I want to keep my dreams, even bad ones, because without them, I might have nothing all night long.

The speaker values dreaming—even unpleasant dreaming—as a form of inner life that wards off emptiness. “Bad” dreams still provide narrative, sensation, and proof of consciousness; without them, the night becomes a blank, suggesting emotional numbness, isolation, or a fear of nonexistence. The line captures a paradox often associated with Heller’s fiction: suffering can feel preferable to void, because pain at least confirms engagement with the world and the self. It also hints at a broader existential anxiety: when external meaning is scarce, the mind’s private productions (however troubling) become a last refuge against nothingness.