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Program Notes: I am fascinated by sleep and dreams and, consequently, the incredibly weird and bizarre thoughts, ideas, experiences, and sounds that come out of this seemingly inactive and tranquil aspect of human existence. For instance, while working late at night, I frequently hear my wife talking aloud, presumably either to me or to something or someone with whom she is interacting in her dreams. The language is neither English nor gibberish and contains familiar words and sounds but is completely incomprehensible to me. I often imagine what it would be like to talk with her while she sleeps and experience what she experiences, but alas, I am awake and she is asleep—there is a veil of consciousness between us. For this piece, I imagined a musical language that is a sort of synthesis of both the clarity and compete nonsense of this surreal language—a kind of dialogue between the conscious self and the sleeping self. you’ve been talking in your sleep was commissioned by the PRISM Quartet.