When they said to you at graduation, "Follow your dream," did anybody say you have to wake up first?

Cosby’s line is a comic twist on the familiar commencement cliché “follow your dream.” By adding “you have to wake up first,” the joke reframes dreams as something passive—pleasant, private, and unreal—unless paired with alertness and effort. The humor depends on the double meaning of “dream” (aspiration vs. sleep-dream), but the underlying point is pragmatic: ambition requires conscious action, discipline, and engagement with reality. In a graduation setting, it also punctures inflated rhetoric and reminds new graduates that inspirational slogans are not plans; turning a dream into a life path begins with showing up, making choices, and doing the work.