinkets conveying bits of history. We didn’t know precisely what the history was. That simply added to the enchantment. We wanted to spark our recipients’ imagination. To inspire them to … dream.

To get people started, each box included a “Dreambox Starter Kit” filled with more little trinkets and odd bits.

My mom’s Dreambox Starter Kit included several butterflies, in honor of her two Papillon (butterfly) dogs.

Since none of this was exactly self-explanatory, Tim wrote these words, which we enclosed with each Dreambox:

You may not know what to make of a Dreambox. You might also question the meaning of that dream you just had where your Aunt Ida chased after you with a carpet beater. Simply embrace the dream. You don’t have to fully understand it. It sprang from you and colors your existence.

Just as in dreams, we encounter things as we drift along in life that tug at our imagination. It might be a fortune from a fortune cookie, a rock, a found little knickknack of any kind. Embrace these things. The Dreambox can hold them. Perhaps knowing that you have a Dreambox at the ready will help you keep an eye out for the things that inexplicably resonate with you. Snatch them up, put them together and see what develops in your collection. And keep dreaming.