DREAM JOURNAL 1997–TODAY Diane L

DREAM JOURNAL 1997–TODAY Diane L. Schirf

9 (?) June 1997 I was staying with friends, and it turned out T. F. F. lived there. He had a huge room at the end of a hall, with a big boudoir/living-type room between the hall and it. It was intriguing. He wasn’t around a whole lot (I think he disapproved of me being there, although it wasn’t planned to bother him). When he was, he’d stay in his rooms with the door closed. I don’t remember meals. When he wasn’t in, I used to sneak in his room and lie in his bed. I think it was my way of trying to get to know him better, as through osmosis or absorption. I remember being horrified because when I would get up, I’d leave blush stains on the pillowcases. I think he knew what I was doing and it confused him. He’d look at me strangely or avoid me. I made myself wake up from the nap.

18 June 1997 I was at an art fair or something like that, probably in Chicago. I ended up chaperoning, so to speak, a little boy at about the same time that the air fair turned into Pleasant Avenue in Hamburg, New York (Pleasant Avenue was a country road, with some houses and tiny cow farms.) Only part of the road was actually in people’s houses and part of it was the regular road. We were going along it, looking at crafts-type stuff. It was an adventure, too—sometimes it was sunny, sometimes wet; sometimes the interiors of the “avenue” were light and airy; sometimes they were dark and crowded and labyrinthine (houses usually are in my dreams). At one point, we had to do a dangerous walk on a ledge, with our backs to the house, as in mountain or rock climbing. The whole thing was fun and unpredictable. It got fuzzy what was going on. I think we had found somewhere to eat, and I was distracted, and the boy vanished. I had seen a strange woman lurking and she was gone, too. I panicked, trying to think how I was going to explain to this boy’s parents how I’d been so irresponsible as to lose him and how I thought some stranger had walked off with him, just like all the horror stories in the papers about such things. I woke up thinking that I didn’t even know who this boy’s parents were, I had no one to report this to, and even if I had, they could point out to me with equal justification that I, a stranger, had walked off with the kid in the first place. Only the kid and I had not seen each other as strangers in the least, and my intentions hadn’t been bad. Just wasn’t thinking.

25 June 1997 Two dreams in one night. Must have been the combination of white zinfandel and Unisom. Both dreams were vague. And I slept over nine hours (I was late today). Trudi called me just before I finally fell asleep, wished me happy birthday, asked me a couple of questions, and told me that Jeremy (one month) had been fussy for the last two nights and she was tired, but apparently couldn’t get anything that made sense from me in response, so she gave up. (The shorter one): I was in high school with T. F. F., and we were about to graduate. As one of those pre-graduation parties/picnics/rituals every high school has, our class had a sleepover at a church. Everyone brought their sleeping bags, etc., and picked out a pew. I

had a lot of stuff—almost like I was moving in—and thought this would be a lot of fun. I kept looking anxiously for him, but he never showed up. I eventually heard that he wasn’t going to because someone had died. I didn’t really feel one way or the other over the death, just disappointment that he wasn’t going to be there and that I wasn’t going to enjoy what should have been fun any more. The longer one: My husband and I, along with two children—a boy and a girl—were looking for a house, only I did all of the looking with the children. I’m under the impression the house I found was in Europe—somewhere old, green, and hilly. This house was dark and labyrinthine (like most of the houses in my dreams), but the back (dining room?) looked out on green rolling hills and other large, old brick houses. I kept trying to convince the children how much fun this house would be. They didn’t seem as convinced as I was about how much fun having tea in this place was going to be. I don’t think they liked how dark it was inside and how bright outside as much as I did. The setting and situation somewhat reminded me of how I saw The Turn of the Screw. Along the side of this house was a watercourse—sometimes it was more like a river, with natural surroundings; sometimes it was more like a partially indoor channel. It ended abruptly in a grate, where a little water spilled onto concrete, as in a parking lot or something like that. It seemed problematical. Between it and the view of the rolling hills and houses, I wanted the house, but I don’t actually remember buying it or moving into it. I swam down the watercourse one day and thoroughly enjoyed it (although I never did understand whether it was indoors or out or exactly what it was). Unfortunately, as a result, water spilled everywhere—all over the parking lot or whatever it was beyond the grate and, I later found out, all over the cellar of the house, which was dripping with the moisture and moss. It reminded me of what’s been happening lately when I take a shower—someone must have turned up the pressure, because I’ve been getting water on the floor (like I did last night).

10 August 1997 I just wanted to take a nap for a half hour. I dreamed I was a baseball player being pursued by a vampire, who turned out to be my teammate (either the right- or centerfielder). I ran and ran past all kinds of typical suburban houses in the country, including a one-story house that had several half-moon windows (which are pretty, but it had four or five, which looked weird. It was blue). I was carrying a Bible and a crucifix. I ran through some hilly, wooded, dark countryside and ended up in the trailer park in which I had grown up. The building that used to be there suddenly had a high, steep staircase. I ran up and hid for awhile, reading (not the Bible), but got scared because the trailer park owner didn’t like us being there. Someone came and tried to get up the staircase, but it was blocked by something all of a sudden and they gave up. I came down and tried to get out, but it was blocked by what looked like large garbage bags. It turned out to be teenage delinquent boys. The one I had pushed tried to escape, but I yelled at him to line up single file and the person in charge of them yelled at him, too, so he didn’t escape. I woke up with a headache.

1 September 1997 I was a servant in a poor (cheap) man’s house. The only nice thing they had was a keyboard instrument, which the wife let me play. All I could play was Frère Jacques. One day his wife gave me some gifts (birthday, perhaps), including two gold rings with

amethysts and, I think, some cooking pans. In reality, they were all elves who hated the husband. The rings adapted themselves to fit my fingers. The man found out and took them from me (because they were valuable both as gold and as elves), but the rings “bit” him viciously and tried to make him give them back to me. The pans burned him (he didn’t want them back, just the rings, but they were supporting the rings). A man appeared in the window and asked the wife directions. To them, he looked like a distinguished aristocrat, but he looked strangely at me, and I saw that his cape was really a bat’s wing. His eyes flashed and I knew he was a powerful vampire and that the wife had inadvertently given him an entrée to the house. I had known the house was doomed (somehow, that had happened in the past), but didn’t know how he’d gotten in. This explained it. That’s all I remember. He flew off into night over the city, and I woke up nervous.

12 September 1997 I forgot the first part of the dream, which was rather weird and fascinating. I wanted it to last longer, and I wanted to remember it. After the first part, I was trekking through what appeared to be an upper-class neighborhood. It seemed rural, because there were lots of wooded areas with very old trees and banks with tall, thick grass and wildflowers—somewhat like some of the old houses in the neighborhood where my aunt lived in Washington, D.C. It was a great experience because I love walking through greenery. It was late dusk, my favorite time for reflecting or not thinking at all. I did have a purpose, though. I was looking for her. I can’t remember exactly why, however. Part of it was I wanted to meet her and to get to know her—there seemed to be something enigmatic and wonderful about her. Part of it involved danger. Either she was in danger or she was putting someone else in danger, consciously or unconsciously. I came out onto an open road and immediately felt that something horrible was going to happen. A car appeared out of nowhere (literally) and cut off a van that was on the road. The van flipped several times and ended up on its roof, crushed. When I got there, however, it was not upside down, nor was it that damaged. To my surprise, shock, and horror, it was my family. My brother had been driving. He was dead, although there were no marks or blood. I was horrified and couldn’t believe it. I wanted it not to be true. He opened his eyes and said something like, “Aren’t you going to do something?” This was very strange because I hadn’t thought he was dead; he was dead. I pulled him out right away. (Not a bad feat, considering he’s 6’2” and 235 lbs.) I pulled my mother and father out. This struck me as strange, because I was worried my mother had been killed, yet in the dream I was quite aware she’s been dead since 1983. I became panicky and asked worriedly, “Where is she?” My mother said very calmly that she was in the pocket in the back. I looked in the back of the van and found a pocket in the side. Inside the pocket was an envelope. When I looked in the envelope, I saw nothing. But something started growing out of it—a little circular cake with thick, sweet- looking white icing, blue icing trim, and a happy little face. It was indeed her. She was special and magical, yet lightweight and meaningless.

13 September 1997 This dream meandered all over the place, so I’m not sure of the order, but I am sure I’ve forgotten pieces.

My best friend from grade school was collecting exotic animals. I wasn’t quite sure if we were going to eat them (which upset me), or if it was for another purpose. She had a giant tortoise—probably from Galapagos. She acquired an American alligator. I worried because I was sure the alligator was a threat to the tortoise. Sure enough, the alligator climbed on top of the tortoise, breaking its shell and spine. (When I woke up, I realized this makes no sense because the alligator, at perhaps 200 lbs., was much smaller than the tortoise, at perhaps 800 lbs.) I was horrified (the poor tortoise was still alive but obviously suffering—its shell was split, its tongue was hanging out, and its eyes were pained) and insisted that she have it euthanized. They had to think about it, but agreed. I saw them carrying the tortoise off to be taken care of, but in the back of my mind I knew they weren’t really going to do it and I couldn’t make them. They were going to let it suffer forever. I also remember something about going to the sea and talking to the sea creatures, probably about my remorse, sadness, or guilt. I made friends with a small horse in the woods, and I was afraid for it because it was tiny and helpless, and predators abounded. A male lion attacked it and wounded it, but it survived. A female lion, much smaller than the male, attacked the male. I suddenly saw the horse and the lions in a circular, circus-like cage in the woods. The male lion was dead, killed by the female, and the injured horse seemed confused about its fate stuck with a female lion that could kill a male. The female seemed willing to let the horse wonder anxiously. I couldn’t get into the cage to free the horse, and I cried over its uncomfortable, never-ending future of fear and uncertainty. I was on my honeymoon (I don’t know with whom—he never had a specific form) and we checked into the hotel, only to find out that there weren’t enough rooms for all of us, not even enough beds (we had children with us for some reason, although I don’t think they belonged to either one of us). We were trying to figure out how we could arrange everyone in this crowded space, given that some of the beds/mattresses were straw and very uncomfortable. And by then another adult had appeared—a brother- or sister-in-law. And we discussed whether we should go ahead and enjoy the honeymoon, if you know what I mean, knowing that all these kids, and the adult, would most likely hear it. I think we decided we didn’t want to expose the kids. We did try to rationalize that “they won’t hear” or “they won’t know,” but we couldn’t because it was the wrong thing to do under the circumstances. We had the satisfaction of knowing we’d done the right thing, but it wasn’t the type of satisfaction we wanted. I was in a large auditorium with about 150 people, all of whom were my brothers and sisters. Our father was Chuck Norris. At the front was a door to a hallway. Across the hallway was a room in which illicit activities went on—gambling, prostitution, etc. The “boys in the back room” ran through my mind. I was in the last row, and behind me were large doors, with security fences and locks across them. At some point, a man broke in through the back door (at the front, the backwardness of which one of my siblings had pointed out to me when I became confused), bringing with him a little boy. He told us he was going to hold us hostage while his very talented son read us his poetry. The boy began to read, and the man threatened us with serious firepower if we looked bored or didn’t respond enthusiastically. Meanwhile, I sat in the back making wisecracks and trying not to be caught. The father eventually heard me and asked me if I could do any better. I pulled out my notebook with thousands of pages of writings, but I couldn’t find the one profound poem I knew was in there that would prove I had the greater talent. In my panic, I

managed to start a ruckus among my siblings that ended up with the man being overwhelmed and taken to prison. Years later, I was hauling rocks in a wheelbarrow. I didn’t seem to know where or why, but that I had to. I suddenly saw the man—I think he was in a locomotive or something like that. And in a flash I realized who his son was. I walked up to him and reminded him of who I was, and said, “Your son was the great Robbie Burns, wasn’t he?” The man looked at me sadly and said, “Yes, he was.” And I realized I was somehow guilty for his early death (Burns died of alcoholism at age 37, I believe). I told him that my own father had had yet more children—it was what he did. We had a long talk about his Robbie and my dad. I left with my wheelbarrow and found a row of houses with yards, all of which had fences, not unlike suburbia. They had gates in between. Children were playing baseball in the first yard. I tried to get in the gate (by now, the wheelbarrow had disappeared), but the latch (a spiral) wouldn’t work. Finally, one of the parents told one of the children to let me in. She did so easily. I explained that, because of the bend of the spiral, it was easy to open from the inside but difficult from the outside. Although they checked it out for themselves and found it to be so, they still regarded me suspiciously. To get through and out of this place, I had to go through the houses, which were very floral and very labyrinthine. The people would let me in and tell me to go into another room to find the door into the next house. I would, however, see no doors, or I would open doors and they would be merely closets, or other rooms like kitchens. I even tried to use things like the TV set as a door. I felt hopeless, trapped, and under suspicion. Finally, two old ladies showed me the secret. It was a “looking-glass” phenomenon.

19 September 1997 I was “The Shadow” (the Orson Welles radio version) and, at the same time, “the lovely Margo Lane” (presumably Agnes Moorehead). The problem was in an old labyrinthine library that was really a community or city—people lived and worked there, or so it seemed. The city was being terrorized by gangs—mostly teenagers, but some appeared to be in their twenties, even thirties. They captured me at one point, but, being the Shadow, I got away (after they spotlighted me with a special green light while they were “escorting me”). Margo (also me) was trying to run from them, and, while going through a reading room, she observed students using secret passages through the books and bookcases, which she tried to take advantage of. It was a little more problematic for her, and she became panicky. The Shadow never did find her before I woke up.

29 September 1997 Susan (ex-roommate) and I went to a Silly Wizard (our favorite Scots band—extinct for about 9 years) concert, but we were separated. The layout of the auditorium kept evolving and I ended up in a great location where not only could I see the boys well, but they were interacting with me. I tried to find her so she could get in on it but couldn’t until intermission. She told me to come outside. I followed her, but she disappeared into the night in front of me. Suddenly, it started pouring and I got soaking wet (and was more unattractive than usual as a result). I ducked into a basement, and it turned out to be the building where SW was taking their break. Gordon (guitar, bodhran, whatever) was the only one there at the moment. He took a liking to me and asked me to be a “roadie” for

them while they were in Chicago, playing Elmhurst College and the like. I jumped at the chance, of course (and was already planning in my head how I was going to get out to these suburban/Wisconsin/Michigan locales). We both used verbal and nonverbal cues that this was not a “groupie sex” thing. Johnny (wonder fiddler) wandered in at some point and I think we chatted a bit. Andy (lead singer, whistle, banjo) popped in and I said, “Guess what? Gordon’s offered me a job helping you all set up and stuff!” Gordon looked uncomfortable and said, “Well, it’s no doubt a lot of trouble for you to get to these places [I had never said that], so, really, never mind.” I had a feeling that Andy disapproved of me or of the situation and that’s why Gordon retracted his offer. I was, needless to say, crushed. And I had so wanted to tell Susan of my good fortune!

10 April 1998 I was walking up Michigan Avenue and set my purse and bag down to do something. (My purse is usually wrapped around me, so this was not the norm.) I realized I didn’t feel well so I was going to stop at Walgreens at Michigan and South Water to get aspirin or something. Just before I got there I remembered I had a flight to China that day (I’d won a contest. Why I’m always determined in my dreams to get to China is well beyond me.). I went to look in my purse for the info as to when—2:00 p.m. stuck in my mind, in which case I would have to rush home, pack quickly, and rush to the airport (forgetting about the cat)—and realized I’d left them where I’d set both down on Michigan. Hoping to run into a good Samaritan who would hand them to me, I backtracked, still panicky about making the flight to China. No luck. I discovered two or three wallets on the way, one even with a few dollars in it, but not mine. I left them lying (which was strange; in real life I’d have turned them in). I opened an outside door on Michigan Avenue that lead, not into a bar or restaurant, but a closet. There was a purse, but not mine. I finally found it in there, emptied of course. I began to think of how to replace the few cards I have. I found an empty briefcase like mine, but with a strange white lining. Eventually I found my briefcase—emptied. The SPDs I’d been working on were gone. And that’s when I completely panicked. I tried to think of ways to explain to the client how we’d lost their SPDs (in the dream, they were the only copy, and there’s always a confidentiality issue) without me looking stupid or negligent. And how to explain to everyone how I’d just remembered I had to go to China for a couple of weeks, after promising to help out with several projects next week, as well as work on several Lear pension SPDs. I was exhausted when I woke up.

16 May 1998 I was in a hotel in the city where T. F. F. lives—which may be true in a few weeks. And I stood on the patio of my room looking out over the city wanting so badly to see him and knowing how unlikely it is he would agree to it. And there was no end to the sadness. And I keep thinking, why can’t I be happy and at least have a little of what I want in my dreams? Why do they have to be as painful as life? Why does my subconscious not give me a little relief?

18 June 1998 Wednesday afternoon, while I was sleeping instead of being outside in the sun and healthy air (I don’t know why I can’t bring myself to going outside—nothing to do and no one to do it with, perhaps . . .), I had another very, very bizarre dream. The framework

seemed to be that Kris (a friend from college, now in Ann Arbor, Michigan) had told me about a movie she’d seen, but I couldn’t follow her description of it. It didn’t seem to make sense. (I don’t remember that I dreamed about the description, just that I couldn’t follow it.) I went to the movie myself, but in the end the movie felt like it was really happening to me . . . but I still couldn’t follow it. In it, a woman (seemingly me) married a man, and they flew to his home through the air. At this point he seemed to have no defined appearance. Once they arrived there, she sat down, and he suddenly appeared to have a lion’s head or at least something like that. He was not human, but he wasn’t a space alien or anything like that. He was mythical or magic. They consummated the marriage in the chair, and it turned out that, for his kind, sex results in immediate pregnancy and a child very shortly thereafter. Everything—the sex, the pregnancy, the child—was quite wonderful. He returned to being undefined in appearance. They traveled (through space/time—some magical way) to a place underground, where his brother or another of his kind was. He told me that I must get hold of all of the asparagus spears lying between him and the other, because the other would use them as weapons against him and our child. With difficulty, I retrieved all the spears, but he was forced to use one of them on a friend of his brother’s, who died rather violently. I thought that this movie was not meant for children, although it seemed to have been marketed that way. At some point in the future he was to have been crowned king, but his brother tried to kill him in revenge for the other death. It became a little vague at this point. The whole thing felt very otherworldly, and both pleasant and unpleasant.

24 July 1998 My mother told me she had gone to the doctor and learned she had a degenerative disease and would die any day. My father knew but continued on as usual. I was devastated and cried and hugged her, but at the same time I didn’t want to change how I acted toward her because I didn’t want her to be uncomfortable. I walked across an ice-covered, low-lying field and climbed a snow bank that was impossibly high. I jumped off when I realized I couldn’t really have climbed it. I was appalled that adults were telling kids to walk across the ice and through the water, yet they all managed either to walk on the ice or through the water with no ill effects. I was trying to be intimate with someone next to my house in the semi-darkness—I kept insisting on staying outdoors rather than going inside—and a wild cat—serval?—came from the woods and attacked us until we had to trap it in a blanket. We were surprised because we had thought that it would like us. I remember making lots of sounds during the act. I woke up with a leg that was sound asleep.

27 July 1998 Yesterday, I dreamed I was in either a church or a university, along with many of the people I knew in high school, including “The Boy,” who had much longer hair. I was supposed to be going to classes, but I always forget when, where, and what the early ones were and never made it to them; at that rate, I would never finish. My former high school classmates didn’t know who I was and ignored me.

A pair of twins, swinging from a tree in the twilight, told me they were entertainers, but hadn’t had a gig in a year. It was hard to tell if they were upset or didn’t care. I also climbed a precarious ramp to an alcove in which someone was singing, but when I saw her and talked to her, I realized it was better to leave. There were also firemen or police around, and a display of guns and bayonets. As for me, it was my fifth year at the four-year school, which I was too embarrassed to tell anyone. People were afraid of a miniature lion there. I was careful around him, but he still got me with his claws once in awhile. Finally, one day I kissed him—several times—deep, soulful kisses. It was quite wonderful and enlightening. After that, he couldn’t get enough of me. I probably felt the same way, although I wouldn’t admit it and was still a little leery of the claws.

31 July 1998 This morning’s special edition involved an elephant (I couldn’t tell whether it was African or Asian), my dad, his van, a male spy, a girl who thought she was my roommate (this was my idea, because the spy was chasing me to get the elephant, which I had handed over to my dad, and I was hiding out in her apartment, which was around the corner from his house) and who really bought my story that my name was “Whisper,” a weird, almost Edward Scissorshands-like neighborhood, and a futuristic mall through which the elephant thief/spy chased me. The chase culminated in an art deco glass bar that could have been out of A Clockwork Orange. I was hiding amongst the glass fixtures as a nude statue doing a one-handed handstand at the back, but I made the mistake of facing the spy guy just as he got there, so I had to walk through the back wall of the bar into the back hallway of the mall.

9 August 1998 It was either just before or just after the wedding, and the participants had set up camp in a trailer down the row and across from ours—and, worse, I think it was some strange color like scarlet. There were a lot of people milling about, including Mama. At one point, I could see the bride—wearing a blue gingham or checked one-piece shorts outfit that showed her sides. (I remember thinking it wasn’t in very good taste under the circumstances.) No matter how hard I tried, however, I couldn’t see the groom, and this surprised me because of the obvious. Someone—probably Mama—must have realized that I was being nosy because they pulled the drapes. Shortly, however, they opened them again so that I could see how many people were there and how they were enjoying themselves. I then asked my dad to drive me to a store to pick up some little thing I just had to have at the moment (still determined to see the groom). When we drove by, the window was full of some of my past acquaintances, almost taunting me. Another one: I was the oldest daughter of a large family, mostly boys but with at least one sister. The father was never around; when he was, he must have been very verbally abusive, because I remember really not wanting him to come back and not wanting to hear his mouth. We had all kinds of pet primates (including the world’s largest pygmy marmoset), and all the kids would keep mixing them up in their cages. I kept trying to stop them because you can’t just throw primates together like that; there were a lot of injuries, and one of my favorite monkeys was killed by an ape, who took its whole poor little head in its mouth and bit its spinal cord. It was a never-ending chore keeping them separated

and from hurting each other. Meanwhile, the sister was nursing one of the monkeys, and I kept telling her to stop because then the old man would be able to tell (from her breasts, I guess) that she’d had a baby. (Don’t ask me what happened to the baby. I think we gave it away to a family.) I kept trying to get away in a van with some of the primates and even a few of the kids, and I remember camping out on something like fire escapes at restaurants. I think I even managed to finagle a restaurant meal. I think the father must have made an appearance, maybe in flashback, because I hated the way he yelled at me.

2 September 1998 There was no wardrobe, but a witch (me) and a lion (T. F. F.). (When I say “my brother” or “father,” it’s not my brother or father, but the people who were my father and brother in the dream.) I was by a river when I found a lion. I don’t know how I found him or where he came from, but he didn’t seem to belong there. I worried about him because the river was strange—almost surreal—and didn’t look like it was fit to drink; where it ended (or began) was a strange color, and it improved only a little further down. It didn’t look like water. I thought the lion would die if he were left there with no real water to drink. He seemed to be trying to tell me something; all I could do was to hold his paw and tell him we’d figure something out. He was achingly handsome and had beautiful, sad, vulnerable eyes. Eventually, we, along with my father and brother, boarded a bus or train. No one seemed to realize he was a lion, but they seemed to think that something was a little different about him. Although he sat behind me on the bus, we were constantly looking at each other, as though for reassurance the other was still there. I felt a pain under my chin; someone told me it was a device for playing back something about a particular place (I think I had been there) and that if I didn’t want it, I could get rid of it. Despite the slight pain, I kept it, as though I had to have that knowledge. Then I was in a field. I saw my brother and father approaching, but no lion. They told me there’d been a train wreck and that he was lying dead in a tunnel among the wreckage. I was inconsolable and begged to be taken back to it to see if anything could be done. They agreed to finally, but he wasn’t there. We returned to the field, and the lion appeared. He’d gone to get a hamburger. He seemed proud of himself for having done something in human society without anyone noticing who or what he was. There was a robbery at a store; it was unclear to me who was doing the robbing. A shootout involved a very odd incident of someone quietly riding a bicycle away in the middle. Someone I knew was killed in the shooting, but I’m not sure who. It may have been my father, brother, or both, or someone else. I was back in the field, I think, wearing a shoulder-less, backless, very sensual dress; I could feel my hair on my back like a caress. The lion came toward me, only now he was a human; I thought how strange it was he didn’t have a beard to represent his mane. He had a huge chin and jaw and wasn’t very attractive in the usual way—he reminded me of someone, only darker. I tried to kiss him, but at first he wouldn’t let me. I started with his cheek, and then I kissed him very passionately on the lips. It was the most wonderful experience, and I wanted it never to end. Someone said “cut,” and my brother and the lion walked off talking about a game, as though I had never been there and as though nothing magical had been happening. Apparently, it was a movie, and all of that surrealism, meaning, and unspoken passion were gone. Devastating.

4 September 1998 I was at home, and so was Virgil, along with either friends or relatives. I was naked; I don’t know why. I was also miserable; I couldn’t stop crying in a very painful way. I had to kill myself, but everyone, including Virgil, wanted me to go outside so it wouldn’t interfere with their socializing and joy. So I did, naked. It was very demoralizing. Another one: I was told there were three dogs; two were different colors, and the third was a combination of the other two colors. I don’t remember the details, but I was supposed to steal one of them because it was brighter than the other two and was being ignored or mistreated. I knocked on a door and ended up with a teeny baby who could read the number I was wearing as a nametag. I was frightened because the baby could identify me for the police if he or she could read my number. I don’t remember the details of interacting with it, just taking it home and no one knowing quite what to about it and not caring what I did about it. I think someone suggested taking it somewhere, but I wasn’t sure that was the right thing to do. I went into a bedroom where sheets were spread on padded benches; one of them was my father’s. On the floor a little blonde-haired boy named Todd was sleeping. I remembered he had an older, black-haired brother named Randy about whom I was suddenly curious and worried. I asked him if he’d heard from his brother, and he said no, not for many, many years. I became really afraid.

5 October 1998 A long, convoluted dream. The time was the present, and Virgil and I were at the trailer. Dad didn’t drive any more, so the driveway was overgrown with grass, and a lot of things had changed. I went to the store and bought a Buffalo Bills lunchbox, which I don’t have the money for (being unemployed). It had an impossibly tiny handle—only one finger would fit through it—but the lid had a great photo of their quarterback “Steve Reno.” A photo showed a big lineman limping off the field with a caption about the Bills being an aging team. I brought it back and told Virgil about it, but when I showed him, it was only cartoons. I kept saying, “But there were Bills’ photos! The cover had this picture of Steve Reno!” No matter how I looked at it, it was only cartoons. Virgil kept saying, “I believe you that it was a Bills lunchbox,” but I thought he was just being amiable and didn’t believe me. When I opened it, it suddenly contained food—really tiny sandwiches, bananas, and either graham crackers or Pop Tarts. Virgil said, “Oh, yeah, most lunchboxes come like that—here are some graham crackers that came with Courtney’s. Why don’t you save your lunch for your trip back and split the graham crackers that came with Courtney’s with her?” (Courtney was sleeping and I went through all kinds of anxiety about whether to wake her up or not.) Deemah or her mother or another third party started yelling that Virgil shouldn’t be giving away any of Courtney’s food since she was already malnourished. Then I woke up . . . and that’s not including the beginning of the dream.

26 October 1998 I’ve been dreaming a lot lately but not keeping very good records of the dreams. Too tired, too sick (cold, cycle, root canal). It’s been an interesting couple of weeks, but not in the best sense. Here are the highlights. I was at home, and my mother warned me that the neighbors across the street and one trailer down were watching us. She kept closing the drapes, but no matter what we did, I

always had an eerie sense that it couldn’t change the fact they could see us and get to us. I think I talked Dad into driving us around somewhere, including the field, but in the end, this didn’t help either. We were all dismembered—repeatedly. I wish I could remember more of the details because this particular dream had a surreal aura. I dreamed, too, that I was in the field—the part before the basketball net—with Kirk and Spock of Star Trek on a mission. Something happened, and if I remember correctly we started to freeze. Spock and I had a deep discussion or debate. As I woke up, he was lying on top of me (presumably to keep me warm as part of whatever the crisis was), but it also felt like more than that. Not so much sex as a sense of being loved and protected. Logically, of course. I didn’t want to wake up from that one. For once I felt good. Is it any coincidence that I associate Spock with T. F. F., who equated himself with Spock so many times?

27 October 1998 I don’t know if I had one long, convoluted, strange dream last night/this morning or several that ran together. Either way, the themes were completely unnerving—perhaps the combination of bizarre concepts with familiar commonplaces. I lived in California or a place like it. It was not a good place to be—something strange was going on in the government, and conspiracies were all around. [I’m sure this part was a direct result of the episode of “Sliders” I was listening to at midnight.] I lived with a man and his family. He was told to drown me, although it wasn’t clear who told him—either his wife or the government, because I seemed to be a threat to both. He had a choice of throwing me in the “cold Sargasso Sea” or an adjacent body of water (but not “cold”). I felt horribly betrayed. He threw me in the cold Sargasso Sea, but it didn’t seem cold and, to my surprise, I could still breathe underwater. I seemed to run in logic circles over this. Being human, I can’t breathe underwater, so I must have died; on the other hand, I was breathing underwater and I didn’t die, although I did think that it would be best to die under the circumstances, so I tried, but I couldn’t. I ended up in a car with the man and family; I was still surrounded by water. The wife wanted reassurance that I was dead. He said I was, although I’m sure he knew better, because he still seemed attracted to me. I don’t know what happened after that. Then I lived in a very strangely designed, apparently decrepit motor home. To drive it required pushing a button and one of three pedals (I wish I could remember how they were labeled because the names were quite odd and didn’t make sense). I had a difficult time figuring out how to drive. The part I drove from was connected to the body by a string, not even a rope. It occurred to me that I had driven cross-country and was in either Pennsylvania or New York. I saw some of the surreal countryside that frequently appears in my dreams. I drove up a very steep hill—virtually 90 degrees—and wondered how I could drive down again. I passed all types of strange vehicles, some belching smoke or fog; I drove on the wrong side of the road in places either because something was in the way or the lane was too narrow. In one place something moving alongside the road prevented anyone from getting by, but I squeezed past using part of the other lane. In another, I got through a very narrow road that was covered with something that had spilled (straw or hay?) and learned afterward that it wasn’t really the road, but something improvised. I got past all kinds of

obstacles that should have prevented any traffic from getting through for miles. My vehicle seemed able to change size and direction if I pushed its limits. As I got closer to New York, I called a friend. She asked me something like, “How is it going?” and “Are you bringing him with you?” “Him” was apparently a man named “Ken” (I think); he may even have been the husband/father from before. I told her that I had to bring him; for one thing, we couldn’t seem to stop [insert naughty word here] like honeymooners. I seemed ecstatic over this, as though this is exactly what I wanted. I arrived at my hometown, at a trailer park. Nothing seemed familiar. To get into the trailer park, you had to walk under a tiny, seemingly plastic archway, and then you found yourself on a bridge that my brother had improvised. It seemed to consist of thin slats of wood as supports put together a little bit like the old Lionel train tracks (that always fell apart) and was very rickety, as though you would be afraid of going in or coming out once you were in one place or the other. On one side of the bridge was a very pretty town with lovely houses, old trees, and lots of woods and open space. On the other side was torn-up desolation. The trailer in which my family lived was also strangely designed and decrepit. I remember a few striking features: there were three wires or cables on the ceiling that had some special significance; the living room was just large enough for a sofa and seemed to be more of part of the hallway than a living room; opposite the living room was an aquarium with gold-colored fishes of all shapes and sizes. I didn’t want to look in case any were dead; as it turned out, five of the smallest were dead on the bottom. Someone there told me that my brother had a friend who had developed a technique for sucking out the innards of dead animals, leaving behind a beautiful, colorful, realistic shell or pelt. He showed me a basket of such remains. I remember a turtle that seemed very colorful, but I didn’t really think I would like to touch it under the circumstances. I went for a drive and discovered that much of what I remembered as wooded and pretty was now a barren, dugout wasteland—unbelievably dreary. When I came back, my brother told me that it was Abel Road that I had seen. “What happened to all the quaint frame farmhouses? What happened to the trees, the fields, and the loveliness?” They were all gone with nothing of value to replace them. The bridge came apart, and it seemed to be my fault or responsibility. It appeared to be the end of everything. There was a lot more detail, and I wish I could convey how strange it was. I woke up coughing and wondering if I really could breathe. It seemed strange that I could, because I still felt like I was drowning.

1 November 1998 I was in college again and fearful of not getting a job, exactly like now. My parents and I discussed the possibility that I would have to go home after graduation, but we didn’t know what to do because there was no longer a place for me. Meanwhile, I had obtained a small snake and put it into a terrarium. I don’t think I fed the snake, but it kept growing and growing. I put a top on the terrarium, but the snake was able to push it up and escape. I caught it and put it back in again with a heavy glass lid, but it kept growing and managed to lift even that top. I caught it just as it got its head out and pushed it back in. I was panicky because I didn’t know what I was going to do with it next—all of this had happened in the same day. I wasn’t sure what species it was, or whether it was native or exotic. No one wanted it.

At the same time, I noticed the terrarium suddenly had water in it, more like an aquarium, as well as several fishes, frogs, and even a couple of scraggly birds that not only were thin, but were missing their feathers. I took the snake out, and it kept getting its head free and trying to bite me. Although in real life I handle snakes all the time and have no psychological problems with them like many people do—I really like them—this snake’s increasing size and constant struggling were repulsive to me because they were unnatural and otherworldly. I decided to release it into the field or woods next to where I lived. I let it go in the woods, wondering if I was making a mistake, on top of the mistake of having gotten it in the first place. When I took the snake out, I noticed a toad as well, so I had to go back and get it to release it, too. It had grown and gotten out just like the snake had. When I tried to put it back, I realized it was really my cat, or looked just like her. I kept cramming it into the terrarium, although it wouldn’t fit. It looked so pathetic, a wet, squished cat in a water- filled terrarium, but I had to do it. When I took the terrarium out, I had to struggle to get the cat out (and was hoping it would take the fish and other creatures with it); when I finally got it out of the terrarium, it was a toad again and hopped away. As I returned home, I saw that my father’s old flower garden was behind a curtain, fenced off. I went in and noticed that a stage-shaped framework was being built as an attachment to the home. It was very strange looking and made of strange, almost linoleum- like or other smooth materials—not wood or metal. It covered some parts of the home, but holes had been cut out for the bathroom and my old bedroom windows. It also obstructed a fence that I thought was very homey looking. I found that disturbing. When I asked my parents, they told me it was to be my space when I returned. It seemed odd because it appeared to have only three sides and very high, windowless walls, and it flared out. The effect was of an open stage that was enclosed and claustrophobic. I couldn’t imagine living there and woke up feeling both burdened by the problem with the animals that wouldn’t stop growing and escaping and trapped by where I was going to live.

1 November 1998 I was in my room at home, but there were other people there, almost like a ship. On the wall outside my door was a communication center. I would wake up and see strange messages for the engineer, almost like they were from hell. They read like e-mails from “evil@something.” It concerned me, but when I tried to get dressed, all I had was a blanket. My brother came out of his room and couldn’t figure it out, either. The field next to where we lived had been broken up into something I didn’t like, something that took away from it or how I felt about it. It was colorful, but not in a real way or a way that would last. Then, to appease me, the woman who owned it [no such person] turned part of it into a stream with a house-like building next to it. The house was slate blue and had a picturesque bridge over the river built in. We thought it was to be a community center or library, which would have made me happier with the situation. On closer examination, however, we found that it was for sale—a price was painted on the windows. I wanted to break the windows, I was so upset, but my brother stopped me. Just then, a tennis ball bounced off the window, and I saw a little boy retrieve it. I spoke to him about how it was wrong to try to break windows like that, but secretly wished he’d been successful. My brother tried to calm me, but I was crying hysterically. I tried to explain my despair—the field as it had been had a path that disappeared into sun-filled, shadowy

woods that evoked a mood or feelings too beautiful to live without. It was difficult to make anyone understand their importance and their loss. The next part was either a second dream or an abrupt change from the first. I was at a luxury hotel and had just married a man for the second time. I didn’t know why I hadn’t been married to him any more or why I married him again; I just knew I was married to him again. A woman asked me what I was going to do with my baby (not that I remembered having one), and I confidently answered that a babysitter would be okay for one day and night. I was lying in bed waiting for the groom (and having no idea what he looked like or even who he was), clothed from head to toe, neck to wrist, in a white gown. Very modest—or secretive. I also wasn’t sure it was me—I didn’t look or feel like me. I waited and waited and he didn’t show up for a long time. I kept thinking that there was one place he could touch and I would be ecstatic. My father arrived; he wasn’t my real-life father, but my father in this story. He seemed obsessed with cleaning up something in the room, no matter how many times I told him that the staff not only were supposed to do that but wanted to do it. He conceded only when the hotel maid told him, too. Then it was morning, and I was still anxiously awaiting something—that special touch in that special place. A woman—a sister-in-law, perhaps—arrived with a huge meal, right after I had been served a large bowl of beef stew. My brother (not my real-life brother) was there, too. I felt overwhelmed with food. Maybe it was to make up for what had happened—what had not happened. How did anyone know? I felt that everyone knew something I didn’t. He finally arrived—at least, I think it was him. He said something and then slapped me in the face. He tried to punch me, too, but I tried very hard to protect my teeth. Then I got my arms free—he had them pinned—and managed to go after him and try to slap him back. I don’t know whether I succeeded or not. Then I woke up aching in heart and soul.

6 November 1998 I wish I understood where the dreams of the last couple of days are coming from. I know I’m a little tired, possibly a little sick, and it seems to be coming out in the weirdness of my dreams. The dreams of the last couple of days have involved T. F. F. I don’t remember the first clearly, other than that we seemed to be working for the same organization and he couldn’t avoid me. The girl was there, too. I kept feeling there was more going on between them than either would let on—not necessarily in a positive sense. From a dream perspective, it seems to have been no more than wishful thinking on my part—seeing what I wished to see. The strange part was the role cats played in the dream later. There were leopards involved, and breeding, as well as corporate spying.

10 November 1998 This was a waking dream I had while falling asleep. I was at what I perceived as my old high school or college, in a hallway with doors at either end and wooden double doors in the wall. I opened the double doors, expecting a gymnasium, locker room, auditorium, or backstage dressing room, only to find another set of identical wooden double doors inside. It became obvious there was nothing but a solid wall—a hallway with two doors

and a wall and no reason for existing. Someone whom I think I knew yelled that there was an emergency and I should head for one of the two ends of the hall, but I couldn’t—I was paralyzed by fear. I wonder now whether I wasn’t having a premonition that one or both doors at the ends might also lead to a wall and no escape. I woke up shaking and jumpy, with my heart racing. It took a while before I was calm enough to sleep again.

21 November 1998 10:29 PM I had a dream now in which I, in front of some girls of questionable occupation who happened to be there, was running down an alley because what appeared to be a policeman had arrived and was going to arrest me along with them. Everything was pitch dark, and I had a sudden feeling of being completely alone and not entirely in a tangible place any more. A voice said, “Diane, why are you running? You can’t get away. You will die. In a couple of days; less than 48 hours. Nothing you can say will change that, Diane. Nothing you can do.” I ran more and tried to plead with God that I wasn’t really evil and didn’t deserve sudden death or taunting, but the voice followed me and I couldn’t escape it. I also couldn’t wake up. I ended up at a surrealistic version of where I used to live, only I didn’t live with my parents, but I paid them rent. And it wasn’t really here I used to live; it was where I thought I used to live. It was late twilight and stormy looking. Many trees had been lopped off, and two that resembled some familiar icons (I think Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans) were square dancing. I called a former coworker to tell her, and all she could say was that she hated that everyone was square dancing just because it was the “in” thing; only she didn’t call it square dancing, but something else that I can’t remember. “You don’t understand! It’s Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans! Only they’re really trees!” Meanwhile, something was wrong with my oven, and my parents were trying to figure out the logistics of acting as landlord toward their own kid. The voice never stopped telling me, by name, gleefully, that I was going to die, painfully, in the next two days and that I wouldn’t like it or what would happen afterward. I tried to wake up and still couldn’t, and then though that if I did wake up, it would come true. I’ve never heard my name in a dream before. I’ve never heard a voice so palpably in a dream before. Finally, Pudge made a lot of noise when she woke up and walked along my bare leg to jump down, so I woke up. Scared.

25 November 1998 1:51 PM I was living or staying at home. One day, I received a check from T. F. F. I can’t remember how much it was for, but it was for perhaps one-tenth of what I’d given him. I hadn’t asked for it, and I didn’t want it. I think there was a note in with it, although I don’t remember clearly. There was writing all over the check, but I remember only one phrase— ”Get a life.” It may have also said, “Leave me alone.” It seemed to me that there was most likely a hidden message that was nothing like the written one (which is usually how I feel about the situation). I couldn’t be sure and was a little torn with being upset by the message (which had come out of the blue; I haven’t contacted him in months or even tried to) and by being happy I was remembered as still existing. I wanted to respond, but

couldn’t. It wouldn’t make sense to. The issue is not whether I have a life, although maybe that is part of the perception—that I don’t. I was fascinated by the handwriting; it was the first time I had anything tangible of his (although I’d seen his writing before). It was really beautiful, bold and sweeping. I wanted to keep it forever. I wanted more. Then someone told me I had to find books or textbooks for a class. I had to go out. I couldn’t make myself do anything, and there was an issue about the language—English or French. I’ve forgotten most of this part, although it was strange, but it did tie in with the first part about the check in some strange way. I woke up very unhappy about the lack of contact and about my yearnings for it.

10 December 1998 I was on a roller coaster, in the very front, on the left-hand side facing forward. I was not in a car, nor was it a conventional roller coaster. Instead of a single line of cars, there were many cars in each row, and the whole contraption was indoors in a very dark place, facing nowhere in particular. I was on the outside of the machine, looking in, as I find roller coasters physically sickening rather than exhilarating. I was talking to someone, waiting for the ride to begin. It would not include me, as I could just leave. The people to whom I was speaking seemed not to understand this and were trying to tell me something. Suddenly I felt motion; the ride was beginning. Only then did I realize that the part I was in was a part of the ride, although a very insecure one. I had two options—staying put or trying to escape. Escaping seemed too dangerous; I might be torn apart if I went one way and the ride went the other, so I stayed where I was and tried to sit down, although my car didn’t seem like any of the others—not at all secure. At first, it seemed like a typical roller coaster ride, going up and down, only in the dark rather than outdoors. I didn’t like it and couldn’t wait for it to be over, but it wasn’t as painful as I thought it would be. Suddenly, I was aware that I was alone and that it was very quiet. I was going through a door into a room or compartment, and then I realized that this ride went into various types of places. The one I was headed into, through a small door, was dark, cold, not very clean, and full of ice—chunks of ice. What was to happen next I may never know. (I also had had a more interesting dream the day before and meant to write at least some key words down to jog my memory, but I’ve completely forgotten it. I have to be better about that; it was definitely more interesting.)

11 December 1998 It seemed to be home, and T. F. F. was there, although I don’t think I was—at least not permanently. I am not sure about all of that, though. He was staying in my brother’s room, and he was telling a group of people—not me—about how he was full of great plans and ambitions that he was working on and that were close to or had come to fruition. This made me either angry or frustrated; I can’t tell which. I found a box and/or a bag—both very small—I think in his room. (The ethics of this bothered me in my dream and when I woke up). Then I approached him from behind as he was sitting and I think touched him on the back. I showed everyone the thing(s) I’d found in his room—the smallness of the reality of all his great dreams and aspirations. He was

deeply, deeply hurt, but it also seemed like a beginning somehow, as though it had to happen. The truth was out, but I’m not proud of how.

12 December 1998 A friend told me she had found a great job working with numbers and actuaries that I could do. I thought this was very strange, as neither of us likes or is good at working with numbers, and I’ve had my fill of actuaries. I arrived where I was supposed to work; it looked like a classroom. All I remember doing is copying numbers—not difficult, but not interesting or challenging. Then someone made a fuss because I hadn’t put parentheses around the negative numbers. I can’t remember why I hadn’t, only that I had done something else and it was just as valid. I ended up leaving. Somehow I was in Italy. Or perhaps I’d always been there; it seemed familiar, as though maybe I had been there for some time. Next thing I knew, a man came to me. He’d been in a boxing match and had been badly hurt by someone who was clearly a superior boxer. He said he was taking on all comers. Then I saw a picture of a man with something like a giant cotton swab who was the poster child for boxers who reach beyond their capabilities and are permanently injured as a result. I seemed undecided as to whether I should challenge the superior boxer, so we went to observe him. I woke up before I made a decision, and my thoughts and observations are murky.

29 December 1998 (most likely) It should be no surprise, I suppose, that the last dream I remember from 1998 had disturbing imagery. Perhaps it’s a good thing I didn’t have a chance to record it, and then I forgot most of it. T. F. F. appeared in it. And then it was a very sexual dream.

6 January 1999 I dreamed of cats and other predators again. I’ve had a dream more than once of being at home in upstate New York—no place wild—and looking out and seeing anything from wolves to cougars to lions to coyotes to bears. Anything. I lived in a trailer, and in the dream I wondered how we could survive the animals with only the frailty of glass and metal between us and them—the frailty of a mobile home against predators who weigh hundreds of pounds, with claws and teeth and strength. Yet, when we went out, they were there, and they mostly ignored us. I never felt threatened by them. It was thrilling and fascinating to have them so close by, unlike anyone else, like being in a special, magical land unlike anyone else’s, like a land of the mind. Today I was dreaming of T. F. F. Again. I don’t remember much of it—just that things were different. Then I was home again, in the trailer, and the cats and other predators were there. Now the atmosphere was different. My mother was there, inside with me, and it was dark outside, but not night-dark—the type of otherworldly dark that happens only in my dreams when I think the world is coming to an end. And I knew the animals were out there. I could hear bones crunching and was frightened for the first time.

9 January 1999 I was married to someone I had known in high school who I had thought of then as somewhat intelligent, but easily led and gullible—someone who could tend toward the positive or the shadow, depending on who he was trying to impress or who he wanted to be. His name was “K,” and he had artistic ability. He was never someone I was interested in. He never felt quite “right” to me, although I couldn’t say exactly what I mean by that. His family had a lot of money. I think he told us once that his father’s salary was something like $200,000—an unheard of amount for the time and place in which I grew up. I think it must have been true, because his house seemed impressive to me when I went to a party there. In the dream, too, it appeared he had a lot of money and a red sports car that, at various times, had “Porsche” and “Rolls Royce” written on the back. It kept changing. The setting appeared to be a resort. He had played a prank on someone likely to retaliate, or stolen from him. I’m not clear about which, but at one point I think it had something to do with a penknife. “K” seemed very mischievous, almost like the literary/film stereotype of a rogue or scamp. We had to run in fear for our lives. Typically, I couldn’t keep up. Strangely, I remember being driven in the car over things like tables where people were drinking cocktails. I was out of the car and unable to get in quickly when the enemy showed up, and I was always afraid of being left behind. At one point, we swam under (murky) water that was part of a swank restaurant, and I realized that there were alligators swimming underneath. I was afraid of them, although they didn’t seem to be particularly interested. He wasn’t. Throughout, my fear wasn’t of my being caught by the man chasing us, but of “K’s” being hurt by him or leaving me behind. I didn’t understand why I was so attached to him, but I was. My attachment, lack of understanding, and fears weighed me down.

10 January 1999 I went to a sporting event with “DW”; it seemed like something unconventional. I felt unprepared for it or to be there. A huge, dark cloud appeared in front of us, and she said something about a cold front moving in. I didn’t have an umbrella, nor did she. The dream looped a bit, because I saw the cloud twice and had the same sensation of needing an umbrella. I wonder if the sporting event involved animals because I seemed afraid of one getting loose. Then I found a tiger cub by itself, looking lost, lonely, and sleepy. I picked it up carefully and uncomfortably, under the front legs, and held it straight out in front of me because it was of course trying to claw at me in the reactionary way cats do. I remember thinking how much I wanted to hold it normally and hug it and treat it kindly, but I thought that if I did, it would react; on the other hand, the very way I was holding it was uncomfortable for it and would cause it, if it were otherwise tame, to swipe at me. [I’m sure I was thinking of Worf holding Data’s cat Spot on Star Trek: The Next Generation.] I think we found an adult tiger at one point and were going to ask it if the cub was hers, but beyond that I don’t know what happened. I think I wasn’t sure I wanted to give it up, snarling, claws, and all.

30 January 1999

I don’t remember all that much or how it fits together. My dad was driving down a single-lane country road that then split. He went to the right, thinking it was all one way, but all the traffic in that new lane was oncoming, so he pulled into a field and drove through it until the road (parallel) went through a tunnel. At that point, he tried to get back onto the road, but how could he with the tunnel at a right angle, preventing him from seeing if anyone was coming? It had a surreal quality. Then I was much younger, or at least I think so, and I had a young man tied up, unconscious, and I wanted to have my way with him. Maybe he was even who I think he was. I couldn’t, though. I think it was ethics. (When I have PMS, my dreams seem to get more overtly sexual.)

13 March 1999 My family owned a lake on a mountain and had built a personal railroad leading up to it—it looked very strange, somewhat like a cross between a real train and a roller coaster. It is confusing because I’ve already forgotten a few details, but I and several people, who seemed to be in family groups—I think there were even children—tried to use it and went through some tunnels. We discovered a weird mechanism in front of us that looked like a long-legged plane trying to use the tracks, but I didn’t think it was ours. I also didn’t think that’s what we looked like, although I did begin to wonder. I didn’t know where the rails led, but I had a feeling they went around the lake (as opposed to along only one side), and it was spectacular. Just as we came out onto the mountain and saw that it split into three directions, going around the lake, and that it was gorgeous, we realized that troops were headed our way through the fields and forest. The American Civil War apparently was going on. This was taking place in the South, and I had to do something about dealing with the enemy away from the tunnels and/or the lake and protecting the troops. I think there was also something about baseball or a similar game.

21 March 1999 (Note: Star Trek characters appear a lot in my dreams at times—not often, but once in a while. I don’t know whether to be embarrassed about this or not. The Spock character does have some special meaning for me that is personal.) The most vivid involved being on a transparent, living ship going somewhere that was too beautiful to understand. It was as though there were something happening that was too rich for comprehension. Maybe there was nothing literal in the dream that can be explained; it was a mood, a feeling. This one is just weird in a pedestrian way. As for the Native American part, I don’t know. I am reading a book by Native American women about the warpath as spiritual path, and I have been thinking about bad events and depression as a warpath/spiritual path, so maybe that’s it..) I watched as Indians stole the crew of the Enterprise. They killed most of them. When they got to a character with a name, however, they took them away. I was under the impression that, although I seemed to be only an observer, I was interceding to save them. This made no sense to me, as I don’t think I would be selective. I followed them to where they took the captured crew members, trying to think of a way to help them escape. I woke up for a few minutes and thought that was the end of that. But the following seems related.

I had found T. F. F. He was angry with me and blamed me. He was accusing me of something—of being responsible for these things that had happened. If I hadn’t slept with (whoever it was), none of this would have happened. Yet, I was thinking, “Is that who you think your father is? Because it isn’t.”

3 April 1999 I should have been keeping track of my dreams; there have been a few lately that I meant to, as they seemed interesting—more interesting than life. Today’s was not particularly interesting or memorable (given that I don’t remember it very well). I was in a building leading a gathering of Tuscarora. I don’t know why or over what. Something happened, something momentous, but now I don’t remember.

8 April 1999 I’ve been dreaming again; this time it was strange, even for me. I was in Aventura, which has appeared a lot in my dreams since I started working at Classic Residence by Hyatt—maybe it’s the catchy name. I was with a family that had a little boy. I don’t think I was working for them or a part of the family; I was just there. I remember walking on a beach. Maybe that comes from the Aventura marketing photos. A lot of time passed and the boy grew up, and I realized I was in love with him (as an adult) and had a feeling that he might feel the same way, that he really enjoyed me and my company. I know that that seems to happen a lot—that love grows with whomever you spend time with. I wanted to take care of him, to love him. It felt wonderful.

17 April 1999 I found myself participating in a church service or a play (it seemed to go between the two). I think I was much younger. I didn’t know how I’d gotten involved, but I was in front of a crowd. I worried about whether someone was there and how I appeared. I overacted to get attention, and then felt ashamed. Then I was in the audience, and the leader, who seemed Pope-like in power but young and athletic in appearance, ran up and down the auditorium aisles wearing gold and accompanied by a child, also wearing gold. I found the leader attractive but bizarre. I had vague, undefined, yearnings. Then I was making coffee for my dad. I forgot to do something, and he said I’d let something (grounds, maybe) through. I didn’t think I had, but when I looked, there were fish in the machine, and I didn’t think anyone would want to drink coffee that fish had been in. Then it started to trouble me a little how fish were able to live in the acidity of coffee. Nothing about the heat of the coffee struck me until I woke up.

17 April 1999 There were animals in the field again, only this time they seemed to be mostly the type of animal you’d expect to see grazing in a field—horses, cows, and so forth. I heard that a famous horse was on its way to see me, and I became panicky because I knew that something wrong or dangerous was waiting for it. I tried to warn it away, but it came anyway. It was white. As it approached and wasn’t very far from me, I realized there were

cats right next to it, ready to follow and pounce. The whole scene had become different than it was before. I was calm, though, because they seemed awfully small—too small to attack a magnificent white stallion. I yelled to warn him just the same, and he trotted off, nonchalantly, in the opposite direction down the road, with the cats following him, but not quite knowing where to begin because they were so few (two or three) and so small. Then, in the middle of the road, in front of me, more cats—slightly larger—appeared, and he started to hurry more. I don’t know what happened after that—if they got him or not.

20 April 1999 It seemed to be a classroom setting, but the person next to me was a freelancer. When we were talking about which photos to use, R. didn’t like his suggestions or attitude and got rid of him after humiliating him publicly. It was shocking, as though he had had him killed. Maybe he did. I didn’t say or do anything. I never do. It wasn’t a classroom; it was a party. People were playing a game, including two of my friends. I thought they were playing cards, but one man was on the telephone, telling someone that everyone was playing—tall, short, men, women, in shape, out of shape. He seemed to think that it was an amazing thing. I had the impression that they were playing something more like basketball. Whatever it was, I couldn’t play—I’m not very good at cards and probably couldn’t play basketball. Then I thought that everyone isn’t playing— I’m not. It seemed to be a ship—a wooden sailing ship with small quarters, ladders, lots of tight, out-of-the way places and corners. Some people were there from my former employer’s office in another city, checking out the bathrooms. They told me how happy they were with these bathrooms in my city and how they suited them perfectly; they wanted to buy them. I don’t know if they wanted to take them back with them or move into them. I didn’t know why; when I looked, I thought they were dark and dirty, but at least not wet (like public bathrooms in my dreams usually are). They were not anything I would have wanted.

23 April 1999 I was in college and had an Asian roommate named Jai. I don’t remember much, but I think it was in Florida and there was a lot of lush vegetation outside the window. It was really dark out—not like evening, but like before a storm. Then I noticed the window was gone, and so was my computer, as though there’d been a break-in. It all felt weird and apocalyptic. A lot of my dreams are apocalyptic in atmosphere. I have frequent dreams about being at home—where I grew up and was much happier, where there were woods and a field that were lovely during the day, but frightening at night—and waking up, and seeing something in the sky—a light, a face like the face of God, a strange star, a change in dimension, something, sometimes hard to define—that means that something about the state of things has changed and that it’s immutable . . . hard to explain, but very mysterious, very subtle, very terrifying . . . and no one sees it quite like I do. I don’t think there was that much more to it, to be honest. I don’t remember if anything else happened. I even forgot how I felt except upset, but not really. I think that Jai had more of a role, but I can’t think what it was any more. I’ve been dreaming a lot lately that either my computer is stolen or a virus takes it over. (I once dreamed that a virus took it over and it kept screaming at me like the Jack Ripper character on the Star Trek episode Wolf in the Fold, complete with the psychedelic swirling

patterns and everything. It was a terrifying dream because it felt like it really had happened—one of the times when I didn’t know I was dreaming. The apocalyptic ones are like that, too.)

21 May 1999 A horse ran into a stable, as though it was arriving from a race at a finish line, and fell forward onto its chest. A fire started, and the horse was left to burn to death because it couldn’t get up. I don’t know why I couldn’t do anything; maybe I wasn’t really there. I remember fire on its back legs and my feeling it was already dead but that it was cruel, immoral, and wrong to leave it there. I was very upset about it when I woke up. I won’t soon forget that imagery.

26 May 1999 At first I think I was in a room, but not in a house or an office. I wasn’t wearing a shirt. There was a man from my last job there in whom I’d had some interest, but not a lot. In this dream, I knew he hadn’t been interested at all, but I could sense that something had changed and that it had nothing to do with what I wasn’t wearing. I no longer thought of him, but he was around me a lot in this room (it must have been work of some kind), and his interest in me was growing. I didn’t particularly like it. Maybe I didn’t like the reversal in roles. Maybe I didn’t like having the decision taken out of my hands. I don’t know what happened, but I didn’t have any feeling one way or another, or, if I did, it seemed to be more of an interest in what would happen if he actually did anything. He always seemed to want to say something and, strangely, although I wanted to hear it, I kept distracting him with something else, as though I didn’t know. Then I was in the woods in a small clearing, surrounded by trees, maybe having a picnic or playing at something. It was a perfect day, and I wanted to stay there forever. Two people came with lawnmowers and mowed around me. I didn’t want to move, and I kept trying to hide from them and hoping they’d go around me and go away. I don’t know what ultimately happened to them. In reality, a friend had told me that part of the woods had been torn down for a funeral home. In the dream, I saw only woods around me, but when I walked in that direction, I found a beat-up, old industrial building of brick. It didn’t look like a funeral home, but I got the impression it was more like a crematorium, or at least a place through which the bodies are disposed. It looked solid and ugly, like industrial buildings in the city, but although I couldn’t see the woods any more, I knew they were behind me, and thought it was a strange place for such a building. Then windows appeared, and I could see a few people at work. They were very strange looking—wearing almost Japanese theatre [Kabuki?] like makeup, more like bodies themselves than living people. They pretty much ignored me, except one, who appeared to be ironing, may have looked at me. Eerie in every way.

30 May 1999 [To Virgil]: I had a bizarre dream in which you and Deemah got caught doing something you shouldn’t have been doing in a place you shouldn’t have been doing it by someone who shouldn’t have caught you. I wasn’t there, but I witnessed it and I think I even tried to warn you (it’s a dream; impossible things happen). Then I found a building in the woods that shouldn’t have been there—it had cropped up magically, and didn’t seem

to have a discernible purpose. When I got through to Amsdell Road, there were all these huge houses that looked more like storybook palaces, of strange colors like electric blue and covered (encased?) in crystal or glass. I guess the world was changing and I didn’t understand it. I tried to get you to go check it all out, but you wouldn’t.

28 June 1999 I was fighting an energy monster as part of a series of deeds I had to accomplish (like Hercules?). It was a little like the monster in the “Darmok” episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, where it was neither visible nor invisible. I had a phaser weapon, although it seemed unreliable and I couldn’t figure out how to trigger it. It seemed faulty, too. The monster could sneak up on me at any time. It could be anywhere—behind a door, behind a tree, anywhere—and I couldn’t possibly be that alert for it and be able to use the weapon. I gave up. It would get me no matter what I did. On one hand, it mattered. On the other, I really didn’t care. To encounter this monster, I was in a colony or group living arrangement, not to live but as part of this quest, when I saw T. F. F. He was lifting dumbbells, part of a conceit to make himself feel fit, I suppose. Eventually, I managed to talk to him. He had a girlfriend who was of course wonderful (if always in the background—I never saw her, nor do I think she had a name. Nothing special.). He was now looking to become an artist or artisan in Mexico. All that creativity. To myself, I didn’t see him as being any more successful at that than at becoming fit by making a show of lifting dumbbells every now and then. We talked a lot. He said he didn’t want to but he acted like he did. He even eventually let me put my arm around him. I was happy and not happy at the same time. It felt wrong again. The girlfriend, that is. I felt that he was beginning to soften toward me, but didn’t want to for the same reasons—but couldn’t help it. We were driving to visit someone and spotted a bird that was really someone I knew who wanted a ride, but the bird got to the bridge first after all. The atmosphere was odd— like being in a beautiful but strange country where everything feels different and disorienting. We were visiting this person—I can’t tell if it was my friend or his, and I don’t even know if it was a man or a woman, although it would make more sense if it were a woman—when I spotted a photo of someone I’d known in college who had betrayed me. Although her name wasn’t “Gross,” it was in the dream. I said to the person, “I didn’t know that you knew her!” The person looked shocked and said they didn’t. And then I got the impression that maybe marital infidelity was involved and that they didn’t know about the photo. (How could they not? It was in plain sight.) That it was the man of the house’s photo—and a secret from her. It was confusing, but I felt somehow guilty. It was good while it lasted.

8 August 1999 I was in what seemed like a school or church setting (cafeteria—institutional) during what was either a celebration or a meal. A box was passed around with chocolate eggs and ice cream. For some reason, I wanted all the chocolate that was left. I gave the rest to the next table, which wasn’t really a table, but a poor family in a very crowded living room. The youngest girl had a doll in a chair, and people would think, “They would have more room if the doll didn’t take up so much space.” The doll was large and eerily human and real looking.

Then I looked out the window and saw a large, striped orange cat lying in the grass. I couldn’t see its head. I never could commit to whether it was a tiger or not, although it was something that I kept puzzling over. Then I noticed a second tiger (or whatever it was). Then a bobcat. Then a male African lion. Then one or two more male African lions, these with black manes. Someone came along and wanted to open a window, probably to see the cats better, but I kept saying, “No, you can’t do that!” and, finally, “What part of ‘No, you can’t do that’ are you not getting?” I think I even vulgarized, which I never do. That was where it was left. She was curious and I was terrorized.

22 August 1999 I was to give a speech or something along those lines to an auditorium full of people who been a friend or who had helped me out. Next thing I knew, I was singing Proud Mary as a “thank you” song, all the while thinking: (1) Why sing a song? I can’t sing. This is humiliating. (2) Why that song? And my mind glommed onto: “You don’t have to worry/’Cause you have no money/People on the river are happy to give.” I couldn’t (and can’t) figure out where the gratitude in that is. I saw someone typing and saw MOVIERAM spelled out on the keyboard (“MOVIERAM” is the screen name of an online acquaintance from a books message board). It was like a small epiphany, as though I should have known that and it was always there. I was thinking of telling him now I know where his name comes from. The next time I looked, it was just the numbers row. I was in a boarding house where curtains were over the inside of the door (some hotels have this, especially cutesy one with glass room doors), but this was an old, Victorian/Edwardian place. I opened the door (going out) and then opened another door going in, and realized this was my old room, but I didn’t live here any more and why did the person who does live here leave it open? And why did I still feel compelled to go in? Then I closed it and left. But I still couldn’t remember where I do live (in the dream, which was not the same as where I really live). There was more, I think, about being a student.

24 October 1999 I had gone back to college and was in what was supposed to be a dormitory room, although it seemed somewhat better than you’d expect. It was dark, as though there were a lot of trees outside shading the room(s). It felt very closed in, but large at the same time. On the door it said “1105,” which had been the number of my first (shared) room in college, but I was alone and not wearing anything. I saw a squirrel in the middle of the room and wondered what I was going to do with him—was he my pet, or had he wandered in? How was I to know which so I could know what to do? I wondered why he was a squirrel and not a cat. When I looked again, it was a cottontail rabbit. I didn’t know what that meant. I did know that it had changed. When I went out, I found myself in an extremely narrow hallway that led to a door going out—in other words, I was in another room somehow, in the entrance way facing out, surrounded very close in by what seemed to be high bookshelves. It was so narrow that I barely fit, sideways, and I also realized that the room belonged to boy(s), although I’m not sure how I knew—I just felt it. That’s when I became aware that I wasn’t wearing anything and I began to panic because, even with the door, I didn’t know that there was a

way out (the rationale, it being a dream, that I didn’t know how I’d gotten there so I didn’t trust the door to be the way back, or where it might lead. I really didn’t want to be caught naked. There was more, but I’ve forgotten it (it was interesting, as I remember).

15 April 2000 I was staying in a strange house or building. It felt both unusual and familiar. I was taking a shower in a very unusual room—lots of dark green and nothing like a bathroom. Very luxurious. Suddenly I realized I was not alone. A man was about to get into the shower. He was older, graying, with a mustache. A large man. I don’t know how we each became aware of the other’s presence, but we talked about how odd the house and this room were and how you could walk in and not know someone was there. I didn’t mind; I wanted him to stay. A few days later, I went in and was standing in front of the mirror, practicing answering the phone with my company’s name (something I never do). I slowly became aware that I was being listened to and possibly watched. I tried to hide behind a washcloth. It was the same man. This time, he was in the shower. And he opened the curtain so we were standing there, both naked, and he started talking to me, as though it were a normal conversation under normal circumstances. I kept trying to find something to hide behind; I felt extremely vulnerable and foolish. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t just leave. I liked him. I don’t remember anything after that. The next time I ended up in that shower, it was like mine at home growing up, looking out into a field. I opened the window, and it was raining. Hard. I wanted to capture the moment. But there wasn’t much to capture.

19 September 2000 I was outdoors in the woods at what seemed like a large, sunny campground. It was obviously populated, but deserted, as though only the shadows of people lived there. I found out that T. F. F. is getting married. It seemed like a big event. Even though I never saw another person in the dream, I knew that everyone was talking about it, that everyone was going to the wedding, and that I was on the outside. I was aware of all this without seeing anyone or being told anything. I was aware of what was going on, but I wasn’t part of it. Everyone was happy about it. Everyone except me. I spent a lot of time agonizing over what I should do. Should I go? Should I at least find out who she was, what she looks like, whether I would like her? I wanted to very badly, but I also wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening and that it didn’t matter. I felt so lost and alone and torn. And most of all I wanted to see him again, to see his eyes, his hair, his face . . . when I woke up, I still had not decided which path would be the least painful. I realized how much I wanted to see him again, to know how he is, to know what he’s doing, to think that we could be friends again.

21 October 2000 I was living or staying somewhere where I slept outside on a blanket or rug. A garage or building with dogs inside was behind me. A driveway was in front of me, and at least three-quarters of the way around were trees. The setting felt surreal, and I sensed urban ugliness beyond the unreality of the tall trees.

Something about the ground underneath me felt odd, like it was too soft and unstable. When I rolled over I realized that there was an edge to it and that beyond the edge was an abyss (although the trees I could see beyond were on my level). I could not notice this abyss when I looked forward toward the driveway; it was evident only when I looked to the side and down. I was on what seemed like an artificial extension of land that could fall at any time, and I was stuck there—there was no place else to go. Trapped. The dogs came out and began jumping all over me and where I was lying, making it shake and shudder even more. The end felt like it was near, yet, although I tried to make them go away or stop, I didn’t fear it so much as simply wish to avoid the unknowable. Later, I had a dream where I met with Stu at a picnic table; he introduced me to a friend that I had been going to meet, but somehow we already knew each other. There was more to the odd feeling behind this experience, but I don’t remember it.

24 February 2001 I was in a play, probably in high school. No details—no name of the play or character. What I was supposed to wear was onstage in a closet. I kept trying to get to it, but timing it so the play hadn’t already started when I did. The play was to start with someone I knew in high school (in Drama Club) named “Joe” making an entrance that was key to the play’s success. If I interfered with it, all was over. I succeeded in getting to this closet once or twice, but later I think something happened and I ended up the focus of all attention at the wrong time. I also realized that once I was on stage I would not be able to use the bathroom for many hours. At one point, I was torn between making the dash for the wardrobe or for the bathroom. I opted for the bathroom, which turned out to be in a huge high schoolish gymnasium complex. I got into a stall, looked to my right, and discovered that, although all the fronts of the stalls were covered, the sides were not. I could see every stall and every person (although I wasn’t quite sure there was anyone else). I was caught in a moment of indecision about whether to go and risk being seen—always a big question for me in these situations. I’m more likely to risk it in a dream, where my body isn’t quite as bad as in reality. Still, the last I remember, I was leaning toward not risking it and risking the pain of holding it.

15 March 2001 I was reading a newsgroup about a common interest that I was sure T. F. F. would have abandoned by now. And the first thing I saw was a thread saying, “Where is T. F. F.?” with a lot of posts. It took me a while, but I finally opened them—and they were all blank. This is perpetual issue with me. I could find out about him, but I can’t bring myself to look. On the other hand, it hurts (almost physically) not to. So I’m always on a painful fence of wanting and not wanting to know.

27 May 2001 A large craft looked like a theater, but it was on water. I don’t know who was piloting it, but at a certain point I had to. I had no knowledge, and I was all the way in the back with no way to see forward. I had to figure out how to get to the front and how to see. It was all dark—everything, the sky, the water, the bridges that the vessel was going over. The auditorium itself. Piloting blind. I am not sure now what happened—I wrote this too late, but I remember ending up in cold, dark water. The cold Sargasso Sea of another

dream, perhaps. The flavor of it all was surreal. I knew it wasn’t real, but that the situation still remained desperate.

29 May 2001 I wanted to cut myself. Someone was there. And I would think I had done so, but when I looked, I had not. I tried, for myself and someone else. I couldn’t. And the others wanted me to. I would end up on the ground, in a cold, dark, out-of-world place, crying, crying, unable to stop, unable to articulate, to vocalize. Unspeakable misery. And when I woke up, I looked at my wrists. No cuts. Clean. And was disappointed at what I had known I would find.

30 May 2001 This morning, everything was vague, but I’m sure I was with my mother. Not my real mother, but a person who represented “Mom.” Another person was there, I think. “Mom” had a little boy for whom she had bought something very sweet, very special, very wonderful. It made me sad for some reason. I wanted it and didn’t want it at the same time. It seemed, too, that it was soft and possibly made of chocolate, because at some point I accidentally mashed its face, and I felt really bad. I probably cried, but there was nothing to do. And no one was paying attention to me, anyway. There was more, but I don’t remember. I remember a feeling of being alone and empty and insignificant, while everything and everyone else took on greater meaning than me. I woke up feeling hopeless and eventually cried.

31 May 2001 This is going to sound pretty garbled, but I was dead set on doing a perfect impression of Andy Griffith and Don Knotts. And then going back to people from high school and impressing them with the ability. I couldn’t find the one person I most wanted to impress, however. Ever elusive. Just as well.

9 June 2001 I was on the verge of a sensual experience that never happened, as is typical of my dreams—always a sense of being on the border, and then of disappointment, and then of it being repeated. Somehow, I would end up in a yard between a building and an outbuilding that was significant. Over and over again. And now I can’t remember what was there that was so important in the dream that I was drawn to it.

22 June 2001 One dream or two? I can’t tell. In one (or one part), I was in high school, probably after hours, looking for something to eat—the school seemed to have delis and things like that. After a long while, I came to a classroom where I was not welcome. I don’t remember anything being explicitly said, just a feeling of being unwelcome to the point where it might be dangerous for me to stay. I couldn’t find out what the subject was and couldn’t ask, and I tried discreetly but couldn’t really look around for “The Boy.” I also got the impression there were more of these classes going on and that I (especially me—it was personal) wasn’t meant to know about them. I don’t know what upset me more—being excluded because of my math/science phobias

and lack of ability, or seeing almost everyone I thought of as my intellectual equal in the room doing something that they didn’t want me to know about. I wanted to know if “The Boy” was part of it; it hurt to think that everyone thought so little of me and that he knew that it was the consensus. In the other part, I knew a man who seemed very nice, very average and pleasant and friendly. Suddenly, he was married to S. I don’t think there were many details after that about how I interrelated with them until one day, whilst traveling on a train with them, I realized I couldn’t let him be deceived any more. I said something about her to him, although I don’t know what. I’m sure I questioned her intelligence in some way—I don’t know if I was forthright in my mockery of it or if I just dropped some comments. Instantly, he became vitriolic and dragged me off the train at a station, where he abused me. I told him I should be allowed to get my luggage before the train moved on (he had power over that). She was oblivious to everything, although I tried to drop some of the words she didn’t know to jog her memory about all the things she’d said she didn’t know. She looked blank. They had a German shepherd who adored me, and I had a very tearful farewell with him. Then, while that was going on, a child fell and hurt himself badly; I think he may have been theirs. I helped to determine if anything was broken and gave him basic first aid, but that did not impress my now former friend. Although I woke up and do not know how it was going to end, I knew it was sadly. I related it to the first dream (or part) because both made me feel hopeless and desperate (why did each of these two men—the first real, the second, just a figure in a dream—inspire me with these feelings of wanting to have them in some way or another and the feeling of deep loss?). I also realized I was treating S. somewhat the same way I’d been treated—as someone who was not very intelligent.

26 June 2001 I wrote a letter to someone, I think Stuart, on the inside of a small bottle, like a nail polish or makeup bottle, and then thought, “That was silly—how is he going to be able to read it?” And as I got closer to waking, I thought, “Forget how is he going to read it? How did I write it?” In my dreams I do magical things. Also, I lived somewhere else. Looking out the window, I saw a common-looking bird on a bush and was disappointed that it wasn’t something more interesting, more wild. As I thought this, it turned into a ruby-throated hummingbird. I realized there were now several of them on the bush. I tried to open the window, but something was funny about how it worked, and I couldn’t. I had the impression that the scene had changed to a vista.

14 July 2001 This seems to have become a recurring dream, where I am at home and there is a fire in the woods behind us. I can feel it getting closer and closer, and then I see it and smell it. No one else seems concerned, and I am devastated that it won’t be stopped before it destroys everything I cherish.

18 August 2001 I was having lunch with the only female member of “Donegal Rain.” I noticed her in a hotel lobby or somewhere that was on an upper floor and invited her to a restaurant. We— and everyone else in the room—got on an elevator that turned out to be the whole room, but the doors never closed, so people got on and off while it was moving.

Everyone questioned who this person was. “Don’t you recognize her? She’s the only female member of ‘Donegal Rain’!” Somebody finally invited us to their house for a party because I told them they had no idea how hard it is for a woman to be the only female in an all-male group like “Donegal Rain.” A plate glass window next to where I was sitting led to shrubbery. State employees came in to do some work and startled out of hiding some prairie chickens (that really looked like Asian crested wood partridges, but I knew and everyone knew they were prairie chickens.) I was thrilled, as I’ve never seen a prairie chicken in my life, and I was about to point them out to Ms. “Donegal Rain,” but then one of the workers stomped on two of them. I went running and told him I couldn’t believe a state employee would kill two members of an endangered species, but his cohorts reassured me he was just being an example to the crowds passing of what not to do. I said I’d report him anyway as this made no sense to me. I didn’t want Ms. “Donegal Rain” thinking she could kill prairie chickens, I guess.

1 September 2001 Part of this dream involved riding around endlessly throughout rural countryside on a school bus, picking up (or dropping off?) children. It struck me that there is no end to the amount of land, houses, and kids in the U.S. This part of the dream probably stems from my experience in high school. I lived closest to the school, but the drivers were not allowed to drop me off first because I would have had to cross Rte. 20, which was pretty busy. So, every day after school, whether I took the regular bus or the later one for kids who stayed after for sports or clubs, I spent up to an hour getting a scenic tour of the whole school district, just to get to my home that was 10 minutes from the school. At the time, I didn’t mind because I liked to see where people lived and what the lakefront was like and the neighborhoods with the physicians/attorneys, and the more rural parts, too. I’m not sure how that ties to this part, but I also dreamed that my one English friend had come to visit me and that I had introduced him to my coworkers, especially the other copywriter. We were supposed to go somewhere (a play?), but the coworkers wanted to take him for a drink, and he desperately wanted to go instead. I wasn’t hurt, but I didn’t want him to go because I didn’t want him to be with those guys—maybe I was afraid of what they’d say about me. I don’t know what I was thinking. The next thing I knew, I’d attacked him—I was giving him the longest, deepest, most passionate kiss imaginable while holding him fast and sinking. I remember being overcome with passion and desire, and then everything going dark before I woke up.

16 October 2001 Today I dreamed about T. F. F. again. (Around September 30, I had dreamed I’d met him again, and he had a daughter named Glenna.) I had this dream in the middle of the night and remembered it clearly this morning. Now, after a day of work, I don’t remember most of it. He was thinner and older—not sure if that was just a little older, or older as in middle-aged. His attitude was different, although I don’t remember how or what he said or did. He was somewhat more successful than I would have thought possible. In both dreams, perhaps he was indifferent. Is that what I secretly wish for?

26 November 2001

I waited too long to write about this and have forgotten some of the more interesting details. I was attending or performing in a Wagner opera (a comedy?); it could have been in either German or English—all things being possible in dreams. A part of the dream was about a warning and looking at a photo album with windows. A mobile home turns into a house, and a family grows, but I can’t remember the “plot” or if it was my family. Finally, we are speaking of Sonny and Cher, and it comes out that, in his 20s, Virgil had a thing with Cher—and this made me terribly angry with him.

30 December 2001 The early parts of the dream faded before I woke up, but they had to do with being at a Silly Wizard performance and there being some unusual information on the tables that I didn’t understand or believe. I met a young man named Joseph Anthony Diaz, but can’t remember how. He said, before he left, “Remember me when the police come back with me. I’m not guilty.” I said I would. Something was wrong where we had to build a watercourse to divert water. My mother didn’t like the way “he’d” done it. I thought she meant my father, but she meant my brother because my father had passed away long ago, only I didn’t seem to know it. “I don’t like the way it goes here and here and then out in front,” she said. It was built around a tree in our home, and meandered all over the place like a babbling brook, with still pools and wooded overhangs. I didn’t like that they had let my no-longer-young cat out and that she blended in with the woods. I found her just as she discovered the neighbor’s yard. It was too late by the time she’d found the neighbor’s muted patchwork cat. I saw her wrap herself around a limb to try to camouflage herself. It didn’t work. True to his warning, a police officer came by with Joseph Anthony Diaz. I said hi to him, and the officer made small talk, although he seemed quite angry with Joseph. When I remembered he was supposed to ask me questions about Joseph’s identity/innocence, they were both gone. In the evening, someone said, “Look out for the prothonotary warblers—they’ve been observed performing their exchange ritual.” I had no idea what I was looking for or any real hope of seeing, but just then we saw some birds that I assumed to be them. The person who’d noted this was excited, but right behind them was a massive eagle. “It’s got one!” “No, it’s got them all!” the other person said. For some reason, I was heartbroken that I wasn’t going to see the prothonotaries do whatever it is they were supposed to be doing. I followed the eagle into a neighbor’s yard, thinking I could force it to drop its prey. But there wasn’t just one eagle; there were three or four, all walking on the ground. I ran at them individually; one did release a male cardinal. Another finally released a green bird I didn’t recognize, but it was labeled “prothonotary.” I ran at another bird, but it turned out to be one standing full height in a 1950s housewife’s dress. “Don’t think you can chase me off like the others,” she said in an imposing tone. There are many missing details, but mostly I had a feeling of forgetting to do something, not doing something right, and disorientation.

3 March 2002

I was in another country, or at least it seemed to be another country, but I don’t remember any active participation in the dream—it was more like watching a movie. A person I thought might be famous was performing a frontal lobotomy on some hapless man. It involved sticking a clear tube into his head and looked terribly barbaric. I could see the patient overnight, and he was suffering from some bizarre complication. He started to swell badly. It apparently caused him a great deal of pain. He didn’t say anything, but I knew he had decided to get revenge on the person (not clear even that he was a physician) who had performed the surgery for leaving him overnight without anyone to check on his condition. He seemed to feel a burning need for out-of-proportion, burning revenge. His wife or a woman (nurse?) appeared in the morning. By then the swelling was more or less gone, but he was still bent on revenge. I couldn’t tell when, where, or what form it would take. I was afraid it would be violent and bloody. I didn’t want to see it and tried to close my eyes, but I could still see everything. Every time something happened, like the “doctor” opening a car door, I thought, “This is it” and braced. At one point, he was on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, with his chair pulled offstage and behind the curtain, and I thought, “This has to be it.” But it wasn’t. Not even sure that it wasn’t Carson who was pulled off. This went on for what felt like forever, and I kept trying to wake up or redirect my thoughts, but couldn’t. A second dream: This one involved a woman (which could have been me) driving a bus that was way behind schedule backward. This was because she’d been too busy making up for lost time that she was backing up (through quite a lot of terrain) to a restroom down the street, which made the handful of last passengers of the day scream. I’m not sure it was me, though, because it seemed to me I was trying to explain how bad the crowding on the bus had been because of the problems, but nobody quite believed me. I was in a rural farm area (I think the bus was, too), and there was this odd thing—a silo-type thing that must have been miniature but at the same time wasn’t that one dipped into to get some especially good mustard, or maybe it was mayonnaise. Someone showed me and told me it was courtesy of someone and was very popular in the region. I could never figure out how to do it, and every time I tried to do it, I’d just find hair or something weird. It had the aura of magic, however. I’m not sure how this figures in, but the wife of an old man celebrating his anniversary ripped the buttons off his orange shirt to prove he had hot sex (knowing that everyone would be skeptical or laugh), only, being very elderly and distracted, they never actually got around to it.

16 March 2002 This morning, I had an odd erotic dream. (Not surprising.) I was at the house of someone who shall remain nameless (and I hope I remember who when I read this again, because it’s not the usual suspect(s)). It was in a beautiful area—by the water in that unreal, bright way I can picture in my mind but not articulate and that I dream about seeing from our kitchen window in Hamburg looking west (where there were woods and the highway, but where the horizon could look oddly like water). I remember spending a lot of time doing friendly kinds of things indoors and then going outside and being both happy and content (two different things).

The odd thing was that I was wearing very little and, as the dream went on, they became different clothes, and there were fewer and fewer of them. I felt something I never feel in real life—very desirable, very sexy. He must have felt it, because there was a lot of tension, which was becoming unbearable when I woke up.

17 March 2002 I was in one of my favorite dream places, a subterranean cavern with boats and a handful of people that seemed like a crowd in them. The water/areas were divided into quadrants, and the empty boats were all submerged to some degree. But this didn’t give me any concern as to their ability to float. I got into one and paddled around. I also walked through some water, which was oddly green. I had a feeling that came from somewhere that it was magical in some way. Someone gave me quite a lecture on not stepping into one quadrant of water, then stepping into another. This would be very bad. I defended myself and said I hadn’t, even though I hadn’t known. Although this seemed at first to be a confined area, in a dreamlike way it expanded, and I came upon a cave filled with all kinds of showman-like stuff, including guitars. I started to count them, but there would always be one I missed. They were guitars that belonged to famous rock bands. An old, white-haired, bearded man who made me think of Burl Ives said if I counted them right I could have one. I never did get the count right, but he gave me one anyway. It did not look or feel anything like a guitar—the strings weren’t metal, but a clear nylon-like ribbon. Skeptically, and knowing that I don’t know anything about playing guitar, I started playing—and out came a perfectly rendered “Crocodile Rock.” I sat in the boat and played. I came to an overpass or archway, and there was a young Elton John himself. I felt guilty to have his guitar (yes, I know he’s a piano man) and to be playing his song, but he just waved in good cheer and continued to perform. I really wanted to meet him and talk further but I woke up.

31 March 2002 This was a sweet dream, for I was out in the country. There was time before dinner for a bicycle ride, so I found myself riding endlessly along gentle hills and curves under the gray skies and softly falling rain of a late western New York evening. I seemed to go on forever, until it was time to turn back so as not to be late for dinner. I ran across someone with a long, wide strip of leather—some device that made perfect sense—that was a relic from World War II. I did not make it to dinner before waking up. For all I know, I am still riding, riding, riding through the sprinkles.

31 March 2002 An afternoon dream during a nap meant to make up for last night’s lack of sleep during the bout of burning pain . . . I don’t remember the details; I’m not sure that there were really that many, but it felt surreal in some way. I was in a plane or helicopter with my brother, who was piloting. We were flying low over sparkling ocean water on a bright, sunny day, looking into the surface for something, something, something . . . In my dreams, the world is a more wonderful place filled with surreal marvels, and I have opportunities for adventure.

7April 2002

I didn’t know where I was, but I’d been forced to move my belongings into four drawers of a row of filing cabinets. The vice chairman of the company was at another set, and P., the assistant from C&L, was at a third. They were finding places to stash their cigarettes (they don’t smoke). I went outside to smoke the one I had (I don’t smoke, either). It was a woodsy place that I associated with my cousin. I saw a lot of dogs, including some that belonged to him and to his neighbors and one that was a wolf/collie mix. Some of the bigger ones were carrying the little ones in their mouths. When I returned, the assistant was moving her stuff neatly into the top half of my filing cabinet. When I asked why, I got a long, incoherent answer. I took that as a sign it was time for me to go, even though I didn’t realize I was allowed to. My young friend B. drove me to the airport, with his mother in the back. The road was wide, and bushy tree limbs encroached into our side. He was driving too fast, and when I told him that and that he was crossing the line, it made him more nervous and more prone to do so. I said this to his mother, which made it even worse. She didn’t say anything, though, and I learned to shut up. After a mile or two, too much to go back, I realized I’d left my glasses on the filing cabinet. They couldn’t send them to me FedEx because this was a Saturday, so I was going to have to go for at least two days virtually blind. Mystery: How could I see lines or tree branches without glasses? Afternoon: I was in a van that is backing up in a yard that goes steeply downhill into some dense deciduous and coniferous trees. I didn’t know who was driving. Then my worst fear happened—we backed up too far and started heading down toward the trees helplessly, unable to stop the backward/downward momentum. But it all happened so slowly that there was no injury or damage. It was dark under the trees. Later, I was part of a carnival-like exhibition that required participating in a ride. I was nervous about it but managed to go through it, although I don’t remember anything about it except that it was a little like car racing, with people watching. And I discovered sexual release at the end.

16 April 2002 I was in one of those houses that I always dream about—infinitely large, no end to the rooms, no end to the size. There was a lot of white. It was always night; maybe the white were the lights turned on. I woke up, and before my eyes “The Master” had transported to me a sand or clay object—a sand-colored base with a flat white heart and an erect white penis of the same material. After a while, the penis melted down. I could picture him smiling ambiguously. I was in an odd sort of shop, with everything from books to toys. Dark, cramped, tiny. I had a combination of American and possibly Canadian(?) (colorful) money, and I was returning something (a piece of clothing?) and buying something. Someone kept handing or pointing out a children’s book to me. I couldn’t figure out how to pay the owner because of the different kinds of money and because I was thinking by item. He saw me and wanted to give me a present—a toy. He was looking mostly at water pistols and couldn’t find anything suitable; he wanted to give me a really good one. He took a long time and was muttering eccentrically. Someone behind me tapped me on the shoulder and said something like, “Excuse me, but how long do you think he’s going to take?” As long as necessary.

20 April 2002

I was in an exhibition building that was dark and seemed old, and walked into a room where a giant fish (possibly more than one) was swimming around in what appeared to be a bowl. It seemed cruel at first that such a large, chunky fish had to live in such a tiny space, but then we noticed that it could swim through a tube into another area (like in a hamster cage). We suddenly realized that we were actually under the water and were literally immersed in its area. Just as we were trying to figure out how we were able to breathe (air pockets?) and why we didn’t feel wet, the fish went running past me on its legs (!) and sneakered feet (!) and somehow got into the hallway (even though I could see no barriers to either it or the water). It lay gasping for air and shaking from cold, so I picked it up and brought it back. It seemed to take a long time, and it grew weaker and weaker. When I set it down on the bottom, it fell over, and I could feel spine-like fins where something had been cut from the top of its head. Just then, my glove fell off. I reached for it, but the fish bit me. Every time I tried to recover the glove, the fish, which could move, attacked me. My glove still lies there, protected by a chunky fish.

27 April 2002 Unfortunately, there was a lot of action in this that I don’t remember; I remember only this bit and how it made me feel. I was in one of my infinitely rambling dream houses playing a parlor or game show type of game. I’m not sure how it worked, but I (or someone) would remember or think of a feature or attribute, and a face would come out of the wall based on what we said. It didn’t seem to be a benevolent spirit. It was silent, and its eyes were closed. It could have been a figure on a medieval church.

28 April 2002 I was at the home of a VIP when it suddenly hit me that she had Alzheimer’s in her early 40s. It explained everything and was like an epiphany. A wooden stand had four or five levels and things on each level, including a television. The whole thing was shrink wrapped in plastic, and it was important for me to take the plastic off. I did, but everything started to fall down, and I couldn’t juggle it all. I was trying to get somewhere along highways but had no vehicle, and it was dark and raining. I tried to find out where to catch a bus (in this, a place where buses seemed unlikely) and found out mysteriously (how could I find out, stranded in the middle of nowhere?) that the bus stopped in front of a bar with “Moose” in the name. The bar I had just stepped out of, which was more like a house. I was flying with someone in a plane when it became apparent that the nose wouldn’t lift and it would have to land somewhere, so it landed in the parking lot that it just happened to be over. It all was steeped in a strange, eerie, murky, otherworldly atmosphere. Rambling, unrelated, and unreal.

15 June 2002 The urge to urinate brings out the strangest dreams. (This one with a recurring theme— that of being unable to climb or access the thing most desired or needed.) I was living in an odd, rambling communal house. I remember only one of the other inhabitants—K., with whom I can not imagine sharing anything (K. is someone with whom I have nothing in common). There were others, I’m sure, perhaps his girlfriends.

A room on the middle floor was pleasantly musty, as though all the best remembrances of childhood were stored there. I found it as though it were a discovery. I could not get into it when I wanted to, or at least it seemed like that. All of the bedrooms (and the only bath) were on a high floor and were set into what was essentially a cliff. A sheer drop down several stories fell to nothingness. To get to these rooms, including the bath (which was last), you had to climb and cross on narrow black piping that kept corkscrewing around. It was treacherous, but seemingly I did it with ease several times, without thought, fear, or hesitation. I climbed a rickety ladder to another room that had once been mine. A flyer for an “Amison” announced that it had gone out of business. It seemed to have something to do with personalities or psychology, but I could not remember what or when I had used them. Despite the ambiguity, I sharply regretted their loss. “Oh, when did that happen?” I kept having to negotiate the ladder. There were pieces missing that made it dangerous; it was the type of thing that appeared in the media. “Why would this be allowed?” At the end of the ladder was entertainment—music one time, comedy another, a beauty contest another. The women were helping each other squish their prodigious breasts into their bathing suits. Finally, I realized I had to urinate. Badly. I tried repeatedly to climb the winding corkscrew and to go across to the last room, but couldn’t. Fear. K. was in that part of the house; he may not have been alone. It was becoming increasingly painful. I tried to force myself. I could not do it. I remembered I must have done it hundreds or even thousands of times—but not this time. I tried to think of alternatives that would not be disgusting. I went to the floor and room immediately below (even though there had been nothing there but a cliff earlier) and found a basin. R-e-l-i-e-f. Ah. There was more in the basin than I thought there would be. But soon I noticed I didn’t feel any relief at all. I still had to go. Then I realized that I was sleeping and would have to rouse myself and get up.

24 July 2002 I was in what seemed to be a class which could have been a seminar. Although I seemed to be a kid along with some others, some of the people were adults. It was the last day before summer or a break, and I had a date that I was looking forward to with — N., the son of one of my dad’s distant relatives. He was also in the class. I had to walk around the room and intended to give him a quick hello and to confirm plans, but I didn’t see him. I ended up having an odd conversation with an older coworker and some others, none of whom knew about the relationship—or him. There was another young man there to whom I made a promise, but I didn’t know why since it would have conflicted. I was walking through a long, green garden in the middle of nowhere with an older woman, whose vegetables were doing well except one that had a particular kind of blight. She didn’t know what kind the vegetable was. I picked one up, looked, and told her. It was supposed to be summer but all I saw were the colors of autumn. I thought that my mind was playing tricks upon me. She offered to take home. By then I was getting panicky because I had not seen — N. and realized that I did not have his phone number. I suspected that I did not know his name or even have a clear idea of what he looked like. I also could not remember my arrangements with the young man in my class. I knew I had to get to one of them. I was afraid of being in a car accident and ruining both situations, but when I saw her pickup truck, I felt reassured. Then we headed off and drove along a lake, only the road was narrow and right up against the lake, and water was flowing across it. It reminded me of the dream in which

I’m on a very narrow road that goes through a body of water, and the vehicle is in constant danger of ending up forever in the brink. It’s a weird but interesting feeling and makes me homesick, as though I once experienced this.

30 July 2002 I was at what may have been a costume party and noticed a man. He seemed mysterious or supernatural in some way—his looks, his manner, and his costume (which kept changing?). He seemed interested in me, although I am not sure he talked to me much. I heard him say that he was leaving and going south to Garfield. Even though it was slightly out of my way, I jumped at this, and he agreed, although there continued to be something odd in his manner. But he seemed to want my company. I had to go to the bathroom really badly, but the place was like a school or other institution, and the bathrooms were terrible. I found myself sitting on a bench in pain, trickling onto the floor. So I found a bathroom where the paint was peeling everywhere (including on the seats), where many of the bowls were dry, and where it wasn’t clear who the people wandering about were or what their gender was. I found relief and went toward the front door, where I sat on a bench to wait. A high school acquaintance saw me there. I thought, “She is going to find me surprising and the person I’m with even more so.” She was very bubbly over me, to my surprise, and couldn’t get over how much better looking I was than I used to be. She asked with some surprise, “Are you pregnant?” In her eyes, that would account for it. I wondered if I was, if that was part of the mysterious power of the stranger. I thought how amazed she would be when she saw him. He appeared, in the guise of a pirate/swashbuckler, across the room, and stared at me (and my newfound good looks). It was an electric moment. And then I woke up.

7 August 2002 I am off sick today, so I slept and dreamed. As so often, it was about where I live. Not about where I actually live, but about where I live in the dream. It is rarely if ever a conventional dream home, perfect, spacious, clean, etc.; it is usually unusual or impossible. It was a courtyard building, like this one, but I lived on the top floor. The world of the dream was restricted to this place. There was nowhere else. I was hesitant to walk near the windows for fear of being seen, or maybe it was fear of falling out. There was activity in the courtyard, and it seemed as though someone suddenly cared about the building. They were paying attention to it, and perhaps there would even be improvements. It seemed that suddenly this was the way it always had been, but it wasn’t. There were going to be concerts in the courtyard. There would be a big celebrity. It was exciting. How I knew this was not clear. I saw ropes and poles and wondered what was going over my window. Banners were hoisted over it, and I wondered if they would cover the windows. They disappeared upward and don’t. I walked out on what I must have thought of as a porch even though it was merely a smooth, steely incline, and looked up. The banners were maroon, but I couldn’t read them. A crowd was gathering below. It was all happening in compressed time. While the crowd gathered below and chairs were set up for them, I suddenly realized that my beau was there. He wanted to cook, but there was no place to do so. He sneaked

off and returned with something hot. He had discovered a stove in a porch nook with a working burner. He brought back another couple. The woman was unusual. And then something happens.

31 August 2002 I don’t remember anything else but seeing a series of multi-legged creatures carrying objects like leaves that they always resembled closely. In one case, I reached out to knock one off a man’s forehead—unsuccessfully. He had to do it himself. It skittered away across the floor.

2 September 2002 I was at a camp, although the people (friends? family? strangers?) were staying in an old house. Outside, I kept finding large wildcats everywhere. I tried to fend one off with something I was carrying. It followed me into the house, where there was another one. In my mind, it was a holiday, and I heard water that I shouldn’t have. There wasn’t just a drip from the ceiling; water was pouring down. I hesitated to call because of the holiday. My uncle died, and the funeral or service must have been outdoors. An envelope looked familiar, as though I had seen another one like it at the funeral of someone closer to me than my uncle. It seemed to me that it was my responsibility to open it. I did and asked my other aunt (not the widow) if it was from her. She nodded, “Yes.” I don’t know what happened to it. Suddenly my boyfriend (a dream one) announced that he felt a sudden need to see “Robert” and was going to see “Robert.” (I say “Robert” like this because in the dream it never occurred to me that “Robert” is a man’s name or that he was leaving me for a man; I think we both acted like “Robert” was a woman, a former girlfriend. Where the name “Robert” comes from escapes me.) I asked him if that meant that he was just suddenly leaving me in the middle of my uncle’s funeral for no better reason than an urge to see someone he’d had a failed relationship with. Yes. He had no problems with me, but he wanted to go back to “Robert.” I walked off toward the trees, crying and deciding never to get involved again.

25 September 2002 I woke up at 3:30 a.m., not feeling well. I finally tried to go to sleep—and dreamed. I seemed to be visiting a friend, although the longer the dream went on, the more it appeared that I lived there as a roommate. It felt strange, and I felt out of place. The place was huge and cavernous and seemed more like rock than wood. There were a lot of people around, mostly young women, getting ready to go out. I decided my bed wasn’t where it belonged and moved it to an out-of-the-way nook, along with some coat racks on wheels. By the time the bed arrived at its destination, it had shrunk from a full-size to a twin. I had to go somewhere, like everyone else, but didn’t know where or when. I didn’t know how far behind I was in getting ready. I also had no idea what my friend/roommate looked like. I couldn’t find him anyway, and I was very curious. I thought he might be avoiding me. I spotted him once or twice, but wasn’t sure because he was a little different than how I had pictured him. When his face was at rest, he seemed very sad; when he smiled, he glowed with happiness. He always seemed to be out of reach and mostly out of sight, and the more I glimpsed the more I wanted to talk to him.

I finally ended up going to a market or fair with a distinguished older man. He bought a sandwich, but they threw it at him in a hurry, and all it consisted of was a slice of bread, mayonnaise, and a tomato. He got two more slices from somewhere else. No more returning to the friend in the dream.

19 October 2002 I was walking down a dark, narrow hallway and saw, to the side, a tableau of a strangely dressed man and woman that seemed disturbing, like something in a funhouse. The woman was holding a doll’s or doll-sized head that looked oddly like her own on a pike, and the scene seemed to represent some historical event or people. I continued and encountered a woman with curly dark hair. I was about to utter some pleasantry when I realized she looked very much like the woman (and doll’s head) in the tableau. I became terrified as though something of dreadful significance was happening. I woke up and, even though the room was warm, I felt as cold as dry ice.

30 October 2002 I was having a meal with a group of people. We were listening to music (for some reason, I am thinking it was “Don’t Stop Thinking about Tomorrow”), and I was singing snatches of the song. I was impressed that I sounded good, given how bad my voice is and how badly I sing. Suddenly, someone said, “I wish you wouldn’t sing all the time.” I pointed out that I wasn’t singing all the time, just snatches, and someone else backed me up in this. But then I woke up—sobbing. Depressed, betrayed, like I had hit bottom. I could not take in how awful life had become. That will teach me to sing at dinner . . .

31 October 2002 I am not sure of the chronology of the following, although I think the bus was first and the book was last. I was sitting on the outside half of a seat on the bus when a young man got on. He began to tout his cause (unfortunately, I don’t remember what it was, but it was something unusual that interested me). I moved over to let him sit down and encouraged him to talk about this cause with others since he seemed somewhat shy. He became engrossed in a conversation with the young men across the way. Then I heard him say that the big weapon in his campaign was “PLASTIC!” He opened his briefcase to reveal plastic envelopes. This upset me as an environmental hazard, so I wouldn’t listen to him any more. I went back to my apartment, which had a long kitchen, and wanted to peek out the window but it was high and I was afraid of knocking the curtains off and not being able to get them back on the rod. Something about the bathroom was out of order, so I found myself at a restaurant that was in a nearby apartment. Two stools had a glass case in between. The fixtures in the bathroom looked like gadgets, but the room itself was not very clean. I went back to the glass case to see if the person on the other side could hear me— was it really meant for two people together? She could. It appeared the case kept their ice cream cold while they ate, but I wondered why the people wouldn’t be cold as well. Somebody was designing something for the restaurant, and this reminded me of how I am feeling. I wouldn’t say anything about it. In a conversation held during a trip I suddenly was in the middle of, I told a key person how I really felt about my last evaluation and the

entire process. She kept talking about, “Do you want this? Do you want that?” And here I was, talking about what I want and not being heard again. I found that I was on a barge on a river or lake along with the young man with the plastic. I was retrieving something bad for the water in lumps, something like coal. He said I couldn’t do it because it was too much, and each was too massive. But the lumps got progressively smaller until it was clear I’d gotten them all. I was in the kitchen and trying unsuccessfully to reach the window again. I realized the book in my hand was called something that really only one person would have used, and as I read it I recognized it as a book he was writing. I thought about calling him to tell him he’d been stolen from but for some reason found this to be absurd and too difficult to do. I woke up feeling thwarted.

3 November 2002 I was on a bus with strangers. At least one of them was from another country, probably in Eastern Europe. He was blond and had straight hair. I ended up somehow naked in his arms and loved it. An odd feeling of refreshing cool air on my bare skin—yet I didn’t seem to mind that it was in a public place. It made it even more interesting. Just touching. The blond European could have been one of my friend’s roommates; he seemed to have several, and they were everywhere. They all seemed a little interested in me. I went to my friend and told him I was ready to sleep with him, but he had to use protection. Because the apartment was so crowded, I knew there was a likelihood of being “caught,” but this only added interest. We found the condoms, but they were odd—clear plastic that didn’t go on all the way and that just had a tab that went over the tip. Meanwhile, people kept walking in and out, but I didn’t mind that they saw me nude. I rather enjoyed the spectacle I must have been making of myself. The fear of repercussions meant, however, that nothing ultimately happened. Even in my dreams, I worry.

8 November 2002 I had a long, elaborate dream, but don’t remember much. I do remember being in a surreal department store but not what made it surreal or what it is I wanted, other than lunch. The time seemed to be more in the past than in the present—perhaps mid-century. I also vaguely recall something about being followed by a man and his wife, and the man following me out of the building. I escaped into a maze of interconnected apartment buildings and into a home that appeared to be that of a writer or journalist. I sat down at his typewriter and tried to write something that made sense and was accurate because I had a sense that nothing that was written ever was. I felt that I was about to be caught—the man was still pursuing me—so I left through the back and discovered myself in a surreal maze of homes with back yards all crammed together and fenced in oddly—at a height. There were numerous dead ends and seemingly nowhere to go, yet I managed to get away. Two narrow escapes in the same dream. From what?

9 November 2002

I had a weird erotic dream this morning that felt like it lasted forever. As detailed as the dream was, I don’t remember any of those details. It was erotic in mood (mine), but not so much in content. I went back to my hometown church with my friend, and it felt different. I led a class, but there was something about it that was causing problems—I didn’t know what to teach, no one was listening, the materials were missing, or something. We ended up on a farm, where I couldn’t get something to happen that I wanted to show him or I couldn’t find something. Meanwhile, I wanted something but didn’t know how to ask for it or get it, or perhaps it just wasn’t available. My dreams often seem to end up in frustration and failure.

16 November 2002 I was at a party or movie hosted by the chairman of the company and found myself often in a huge room with colorful patterned walls in the back behind which was a similarly designed, not particularly well-kept bathroom I kept finding myself in. You couldn’t see the door once you were in there, and I discovered a back door that led to a bus stop where I could catch a bus that would take me directly home. I also saw a movie that appeared to be about one or two accomplished inventors, but toward the end, after the setup had been to make you feel good about them, it is revealed they invented a bomb, chemical, or other device that was horribly destructive. I would see a human face being peeled apart over and over again, almost like an onion, and would keep escaping into the odd bathroom and wondering if I could find the back door again to catch a bus. I also dreamed of being in a big, old, meandering house and of finding a photo of my three aunts together, only it struck me as odd that they all had white or gray hair. I showed it to someone in the family, and he said, “They’re all in the living room.” “But two of them are gone. At least I am certain one is . . .” Yet there they were, just like in the photo, all with white or gray hair. I felt that something was wrong.

20 November 2002 I was perched behind a rickety old wooden house that was next to a river, although I don’t remember any land, just lots of water everywhere. Two planes came flying low over the river and suddenly wrapped themselves around the drainpipe of the house. I wondered how I would rescue the pilots. Somehow, they disappeared, but a third plane wrapped itself around the same drainpipe. I managed to get the pilot out of that one but don’t remember how, only that it was quite a puzzle to open the plane and get him out without his falling into the water below. He may have been bigger than the plane and I think he was retrieved upside down. Whatever happened, it was quite remarkable, and the sun shone in an eerie way over all.

28 November 2002 I had a dream in which I was apparently married or associated with a man wealthy enough to go where he pleased when he pleased and who owned beautiful, hilly woodland in the Appalachians, the type of woodland that is deep, mysterious, dark, and inescapable. The man was an enigma to me. I remember being in love with him and wanting him, but always he seemed to be somewhere else. It was as though I wanted

something that didn’t exist (him) and was trying to find the unattainable (untainted wilderness). The deeper into the woods I went, the more marvelous they became. I could have held that feeling forever. I wish I could have written the details down first thing. It was a wonderful sensation.

10 December 2002 I arrived in Paris, although I don’t remember going there, and looked into my suitcase. There were no toiletries. I realized it was a small weekend case. The bathroom was in several levels, which made it interesting enough to make me wish mine were like that. I attended a forum or class with several other people, where nothing was resolved. I walked around during the discussion and discovered “Scott” was lying face down on a desk. I suggested adjournment, and the French leader concurred. An old woman in the back began speaking in French. Her vocabulary and grammar were impressive, but her accent was terrible. At home or in the room (not sure if there was before or after or even part of another scenario), a bee was buzzing around that my friend and I sprayed. It moved afterwards, stuck on a book, but it appeared to be quite dead. But days later to our surprise and horror it was flying around. It landed on me, and my friend sprayed it until I realized that I didn’t want to be covered with chemicals. The bee lived on.

14 December 2002 Elton John was performing with a partner that turned out to be a skeleton. A hand used a computer tool to erase one of the skeleton’s lines. Afterwards, I left the building, which seemed to be a church. Everyone else was leaving, too—in tiny boats. I didn’t remember coming in by boat, but I found a red one with plain oars that seemed familiar. Someone tried to give me a white one with white oars decorated with flowers, but we realized the mistake and quickly exchanged back. Most people were sitting around in their tiny boats, doing nothing, I spotted a small channel between two boats, aggressively cleared it, and left. I got to the end of the course and realized the water had gotten very shallow that I could walk beyond the building’s grounds. Later, I returned and encountered one of my aunts, who did something unspeakable to me. Something else odd happened, maybe involving a fish. Then I was in a certain town, in a store, when I spotted a certain person. I said hello, and to my surprise he somewhat grudgingly answered. I followed him to the front of the store where there were two girls who seemed very young. I took the older one to be his girlfriend. She seemed familiar. Her name was Robin, and she was very bright and outgoing, like a happy young girl. A closed circuit, a half loop, was made of curled wire like the curled barbed wire at prisons. His spirit and that of someone else were at each end. It was an experiment of some kind and started out benignly enough. But soon the other spirit grew very hot and came around and “burned” him. It would burn him and retreat to the other end of the half loop. I did something, perhaps with the boat that I still carried, that forced it to do it for shorter and shorter durations so that it would not be as painful for as long.

4 January 2003

I was living in a huge apartment with three or four other girls. One of them, I later realized after mentioning my former roommate, was one of her friends. I said something about the former roommate being Chinese, but then I looked at her friend and remember that they, the roommate and the friend, were Vietnamese. I was lost in the apartment. I didn’t know where the bathroom(s) was, and I didn’t know where I was staying. It was a huge, old maze of a place. I found an unmade bed that had a centipede on it. I found another centipede. I caught them but couldn’t kill them. Every time I went out the door to dispose of them. Every time I returned through the door, I found little teal and white pieces of paper that I didn’t pay much attention to. I did something with them, but I’m not sure that I threw them out. I wouldn’t be able to find them later. After a few trips I discovered that we were really living in a hotel, and they were meal tickets. I confessed to my mother, who had suddenly appeared, that I’d gotten rid of the meal tickets. I was there to complete my last year of college, only it suddenly occurred to me that I already had and that there was no need for me to be there. I wondered how I planned to pay for it and realized that I didn’t have a job, I didn’t have a grant, I didn’t have a scholarship; I had only my savings and investments, and I didn’t want to spend those. In a panic, I noticed that I didn’t have a computer or even a typewriter, a camera, or a few other possessions that would be vital to a college student. I discussed with a knowledgeable friend what I should be getting a degree in (possibly a graduate degree at this point), and we dismissed Catholicism, but agreed that the history of the Church or of science might suit me. I was somewhat aware that this was a dream and didn’t know why I’d be dreaming again about a year of college that is unnecessary. I found myself sitting next to a man I was attracted to and discovered that he was my boyfriend. We appeared to be at a parade or possibly a game. He was in some pain, having strained something that had not quite healed. It hit me that I wanted to marry this man and that I couldn’t because he was my cousin. But then I debated with myself whether it would be all right if there weren’t any children, and the only real obstacle I could come up with is that it might cause strife in the family. Meanwhile, I avoided his eyes by gazing into his beard. When I woke up, I wondered how I worked so much improbability and anxiety into one dream. Even the man, who in appearance is a real person that I recognized, is not a cousin, but an acquaintance of no relation. And my B.A. is framed.

29 January 2003 I was in a large suite of rooms furnished in an old-fashioned manner. A lodge-type room had a burning fireplace in the middle, with other cold fireplaces throughout the place. I thought I was in college and had to go to class, so I tried to take a shower, only I turned on the hot water as though for a bath. It came out so quickly it filled the tub before I could turn on the cold. I touched something, and all the water drained out as quickly as it had poured in—within a second or two. Then I saw blood dripping from the ceiling, but it stopped. I tried filling the tub again, but the blood started pouring into and mixing with the water. I thought I had better report this to the front desk. I went back to the part that I thought was my suite to find my roommate. There were at least four beds—one very large, the rest smaller. I wondered why there were so many beds and how we were supposed to decide who sleeps where. She gave me an enigmatic answer about the suite in general. By then, I couldn’t remember what classes I was going

to or why, and I noticed that I hadn’t packed my vacuum cleaner. I soon got lost within the suite, which suddenly seemed deserted. I wanted to find the front desk, so I opened a door to remember the suite number, only I wasn’t sure that it was the door to my part of the overall layout. The number on the door was a long mixture of numbers and letters that I couldn’t possibly remember, and outside the door everything looked like as confusing a maze as inside, where the fireplaces seemed important. I was confused and didn’t know what to do and probably didn’t do anything.

6 February 2003 I found myself in a huge room with all of the partners of a worldwide accounting firm. They were not gathered for an annual meeting, but to learn about the annual meeting. The person who was to lead this session did not appear, so for some reason I took it upon myself to lead. They knew I did not belong, and my questions, which I tried to make “corporate speak,” for example, “big picture,” etc., were too specific. One man started speaking, but his answer was too garbled to understand. “He’s in assisted living,” someone pointed out confidentially. When the topic of newsletters somehow came up, someone else who shouldn’t have known announced that all the newsletters were being combined into one—thus spoiling what was going to be a surprise announcement. I went into a large, dark (shadowed), snow-filled room where I knew there was a train I wanted to be on. I climbed into a cab, not through a side door, but through a front-opening door. Or I tried to, but the cab was filled with snow. Suddenly, I heard one or two snowplows approaching through the barn’s big entry doors. There I was, where I knew I wasn’t supposed to be, unable to get into the cab and unable to close the door because of the snow inside. I stepped out in the dimness to meet the plow and then I was worried because the center of the room was a hill with a narrow road around it (what happened to the train?), and by not being in the train, I risked being hit by the plow unless I could scramble up the steepness of the hill out of reach of the wide plow in the narrow road.

13 February 2003 I went to the 47th Street exit of Lake Shore Drive, even though I thought it wasn’t safe, and it was the most beautiful, sunny wooded area you could imagine—idyllic. It didn’t feel safe, so I walked south, away from it. Then I decided it was worth it, so I turned around to return, but it was suddenly dark as dusk among the trees. I could sense that the mood would change if I didn’t go back. I was in an underground menagerie or circus holding area with all kinds of weird creatures in primitive bamboo cages. At first, I felt safe because I assumed no one would put animals into cages from which they could escape. Then a tiger or something similar walked out of one toward me. Then another animal. I turned down a row of cages, and every door opened, and a colorful ape-like creature (pink, green, blue, purple, etc.), stepped out and started following me slowly and ominously. I turned down another row with the same results. Panic.

18 March 2003 On Sunday, March 16, I attended a candlelight vigil for peace at Montgomery Place. It involved singing.

I was at an event. I don’t remember details, other than that it may have been outdoors in a rural place. I was reluctant to join in the singing, as in life, but did. I could hear myself singing beautifully. Clear, bell-like, on-key tones. It felt miraculous. After it was over, a certain redheaded childhood acquaintance who I’d noticed strolled over and told me something to the effect of I should never participate in group singing again, that I was just awful. And in my dream I felt the same way about him. I woke up sad and hurt.

11 June 2003 An unspecified friend and I were riding motorcycles down Lake Shore Drive when I noticed that we were surrounded by petroleum trucks. I thought, “If there’s a spark . . .” Suddenly, one of the trucks jackknifed and ended up facing the wrong way. I saw a spark to the left in the middle of all the trucks, and I was desperate to get away. Then a crazed young man (also on a motorcycle?) with a bundle pulled out a razor blade and was able to hold everyone hostage so that we would be part of the impending inferno. In the middle of this, a former coworker (C. M.) appeared and lectured me about the failure of a chef and a recipe that had something to do with me. I somehow escaped, finding that Lake Shore Drive was now more of a hallway than a road toward the end, where I live. My door opened off it, and was already open when I arrived. I hoped my friend was in there, but in my mind I knew it was the crazy young man with the bundle and razor. I tried to figure out a self-defense strategy. I noticed that, mysteriously, things were appearing that were from my parents’ wedding/early marriage. These things are there but not quite there. I wondered where they had been stored because there were so many of them. Then I realized that I was scared of being cut by the man who was waiting for me, but I became aware that I didn’t want to wake up because I wanted to prolong the scuffle.

19 June 2003 I went to Washington, D.C./Maryland with a coworker, then to New York City. After I arrived in NYC, I realized that I hadn’t visited someone in D.C. I normally would have seen, and this upset me because I didn’t remember why—if I had forgotten him, or if he’d ignored me. Once in NYC, the coworker and I (and possibly a third person) boarded a train. It went past our senior living community at one point, but all I could see were futuristic parking garages. Everyone else could see it, though, so it wasn’t visible only to me. On the way back, the train leapt into the air, while my coworker laughed. Apparently, instead of going across a bridge at this point, the train normally jumped up, crossed the span, and landed on the other side (perfectly aligned on the tracks). My coworker knew this beforehand and was amused by my terror. Unfortunately, the train must have veered in mid-air because it didn’t seem to be going right somehow, and I saw a man on the other side indicating to the engineer that he should aim left. The train finally landed, but I couldn’t tell if all the cars had made it. I got out, and a man bumped into me. I discovered that my purse, which had been tucked under the jacket or sweater I was wearing and therefore should have been secure, was gone. I started panicking and crying, thinking that my ID and credit cards were gone, while the coworker laughed himself red in the face at my distress. I was contemplating

calling 911 on my cell phone, but thought that they wouldn’t care, either. I felt something in my back, and a voice said, “This could be a finger, or it could be a knife. Do you want to risk it?” I said, almost angrily, “All I have left is a cell phone, and since I don’t think I want to call 911 you can have it!” I woke up reluctantly.

7 July 2003 I was talking about a somewhat philosophical topic in a classroom setting; it may have been about “good.” The instructor shot down everything I said easily, leaving me feeling quite stupid. A friend of my brother’s spoke up very intelligently—so intelligently that I couldn’t understand what he was saying even though everyone else could. He argued everything I’d said. I wondered, “What is wrong with me that I am so stupid lately?” I also kept seeing this man, whose nickname as it appeared in print was “Platoon Leader,” and my brother as football teammates. I woke up wondering if I have become stupid through spending too much time alone (by choice).

10 July 2003 I came home and found straw hats with colorful bands and bandannas and things like that on my bedroom windowsill, along with a sense that children had just been there. It was disturbing because I could think of no way they could get in or out, since it’s a 12th floor apartment and the only way in is past the front desk or the security cameras in the back. Yet this happened several times. I think I heard laughter once, and spotted some boys at one point. After another incident in which I had apparently just missed the kids (they were always ahead of me, but by less and less), I finally determined to do something about it, although nothing was ever missing or stolen, and I was also afraid of retaliation. I couldn’t decide whether to call or to visit the manager. After a long internal debate, I went to see her, but she was in a meeting. I was talking with the front-desk person, and she had decided that I would need new keys, which meant everyone would need new keys. Meanwhile, through the magic of dreaming, I could see the kids in my windows, looking down and laughing, and I knew they’d always be there.

8 August 2003 I woke up and, from my bed, looked out the two bedroom windows, which had merged into one depending on how I focused my eyes. It appeared that there was water out there. A lot of water. I went out and found myself swimming. Something was wrapped around me, binding me. The water was not too cold, but I worried about how clean it was. I turned a corner and realized that I was about to go over a waterfall, created by a steep terrace (90º) covered with water. It was terrifying but I survived. I got to the end of the flood—another terrace over which no water was flowing, but which was still wet. There was a vehicle parked there, and people were at the bottom pointing up at me. Then I was in the vehicle as they moved toward me, presumably to rescue me. The vehicle was caught in water behind it and slid back and was soon part of the torrent, with me still in it. But it appeared that the flood was drying suddenly and quickly. Then all went blank.

9 September 2003

Two dreams. In the first, I was in a room with metallic bleachers being held hostage along with others. A flammable foam was sprayed everywhere, and I said that if we could blow off the foam we’d be safe. The next thing I knew, I was on a large boat . . . and suddenly realized that I had sought safety with the culprits. I jumped overboard. They heard the splash and turned the clunky boat around to pursue me. The river, it seemed, was underground and split into many tunnels, so I turned down several to lose them. Just as I came to a beach, I heard the motor behind me. They had found me! I woke up, exhausted and breathing fast. I was watching an insect on the grass. It got too close to a large, hairy spider, and even though I knew there would be a death struggle, I did nothing to stop it. The spider, which was really a stuffed animal, came to life when the insect, also a stuffed animal, touched it. Suddenly, though, I could see neither one. I searched everywhere, and realized I had lost two toys.

16 October 2003 I fell asleep around 11:00 p.m. and almost immediately experienced a sensation of being held from behind in a very erotic, pleasant way. I did not know by whom; while it was tangible, it did not seem real. After a while, it became less pleasant and more crushing. It then became sexual assault. A woman found me and was going to run out the door for help, but there was no one there to apprehend. This happened three times, with increasing force, violence, and terror; by the third time, it did not begin erotically. I heard a loud noise and woke up at 11:44 p.m. (it was Hodge attacking his bed and dragging it around). I was panting, and my heart was racing. I could feel the effects of adrenaline. It took a while to calm down because the dream was so vivid. I understand how, in more superstitious times, the idea of the incubus and succubus arose.

24 January 2004 I was a queen, probably Guinevere, and felt desirable for a while and that all the knights were watching me. There was a party at which all the gimmicks were in excess and caused damage; the beautiful pool overflows. I realized that I was middle-aged and puffy and had no appeal other than the title of queen. I felt tired and sad about this, even though I sensed it was a dream.

26 January 2004 (Although this does not describe my typical bus route accurately, elements of it are familiar. The narrow strip of road over the lake is a common theme in my dreams, although generally until now it has been associated with Lake Erie and home.) I was on the bus going home when the driver missed the turnoff, but I didn’t realize it at first. We were on a narrow, curvy, twisty, pier-like bridge turning around to go back when all of us realized that we were no longer on the bridge—we must have gone straight and missed a curve—and that we were suspended for a second above the water, cartoon- like, just long enough to realize our fate. We plunged into the water, which was cold. I was trying to slide a window open sideways, knowing that I would never fit through it. I found myself shouting, “Do not panic! Just open the windows!” This kept everyone from panicking. I opened the window—the water was up to my waist—and more water poured in, but I found my head above water and in a very short time, just as I felt that I was about to go under, I was face

to bumper with a car in a parking garage. I looked up to see the female driver, who looked scared and perplexed. We both had a moment of confusion, but then she rescued me somehow. I had a sensation of being the only survivor.

26 February 2004 I don’t know the order in which this happened, or if it was one dream or two. I was in an urban apartment, with skyscrapers all around, before first light. It was peaceful outside. There were a handful of people in the apartment, only one of whom I remember. We were watching a somewhat violent sci-fi movie when we heard a mechanical noise, like that of aircraft. We saw black witch-like figures flying by the window. At first, I was sure they were a contrivance pulled by airplanes, but that made no sense because of the density of the skyscrapers. We realized that teeny versions had infiltrated the apartment and were flying or fluttering around. My cell phone chirped. It was a man who should not have my cell phone number unless he’d gone out of his way to find it. I’d dealt with him last week, and I thought that was the end of it. He called twice, trying to get me to listen to his ideas, etc. I felt like I was being stalked. Suddenly a girl from the movie on TV materialized in the apartment, lying on the floor dead. Someone in the group reached over and rubbed some of the blood on her sweater on me, and I knew I was cursed. I was trying to escape a mansion or a hotel, but like a celebrity, crowds were trying to get to me. A companion and I snuck out a side door, which led to more and more doors. Finally we came upon our car, but there was a motorcycle there, too. I asked him if he could drive it since no one would think to look for us on a motorcycle. He said yes. I had visions of falling and sliding on asphalt and my legs being instantly flayed.

29 February 2004 I was in a surrealistic and futuristic house or building, lots of white and black like something one might have seen on the monochrome The Avengers. I must have been on a rescue mission. There were a lot of dead ends and crawl spaces that would change size, and I never knew from one moment to the next whether I would fit through them. At any moment they could have sealed me in front and back, and the thought made me panicky— especially since it seemed at several points I was lost in a maze. I passed a cavernous area from which a voice said, “There are seven.” Then it said later, “There are nine, but only seven have voices.” It seemed to be both helping and confounding me.

20 April 2004 I woke up at 4:10 a.m. feeling like a profound failure and also feeling profoundly lonely and alone. (Probably why so many suicides happen then). Feeling like there isn’t one consolation for the things that don’t go well or aren’t good. I had a half-waking dream about being a man, chucking it all, and going on a walking adventure with another guy. We came to a teeny bar/restaurant run by someone we wanted to be Robin Hood, but although he was kind, he was rough and had a Brooklyn accent. I had silverware but put it back because I wasn’t sure where it was supposed to come from. Everything was dark and wooden, but the bit outside in the back was light as though it were a gorgeous day out and like what I really wanted was elusively out there. When the owner turned around, he had waist-long, thick, wavy, golden hair that made it

look like he was an incredibly beautiful woman, and I thought what I always think—how disappointing it must be to people when they learn the truth. I suddenly realized that we were not carrying anything—no backpacks or clothes, nothing. We truly had chucked it all.

20 July 2004 I had two odd and gruesome dreams. The second I don’t remember well; a motorcycle or bicycle accident was spread over a dark highway for a distance. Someone, maybe me, tried to put out a red light in the profound darkness to prevent being hit again by someone else coming along. The first, though—two living corpses were in a desert, desperately trying to reach and touch each other. They were living corpses because one was whole but covered in gallons of its own blood and gore. The other was missing its head, neck and upper chest, and yet it was still crawling along, trying to reach the other. It looked as though they stopped moving just short of touching. I woke up.

16 September 2004 I was on a field trip, almost a camping trip, with my coworkers. They decided to recognize my boss’s birthday by putting an insert into the employee newsletter. I found out that they were using nude cartoons on this insert, including one of a woman astride a giant (sea?) turtle on its back. I tried to tell them this was not a good idea, either the insert itself (because my boss would not want to have an employee newsletter used to highlight her and because the nude cartoons would embarrass her). They told me it would be fun. I happened to see the VP of HR, and she wasn’t amused, but she didn’t know what to do. I needed surgery, so I was lying in a camp bed nude with the top part of my chest showing from under the covers. Everyone seemed to know I was going to be wheeled off except the young mailroom guy. He took a look at my bit of exposed chest, crawled into the narrow bed with me, and was about to try to wrap his arms around me while making “oh” noises, but I tried to tell him I was to have surgery. I was eating a turkey sandwich with the rest of the group (although it’s not clear how I was dressed because when the nurse came to get me, I had nothing on). I put half a sandwich down, and the one guy tried to eat it as though he hadn’t seen me. I pointed out to him he might not want to eat something I’d been eating. When the nurse arrived, I realized too late that I shouldn’t have eaten. She gave me a gown, but wouldn’t help me tie it (it was too small, anyway), so it was half open no matter what I did. She also tried to stick an IV into my nerve, even though I told her what happened before. She took me to see the ENT, who saw my exposed hip, felt the bone, and told me I’m “thick” through there, and I thought, “What does that have to do with otolaryngology?” and “But it’s mostly bone?” I woke up feeling my hip to see if it’s really as thick as he said.

26 September 2004 I was the divorced mother of a beautiful little girl, who I took to what I thought was my old school, although it didn’t look like it. I spent the day there, too, in a basement room. Whenever I came back from a break, there was cheering for me because someone had

announced that I was divorced and had a daughter there (somewhere; I couldn’t remember where). The other mothers thought that this was a great, brave thing. At the end of the day, I saw a long line of women and stood in it, thinking it was to pick up either one’s purse or child, but after spending time in it I noticed that it was for the bathroom. I wandered until I found a basement room with piles and piles of purses, a few similar to mine, but the instructor said I couldn’t bother her or the class until after it was over. By then, I was wondering how we were to get home without purses. While I was waiting for her class to be over, I went to another bathroom where all the toilets were broken. I found one that I could manage with mostly and put Man O’ War to shame. Some women—coaches or cleaning people?—brushed by me or pushed me like I wasn’t there or didn’t matter. I went back and found a few remaining purses, but none was mine. I still could not remember where it or my daughter was, although her reality had faded by now. I wondered what was going to become of me. I woke up lost.

4 December 2004 I was a snowman and found a slope near a running brook, where I lay down to die. I heard a waterfall downstream, where I knew it was even warmer. I did not want to go there; I did not want to feel myself die. I disappeared slowly down the hill into the stream—so slowly that it was beyond my ability to feel and comprehend.

6 December 2004 I was bitten repeatedly by a huge snake. I couldn’t control its head, no matter what I did. I took it somewhere to be identified, and it turned out to be a non-venomous “royal python.” Does this mean that I’m feeling oppressed by the ruling classes?

25 December 2004 I was running toward a great red brick edifice that I knew was a concentration camp. I was not sure whether it was voluntary or involuntary—whether I was choosing to go or whether I was being driven. Suddenly, a manhole in the ground appeared before me, and I was being beckoned to escape into a dark unknown. I was afraid because I didn’t know if I was being tricked and trapped. What if I didn’t fit and got stuck in the tunnel? What if I were shut in to suffocate in darkness? What if there were worms everywhere? I didn’t trust the beckoning. My inclination was to choose the edifice—equally unknown, and possibly behind the beckoning. It appeared to be above ground and not as stifling, although I couldn’t be sure. I pulled my hand out of the hole and found a rice-like speck on it. It was a worm. I ran toward the edifice. * * * * * I went with a friend to a tearoom. No one was there except guests, so we went to one of the private rooms with two ornate, overstuffed, red, patterned chairs with a matching ottoman between. Everything was enormous, and the entire place looked like a bawdy

house. I didn’t understand why as all we wanted was tea, and it seemed overdone for such a simple want. We heard someone and went to tell her which room we were in. She told us that everything was taken, made us leave, and told us never to come back, although I wasn’t not sure why (whether everything was always taken, whether we were never going to be allowed in, or whether we had committed such a serious breach in protocol that we could never return). I was confused and humiliated.

7 January 2005 Components of this morning’s dream:

• A magical three-dimensional paper toy like a theatre stage that was tragically lost, never to be found

• A thick green caterpillar that had to be destroyed

• A smaller caterpillar that also had to go (both squished and flushed)

• Christmas at my cousin’s, whose house was massive and had an indoor lawn

• His oldest daughter, who had a video of rows and rows of stuffed and yarn/rag animals at her home singing and dancing in exquisite precision. A male human chorus came in from the left

• A second magical toy that couldn’t be found

• A wet cat that left a lake on the rug

• An Association of Zoo and Aquarium Docents conference with a delegate from as far away as Idaho

• The senior VP of operations from my company (unrelated to AZAD) surprised that a delegate came from Idaho

• A gull that appeared creepily looked in the window curiously with a surprised expression

I’m sick, but don’t have a fever.

9 January 2005 Elements of this morning’s dream:

• Small, old shopping center, but the central building that a store had just moved into had been inexplicably torn down, leaving a vista from a weird human spa/pet store and white marks in the pavement of the parking lot

• Church service where a tall, long-haired, attractive man in a suit was looking for place to sit; I hoped that when I sat, he would choose the place near me

• He showed no signs of noticing me

• I suddenly realized that I’m nude and that I really had to go to the bathroom

• I finally found a locker-room type bathroom and began urinating into a cistern as though this is natural; suddenly, I realized that I was peeing through my penis . . .

• A male coworker walked in, looking distraught. I was confused—would he wonder why I, a woman, had a penis and was nude, or would he wonder why I, with a penis, was in the women’s room? He didn’t notice anything; he asked me worriedly if I’d seen his girlfriend because he was supposed to meet her so they could go to his parents’ house for a celebration of something. I hadn’t, so I tell him

• I wandered back into the church, still looking furtively for the attractive, gregarious, funny, long-haired man

2 March 2005 I was in my high school, but it was very bright and modern, with lots of green glass. In a glass exhibit of gorillas, three of the larger (in descending order) were threatening a younger, smaller one. No one seemed to notice. Keepers or volunteers told me that a docent was complaining about something, perhaps having to work, and the visitors were complaining about the docent. They expected me to do something about it. I didn’t know what. I took a look, but I couldn’t see her nametag. It looked like _ssian. I didn’t know any _ssian. I couldn’t find the day captain, but I recognized Marie from Sunday even though this wasn’t Sunday. She didn’t know who the day captain was, either. She thought that the complaining docent’s name was Ossian. There were two or three docents on the other side of me. They didn’t recognize me and moved their chairs away. Even when Marie talked to me, they seemed only partly reassured. “I know Marie!” I said. I looked for a bathroom. The school was very different than I remembered, green glass everywhere, very sunny. All the bathrooms were filthy, though. There was a public door to them, then an elegant wooden door that looked like it was for just one private bathroom. It opened onto several very dirty stalls where the floors were covered with water and filth. Disturbingly, one was smeared with blood everywhere. I went to a pool area, where I didn’t know whether I should tell the man I saw about the blood. What if it was from a murder and he had done it? There was a group of men, none of whom I could trust because I didn’t know if there had been a murder or if any of them had done it. Then the idea that they all knew about the bloody murder hit me, and they struck me as sinister and seemed to be slowly closing in to find out what I knew. I never mentioned the blood. I tried to pee on the floor, and a woman asked why. She mentioned an old rock star and his album and autograph.

I went outside. It was very green and sunny beyond the green glass.

8 March 2005 An inarticulate man was in the park where I lived in a little wooden building. I had belongings in two drawers labeled I and II. Some children came along and went through the drawers. I complained to the mother, who said they should be able to do what they want. I took jewelry out of her drawer to make a point, but she was unfazed. The kids came running back in, horrified that I was going through their mother’s jewelry. I see that the drawers, which were now like hard drives, were labeled I—mine and II— everyone else. I was on the road and spotted someone with a broken-down car. I called AT&T Wireless. People started to tell me it was not where I thought it was (I thought Amsdell Road in Hamburg, New York). At some point I recognized my mother, who was wearing new glasses. I was going to a concert, which seemed far off. It wasn’t at the lake I thought it was but at one in Connecticut. I was driving down a narrow street with other people behind me in a caravan. We were trying not to brush the parked cars. Two at the far end were sticking too far out to get around, and there was no other way to this magical lake. I got out, picked them up, and moved them to a corner, mostly out of the way. The mysterious lake beckoned.

15 March 2005 I was head of security of what appeared to be a building on a university campus full of top-secret documents. At the end of the day, there was no way to tell whether papers were walking out with students and others. I realized one person did walk out with papers. I looked around and pursued him into the black of midnight (although it had been 5 o’clock only moments ago), and everyone knew that he was wanted. I suddenly realized that I had no weapon, no gun, and that anything I was supposed to be guarding should have been secured, that people should have been searched on the way out, etc. I went home and was playing some odd game with food with one of my children. It started to rain. It started to pour through the ceiling. I realized that my home was part of a restaurant, but when I walked around outside I couldn’t find it; I saw the restaurant furniture and people (dry), but I couldn’t find where my home began. I thought that I would have to fix the roof before I could sell it. I was trying to take a photo with a film camera of two friends for an annual. They were the last holdouts. I took a photo, but I always took two in case one didn’t work. They kept fooling around, playing with each other’s hair, mugging, etc. I got more and more frustrated and annoyed with them, but they wouldn’t stop. A massive carriage came along and ran them down, but miraculously they were untouched—the (draft) horses and carriage somehow went over them without touching them. It happened again. Other things came along They continued to fool around. I got depressed thinking how, sometime soon, I wouldn’t be able to get film developed—it would become obsolete. I was in a dark, underground bar trying to figure out where to go. A man came down the steps and tossed a long sword and another weapon (pike? lance?) onto the steps. I wondered why someone would leave weapons lying around like that. Someone else did

something similar. I thought it was dangerous. Soon, two different men who had picked up the weapons had a mock fight. They were swinging wildly and laughing, but I knew they were going to hurt themselves accidentally. A powerboat came out of nowhere and sped through a glassless window onto grass outside. There was weird dancing. The world seemed insane. No one could explain it. Later, I confirmed that no English knight would allow girls to dance around during such a serious fight, but a French knight would. Something like this happened during the mock fight, at which of course they did hurt or kill each other, I heard. The word of the day is “flummox.” Lately words have occurred to me in the early hours and stuck with me until I wake up.

Main Entry: 1flum·mox Variant(s): also flum·mix or flum·mux \flmks, -mks\ Function: verb Inflected Form(s): -ed/-ing/-es Etymology: origin unknown transitive verb : to throw into perplexity : embarrass greatly : CONFOUND, DISCONCERT intransitive verb : to fail or give up : COLLAPSE

10 April 2005 I was with my family (not my real one), and it suddenly occurred to me that the little girl was me. I told my mother that she and I couldn’t be in the same place at the same time, that something was wrong. My dream mother didn’t understand what I meant. I didn’t know exactly what was wrong, only that we couldn’t exist in the same place at the same time. The little girl realized that I was onto her, and fleshy appendages started coming out of her head, including one that was penis-like. For a moment, you could tell there were aliens or beings in there that had taken over and that were mocking and threatening us. She took off. I followed her into what must have been a shopping center. A handsome, friendly blonde man was singing the phrase, “How do we know?” in front of me. I sang it back in a deep voice. He kept repeating it, and I’d repeat it, each time at a slightly higher pitch. But he kept getting further away, although I wanted to catch up to him since he seemed to know something. I was on an escalator that first raced up at an incredible speed, then down. I wondered if I was in a movie and had been filmed at regular speed, then it was made to appear fast. I tried pointing this out to someone. They didn’t seem to understand anything I’d said. The blonde man was gone. So was the little girl.

29 August 2005 I was pregnant and my belly was enormous, but no one could tell. When I lifted my top, it was covered with sores. Someone told me that was normal and they would go away. I was at a high school reunion, which was a pool party. I was sitting with someone who’d been a tormentor but who was now fascinated by my chest. He was also twitchy, so I made a comment that he must be trying to quit smoking. He was annoyed that he was so easily read.

A man next to us had kids who were using the pool/very tiny water slide; there seemed to be dozens of them of all ages. I think I thought he had a crush on me, but he didn’t notice me. I had to pee but the only bathrooms were on the other side. I was at the deep end and couldn’t walk or swim across, plus the ledge around was narrow. A corner wall overhanging had no hand holds, and I would never be able to get around it. I contemplated peeing in a hidden corner. This segued into the water being unusually high and the weather stormy, as though this were a lake. I kept thinking, “But the lake is unusually low.” I also thought I would be accepted on the other side. But it still seemed alien.

14 October 2005 A pre-Halloween dream: I found myself with the eaten (gnawed) torso of a celebrity about whom I knew nothing other than their name. It looked like a raw side of beef. I had a fuzzy recollection that it had become the rage to eat celebrities, which was why I had these leftovers, but I didn’t remember participating in the rage. I needed to dispose of the torso, but didn’t want anyone to think I’d killed this person. After all, it was a fashion everyone was participating in, not just me, and it needed to be clear that it was the fashion, not murder. Should I just get some plastic gloves and someone to help me throw it in the trash? I didn’t want to touch it. And it made me sick to think I’d eaten it not just because it was so meaty, but why would I have chosen that particular fad to glom onto when I never glom onto any others?

25 October 2005 I was walking along what looked like a stony ledge near water, looking for a place to shower, but then I remembered that I didn’t have a towel. I mentioned this to someone, then realized I did have a towel on my hair. Elsewhere, we saw a train pass through a surrounding car that was set up like a sitting room and had a fireplace that we could somehow see as though the side were partially open. I told the other person that the engineer could stop there (like a docking station) for a bit of rest and comfort, but then it occurred to me that the engine would block the tracks, so how would that work? I didn’t wonder how the engineer would get access to this tunnel-like contrivance or any of the dozen other impracticalities. An engine with a couple of cars came along, going in the other direction. It was jumping the tracks repeatedly, looking like a bucking bronco. The effect was horrifying. I said, “Why doesn’t he slow down?” but the train didn’t seem to be going that fast. I wondered how long it would keep landing perfectly on the tracks as it bucked high off them and continued moving forward. I told the person with me that I lived with train tracks right behind my home, that they curved around my brother’s ash tree and ran behind the trailer. We entered the respite tunnel and found it elegant and comfortable. There were all kinds of fancy furniture for which I didn’t have names, although I speculated. I think we contemplated ordering tea and cookies but didn’t know how it worked, especially since no one else seemed to be there that we could see. We sensed something.

26 October 2005

I was in love with someone, but the moment I woke up I couldn’t remember if it was a mutual relationship or a deep, meaningful one on my part only. I tend to think the former. One day, unbeknownst to me, he met one of my friends, and they fell for each other instantly—so instantly that they announced their engagement and got married almost immediately. I was devastated. To make matters worse, I was having a hard time finding a bathroom stall that I would fit into. Soon it was the day of the wedding, and everyone would, without thinking, tell me they were going. I wasn’t invited, but my friends were because they were dating or married to friends of the groom. I didn’t know anyone so I wasn’t invited. I found myself at a picnic table under a tent. The setting felt like a reception. I couldn’t eat anything put in front of me, most of which seemed to be bizarre fruits. I was sick, physically sick, not about having loved and lost, but about having been betrayed and forgotten, about having become nothing.

28 October 2005 My dream was part spiritual experience, part adventure trek, and part sexual experience. I was flying over trees and water, so low that a few times I crashed. It was frightening, but I never got hurt. Eventually I spent more time flying than crashing, and it was exhilarating in a spiritual sense more than a physical one. Then I was with a group exploring a mysterious place full of trees, bush, and waterfalls. We could do anything, like we were a different form of life, including going over waterfalls and going anywhere in the bush. It was a wonderful, indescribable setting and emotional experience. This was somehow supposed to culminate in a sexual experience with one particular person, but I didn’t want to wait until the end. The person I found myself with was sweating so much that I had to close my eyes against the sting. He apologized. The last thing I remember seeing was his rear and thinking that what was supposed to happen and that it wasn’t going to work unless there was something truly supernatural or different about us. The original person could see all this and didn’t like it, but only in a detached way. Still, I was concerned. Despite the circumstances, the sweat, and the uncertainties, it was hot.

29 October 2005 At the end of a day, someone had left me a bag of work, pieces that had been around for a while and were due, so now I would have to stay late to finish them. I saw the VP, who works part time and would not be in for a few days, in the women’s room and had a monstrous temper tantrum about how we work and how this simply could not continue. It was the proverbial straw. Later, I realized I was at the community in Teaneck, New Jersey, which didn’t look like what I expected. A porch ran all the way around, with Gothic windows looking inward to Gothic windows. I’d decided to eat my work instead of doing it, because it was appetizers and desserts. Just as I noticed that there was a lot and that maybe I couldn’t finish it, I realized there was a big party inside with lots of lights and hundreds of people. The chefs and wait staff were looking for what I had so they could set it out, and I panicked. Then I

saw Martin waving and thought, “Oh, maybe I can get away with thinking he left it for me as a thank you.” They weren’t looking for the food, and he had left it for me; at least I thought so. I found myself being waved at by the chefs, the executive director, and the sales director. Everyone seemed very happy that I was there. Suddenly, everything was gone. I was on/in the Gothic porch/hallway. I started to panic about getting home. A housekeeper came out and said resentfully that I probably expected to be taken somewhere where I could get to New York (so I could catch a flight). I said that would be wonderful. She got into a car in the parking lot and drove around the block so she could be facing the other way, I thought. Someone else came out and pointed out that she was being difficult. Meanwhile, a pony pulling a carriage accidentally bumped a woman who looked homeless, so she started abusing it, which horrified me. I thought the driver would try to back the carriage up to get away from her but there was no room. Suddenly I was home, which turned out to be only a block away, and the community was still there. I could see the Gothic porch/hallway as though I were there. I noticed now that the brickwork was painted in places, although irregularly as though the paint had come off. I found a brush and remnants of paint and tried to cover up a spot, but overdid it. Just then the lights came on, and another huge party started. I felt like I’d been caught again doing something questionable or wrong, just as with the food, only this time I was giving instead of taking.

1 November 2005 I was about to jump into a body of water filled with reptiles when someone pointed out that two small snakes with triangular heads that had just come to the edge were venomous. I noticed two larger ones that looked just like them. An alligator had its face half rotted off so that it looked like gray petrified wood. I don’t know if I ever went into the water. I think so.

5 November 2005 I was on a movie set in a hilly area, like the Alleghenies. I wasn’t being used and tried to leave. The path down was narrow and rocky, and a boulder appeared in front of me. I was trying to decide how to get around it when I realized there was one behind me now. I turned around to return and pushed a boulder down the hillside. For a long time afterward, I heard loud, booming noises and tried not to think about how I’d started a rock slide. I looked around and the area was now mountainous, making me think of the Grand Tetons. On the movie set, a man was threatening a young blonde star for not doing something. Using a knife, he traced a cut down and across her face, probably in the shape of a cross. Meanwhile, the person who’d gotten me into this was saying something about it and was telling me that she’d wanted to leave, too, even though she was being used. To my shock and horror, the next time he actually did cut the star’s face. Not deeply, but enough to leave a faint red mark. I also learned that this movie was set in Florida. I looked around at the snow-topped mountain peaks and could not think of how it looked like Florida. I continued to wait.

13 November 2005

I was in a computer class; at a critical moment I asked if learning something—Java, CSS, or something—was very much like coding or mathematics. The room went dead. The instructor was dumbfounded. I woke up because I heard Hodge trying to chew up a box. An earlier dream was also more involved than I can remember. I was at home, and something happened (trees or houses were removed, perhaps), and suddenly we were surrounded mostly by forested hills. There must have been water, because I could clearly see things in the water. One of them was a curved, L-shaped island with red stairs leading up to the top. I found myself floating over the sparkling water toward it, as though to realize a dream. A castle appeared to be at the top. The sky changed to gray, and rain or snow appeared. I suddenly saw that the hilly, forested island with the castle was two grim, metal industrial silos. Blackness.

20 November 2005 My dad was sitting by the edge of a pond and asked me and my aunt to go and bring back some paper. He made it clear he wanted regular-sized sheets of paper, something that could be written clearly on as he wanted to say something important. I started to explain computers to him but turned around to get the paper. My aunt was ahead of me when I heard a noise. I turned to face the pond and no longer saw my dad. After a second or two, I realized he must have fallen in, and I ran back. I looked into the water, not knowing how deep it was, and saw his hand somewhat below the surface but nothing else. I grabbed it without thinking about how I could fall in and effortlessly pulled him out of the water onto the bank. He started to say something but then his voice weakened. I called to my aunt for help, but I don’t think she heard. I started to push on his chest, but I didn’t know CPR, and my cries to her became more panic-stricken. At that moment, when I didn’t know what would happen, I woke up—feeling that it would have turned out well, although he looked terrible. I also wondered how he stayed in a vertical position in the water and didn’t sink.

21 November 2005 I was in a house with a woman I thought was my mother and children I thought were my siblings. One of the boys, or one of his friends (strange that I couldn’t tell), was mocking his friend (or my brother, depending on who he was). I was eating something when it occurred to me that I was being held captive by a vampire and that the food could be poisoned. If I stopped eating, I would be letting him know I was onto him (wherever he was); if I kept eating, I was ensuring my own death. I found a bathroom, which was all brushed stainless steel and had no mirrors. It was very high-ceilinged and long. At the end was a toilet, but it was at ground level, not raised. The stainless steel over the sink in place of a mirror horrified me, as did the toilet, which I was sure was really the entry to an oubliette, down which I would be flung (alive or dead?). I found a normal bathroom, small, tiled, with mirror. He had read my mind and provided me with what I expected to throw me off.

22 November 2005 I was a rich and powerful man and was hosting an importance conference about something that did not pertain to me. I knew all the participants (government? UN? business?), but their meeting did not concern me.

During a session in a particular room, someone was shot, and a pall fell. I became like a private investigator, freely looking into what happened. It was very mysterious. While it seemed that the same thing could not happen again, a smokescreen hid the killing of someone else during another session. They were taking more sophisticated measures to obscure the killing, although the first remained utterly mysterious. No one had seen or heard anything; the victim had simply been shot and died. I went to investigate the second murder; I was not a suspect, and until now everyone had treated me with great deference. But although I was allowed into the room, a wooden bar across the doorway made it too small for me to fit through. It was one of those moments when you realize bitterly that your status has changed.

3 December 2005 An annual contest usually pitted a very large, sleek, streamlined modern train against a much smaller, quaint forebear; they were supposed to be toy trains, but they were also large, nearly life-sized. Behind the scenes I kept trying to arrange other trains, switches, etc., so they would always thwart the modern bully. One train was set at a blind crossroads, with its nose buried in a mountain tunnel, so that the modern monster ended up slamming on its brakes and hitting it, but not doing much damage. The incident allowed the quaint train to escape. I was trying to minimize the damage to all the old trains, as they were unique and irreplaceable. I didn’t want to sacrifice any of them and spent a lot of time agonizing over what to do. Someone else intervened on the modern train’s behalf with what appeared to be a military train and possibly ships in a harbor using missile launchers. Fortunately, the little old train disappeared into the safety of the underground. At about that point, I started to look for a bathroom from which to do my planning, so it was time to wake up. The old train took my emotions underground with it, where they are safe from me, and, more importantly, I am safe from them.

12 February 2006 I was with a group of people on top of a rectangular block of island, with sides that went straight down. Apparently, the people were playing games. One was an accident- prone coworker, who kept leaning over the straight drops to call out or do something. I looked down at what she must have seen and realized how dangerous it was. Everything was covered with grass. When the group left, each person used two poles to get down the vertical sides. I could or would not do this. I found myself on a red, rusty, rickety, blocky boat with two older men in wheelchairs. I didn’t notice how I’d gotten there; I assumed a helicopter had plucked me off the island, but why didn’t it take me the rest of the way back (to where)? The boat went down a vegetation-choked channel around the island to the other side, almost like it was a peninsula. For some reason, the other side was unexpected to the boat’s crew and came to an abrupt end. One man started turning the wheel furiously for reasons I didn’t understand. The wheel was horribly broken at the ends. Another man, the captain, came and pulled on what I assumed was the “brake.” Groups of giant men appeared in the water, blocking the channel and throwing rocks and even boulders at the boat. They seemed to fall over as we approached; perhaps they

were fighting among themselves—it was hard to tell. They never managed to hit the boat, but we couldn’t have known that. Finally, the last group toppled over, but we saw the wall that was the end of the channel. We were trapped, with nowhere to go. Would the giant men come toward us? I suddenly felt alone.

3 March 2006 I was swimming in grass. It was my backyard at home, with a layer of water over the grass. It didn’t appear deep to the eye, but three or four of us were swimming in it. I emerged by the tire flowerbed near which my sunflower had once lived. I marveled at why and how the yard had become covered in water. When I looked again, from the steps at the back door, the yard looked as it always had, except perhaps without the tool shed. It must have happened only in my mind, but it felt more real than today.

1 April 2006 I was napping (in life and in my dream), then I needed to crate Hodge because he’d bitten me (which he’d done this morning for the first time in months). When I woke up in the dream, I had a snarling, twisting cat to contend with—but his crate had been dismantled in the oddest ways. The door was gone, but it was suddenly two half doors, parts of which I found later. A square was missing from the top, which I also eventually found. It occurred to me that this was possibly the work of my father, and depressing evidence he might have dementia problems. My dad came thundering in the door after I had jury-rigged a crate together from what seemed like disparate pieces from two jigsaw puzzles. He was furious about something, screaming at me about something I had done that was beyond the pale. My brother, who behind him, explained that Dad was upset that I had not visited and/or gone to the funeral of a particular Mexican woman to whom we owed so much. Dad pretended not to see the cat carrier and wouldn’t calm down enough to listen to my questions. I was dazed. Although I hated being yelled at, I didn’t want the dream to end, because at least part of my family was together again.

12 May 2006 I was in a cave or an underground room with someone, at least at first. He or she pointed out the patterns and shadows on the walls, which began to move mysteriously. They never appeared to be distinct or concrete, but they portrayed a people that surrounded itself in green—green walls, green clothing, etc. As the story unfolded, the reason was revealed; when I asked questions, this people told me that they consumed raw human flesh and blood, and the purpose of the green was to offset the brightness and visual shock of the blood and gore’s red. I was alone in a subterranean passage or room, possibly but not definitely connected to the cave. It seemed to be manmade. People with large noses were wandering around, as though between meetings. They seemed to be unusual in some way and were mute. I began to think that they must be the human-eating species of the cave patterns, and they terrified me with their alien, yet humanoid appearance and the possibility that they ate human flesh. I saw that everything around them was green.

A thought came to me that one of them wished to kill me for vengeance, cause unknown, but I did not know which one. To me, they looked similar to one another. I felt my own nose, realizing that it was unusually large. I wondered if I were related to this people. Suddenly, based on an unconscious premonition, I spun around just in time to catch an icicle spear aimed and thrown at my heart through my back. The assailant stood frozen before me, but I felt danger all around. The real threat was out there, armed with icicle spears that bore death. I said, “It’s not me!” I sensed that the killer or killers, and the others, were not interested in eating me. Yet the image of the cave walls, plus that of one of the creatures with blood dripping from its hands and mouth in silhouette, came again and filled me with speechless horror. I knew now that each of them was looking to kill a particular person. I said again, “It’s not me!”

21 May 2006 For unknown reasons, we decided to move. The trailer we were pulling was white with yellow trim, like the one I grew up in, but the inside was unfamiliar. We pulled it on what seemed like a dangerous journey through various types of country sides. I did not know where we were going or why. Dad’s driving seemed erratic, and when we were near water we would drive over and even on the underside of cliffs without incident. I was remarking mentally how miraculous it was that he could do that without the vehicle and the trailer falling in when we found ourselves off the road and floating in a narrow, dark channel of water in an industrial area or town. I didn’t know how I could get across the cold, dark, dirty water, but did. I was desperate to rescue some things, mostly photos in a couple of different places and my clarinet. I saved a box or something, but what I really wanted was to get the metal suitcase of photos. When I came back out from setting the box down, the trailer had sunk in the water, but was rising again like a body. I pushed everyone to save it on my behalf. My brother managed to pull it onto a concrete pad, but it came back too far and hit something like a tank. I waited for an explosion that didn’t come but was torn between trying to save my photos and the fear of being caught in a fireball. A truck next door tried to back across the alley and down but also hit a gas pump or tank before I could scream in warning. I waited for the explosion but, again, nothing happened. There was the silence of anticipation.

9 July 2006 I had an indoor office, maybe even in the city, but I could step outside into what seemed to be woodlands with a rustic bridge, where I spent all my time working. The eagles with a nest nearby high on a pole or in a sparsely vegetated tree paid no attention to me. I don’t remember spending any time indoors. One day I looked down, and there appeared to be a beach and an ocean. The eagles were competing with a dog and/or more dogs or cats for something on the beach. I did not want to chase off the other animals for fear of startling the eagles, who had always seemed oblivious to me. A large, black, horse-drawn carriage came along. Someone—whether male or female, I don’t know—spoke to me about my interfering with the dogs and/or cats. I tried to explain about the eagles. The nest now had a long pole under it, parallel to the ground, and

seemed off-balance. I touched the pole lightly to try to adjust it, but to my horror the whole thing teetered and threatened to topple to the ground. I could feel the remonstrance of the eagles I was trying to help. I was inside the coach and noticed many levers. I pulled some of them. I think I heard bells, but it seemed the coach was so enormous that the sound did not reach the driver. One seemed to make the horse or horses gallop, and from above I saw the coach make a 90-degree turn at full speed, right where the beach or a cliff met the ocean. The horse or horses had disappeared (into the gulf?), and all that was left were the traces. I felt sick, but somehow knew that it was not my doing if they were killed or gone. The coach arrived at an estate.

20 August 2006 I haven’t recorded some dreams in the past few weeks, maybe because I’m lazy or busy, perhaps a little depressed—I’ve been sleeping too much on weekends—but mostly because I have felt reticent. Wisdom is silent. Symbolism. I was in a bed, waiting for a lover but more likely a husband. As I lay there, I became aware of an eye looking through what seemed to be an aperture in the wall next to the bed. It was too large to be a human eye. I did not want it to see and noticed that the opening had a cover, which I pulled down. It was clear, and the eye was still visible. Involuntarily I made some sounds that could have been of pain or pleasure or both, and was terrified that the eye would detect the sounds; the disconnection in that thought did not occur to me. (When I woke up I realized that the eye was fixed; it looked neither up nor down, nor from side to side, nor did it blink. It was the unflinching, unfocused eye of omniscience, of omnipotence.) A roommate, a person I know who I do not like, showed me a soft, clear, wizard- shaped squeeze bottle of cleaner because she had noticed a rust spot in the toilet. The room was dark, cluttered, full of mystery and mysterious things, like the world outside, yet the thought of the mind and the speech of the mouth were concentrated on the trivial. A person I never knew well and with whom I never had anything in common; a person who seems to have achieved some ambitions and goals; a person who, from the little I know or care to know, leads an outwardly conventional life, haunts my dreams but not my waking thoughts or feelings. I yearn for his attention and his approval with a devastating excess of feeling—and never gain even the slightest notice. This time, in an agony, I disappeared into a hidden place, like a cave with a river, and took off my clothes, exposing my nakedness yet exposing nothing, for to all I am invisible. While hiding and trying to control the uncontrollable, I saw two men fall as though ill or dead, and I argued with my conscience about revealing myself and my nakedness to help them. I did the right thing and brought them back to life. One spontaneously hugged me in gratitude, but when he felt my nakedness and saw the insignificance of who I am, he laughed contemptuously. I fled and tried to find another place to hide, a place safe from derision. The only place left was in the open, among the crowd. There were no safe places without people, and I did not want to be with them any more. This morning I dreamed that I saw a spectacular silver maple tree with a full green crown of glory. Then I saw a tree, an ash, near which I had lived, but this did not seem right. It was the ash tree that my brother had planted in 6th grade for Arbor Day, but I think my dad had told me that it had died or been cut down because of disease, maybe the disease of the landowner’s convenience. In my heart, part of me had been struck down

with the ash, because it was the first thing I saw every morning of my childhood. When I woke up, the thought of the silver maple made me happy for a moment because it was the one that I had planted in 6th grade. In the 34 years since, it would have grown into majesty. I was still thinking this for a few moments after I woke up when I remembered that vandals had uprooted my silver maple sapling shortly after we’d planted it. I still mourn the tree with so much potential that was murdered so young. In my waking life this week, someone told me that a particular horror movie was “pretty good.” She expressed no emotion about it; it was entertainment that was “pretty good.” From a fatal sense of curiosity, I looked the movie up to learn that it seems to be the worst type of slash porn, the type of movie that seems utterly incompatible with any sense of human empathy. People took their small children (under 10) to see it. And to date it has grossed more than $41 million. Perhaps I dream to escape the nightmare.

17 September 2006 I was in a darkened room next to an accountant or actuary, discussing some numbers. I noticed a side window covered by a thick curtain with bright edges of light. I felt closed in, so I opened it. The window looked out onto an endless vista, with a few rows of colorful bushes filled with tightly packed flowers across from the window. I was shocked because a home was supposed to be there. I couldn’t believe the vista. Then I turned to find a second window in a perpendicular wall. It was like home, with the window in the extra room that faced the trailer across the driveway and the rear window that overlooked the back yard. The other person had joined me, and we saw fantastic, colorful birds that resembled real species but didn’t seem real. At the rear of the yard, I spotted three very large, slightly cartoonish birds. “Raptors!” I exclaimed, or perhaps it was “Falcons!” or “Hawks!” When I looked again more carefully, I realized that the one in the middle was what would have been called a buzzard in a cartoon but it was really a vulture with a thick bill. This seemed important, but I hoped the accountant/actuary wouldn’t notice. Perhaps it was a bad omen, perhaps I still wasn’t sure, or perhaps I didn’t want him to know that in my enthusiasm I had been mistaken.

23 September 2006 While showing guests my apartment, I found a huge room that I had forgotten about. It had hardwood floors, a solid wall of windows that was two stories high, and good but mismatched furniture (including a sofa). There were even a single-bowl sink and a door that led to a deck with the trash. On the room’s many shelves, tables, and stands, I found things I had forgotten were missing. I discovered teas and biscuits that were growing mealy bugs and tried to rush them out to the convenient trash, as they were the room’s only imperfection I could see. Although the room had a television, I told someone that if it had a cable connection I would like their help moving my TV from the living room into this room. Subconsciously I saw myself moving into this room. I asked for assistance washing a mountain of dishes. It was difficult with the single- bowl sink, and the two drain boards were small, pointed the wrong way, and dirty from disuse. I had no way to organize the dishwashing, rinsing, and drying, and I became so frustrated that I almost cried. The water smelled and tasted terrible, too, and I wondered if that could be fixed.

We noticed that the room communicated across a divider, not quite a hallway, with a modern, frosted green glass room. I went to slide the doors shut, but someone from the other side was doing it already, a bit huffily. The glass walls went only part way up, though, but my wall was solid; I’m not sure how this worked with the narrow divider hallway. I decided that it was a conference room since it was so modern and offered no privacy. I came back to find nearly everyone gone but a person (gender unknown) who was my husband, apparently, and two boys who turned out to be my late husband’s sons. I didn’t know them at first and feared them, but found they were loyal and devoted to me. They were the boys that I had always wanted. The topic became someone else, a friend of theirs perhaps, who needed to be told about birth control, or so I thought. I’m not sure what the other people thought. The husband (I didn’t remember having one, like I didn’t remember having the boys) started talking to me about our children, the religion we would raise them in, and so forth. I saw the two loyal boys who were virtually my own and then thought of the spiritual responsibility of having my own children. I was also confused at having this person in my life who I didn’t know or recognize. “Perhaps we should have discussed these things more before we got married,” I said. “I am 45 and did not think to have children at this point.” The person seemed stunned, although I could never quite see the face. The boys and the person then faded away, and they took the room with them.

26 September 2006 I was in a cave when a motley group of people roller skated by me. Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride” was blasting, and they seemed happy. Someone told me that this was or would be the best movie ever and that I should join in. I can’t roller skate, but I did. Perhaps I was running, but it felt like fluid motion. I learned that there was or had been a powerful vampire in a refrigerator, and someone had or was about to let him out. Now there was a sense of terror, although it was subtle; perhaps only I really felt it. I saw someone who looked more like a cat-like creature operating on a bag, and I had a feeling of foreboding. Suddenly metallic but animal teeth snatched the operator into the bag, and now I was terrified. The music and the flow of the skates never stopped.

30 September 2006 I was participating in a special service at my old church, where I was to read from a book. Suddenly, after reaching the platform, I had to go to the bathroom. I didn’t know when I was supposed to read and didn’t want to miss the opportunity, but I couldn’t wait any longer so I left. To my horror, I found an odd-looking child with curly hair with me. I couldn’t tell whether it was a boy or girl, and it had a large head and small body like a cartoon. The child didn’t say anything but would not leave me. I thought I would be accused of abduction. I found myself in a maze of hallways. This appeared to be a new building, constructed since my last visit in the place where the pastor’s house used to be. I could see the parking lot at one point, although there did not appear to be windows. The walls were natural pine, complete with knotholes. Graffiti, mostly in white, covered them, which shocked me

as I could not imagine the kids at the church treating it openly with such disrespect. I tried to read it to see if it was at least spiritual in nature, but I couldn’t. I found the bathroom, but as is usual in my dreams it was odd and required decisions about cleanliness, privacy, etc. By this time I was carrying the child, who seemed utterly attached to me. As I sat in a stall with no door, still holding the child, a man came toward me. I thought somehow that this child’s father had lost his wife (the mother?) and had remarried. The man/father took the child from me wordlessly as I sat there. When I came out, unsure if I’d missed the time for my reading, I looked down and saw that my formerly fresh yellow dress was streaked with lines of embedded dirt. I did not know how this could have happened, but between the father’s silent accusation, the child’s unspoken attachment and anguish, and the mysterious ruin of the dress, I wanted to fade away.

6 December 2006 When I woke up, I found that each of the ends of my hair was lit like a stick of incense. I started trying to put them out with my fingers so that I wouldn’t start a fire, but the more I tried the worse the situation became. A spark landed on the carpet, which caught fire. I stepped on it and put it out; it did not leave even a scorch mark. I went into the living room, where I found messy chaos spread everywhere. Two tiny Christmas trees had been knocked over. I tried to right them, but their bases were so tiny in proportion that they could not support the trees. My mother would be very unhappy when she saw the condition of the room. I suddenly realized that I must have left the cat (not Hodge) loose, but she was nowhere to be found. I went outside, which turned out to be an incredible garden with built-up earthen ledges everywhere. I found an eraser and a pen with cartoon characters on it and stole them. Somehow I knew they belonged to a mysterious, wonderful man who I had to find. I went to look for him.

10 December 2006 I think I was leaving a party and was walking across the back lawn when someone threw me a pistol and told me to shoot at a target that appeared to be on a wagon. The person who threw the gun, who may have been someone I knew and admired, didn’t move and was too close to the target, and I didn’t say anything. I accidentally shot his eye out. I saw everything as though I was a third person, and I heard someone say, “They [the man I had shot and I] have always been passionate about one another.” I thought I saw us embracing. I could not bear what I had done and could not look at him, at the accusation in the missing eye. I was driving an odd vehicle up a stairway of rocks, and the more I tried to surmount the obstacles, the more fluid flowed from the wheels. I did not remember this happening when my father drove. Suddenly he was there to tell me I had taken the wrong route and was doing all the wrong things. To get to my room, I had to climb what appeared to be an icy rock or, as an alternative, rocks that were sheer and underneath which someone I know from college lay, possibly drunk and stoned. I did not know what to do, and then I tried to help him out from underneath so I wouldn’t hurt him. He laughed at me because he did not need my help and thought he would be fine where he was. There may have been someone else

there. I struggled to climb up, but couldn’t. It felt like climbing a sheer chest of drawers. I could not face doing that every day. Maybe I cried.

14 December 2006 A drawing was held for members of my high school band to go to a city in Italy. My name wasn’t drawn, but I was asked to take care of someone’s cat. When I was asked where they were, I could not remember. “It wasn’t Rome . . . or Milan . . . or Venice . . . or Florence . . .” Suddenly I remembered that it was Padua. I was near a stream where an attack was taking place. A line of bodies, men in swim trunks, lay face down in the water along the bank, and the attackers were using short, curved blades at the end of poles to deface their backs. One was solidly bloody. I thought I recognized one of the attackers and wondered at what was happening and why.

27 December 2006 I was at a restaurant in a high-rise that seemed to be part of an amusement park. I was with a group of people, but I don’t think I knew any of them. A couple stayed with me, but although I talked easily with them as though I knew them, I didn’t know their names. I noticed that the man, who was very handsome and charming, would touch me in odd ways that seemed both affectionate/sexy and creepy. At one point he passed his arm or hand around my head. I found some small dogs, which made me realize that the couple and maybe others were demons and that I had to protect the dogs from them. Someone, or a voice, told me that of course they were demons and that the touch of the man had taken away my head. I struggled to remember if he had touched me there. Confused about my head, which I thought I still had but which no one else could see, and determined to save the dogs, I took the man by surprise and pushed him over the edge. When I looked down, I could see his clothes in a pile but not him. Now I was no longer sure that he was a demon, and I wondered if I had just committed a murder. I was also not certain that the dogs, which I had locked into the women’s room, were truly safe.

5 January 2007 I was working with one of my former consulting coworkers, but I was supposed to catch a flight to Washington, D.C., also for work. I was carrying a suitcase, but had no ticket or even date and time. Along with my coworker, I was supposed to meet with the corporate comptroller and corporate director of human resources (possibly the city of Chicago). I took a bus, which passed through a particularly tempting rural area of woods and winding roads, where I really wanted to walk. I never decided, and then the scene changed. I was in the city, then at the outer glass door of the corporate controller’s office, on which I knocked. I realized that no one was there, possibly because I was late, and that I should go to the office of the corporate director of human resources. I couldn’t find it. I was in an atrium area and began to recognize people and offices from my old firm, even though the offices were open and otherwise different from what they had been. There were also many new people mixed in.

I encountered the former IT director turned health care consultant. After some questioning, I told them all who I was looking for and why. They told me they were going to scheme to get the business from us. At some point, I felt like they might have tried to get me to come back, but when I woke up I wasn’t sure about that. Still anxious because I didn’t know when I was to leave for Washington, D.C., I managed to find the office of the corporate director of human resources. The consultant was not there. I apologized for being late, but the director asked me if we had added the word “local” to the ad. I knew nothing about an ad, but I didn’t want her to realize that. The director showed me a printed piece that was long and folded accordion style. While discreetly trying to find the word “local,” I discovered that, if I let fall open a certain way and at a certain speed, the images in the photos moved, as they do in a flipbook. There was one of a waterfall in which the water flowed. I showed this to her, and she became fascinated with it. Meanwhile, I was distracted by thoughts of the travel issue, the missing consultant, and the scheming consultants, as well as anxiety over whether or not they wanted me back or not. It took me an hour to wake up.

13 January 2007 I looked out the window and thought that I saw the lake lapping the ground- or first- floor windows of the buildings across the street. I thought, “That cannot be possible; the lake cannot have risen that much in only a couple of hours.” I looked again, and it seemed normal. I looked yet again, and gray water was swirling up higher along the lower windows. I did not dare to think about my own building. My apartment had a door in a passageway that I never used. One day, I realized that I did not know whether it was locked, and the possibility that it might be open made me nervous. I could find neither lock nor key. It was only then that I thought of opening it. I walked out onto a ledge, but could not be sure if there were stairs or a ladder leading up to it from outside. I noticed that I had unconsciously walked to the edge of the ledge without taking note of its width; I could have walked off it. As in other dreams, it did not seem stable, and it overlooked a tree- filled park or forest that I could not reach and that was not real. I continued to be anxious about the unsecured door and intruders for some time. When I looked, there was a lock with a small, jewelry box-type key in it. I wondered briefly how I had overlooked the lock and key before. I was watching television with my parents. During a commercial, I changed the channel to what appeared to be a movie with Elvis Presley singing and dancing to a gym or auditorium full of high school kids during a Christmas party. I walked up to a large window and could see him and another person on the stage from above. I watched them gyrate and throw their heads back so that their contorted faces would appear briefly. I tried to get my cousin to see Elvis from the window. From that angle, he looked not only human but silly, but my cousin could not see what I could. I became so engrossed in watching the movie from this angle that it was a while before I guiltily remembered to change the channel back for my parents, just as my dad was saying, “Where is that show we were watching?”

6 February 2007

I was flying with two or three men on the way to a competition. My dad may have been one of them and may have been the pilot. The plane appeared to be open, and we were soaring in brilliant midday sunshine over glowing green alpine meadows. Then the flight, which had been marvelous, almost fantastic, became a series of unplanned, inexplicable landings that seemed to lessen our chances of reaching and winning the competition and even of surviving. Most important, though, was my desire to return to that sunny alpine flight, the feeling of which could not be recaptured. I found myself hiding in a dark cottage with meandering halls deep in a dense, dark forest. Although it seemed to be remote, men outside were looking for the occupant, who was the butt of their malicious fun. He and my parents had left by a back way as he was taking them somewhere. Two or three men peered through the windows, while I tried to take advantage of the oddly meandering halls to hide myself. Every movement I made left me exposed at a window. There was no place to hide, although it felt like there should be. Convinced that the occupant was still there, the men came in and found me. I felt cornered, then sexually threatened by them, even without any spoken or overt movements. I thought about the dense, dark forest around the cottage and remembered suddenly that it had seemed magically artificial, like a well-executed stage set or the product of an introverted imagination. It was not as remote, isolated, or natural as I wanted and needed it to be.

12 February 2007 I was riding my bicycle through the countryside, both wooded and open, and felt carefree. Suddenly I was in a home office paneled with dark wood, with electrodes stuck to my chest, having a physical exam. I could tell by the attitude of the doctor and my labored breathing that the results were not good, that they were in fact terrible. I thought of “The Boy” and began to wonder if he would walk in and see me like that and what he would think. I was at a gathering, and a friend came by. Suddenly a stroller rolled up on its own, as though brought by remote control. In it was the baby of another friend. “The Boy” appeared, and instinctively I took off the baby’s worsted cap and mittens and counted her fingers. For the first time, “The Boy” stopped and noticed me, but I did not seem to care much (I was careful not to miscount the fingers).

22 February 2007 I was inside a dim building at what seemed to be an open house. I looked outside, and it was under renovation. It may have been in a deep forest, too. The hosts recognized me as one of them; they were the outlaws of Sherwood Forest, and this building, part of a university, was their headquarters while it was being refurbished. I was confused because I could not see how they could hide in such a place while having an open house at which dozens of families were milling about. I looked outside again, and the rubble of renovation had been replaced by landscaping. I may not have known who I was, but everyone seemed to know and respect me. I heard some people discussing how they didn’t like the design upstairs. I found a security badge of a different kind from the one I had and went upstairs; the “design” turned out to be alcoves of pieces of scientific equipment labeled with the scientist’s name.

As I was coming back down the stairs, someone who didn’t recognize me asked to see my badge. I remained puzzled by the exposed hideout and the idea of an open house, not to mention my involvement. I liked the idea, but I wondered what had happened to the forest life.

24 February 2007 Because of rearranging at work due to space, my former VP had put me in the middle of a long, school cafeteria-type table, with only one or two square feet of workspace. I was both trapped and cramped. I noticed one of the older partners from my old job at a workstation against the wall and commented that he must have fallen on harder times to be in the same situation as I was. He said, “It’s our age. This is what happens to you once you become what is considered ‘old’” [even though it isn’t at all “old”]. He turned his head, and I noticed that he was wearing a hearing aid in his left ear. I thought that that was it; we are old and stupid because we cannot hear. Half my anxieties must have manifested themselves in that short dream, about being trapped in the job with nowhere to go and no opportunities, and being considered too old and disabled for it by others, although not by me.

14 March 2007 I was at an event that involved going from tent to tent to participate in different activities. At the end of one, I couldn’t find my socks, then my shoes, then something I had been carrying. I found a pair of socks similar to mine but didn’t know whether to take them out of necessity. I was getting increasingly desperate because I had a sense that I needed to visit the other tents to collect various belongings and that I had to catch a flight to somewhere. The scene changed to that of a food tent, where no one knew what I was on the verge of tears about. Then I was in a car with a high school friend I have not seen in a long time. I asked her what she was doing, and she said that she was getting a degree in “_____ psychology.” I couldn’t distinguish the first the word, so I asked her to repeat herself. “_____ psychology.” We went through this several times before I realized that she was saying “plague psychology.” I think I asked her what that is, and she, thinking I didn’t know what plague is or what it would be, said somewhat derisively, “You know, like in India or China.” I don’t think of bubonic plague specifically in those countries, but then I wondered if she meant diseases like cholera and dysentery. I couldn’t imagine what “plague psychology” might mean. It struck me as odd because her idea of travel is a week on a beach in the Bahamas, not an educational Eastern adventure. She is also not the type to volunteer or to seek discomfort. So I asked her if she planned to go to India or China (to apply “plague psychology” to victims, presumably, and she replied brusquely, “Hell, no.” I was left speculating why she was spending time, effort, and money on something that clearly did not interest her or that she would use. I lay half awake for a half hour puzzling over this as well as recovering from the panic of having lost my socks and shoes before a flight.

15 March 2007 I was in the old back yard at home and looked up to see a very thin, sprawling tree crown to my right. When I traced its origins against the bright sky downward, the pencil- thin trunk actually started to my left behind the neighbor’s trailer—the crown was that

high. Perched on this wispy, overhanging crown were two large birds I identified as little blue herons. They seemed to be harassing a smaller bird, but when they all flew off with the larger seemingly in pursuit of the smaller, I realized it was likely to be their offspring. Between the yard and the woods, the lilac bushes had been replaced by a mesh fence, 8–10 feet in height, with white blankets thrown over the black mesh (for privacy?) I looked underneath or through somehow and found a sleeping bag or blankets on the ground, along with some other things that made it appear to be a homeless person’s camp. I must have gotten through the fence somehow because I walked on the bag/blankets, which seemed to be the only way to ascertain that no one was there. I left but turned around and saw something very small moving under the blanket. I wondered what it could be; later when half a wake I thought it must have been an animal. But I still doubted it. Now some clothes, including an old wool coat of mine, were hung over the fence on the yard side. Like a child I began to fuss that the coat might be stolen and did my dad know that someone was living beyond the screen? I couldn’t tell if anyone around or who I was fussing to. I continued. I said that my dad was [hesitation] 88 years old and shouldn’t have to put up with uncertainty and fear, and then I remembered that he had died. I remembered my mother, who was 80-some years old, but the fact that I couldn’t remember her age reminded me that she had died at age 64, years ago. Although I had felt that there had been someone there to whom I’d been speaking, I knew now that I was always utterly alone. I felt the weight and despair of a bleak reality keeping me alive enough to suffer. I looked over the mesh fence hoping to see the tops of the group of trees that filtered just enough sunlight to dapple their comforting shade. Instead, there was the painfully clear sunlight of a high alien sky—and a row of housetop peaks. The woods were gone, and so was my home, the only place that had ever touched my heart.

20 March 2007 I was in a classroom full of consultants, where a presentation was being made to an academic client. Various people, including me, would comment, sometimes humorously, on what was being said. The presentation was going well. Then the partner in charge spoke up from near the back and rambled incoherently for a long time. Everyone looked uncomfortable; we could tell she was losing the client, who was standing in front of the room looking perturbed. Then I was in a beachfront mall, with the water beckoning at one end, trying to find my mother so we could have lunch and decide what to do. Instead, I found a friend, who stopped to look at shoes. In the store, I noticed that the ones she was now wearing, pink clogs, were too new. I found a table at a restaurant, but before my mother or friend had arrived, five or six good-looking boys from my high school (although no one I actually recognized or knew) came and took all the seats around me. They seemed fascinated by me, as though I had been the most attractive girl in the school. Intrigued, I asked the closest one what he was doing now, and he said he had found a career that brought him into constant contact with his primary interest—garbage. (But he was not a trash collector.) I thought he was insane. I found myself at a different table, in a different place, with a man from college who also seemed to admire me and who was equally odd in his tastes and profession. I can’t remember them, or perhaps he didn’t tell me exactly. They probably involved writing or consulting.

21 March 2007 The world was ending, or so it seemed, unless you somehow lived through the next few days. My memory of specific events is hazy, but my feelings about them are strong. We were putting things that we wanted to save into a pit in the ground, although it seemed that the very earth itself was collapsing. I could not decide whether I would save my favorite stuffed animals by putting them into the pit or keeping them with me, or which ones to save, although my destination may have been the pit. I heard that it had fallen in and become subdivided and very crowded with people. But I had found myself in the cave-like home of a wealthy woman, who was away, at her behest. It seemed like a magical place. The entry, which was impregnable, was in an alcove formed in part by a natural pillar. Everything about this fascinated me—the door, the lighting, the pillar. My memory is so faulty, or my perception so unclear, that I don’t know if the pit was part of this else or was located elsewhere, but I know that, although I had the woman’s permission, I was not supposed to be there. As long as I remained there, I was deceiving a friend, who would think was I was the woman until either I emerged or she returned. I hated to leave the safety and wonder of the alcove and the magic of the place.

24 March 2007 Another woman and I were leading a tour group and planned to ask them trivia questions. They did not answer the first question correctly, and the other guide gave me her PDA to find the answer and the next question. I knew the answer and didn’t want to use the PDA. With the stylus, I somehow deleted the trivia questions and answers and replaced them with mysterious numbers and characters. At this point, I think we may have stopped somewhere for lunch. Then we came upon an old, haunted-looking house or castle, Gothic or ornate in design, blackened with age. I don’t remember anything from my own consciousness after this. The group wanted to look for me, but they were reluctant to go inside. Eventually, they did and couldn’t find me. They became more and more frightened. I found myself on a chaise lounge, facing a grouping of small leaded windows that formed a large arch, like in a church. I knew the group was frightened but I did not want to be found. Then, unbeknownst to me, one member found me but thought I was dead as I lay there. At that moment, I opened my eyes. By then, the entire group was there, staring back at my reflection in the window in terror, since they had presumed I was dead. I got up and tried to climb an oddly configured glass spiral staircase that changed shape or direction or size with my every step. As I did, I explained the correct answer to the trivia question, which was that it is dogs that fall asleep while eating. [Perhaps this is a subconscious reference to the current pet food recall.] I told them that this was the American home of Vlad the Impaler, and described some of his more gruesome crimes while telling them that they had nothing to fear. Suddenly, they were gone, and I was lying on the chaise lounge again, looking at my broken reflection in the church-like windows. I wondered if I was dead or alive, and what type of spirit I had become. And if I were alone.

28 March 2007

A creaking noise woke me, and at first I lay very still so that whoever was there would not know that I was awake and bother me. When I opened my eyes a little, I found a large family in my room, talking about how grateful they were for my letting them stay with me. One was sitting in a chair I don’t have in a space I don’t have. I tried to go back to sleep, but they were talking too loudly, although they had not wanted to wake me up. I was still afraid of a burglar. Then they were gone, and when I opened the door I could see out to what looked like a church altar, with everything made of wood. Awards for playing string instruments were being announced, and I was winning many of them. The instrument was shown as the award was announced, and the second violin [sic] looked as large as a cello. I saw some reserved seats at two round tables that were rotating and thought about stopping the rotation and taking one. I think I was also asked to play but don’t know what happened since I can’t play any stringed instrument, let alone all of them. Then I was outside on the ground, along with other high school kids. We were given gold badges with information with which we were to identify a classmate. Mine read, “Silly Worth” and identified the person as the daughter of the owner of “Worth Industries.” I seemed to be the only one able to identify my person (“Billie Wirth”). I didn’t know her father was an industrialist. As I was to be called upon, I lost the badge in the grass, which seemed to have ridges and to be dirty and slimy. I found myself face to face with a large praying mantis and told a friend, but she didn’t care. I tried to touch it with my gloved hand and then went back to looking among the increasing number of furrows and changing topography of the grass for the badge.

31 March 2007 I found myself seated on a curved maple bench at a table, one of two benches and tables, watching a play, possibly Shakespeare, among a group of strangers on a campus. The experience, once I understood it, was interactive and wonderful, and some of the men around me seemed interested in me, although they didn’t speak to me. The cast of the play disappeared, and we went further into the building to find them. The male members were at a bar or restaurant counter, while the female members were lined up at a bathroom door. It occurred to me that I was finally finishing my college degree, but then I forgot which classes I had already completed and which needed to be taken. Then I couldn’t decide if I should start over and take all the classes, even the ones for which I had credit, as though doing so would change my grades or experience or path. When I woke up, I wondered how many times I am going to dream about finishing a degree I received in 1983.

4 April 2007 Dad was driving a man named Don, another man (possibly his cousin J.), and me in a very large van south on Route 20. We were all spread out, and I was in the back on the right-hand side, trapped behind something. I noticed that Dad had gone missing and that no one was driving. I tried frantically to scramble to the front to get control of the vehicle, but I couldn’t move and couldn’t seem to make the others hear me or understand the danger. The van crashed into a train and almost seemed to become part of it in a blended way, not as a whole, as though there had been an “inter-dimensional shift” (this was the term

that came into my sleeping mind). I panicked in my anguish and concern over the fate of Don, the cousin, and especially my dad, and only later realized that after the accident I was observing events from the outside, as though I had not been in the van, which was fading into the train cars. I’m not even sure I was still in my own body. That will teach me to read The Mothman Prophecies, even for fun.

7 April 2007 I was at the grocery store with my shopping cart, looking through a big cardboard box. It was full of things that I must have given to the store to sell as used. I didn’t mind the idea, but I found my recorder, my Clarke tin whistle, and one or two other things that I regretted parting with. I wrestled with my conscience over the need to make a clean break with things vs. my interest in these particular items. In the end, I couldn’t leave the recorder and tin whistle there. I worried about having enough room to bring them home in my cart and wondered how I would pay for them, since they did not have price tags. I seemed to be at a poolside with a man and a couple of women. I don’t think I was a visible participant in the group, but was more of an invisible observer. The man proposed to one of the women, and I had a flash of insight that he had been engaged to the other woman at another time. I tried to say, somewhat jokingly, “You’ve proposed to every woman you know.” He pulled out a pencil and composition book and started to work on his novel; he was a noted author, I began to think. One of the women, a minister’s daughter, had stripped and jumped into the pool and then asked if there were any snakes in the water as she had forgotten to look. It was dusk and hard to see; there may have been. The man was standing in the water a few feet from the end of the pool, where I suddenly noticed an enormous black snake. It must have felt his movements in the pool because it came out a little and started to raise its great head toward him while he speculated as to why snakes would get into the water. I was unable to warn him.

P.M.

In a Whose Line Is It Anyway? dream, I and another guy were supposed to listen to disco-type music and demonstrate, on our respective examples of Kansas football players, which activities on a cruise ship the music is used during. The first song was “Ladies Night,” and we both started doing a chest massage, but I immediately thought, “No, a massage would require soothing music,” so I changed my activity to exercise class. The next song (unknown) inspired us to put our guys on gurneys and roll them into oblivion off the football field-like set (the famous cruise activity of “taking to hospital”?), while the host said, “No, come back, there are two more!” I found a rail car and pushed, and too late realized it was attached to another, maybe a caboose, and that because of momentum I couldn’t stop it, although I tried. I worried about them never stopping and about grooves in the floor. My dad later found them blocking the trailer hallway and wondered how they’d ended up there, when normally they were in the kitchen. I found there were others elsewhere, too.

10 April 2007 I was getting ready to go out to do something important, perhaps to vote. From the porch of my house on a hill, I could see the midnight blue night sky and thousands of

golden flecks flying by horizontally. I got it into my head that they were “shooting stars” and that I was witnessing an elusive asteroid shower. “No,” my dad said from the front yard, “they’re motes,” which I took to mean insects. He could feel them and soon I could feel them striking me, too. It was like an apocalyptic plague, and sadly I realized that I could not go anywhere in those conditions. I went into the house, which was an old rural one, and found the bushy tip of Pudge’s tail. She was nearby, wide-eyed, frightened, and almost kittenish in appearance. Her tail was only 3/4 long. I told myself that she had “shed” her tail tip before, that it was normal and that she didn’t need veterinary attention, but I did not really believe it. I could see bone and a little blood on the tip that had come off, but her remaining tail seemed complete. I was puzzled by events and nervous.

13 April 2007 This one is murky, like the darkness in which it took place. It was 2:00 a.m., and I was in the apartment of a colleague from a Florida community—but the place seemed to be Chicago. I needed to take a train, but when I arrived at the station I realized that I had no money. I found some change in my pockets, including a large $10 coin in the shape of Ben Franklin. Naturally I found this fascinating and did not want to use it. I don’t know whether was in a dark underground train station or at a dark underground party or bar. Someone I had gone to high school with, who was in the class behind mine, kept trying to put his arm around me, which embarrassed and disturbed me. I sensed that his attentions were somehow hurting a potential relationship with someone important to me. I started to feel like I was highly desirable to many if not all of the men around me. Another man expressed interest; he was physically unattractive but interesting and compelling. I both craved and feared his attentions, the latter for the same reason as before—that being seen with him would hurt a desired relationship. He seemed to be an aristocrat. I saw a man, a famous actor whose persona and work do not appeal to me, lying on a lower level with his head on a rock and pining for me. The rock was engraved with my image or name. This turn of events, combined with the surreal dimness of the setting and situation, confused and upset me. I did not know what to do.

14 April 2007 I seemed to be at a school when I was told that one of the actuary partners from my former firm wanted to see me. He came along, and we were looking for a quiet place to talk. There was a stage in a dark room, but people were rehearsing under it. In the meantime, I thought he was going to confess his attraction to me, which in the dream I desired. We finally settled somewhere that also seemed dark, but it could not have been quiet because his eyes kept following the actions of children, including his own, who were going into and coming out of a store nearby. The big secret that he wanted to share with me in private and that gave him life for a change was that my interests had inspired him to make a donation or start an endowment at the zoo. Afterward, I found myself with a small, white, mouse-like animal in my hand. At first I thought it was dead, but it gave signs of being alive yet sluggish. I set it down and to my horror my friend’s cocker spaniel (Boomer or Dusty) picked it up in his mouth. I said something about “the dog,” which offended her and her family because I didn’t use his name.

I recovered the little white creature, which still seemed unreal to me; it was so solid. It was no longer moving at all and seemed truly dead. I tried putting it into a dishpan of water to see if that would revive it. My grief grew, as did my denial that the case was hopeless. Then I did not know what to do with the body and was reluctant to do anything for fear that it was still alive.

15 April 2007 I was a guest on A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor and was reading with him from a book that looked like a magazine. After I started to read, I kept losing my place and missing captions because thee book had been so badly and irregularly designed; it was nearly impossible for my eyes to follow the flow. Keillor kept pointing out what I was missing and didn’t seem to understand that the problem wasn’t in me, but in the book’s design. I came to a part that showed a half dozen coffins and other gruesome photos and mentioned World War II, with half-hidden captions in odd, hard-to-find places among the photos. I began to think the material was inappropriate for the program. I also knew I would never be asked to appear again. I was in a room with a couple of sleeping children, presumably serving as their babysitter. A night lamp began to crackle and to streak like a Jacob’s ladder. I looked out the window and saw a bright light moving around in the sky; in a few moments I could make out a figure in a space suit tethered to it. They looked unreal, like exceptionally well- drawn, 3D-style cartoons. I was concerned about the lamp starting a fire and concerned that one of the children, now awake, would touch it and told them not to, but at the same time I didn’t think I should unplug it, either. I thought, “I am really having a UFO experience” and kept closing my eyes against it. The experience seemed real, but the ship and the figure did not.

30 April 2007 I received a taunting death threat from someone who seemed almost supernatural because of the way the threat was delivered and the terror it inspired. I don’t think I did anything about it other than to try to be alert. It was the night before a wedding I was to attend, and I was staying in my parents’ trailer. It was unfamiliar in every way, and when I looked into their bedroom I noticed that the bed seemed very small in the very large room—the opposite of what it should have been. It took up perhaps one-quarter of the room, whereas it should have been difficult to get around it. I felt confused and disoriented by everything I saw. Naturally, I was restless and could not sleep with a supernatural death threat hanging over me. I heard someone come into my room, and I flew out of it in terror after briefly considering attacking. It proved to be a male colleague, who was to share my room. I looked out the front windows or door, hoping to see the police watching out for me even though I had not notified them. I did not think they could do anything even if they were. I wondered if I should call them, but I’m not sure the phone was working. Something, perhaps a noise, put me on the alert, and I found myself behind a plant in a room full of plants. The killer was going through the room systematically and gleefully killing all the plants with a spray. I held my breath, which I sensed was a futile act because the killer didn’t have to hear me to know I was there. The plant-killing spree was for my benefit.

I waited, trying to decide what to do. Finally, I sent poisoned darts into the killer’s head and chest, which had no effect and only confirmed my presence. I heard two shots; they came from a .45 my brother was aiming. He had shot two women, one blonde, the other possibly brunette. I don’t think that either of us was sure that the two women were the killers. I think we had turned on a light by now. The two women did not seem quite alive or quite dead, and I sensed a malevolent presence waiting for me to let down my guard. It was in some way an anti-life force, and I never knew why it wanted to kill me specifically.

4 May 2007 I was at home in a room next to my mother’s. It was very odd because either her room or mine seemed to open onto a courtyard so that part of it seemed to be outdoors. I used the far stall in the bathroom, which was supposed to be the dirtiest but was in fact the cleanest. All I noticed was that the water was a little high but for some reason this seemed to indicate cleanliness rather than a backed-up toilet. I found myself at a large hall, although ultimately my destination was elsewhere. I discovered that a childhood friend was to be remarried. I wondered what happened to her husband and children as I had never heard anything about a divorce. The hall was large, white, and packed with people. There were few decorations, which seemed unusual. Everyone was drinking while waiting for the wedding, although the gathering looked more like a reception. I was wearing a long, elaborate dress, which made me think of bridesmaids. I looked for and saw women who must have been the bridesmaids; they were all short, stout, middle-aged, and remarkably coarse and ugly. I thought that these must be her new friends from work and that they had displaced me and her other old friends. She came along and offered me a drink, but first she held her champagne glass under a nozzle. Outside the walk-in box that this apparatus was in, someone was pumping a button to fill her glass. She went out and pumped for me, although then she started to hold the button down. When I realized how it all worked, I didn’t want it. Outside the box, the crowd was thinning rapidly. Someone spoke, but was inaudible. The minister tried to speak, but his voice was hoarse and squeaky. Someone commented that he shouldn’t be a minister with a voice like that. I spotted some people from high school and risked walking over and trying to talk to them. I was surprised that I recognized them so easily and remembered their names, but when I addressed them they would look at me oddly. None of them knew me. My excitement faded, and I wondered when the wedding was to occur, who the bridegroom was, and where the first husband and children were; it was almost like they had never existed. I also had a nagging feeling that I was supposed to be on my way to another place, somewhere outdoors or away from wedding halls. I found an exhibit of mannequin-robots who represented the presidential candidates. All of them looked young and fashionable, and the only one I recognized was Barack Obama. He would speak now and then, and people were gathered in front of him, sharing their excitement. I noticed his neck looked mechanical, like two bundles of cords covered with plastic skin. The hall was nearly empty now; even most of the classmates had left. I still waited for the wedding.

30 May 2007

Pinecroft, Pennsylvania I just read John Polidori’s “The Vampyre” and wonder if it influenced this morning’s dream. On the surface, there is no resemblance to the story, but I awoke with a vaguely uneasy sense about the dream that reminded me of the story’s mood. There was not much action or plot. I was a young woman who was lame, perhaps from polio. My left hand appeared to be affected as well; without warning it would convulse into a curled claw painful and ugly to behold. I dined out and went to the theatre, and was attended by an older man who was unfailingly solicitous. He did not go with me, but would appear at my side after dinner or the performance had begun. He was never more or less than kind, and although I found his attentions somewhat strange and disturbing because I did not know what motivated them, still I looked for and enjoyed them, and feared their loss. My half-awake conscious mind began to influence my dreaming one. It accepted my youth and uncharacteristic active social life, but it questioned the disabilities that were the apparent cause of the man’s seeming fondness for me. I did not remember having polio, nor becoming lame from it. As for my hand, I knew I have signs of arthritis in both, but that did not explain why it would be normal at times and contorted at others. I felt I must be a fraud, but did not remember becoming one intentionally. I was terrified that I was and that the man would find out and have nothing to do with me. I stopped going out. I waited and waited for this man I didn’t even know or understand, and even mistrusted, but he never appeared, and this made me sad. At the end, I think I was whole again, except for the arthritis that I actually have. It occurs to me that I was lame only as long as I saw him and that that was his hold over me. When I stopped going out, it broke his hold and cured my infirmities. Yet I found myself longing to be infirm and cared about rather than whole and lonely. That dynamic surely explains many, many controlling relationships.

1 June 2007 Pinecroft, Pennsylvania I was visiting friends when a child insisted on going to see a particular performer. I was reluctant, and there was some discussion among others, but finally it was decided that everyone would go. We walked outside, and although we were in a semi-rural area I soon found myself on the sidewalk of a busy urban street. At first I did not know where I was or where I was going, and then I remembered that the performer was at a theater up the street that I’d been to before. I turned around to say something to the others, but they weren’t anywhere to be seen, either behind me, ahead of me, or at the theater. I realized that they had driven somewhere else while I had walked and that I was separated and lost. I think I must always be going in the opposite direction. ***** I remembered suddenly that I was to take some kind of college-related exam on the subject of Japan. I thought this odd because I don’t have any in-depth knowledge of Japan and couldn’t imagine why or how I would take such a test. When I arrived for it, I realized there were only 15 minutes of it left—and that That Boy, my competition, was also taking it. I had brought a new Rhodia pencil, but when I tried to use the normally black eraser (before even writing anything), it proved to be a bright, almost impossible, shade of pink and broke off immediately.

My panic rose even more when I saw the questions, which mentioned what seemed to be Chinese place names. I had 15 minutes to complete an important test about Japan with Chinese place names, which mattered little because I could not answer questions about either. With That Boy there, undoubtedly earning a perfect score, my academic humiliation was complete. So ends another panic-filled dream related to college, from which I graduated in 1983. I wonder how much more dream angst I will suffer over this old fait accompli, not to mention That Boy. Surely life has offered more interesting challenges than that.

7 June 2007 It was a dark, cold, wet day, and I was in the school cafeteria. While I was eating, my cat (I am not sure which one, or if it was a different cat) was lying on my plate, also eating. I was a little surprised that no one commented, but it seemed natural. I remembered that I was supposed to meet someone in the cafeteria at the other end of the building. I went there and told her I had to return to the first cafeteria for my food. I found myself on a bus and explained where I was going, but the driver, who had seemed to understand, started taking the others on the bus home. I panicked and pleaded with the driver, who ignored me. Everyone else helped me by calling or e-mailing the principal. He wasn’t available, but his senior administrative assistant ordered the driver to return. The weather must have improved. Outdoors on the grass, someone brought me an enormous slice of cake that fell apart when they tried to slide it onto a plate that was too small that was on the ground. A little flock of birds waited with anticipation, but it was a little yellow one that was entitled to share the cake with me. A huge dollop of icing remained on the ground.

9 June 2007 I was at the bottom of a round, improbably deep pool (well?). When I looked up from the depths, I saw a zebra racing around the top edge. With each lap, it would reach a point at which it would stop so abruptly that it would nearly lose its balance. I was terrified that it would fall and be injured or killed. I also wondered if my looking at it was startling it and causing it to nearly upset itself at the same point in the circumference. Then the pool was suddenly normal in depth, and the zebra was gone.

15 June 2007 Last night I was so tired that I reluctantly cut short an online conversation, read a page or so of The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide, fell asleep on top of the covers with the 200-watt light on, and remained in that condition until 4:00 a.m. I’m sure that I don’t get very good sleep that way and that the light bothers me subconsciously. After I drifted off the second time, after turning the light off, I dreamed that I went home for no particular reason—that is, not for a reunion or other occasion—and that everything seemed both different and familiar. Under the trees was an elaborate shopping area with displays of high-end goods such as quality watches and fine china. I wondered what happened to all that stuff when it rained, then I saw that it was enclosed under a roof in some way that made it look like a fancy mall. Suddenly something struck me that must have been on my mind—that there would be no possibility of seeing That Boy during this visit. Although I must have planned the trip

that way intentionally, I felt a sickening wave of disappointment that I would not see him. I believe that I didn’t want to see him because of the invariable humiliation of being ignored or, worse, unnoticed, yet of course I wanted to see him to satisfy some ill-defined hunger. And then I did. He was there, near me. I half-hoped he wouldn’t notice me. He didn’t. As for the other half-hope . . .

13 July 2007 I was in a huge banquet hall feeling lost and alone among all the people. I recognized some from high school or college, but I didn’t know any of them well enough to approach and ask for a seat. I debated with myself about how they would react, and was petrified that it would be with either anger or, worse, indifference. I saw a boy, D., who had been in a college band I knew and had accepted my online invitation, and I offered to perform with him, but his eyes slid over me coldly as though he had no idea of who I was or what I was talking about. Then I fell in with J. S., a girl from my high school home room, who was staying at the hotel where this gathering was being held and who said I could come to her room while her husband was out. Her room seemed very odd, and when she said she was going upstairs, she climbed rungs built into the bathroom wall. This seemed dangerous to me, and I realized that ascending them was something I could not do. When she came back, I noticed there was a red, ropy pole from the bed to the ceiling, as though it were a support. I remarked that I had a canopy bed in my room (which I had just remembered). This pole, it turned out, was the arm of a genie in a bottle, and now she wanted him to serve as a clock. She told me to set him, but I could not get the syntax right at first. Finally, I said something like “O’clock—three,” and the arm that wasn’t holding up the ceiling snapped to the three position. She and started to play some kind of typical board game, like Monopoly, using the bed as the board and characters like the genie—living, breathing, whimsical creatures. The details of what she took for granted were remarkable in every way, yet I kept thinking that this was very ordinary way to pass the time that I could do on my own and that perhaps married or sociable people like the ones downstairs at the banquet did not have private lives that were any better or more interesting than my own. I did not find this revelation reassuring, and it did not make me feel less forlorn.

7 August 2007 I was in a college dormitory with my parents (who were not my actual parents) and a female student (who was not my roommate). The room was small and dark, and, although I thought it was supposed to be private, there were three single beds close together at angles in a corner. The area started to remind me of the trailer’s extra room, with its heavy orange drapes closed. I felt vaguely puzzled and disturbed. I found myself wandering around outside and realized that I didn’t need to be at college at all—that I already had a degree and could not afford to take another year of classes just for the sake of it. I thought perhaps I was there to earn a master’s degree, but I couldn’t be sure and didn’t know what it would be in. I could see two people dressed in 1950s clothes in a 1950s-style room, fighting. They may have been my parents in the dream. It looked like a scene from a B-movie. My imagination left them for a while, then returned, dreading what it would find—I expected

to find the woman strangled. Instead, the man was lying partly sideways across a sofa, his eyes open, quite dead. The woman was half lying, half sitting on a chair, her eyes closed, but she was breathing faintly and regularly and seemed to be coming around. I was shocked yet not surprised that she had been the victor and that she had killed the man. I realized that that was what I had really expected.

11 August 2007 I was in a park or forest, and the little girl whom a former boss had just adopted had wandered off mysteriously. Because the forest was so large, there was a general panic that she might never be found. I looked down and found an underground building, where I could see the girl through a window. She was standing complacently in a hallway, perhaps waiting for someone. I did not know how to approach her or to tell everyone where she was without spooking her. She seemed to know where she was and why. Then, with no transition, I was watching a theater performance taking place on an odd, round, elevated stage in my hometown. I wanted to perform, too, but some of the characters on the high stage were riding camels and elephants, which seemed dangerous under the conditions. I began to realize that, although I liked the idea of the performance, it lacked passion and life. I didn’t recognize anyone around me and developed a strange feeling. I saw someone sneak out the door, and it occurred to me that I wasn’t supposed to be there, either. I tried to slip out unnoticed, but a woman spotted me and told me coldly, almost inhumanly so, that I had to leave because I was not a member (and leaving it unspoken that I could not aspire to become one). Outside, I remembered how alone and out of place I had been when I had come to Chicago, as I still do 28 years later. Now my old home was strange and unwelcoming to me, too. I had nowhere to go, and the weight of sadness crushed me.

13 August 2007 I was supposed to see the general counsel about some changes, but when I found her she was in an obvious hurry and ran off waving. I couldn’t remember which community the changes were for. When I got home, my blinds were down, and I thought my dad must have closed them because I couldn’t recall doing so. Dad drove to a friend’s house to return something, perhaps a key, but when we got there either I didn’t have it or couldn’t find it, or the friend wasn’t home. At home, I took the elevator to my apartment, but I might have forgotten to push the right button because I found myself on the roof. There was something surreal about the place and the elevator. Next, I ended up in a swimming pool on the fourth floor. When I tried to get out of the water, I discovered that I had no clothes on. I couldn’t return to my apartment like that, but the person in charge, someone I knew, was both perplexed and sympathetic. We found a sheet and towels for me to use for coverage, but they would keep falling into the water and getting wet. Finally, I put on a T shirt that was too small and which covered very little, and then it was time to panic because I didn’t have any apartment keys. I was at the first day of college and recalled that I had been given a teaching assignment about which I knew nothing. I reassured myself by thinking that it was on

Tuesday (the following day) and that it could not possibly be on the first day; my own lack of knowledge confirmed that. I worried that I had no idea what I was teaching, or when and where, and then it dawned on me that I was unprepared.

16 August 2007 I was at what appeared to be a family party, only I didn’t recognize the family. As it was dusk, I wanted to go out for a walk or bike ride, but a woman who was not my mother—perhaps an aunt?—kept warning me to be careful. I had to leave. I found the men in the shed watching television; again, they didn’t seem to be my family, and my dad wasn’t among them. The shed itself was unusual because it had windows like a car. I began to wonder how the old shed, put up almost 40 years ago, could still be around. When I went out and walked around it outside, I saw that it wasn’t the shed; it was the van, but there were overhangs over the windows. It had to be more spacious inside than out. This made me look up at the clouds, as did some others. I saw that one area was off white or yellow, in the shape of a lacy butterfly. It looked like a coincidence, but soon the whole cloud changed into a complex pattern of lacy angels that could not be coincidence. It was apocalyptic. The conversation turned to the names of the four principal angels, and all I could think was, “Gabriel,” as I watched the lace cloud in the dusky evening sky.

18 August 2007 It was a lovely sunny day, and I was walking among the hills in the open woods. I was happy. Then I became aware that a corporation had just declared war. I ran to avoid the strafing that began with my awareness. My brother was playing football somewhere and was even more exposed. I could see him with my mind and tried to warn him. Some details forgotten.

19 August 2007 A flash of lightning, perhaps combined with a sensation of feeling cold and restless, woke me up between 3:00 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. Before or after that, I dreamed that I was staying with an aunt (not an actual one) and that there was something uncomfortable about the situation, despite the appearance of a serene household. This was undone when a sheriff’s car, light flashing, raced up to the house. I was shocked because I could not imagine why. I saw my aunt then, who told me triumphantly that she had obtained a court order to remove “her” and her daughter from the house, “her” proving to be a sister-in-law. I did not know in what way the woman was offensive, but the angry face of a man appeared in my mind, and I thought, “He must be my uncle; he will be angry, and I don’t want to witness it.” I was in the garden leaning over some ground cover when I spotted a chick that had soiled itself, with the down missing from the dirty area on the right side. It appeared to be ill. Not knowing what to do and being afraid of scaring it, I held up my finger. To my surprise, it readily hopped up onto it. It seemed to be preternaturally intelligent and to be trying to tell me something. I took it to a man, probably a gardener, who cleaned it. I returned it to the same spot in the ground cover. Later I found it soiled again in exactly the same way, like it was a sign.

This was to be my last day at my aunt’s house, and I found out that everyone had been looking for me urgently because my father had become sick and had been placed on hydrogen. I couldn’t find him anywhere, and I couldn’t think of what was wrong with him that hydrogen would treat. It sounded serious. I felt scared, both that something would happen to him and that the situation was so odd that I hadn’t known he was there and I couldn’t picture him. I came to an area in the house that was like a nightclub. The Beatles and an Indian group with one of my former roommates were below me. He and I started to talk about another roommate, but the Beatles chided him for talking to the customers. Their act involved what they said was a magical Eastern practice of placing people into bags, hanging the bags up, and setting them on fire. I didn’t want to watch. Despite myself, I could see a woman in a bag as clearly as if it were transparent, not opaque, and she appeared to be unharmed somehow. It was too surreal for me, and I had to leave. I began to look for a bathroom and only then realized how large my aunt’s place was. I found jewelry and other shops, and a salon. Then I discovered my aunt and uncle’s private quarters, where I hoped I would not be caught because I was under the impression that I was not to know about the extent or nature of the property or where they lived. The quarters had portholes, and I began to wonder if this weren’t a cruise ship rather than the New England house I had thought. Now that I had an idea of its size and weirdness, I didn’t want to leave. I also worried vaguely about my father; I still had not seen him. I was afraid of what I might find.

24 August 2007 To my surprise, I found myself in a lifestyle class at work. I took my old Titanium, the only Apple in the room, to the back row—and there he was, That Boy. I tried not to notice him, and, effortlessly, he did not notice me. I was suddenly very happy. I was telling someone that a comprehensive lifestyle program had been my idea years ago, but it had not been the right time so the idea was squelched. Another boy, Ken A., tried to pass me an impossibly hot pan, but although everyone else looked because he was teasing me, That Boy, sitting with him, did not. The movie presented yellow alligators in an eerie twilight monochromatic setting, encountering and attacking one another. I appeared on screen during a discussion of venomous snakes. I was lying on my stomach as two or three very tiny venomous snakes crawled across my naked backside. As they passed my face, my hair somehow fell forward onto them. Although I was sitting in the classroom, hoping to be noticed or not noticed, I did not know what had happened after that or if the snakes had been startled and bitten me.

25 August 2007 As often happens in my dreams, I found myself in a surreal high place, with no idea of how I got there or why, but with the impression that it was my home. A potted plant sparked a memory, only I did not know if it was an old gift from a former lover, or a new gift from a long-ago one. I hoped for the latter. I had to wash my clothes in a queer machine that was silver and turned like a drum, or perhaps like a dryer. I filled it with clothes. Because I had only a few things left and there was a mysterious sense of urgency, I overfilled it. It was on a slope, and clothes and

perhaps water tried to tumble out with the pull of gravity. Then it abruptly retreated uphill on a wire-and-pulley system; by what agency I do not know. I had to lead a pregnant woman, J., down from this aerie via very steep, uneven steps made of books. Because they could fall over when stepped on, it was extremely precarious. At one point, we had to step up, which was even more dangerous. We came upon a very narrow, short step, and I knew that if I stepped onto it the books would scatter, and I would fall. I appealed to people in the library I could see far, far below, but they replied only that they did it all the time. What happened next I do not know.

31 August 2007 I was at home and decided to go for a long walk. The day was perfect for it, as I was thinking as I headed down Route 20 toward Camp Road. The sky before me darkened as though a tornado and thunderstorms were imminent. The suddenness and darkness were terrible and apocalyptic. I was too far along the road to turn back and beat the storm, so I kept walking, toward it, and found myself in town at a low ranch-style house wrapped around a corner. Lush vegetation everywhere made the whole area dark. I knocked on the door—and my brother answered. I am not sure he recognized me as he showed me around, but at least I had shelter in this house, which was dark inside. During the conversation or my looking around, I discovered that my father’s cousin lived nearby in a similar house. I felt disoriented as my brother talked and the storm approached (or raged?), and none of what I saw or heard made sense.

1 September 2007 I was lying on the floor of a large, bare room at least three stories high. It came to me that I was an agent, my partner was dead, and the villain, Orson Welles, was contemplating whether I were alive or not. He was regarding me from high up and seemed deceived, although I could not believe it since my breathing, even though controlled, seemed obvious to me. He and others left me for dead. After a while, I cautiously found my way out of the room. I remembered that my colleague and I had been sent here to find out what was going on. She had been killed when we were captured, but I was stunned only. As I was examining one of the yellow industrial drums that seemed to be everywhere, a group of four or five women came along, chattering. They paid no attention to me or my clearly suspicious behavior, and did not question me when I joined their group. I put a plastic bag that I had pulled out of a drum into another one nearby that seemed to be full of liquid nitrogen. Instantly “mutations” popped into my mind. With a sense of horror, I thought that I would now be responsible for one. The women, who were workers, seemed to be able to go anywhere. I clung to them for safety, answering that I had not seen a particular movie when they asked. I did not know what I was looking for or what I was seeing. Thoughts of the dead colleague haunted me. Then we came across a man, a scientist, with pieces of something, including blue and yellow membranes. He told a large group gathering, including mine, that he was going to reconstruct and bring back to life an enormous (and unnatural) spider.

I watched with horror and fascination as he did so. A sixth sense felt that I was being surrounded and would be trapped again.

4 September 2007 I was on a bus full of people from work who are below the AVP level. I knew this, although I recognized only two of them—the director of projects and the applications manager. They told me that we had been at the Palo Alto community to work on “resident documentation.” I couldn’t remember being at the community. I couldn’t remember flying to California. I did not know why these two would manage such a project—the nature of which I couldn’t imagine—or why so many people from so many disciplines would be involved. I couldn’t remember getting on the bus. All this continued to puzzle me, along with the fact that I didn’t know anyone else. The bus was barreling over a series of hills, complete with steep slopes and twists and turns. The time seemed to be on the cusp of darkness, the tricky dusk during which so many accidents occur. To add to my sense of disorientation, the bus was misdirected several times by signs, lines, and barriers diverting it dangerously across multiple lanes of traffic from the far right to the far left, or into impossible areas that made no sense. On a steep downhill slope with curves, I saw the driver leave her seat and disappear into the back of the bus. I didn’t know how I could get to the seat in time to prevent a catastrophe, even if I could get control of the steering and brakes and could figure then out. I found a middle-aged woman had taken over and felt relief, but then she left, too. By now, I had noticed there were no accidents even when no one was driving. The next time I spotted someone driving, a middle-aged woman with a particularly frowsy permanent, I said without thinking, “You could get pulled over and into trouble for driving without a bus driver’s license. I heard someone agree and someone disagree. She left the seat, but I still could not take over. The repetition of the circumstances, and the murkiness behind them, made it nightmarish.

10 September 2007 In the middle of a hotel hallway I ran into my old group from my old firm having a meeting. I looked around. While most of the faces were new, of course, a few were familiar. A few were there who had left before I did. I was looking at a display of boxed tchotchkes, mostly pens, when one of the old office managers, apparently recognizing me, told me not to take any and hinted strongly that I should leave. I had some papers and one of the tchotchkes in my hand, but I didn’t remember taking it; I think someone who had talked to me had given it to me. I tried to hide it from her in the papers. Her attitude seemed unduly belligerent and offensive, the opposite of mine. I was mainly curious. Then a young man was introduced whom I knew to be a temporary administrative assistant. His computer screen was projected; it was a simulation of a battle. His side went into retreat immediately and could not recover, and I was embarrassed for him since he was supposed to be an expert. The person who had introduced him said, “Consolidate your forces!” so he rammed them altogether on a beachhead at twilight in a massive pileup.

I remembered what had been said of me (I was told) when I left, that I had walked out abruptly, without warning or notice, and how no one had believed such an obvious fabrication. I still resent it.

3 October 2007 Our food and beverage department held a “Thanksgiving Unstuffed” event for employees, but I felt out of place and confused. There were two or three long tables; one was surrounded by women I didn’t know speaking a language that I didn’t know, and another was empty for no discernible reason. I didn’t know where to go. Then I found that the strange women had moved to the empty table, but somehow nothing else was available. Someone asked me to stand up and speak about my past as a benefits consultant, but I didn’t know who would care or what I should say. In addition, two boyish young men from outside spoke and mingled with the people standing, but I did not know them or what they spoke about. They seemed to be oddly cheerful and somehow out of place. One of them gave me a businesslike hug before I left. Later or the next day, he saw me on a bus and made a point of talking to me. He was different in some way, still cheerful but more authentic in behavior. When I went to get off the bus, he commented that I could not get away from him so easily. The hug he gave me this time was not at all businesslike, but earnest and intense. I could not help but mull over who this strange young man was, what he had meant, what he wanted from me, and why he had singled me out for what appeared to be unusual attentions. Then it flashed on me that he had also kissed me passionately and urgently. I could remember only the fact, but not the act itself no matter how hard I tried. I wondered if I should want to see him again, but I was afraid to because I was so unsure about what had happened and what was meant.

4 October 2007 [Private]

29 October 2007 I was a David McCallum-like spy or professor, and my assignment was to train or teach a young woman—something. I didn’t know what. When she arrived, I told her that my sense of geography was not good, but that somewhere in eastern Europe, perhaps Romania, “we” had lobbied to install an experimental pig farm and finally had won our way. In case she had missed the obvious point, I said, “Of course, we don’t need a pig farm there when we have the entire Midwest.” I did not know if she would be able to complete the thought. “The pig farm is really an opportunity to keep an eye on the Russian missile program.” She left, and I stood in the window on the second floor, watching the evening rain, wondering what I had been talking about, and thinking, “Why Romania?”

4 November 2007

I suddenly knew that I was in another class with Wayne C. Booth and that I was a failure in it, as I had been before (in this dream). As I was about to leave for home, which (in this dream) was Yonkers, New York, I found out that I knew nothing and had no credit. Mr. Booth was kind and told me that if I went into an online folder (or something like that), it would make a difference. I also got it into my head that I needed to get a certain history textbook. But I had to leave by 4 o’clock or I would never get to Yonkers(?). As I wandered hopelessly looking for the right place to buy the right history book, I found myself in what looked like a club, an area of neighborhood stores, and the like. I realized that I would have to leave straightaway if I were to be able to go home to Yonkers, with no luggage, no clothes, no toiletries, perhaps not even a purse with money. Confused, lost, and panicking on every level, even as I went from store to store, place to place, and finding myself at what could have been a regional airport, Mr. Booth was somehow there, reassuring me over and over again of his confidence in me as mine failed utterly. I did not want to wake up until I had lived up to it, unlikely as it seemed.

13 November 2007 I fell asleep around 11 o’clock, and by 11:30 had woken up twice, the second time in terror. I was at my parents’ new house, which seemed strange to me in some undefinable way. I saw the room I slept in only in the dark. As in many houses, the bedroom had only one window, and there appeared to be a storm going on. Finally I roused myself and looked with great effort at the strangest storm I had ever seen. Random flashes, but not of lightning, and wind. The setting and the storm seemed apocalyptic, and after noticing that I didn’t like the flimsy curtains I wanted new ones to shut it out. I found that the room was unusually large and that half was separated from my half by a large bench. There was a piano in the other half, which to my surprise I played expertly and beautifully. I found myself composing amazing works on it and marveled how. But I noticed the piano was also a fountain. While this was fascinating, I wondered where the many strong streams from it were going to and what damage they must be doing. Later I found myself in this same half room with an older female relative. I learned that this was not part of my bedroom, but was a separate sitting room. A cat jumped upon a pile of yarn or material; the cat was blue and white in a distinctive Delft pattern. I remarked on the weirdness of this as I petted the cat and ruffled the pattern, but my female relative said that it’s common. I was slightly afraid of it, although it seemed like a normal cat. Perhaps it was the next night when a friend showed up with an entourage in my room. He wanted to take me somewhere with his group. I wanted to go with them, but inexplicably I closed my eyes and wished him and them away. Then I was washing dishes in a kitchen that overlooked the street directly; it was straight down from the window. A couple I knew in a convertible stopped at the red light and chatted with me. This put me into a great mood, so when a silver-gray man came out from under a manhole cover, looking up at me with expressionless eyes and face, I smiled at him at first. Then, as he came toward me, staring with dead but determined eyes, I sensed that he was evil and that I should never have smiled at him. I dreaded his relentless approach even as his features became seared into my memory. I closed the screen door and locked it with a hook, then panicked as I tried to find an inner door with a dead bolt. My terror grew.

I woke up at 11:30, frightened and freezing.

2 December 2007 In the early morning, I looked down at the parking lot, which was full of mud and empty of cars. The mud was on the street, too, where the few remaining cars were parked haphazardly and were disappearing rapidly as little clusters of people came out and drove them off. I wondered if there had been an apocalyptic storm. I noticed that I was looking down from an unusually sharp angle and what seemed to be a tremendous height, far greater than that of my 12th-floor apartment and probably far greater than that of the 18th floor. I felt even more disoriented and disturbed. As it was early, I wasn’t dressed. I walked into an unfamiliar, contemporary, posh white room, and then another, before realizing that all the apartments must be connected and that I had entered those of neighbors. I was lost. I heard voices and tried to avoid them but was terrified lest they come upon me in my nakedness. I wondered if they too were nude. Then I was at a baseball park, where I was half of a renowned pitcher-catcher team. We were known for throwing home runs, as though that were a really difficult and desirable feat. But we were cheats. To keep the fans happy and cheering, we started to pretend we’d heard the crack of the bat and that we were watching the trajectory of a home run ball, time after time. As I did so again, guiltily, I saw the enormous head of the Statue of Liberty loom before me as though she had appeared to remind us of the great lie we’d begun that we could not seem to stop.

3 December 2007 I was an African or cinereous vulture out of my element, hungry, and ill equipped to capture prey in the environment in which I and my mate found ourselves. We were desperate. A bus came by; I knew that my human mother was on board. I got on to ask for her help, although it was difficult to explain the problem. Suddenly, it occurred to me that I was a vulture on a bus full of humans and that no one had noticed. There was something magical about it, as though time were frozen for all but me and my human mother.

6 December 2007 I was in the hallway of a hotel, attending a high school reunion. I wondered if anyone would treat me any differently since I thought I looked better with the new glasses; perhaps they gave me a new persona. The fact I was alone in a hallway didn’t bode well for socialization, however. I spotted a group coming up the stairs toward me and recognized many of them, but I could not remember their names. One or two of the group recognized me and seemed to feel sorry for me as they invited me out for drinks. I accepted, but didn’t know where to go to meet them, and then they were gone. Although I had dreaded it, I regretted the lost opportunity. I found Pudge, who I knew to be Pudge although she was now an orange-white stripey boy like Hodge, and took her to the park where I could be depressed in peace. The first time I called, she came. Then I was distracted by someone and forgot about her. When I remembered her, I panicked because of the traffic around the park. I called, but this time she didn’t come. I kept calling, and still she didn’t come. I found her pinned by a medium-

sized, collie-type dog. With difficulty, I shooed off the dog, which made its owner unhappy. I found myself in a car with a driver and two people behind me. I did not recognize any of them from school and felt vaguely menaced by them. A man behind noticed my discomfort and said something to reassure me that wasn’t reassuring. All the while I was wondering if I would ever see the people I really wanted to, one in particular.

7 December 2007 My apartment, not this one, was dark and oddly free of clutter. I filled the sink to the top with water and detergent, then talked to S. A. online. He mentioned water, which made me think I should check on the water in the sink. It was still there, but there were enough puddles on the drain board, counter, and floor to make me think that there must be a leak. I couldn’t find any cause, but the more water I wiped up with paper towels, the more water I found. Finally I looked up and saw water marks on the ceiling and wall behind the sink. I debated with myself what I needed to do first—go to the bathroom or call the manager. Mixed up with this were memories and feelings associated with the tiled entry area of the old Loblaws in the old South Shore Plaza in Hamburg, New York, where we used to run into friends while grocery shopping. I tried to remember what it looked like and to recapture how it made me feel; in some intangible way, the lighting, the tiles, and the gum ball machines, combined with my impressionable age, made it a special area. Then I found myself outside on a street watching electronic billboards with the stock prices of Loblaws and other grocery chains. I looked for Tops and Super Duper, too. My dreams are becoming a little too closely and obviously derived from part of what is on my mind these days.

13 December 2007 My friend and I had to get to the car and came to a tangled embankment that we had to climb. The harder we tried to climb it, the more tangled and difficult it became. A little girl came toward us along the top of this embankment. She was confident in her movements, but I could see that the board she was reaching for was broken so I held my hand out to steady or catch her. Instead, my gesture made her slip and fall precipitously to her death. I could not get over my guilt, although nothing seemed to happen as a result. I found myself in a strangely crowded street or neighborhood of workshops. I’ve forgotten many of the details of what happened, but I learned that my brother was selling the actual visas and passports of real people, and everyone here accepted this as a normal venture. With the certainty of righteous anger, I stood up and yelled, “You can’t traffic in citizenships!” Some of the presidential candidates were in the area, and I appealed to them. Confused, they scoffed. It occurred to me that all this was fictional, or should be. I looked around the area, which was compact, crowded, and surreal in aspect. I thought, “This is California, but where are the vineyards?” The names “Danville” and “Danby” occurred to me, but they seemed too mundane and American for the setting and for the kind of story that I thought I had to tell.

14 December 2007

I was visiting a friend. D. W., whose childhood home was now nothing like I remember. It was fantastic in every way. I walked into a room that was like a bridge at just above water level over a beautiful stream overhung by lush trees and vegetation. For a long time, I basked in the beauty and the feeling the perspective gave me, and wondered at how anyone could live so nonchalantly in such a house without being mesmerized by this fantastic sylvan view and the feelings it evoked. I found myself in the living room, which the stream bisected. While indoors, you could walk in the stream, or soak your feet in it, or just admire it. It was so lovely that I could not stop telling D. W. how moved I was by where she lived. Prosaic soul that she is, she was both bewildered and bemused by my emotional response to something she experienced as an ordinary, everyday part of life. She asked me when I had become so blubbery over such unimportant things, as though I had changed. I told her that when I had gone to college I had spent most of my time and money taking photographs, even skipping classes to do so. [Not in reality.] She gave me a pitying look even as I looked longingly at the stream wending its way through the living room and under the room I had been in earlier. It lapped around the house, which did make me nervous. At this point, I had to go to the bathroom, so I started to look for one. The house was enormous, although it had a cozy feel, and I came to an odd wing with open bathrooms at several points—open, with no doors. Somehow I knew that this was where her brothers lived, so I was reluctant to use any of them and expose myself more than I already had. They and their friends found me and asked about a sweater I was wearing that looked similar to one of their mother’s. I took it off and looked at the tag; it was from a different store than hers. Suddenly, I was someone from work, who said he was expecting a visit from a former employee who had been terminated. I liked the former employee and said so, although later I realized that this would make me look bad in the same way as my emotion about the house on water did.

21 December 2007 I was on a bus that fleeing a city on fire. The bus itself seemed to be on fire, with sparks flying out from underneath. I kept trying to get the driver to stop because I thought that the bus would set fire to the surrounding countryside. The sparks seemed to diminish as we progressed—but where were we going? And who were we? At last we arrived at a destination somewhere, and I handed someone a cup or tin that was on fire to set in water, someone we all thought trustworthy. At the very last moment, I caught him trying to set it down on a flammable wooden table and snatched it from him, barely in time. We found that one of our friends, a woman, had no head. Someone who seemed to be a leader said that, to get it back, she must pilot a certain craft whose engine had never been started. Until this craft was ready, we had to guard it very carefully against use. Meanwhile, there was something disturbing about the headless woman beyond the obvious. Finally, it was the night before the craft’s maiden voyage. We were stressed and strained from the close watch we’d kept on it for so long. In the wee hours, though, there was a commotion where the craft was housed, and, to our horror, we thought we heard the engine starting—condemning the woman to an existence bereft of her head. We flew to

the craft—and found the woman herself trying to steal it. We learned we had been deceived by what seemed to be pure evil.

13 January 2008 Lately I’ve been remembering only snippets or ideas from dreams rather than details. In one last week, I was shocked to learn that my brother is James Bond, but I couldn’t ask him because it didn’t seem natural to ask a spy if he’s a spay and because in the back of my mind I thought I was James Bond. He also seemed more like a stranger to me than my brother, although I would experience moments of familiarity.

In another dream, I was a passenger on a bus where odd things were happening and which seemed to go nowhere even as it traveled. Although it was a tour bus, it would stop regularly at bus stop signs like any municipal bus. I wondered why I was in it. Sunday I was the leader or part of a team delivering lawn furniture and ornaments to a family. Their house was familiar to me; I had been in it before, I recalled, and it was not what it appeared to be, but was a place of space and time shifts. Our lawn furniture and ornaments were not what they appeared to be, either, and one of us, perhaps me, apologized to the man of the house for the lateness of their delivery and tried to convince him of their normalcy by selling him on their superiority. “Look,” we told him, “You wouldn’t expect something like this to reflect and shine [this seemed to be an important property], but it’s made of a special material that has the reflective qualities of metal.” They looked to me for proof, and I searched frantically for a flat reflective surface among the pieces in my load. There was a crescent of one on some kind of tray or ornament with a Christmas theme. I became fascinated and never learned if any of this fooled the man, or what the stuff really was or why we needed him to accept it. It seems I dreamed a week of intrigue and subterfuge.

15 January 2008 There was an unsolvable water problem with my apartment, so the manager and I agreed that I should move out. I woke up one morning in a strange place, with trees and shrubs hiding buildings across the street. My new apartment seemed odd in some indefinable way. I ran outside in my nightshirt in my excitement because I was at street level. As I reached the end of the drive, I remembered that I did not have the keys with me. I thought I would be outside in my nightshirt for a long time, but a group of elderly people appeared and tried clumsily to open the outer door. I yelled for them to wait for me and to let me into the building, but I don’t know how I got into the apartment. Suddenly, it hit me that I had left behind my view of the lake, and I began to agonize over whether it really had been necessary. I kept looking around at this interesting and somehow magical place, and at the street view, and wondering if I had made the right choice. In my heart, I felt I had made a mistake of a lifetime. Out of the blue, a friend called to explain a situation. I was wary, but he wanted to come over. Somehow he managed to, and we found ourselves in what looked like a dark school hallway. Nothing made sense to me—the place, his presence, what he was saying, why he was saying it. I was more confused and frustrated than happy.

18 January 2008

At a high school reunion event, I was shocked to see TB and TW talking together at a table in the pub. I had been thinking about going to the bathroom and leaving, so I put on my green nightshirt without thinking, stopped nonchalantly at their table, and made some pleasantry about it being good to see them and where were they these days? I spoke in a careless tone as though I didn’t want to know, really. To my horror, the second man was no longer TW, but a stranger in red. TB told me that he was living in North Carolina. I tried to think why but didn’t ask.

I needed to go to the bathroom desperately, but couldn’t fit through the small squared crawl space to it. I didn’t remember it being like that; I would not have gone to a place where I could not get into the bathroom. I crawled through another space to my room, where I found one end of it was shared with a man I knew but whose name I could not recall. I was embarrassed to be seen in my nightshirt, which I noticed I had put on, but brazened it out and went to his end to speak to him. He seemed surprisingly receptive to conversation, which I found disturbing. I retreated to my part of the room, and he soon followed and sat next to me. [Unrelated personal bit snipped—dream changed direction abruptly.]

24 January 2008: The surreal move The house I was in, made of brick and as large as The Flamingo, was about to be moved to a spot a mile or two away, although I was under the impression it would be very different. I never left the room I was in, but as time passed I puzzled and wondered how such a large house could fit onto a truck and be moved in one piece. Every now and then I would sense that it was about to topple over or crumble from the stress of the movement, or be knocked down by a bridge or in an accident. The journey seemed to take hours, which bothered me quite a bit because of the distance. I fretted about the stability of the structure, the time it was taking, and an appointment I was committed to keeping and was close to missing. I felt that I wanted to miss it. I remained oddly passive, awaiting the building’s fate and my own, which never seemed to come but which hung out there like a poisoned carrot on a stick.

27 January 2008: Labyrinthine locker room and reunion This time I was at a college reunion. I think this began in an underground locker room, where I was looking for a swimming pool and a bathroom. It was deserted, probably closed, and some of the passageways were very tight. Part of me wanted help, but part of me did not want to be caught. The place was eerie in an apocalyptic way, quiet with small noises, dark, cavernous but close. I was alone as one can be, even though at one point I think a former gym teacher offered to point me in the right direction. I found myself in a large, dark wood room, probably a banquet hall. It seemed to be a reunion of my college class from the University of Chicago, yet I recognized nearly everyone around me as a member of my Frontier Central High School graduating class. There was one girl in particular, Paula, who I have not thought of in 29 years. I looked around and saw more and more people I’d known from high school, even though I have proven bad at remembering and recognizing them in real life. They were neither friendly

nor hostile toward me, including Paula. I said to her, “How strange. I went to a university that I thought no one else would go to. I didn’t see any of you during the entire four years, yet here you all are.” I asked one boy, name unknown now, what he had majored in at the University of Chicago, and he said, “Aerospace.” The answer threw me off, so I asked, “The engineering side?” He gave me a distant look and a vague answer. Aerospace didn’t sound right. I became confused by all of these improbabilities and think I may have wormed my way through narrow passageways back to the underground locker room. It was less disconcerting.

28 January 2008: Dangerous feelings I was in a workplace that I didn’t recognize and was called into a room with coworkers I didn’t know for a preview of training we had signed up for. We were told to assess our personalities by writing down words that describe ourselves. I found this to be very difficult, but eventually came up with four or five words; I think one of them was “feeling,” which I thought was cheating because of Myers-Briggs and INFP. I kept looking for J. C. from work because I thought she would know about and could explain this exercise, which made no sense to me—picking a few descriptors subjectively isn’t a personality assessment, and I was under the impression that it wouldn’t go much beyond that. When we had come in, we had been assigned to seats, and now it was announced that there would be assigned seating for lunch for perpetuity. J. C. may have arrived by then, but even her calming influence couldn’t keep me from becoming hysterical. I couldn’t believe what was happening and that I was to be forced to spend every lunch hour with the same person or people every day. It seemed unbearably cruel, and I was torn between anger and despair. A group of us was taken somewhere to tour the grounds. I noticed that what appeared to be a spotlight in the ground was tracking our movements and opening up as if preparing to fire. I pointed this out to the group, and a young man told me to take most of the group to higher ground. Something happened, although it wasn’t quite an explosion, and when I looked back and down, it appeared that the earth had fallen in, but the fate of the young man and those who had stayed to help him was unclear under the settling dust. Then we were inside, and I was on upper floor looking down into a laboratory. A girl stood on the other side of a window, laughing and apparently waiting for the group to move on. I noticed something in the lab turning toward her, and before I could do or say anything, it had attacked. She was gone, leaving behind a white harness. Someone explained that she had gotten too close to the window and that a security system in the lab had detected the harness, which was a tracking device. Everyone found that they were wearing one. This story seemed too pat for me—why endanger people without warning?—and I saw the enforced lunch seating in an even more sinister light. No one else seemed perturbed by these incidents, but I could feel danger everywhere like a tangible presence. Perhaps that is what I had meant by “feeling.”

2 February 2008: Transparent pregnancy

I had gotten it into my head that I wanted to make love with man I knew who seemed willing but reluctant and sad. There was something odd about him, but I could not figure it out or why I was so driven. He warned me again that I would regret it but would not be more specific. The next thing I remember seeing is what appeared to be transparent film with a pucker in it, which, to my horror, I realized must be the mark of where his penis had been before being pulled out by the root. The film was all that was left of him. As for me, I was encased in transparent film. I knew now what he had tried to warn me about—this was pregnancy for his species, for which he must die. And I was trapped.

5 February 2008: The demon lover I’m not sure where I was; it may have been a small, quiet social gathering. There was some odd business about throwing a bottle or glass of wine into the air. If it landed one way, one thing would happen or be true; if it landed the other way, another thing would happen or be true. I didn’t understand the two ways a bottle or glass could land. I struggled with the how and why of this decision-making technique and didn’t know what was being decided. What was going on? I found myself in a dark, cave-like setting, lying under a man I sensed to be a vampire or a demon. I could see observers and felt rather than heard them ask me to make a choice between staying with the vampire-demon and coming with them. I was reluctant to go, but horrified that I might have sold my soul to dark powers. I said something wonderfully poetic to them that amazed me with its beauty and poignancy. I think I chose to stay. It was such a real and powerful feeling that I knew even in my sleep that I didn’t want to write about it when I woke up. My fear of those dark powers was that great. I was at a concert on Hilton Head Island, where the entire audience was covered by a sheet of white plastic so that they couldn’t see anything. This was intentional. The featured performer was Ricky Skaggs, whose name I know and whose face and music I don’t. I stuck my head out from under the plastic to sneak a look and saw that he was in white face, almost like a clown. The longer I looked, the more he resembled a clown. Perhaps that was the reason for the plastic cover—to protect his image or the audience from it. Meanwhile, I was still disturbed by thoughts of and desire for the vampire-demon. I overslept, hoping to see the demon lover again.

8 February 2008: The eerie banquet hall Note to self: Stop dreaming about banquet halls. They’re boring. I was in a large banquet hall, but it was neither full nor noisy. My chair was at the front, on the floor, facing the audience, so I did not think I was quite an honored guest. I didn’t know who I was, why I was there, or what my role was to be. I left to look for the bathroom, which had colored terrycloth towels. When I came out, a white towel was draped over my arm, like a waiter’s napkin. Somehow, this was supposed to be part of some comedic business, almost as though my playing a waiter would be funny in itself, given who I was. Although the room wasn’t empty, I don’t think I saw or heard anyone. The sensation was eerie. There was more, but I may have blocked it.

9 February 2008: Subterranean house maze danger

I was at a trade association meeting, which was being held in an old manor house (not a banquet hall). I spotted a woman from my high school graduating class who had visited my classmates.com page recently, although we had not known each other then. I tried to be friendly with her, probably because I didn’t know anyone else, but either she didn’t recognize me or she pretended not to know me. Distraught, I wandered off and through twists, turns, doors, and stairways that I later couldn’t remember, I found myself in the decaying bowels of the old house. At one point I was looking at where part of the house seemed to be rotting into an earthen bank, and something—dirt? a piece of the house? a rat or other animal?—fell away and downward. I was startled and frightened and very alone. No matter what I did, I seemed to go deeper and deeper and to get more and more lost. It occurred to me that something dangerous was hidden here. Several times I found steps or stairs, but it would not be clear whether they were going up or down, and down seemed to be fatal. Somehow, I came to a brighter, less decayed part of this subterranean world and heard voices and machines. I envisioned, and even may have seen evidence of, an underground war plant. By now I knew I would be in danger if I were found. Finally, I came to a place that looked like a dusty cellar or basement, with food and clothes in storage, where I was discovered, although I couldn’t see by whom. “Oh, I was looking for the coat room,” I said sheepishly and genuinely enough, and they seemed to believe me and took me back to the meeting. They did not seem to realize I had been underground and seen much, much more. There was a sexual element involved at this point, but I’m not going to go into that.

10 February 2008: Dad and the snow glass Before we knew quite what was happening and could stop him, my elderly father had climbed up onto a chair to get something out of a kitchen cabinet. The chair tipped over, but all that fell was a clear glass or stein, decorated with predominantly blue winter scenes and three dimensional snow like some of glass ornaments at the Christkindlmarket. We had never seen it before, but miraculously it seemed to be intact. Where was Dad? I noticed then that the stein had broken into three unevenly sized pieces whose edges were polished instead of having the cloudy look of broken glass edges. I was nearly hysterical because I was afraid for Dad and somehow knew that he was part of the glass. We could restore him if only we knew how. I appealed to Virgil, but couldn’t tell if he understood me. I went outside into the snowy night to find help, perhaps from the skies or wind or trees.

11 February 2008: The meeting of the mountains I was looking at a cliff of shelf-like rocks, each of which was named after a mountain, for example, Mount Sinai. I tried to understand what I was seeing because it made no sense. I knew but did not believe that all the mountains of at least the Middle East connected here somehow. It should have been enlightening and the answer to a lot of questions, but it was strange and disturbing. I found myself in school, headed toward what looked like a botanical garden display of plants and trees in a natural setting, not at all orderly. The teacher was telling us to have lunch, then, with the rest of a smaller group, to talk or write about the calming beauty of

this display. She pointed out a half dozen tiny trees behind us that some children had planted, and someone noted that one of them was a straggly dandelion towering over the rest. There did not seem to be enough time for lunch and the assignment, despite the nature of it, and I did not know who my group was. I walked off with a girl I knew. When I turned around, I saw P. H., a quiet friend from grammar school. I beckoned to her, and she caught up. I introduced her as P. H., but suddenly I could remember the first girl’s first name only (and can’t remember even that now). I don’t know why I introduce them; they knew each other. They seemed to be mutually jealous or suspicious, and suddenly I felt that I was missing something and had done something wrong. Between the lack of time and the tension, what should have been an easy, pleasurable assignment had become stressful.

12 February 2008: Sickening anguish I don’t feel well today, and I meant to get over it this morning and to be at work by noon. I couldn’t, as it turns out, and so I am home for the day. Dreaming was not therapeutic. I was at home with my dad, and family and friends. The place and the people were not from my memory, but I loved them as though they were real. There was a tiny room, perhaps mine, with peeling paint and plaster. I tried to find where the water was coming from, but it eluded me. It was unreal. I was overcome by a terrible, wrenching anguish that worsened with time, and I could not stop crying. I needed comfort, and there was none. My father in the dream mocked me, insulted me, treated me with contempt, and finally ignored me as though I were not there. So did everyone else. My anguish only deepened, and with it their contempt for me. I was no longer human, and there was no end in sight. When I finally woke up out of this nightmare, I could not face another one. Yet this is not much better.

17 February, 2008: Danger from the robot siblings Virgil and I were at a carnival and volunteered for an act. We were placed inside a structure like a water tower. It was strange because we did nothing, and no one could see us. Suddenly there was a light and a mechanical voice calling, “Clear!” When the excitement was over, Virgil had disappeared, and the panel to the outside wouldn’t open. I understood that something was about to happen in the tower that was dangerous or life threatening. I saw a woman at some controls and knew her to be a robot. I asked her what was going to happen. “The chamber is about to be flooded with [unrecognizable chemical-sounding name beginning with a ‘t’],” she said. I asked if it were harmful, and she answered, “It will burn your lungs and sting your eyes, but it will not kill you. Do not breathe it.” “How long will it last?” “Several minutes.” “But I cannot not breathe for several minutes.” She shrugged subtly and left as she had entered—mysteriously.

I banged the door with my fists, but this only hurt my hands and made little noise, and there was no answer. I took off a walking show and slammed it against the door repeatedly. It made a little more noise, but no one came, and although I had a sickening sense that the robot woman had lied about the gas, I realized that all I could do was to see what happened. I don’t remember the gas, except that I took her advice and breathed as little in as possible. It burned and stung a little, but not remarkably. The robot woman returned finally and this time let me out. I had a flash of insight that I had been punished for being too slow to grasp the meaning of the “Clear!” warning and how to act upon it. It also flashed on me that the robot woman hated me, so I asked her point blank. As she fiddled with the controls, she said, “I liked you well enough at first.” I continued to look at her questioningly. “The more you talked and the more you worried, the less I liked you,” she said both coldly and passionately. I tried to recall the conversation and what had turned her to hatred, but couldn’t remember meeting her. I senses that she hated my emotions and my honesty about them. I got out and saw her talking to her robot brother. I couldn’t hear their words, but I could hear in my mind the one important thought that I needed to act on. “She seems to be all right; wait until next week’s newspaper comes out with the photo of her with Clark Kent.” But I was not Lois Lane, and I knew of no such sexually incriminating photo. I knew, however, that they could produce one if they wished, and that the public would accept a fake as real even knowing the ease with which it can be done. I didn’t know what to do. I noticed that when I breathed hard (with the emotional excitement), a fog came out of my mouth and enveloped people and things in its path in what seemed to be a harmless cloud. I experimented to make sure that it was really my actions and not coincidence. I confirmed that I was the cause. I had a creepy sensation that the robot siblings were watching my every move and would be able to hear my every word if I spoke. At the same time, I was certain that they did not know that I had “overheard” them and that I was producing the odd fogs and clouds. To test this, I followed the robot man discreetly and enveloped his head and sometimes his followers in a cloud. I sensed his conviction that this was his own doing. Satisfied with my tests, I sought help about the newspaper threat from—Virgil? Clark Kent? (I didn’t know him.) Someone else? I don’t know; I thought I talked to someone, although I’m not sure how I evaded the knowing eyes and ears of the robot siblings (perhaps the clouds I produced hid us?). I do not know if the fabricated photo was published. Most important to me, I do not know why they hated me and my honest emotions so.

23 February 2008: Torso terror I lifted the covering of an object on my dressing table and found a replica of the upper half of my torso. I tried to remember where it had come from. I recalled that I had common gadget that would duplicate simple objects and that one day I had pointed it at myself. It had created this duplicate, which I had put aside to deal with later and somehow had forgotten. As I looked at it again, it frightened me. It was perfect in every way—it looked like human flesh (I couldn’t bring myself to touch it), and I could see blue veins under the surface of the skin, which had a healthy,

living glow. Worse, the half torso was solid; I knew that if I touched it, I would feel warmth and bones and would sense the organs underneath. In the back of my mind I knew that this was incredible discovery—the ability to replicate entire body parts with a simple gadget, and that I should try to duplicate the effort. If I succeeded, I should announce the result to the world, or find a scientific team with which to work to explain it. But all I felt was horror and fear and the need to get rid of the half torso—my half torso—as quickly as possible. If I duplicated what had happened, I thought only that I would have two horrid half torsos to eliminate. If I failed, I would wonder how it had really come about, which was another dreadful thought. I re-wrapped it and considered my options, a thought process hampered by my horror and terror. I couldn’t throw the half torso into a park district trash bin; someone would find it, it would be traced back to me, and I would be suspected of murder. I knew that no one would believe the only explanation I had—even I wasn’t sure that I did. I thought of burning it, but I couldn’t do that unless I put it into a bag along with charcoals in a way and in a place that looked like I was having a barbecue. For some reason, I thought even this would look suspicious, and I also wondered about the smell of burning flesh and the possibility that human remains still could be found in the ashes, even if only charred bits of bone. I was still pondering the problem, which seemed impossible, when I woke up. I realized then the illogic of a partial torso, which I also now knew to have been half or two- thirds size—how were the ends sealed off? How did the organs function, if they did? What kept it alive? Was it alive? Now I also wonder if my fear was really of being caught, exposed, and punished, or if it was of destroying something that had been part of my being.

6 March 2008: The asylum I was a young inmate in an asylum, trying to get out. My escape depended on two creatures: a felt-covered bird and a felt-covered frog of the type that was sold as decorations or ornaments in the 1960s. I did not know how to use them, and when I found the frog on a desk I let it kiss the bird, which it devoured. Somehow I was given another chance, this time with a frog, bird, and insect. My gut feeling was that the three animals were parts of a key, but my experience had shown that when they kissed (which I thought necessary), one would eat the other. I figured out that the frog would eat either the bird or the insect, the bird would eat the insect, the insect would eat neither, and in the back of my mind I wondered why the bird couldn’t eat the frog. In the dream, the object seemed to be to keep all the animals “alive” or whole while getting them to interact, but when I woke up I realized that perhaps the devouring was part of the plan. Before I awoke, the dream changed perspective. There was no longer a “me,” but there were three girls: one older, one younger, and one perhaps in between in age who had just arrived at the asylum. Despite the massive size of the building, the individual cells were tiny for no clear reason. The young girl was lying in bed reading, the oldest one may have been standing and eating, and the new arrival was speaking of her disdain for their comforts, books, food,

and chocolate. The two girls hastened to assure her that these things, small comforts for people under normal circumstances, would assume new importance to her in her new life after she had settled in. She was adamant that they would not. The young girl, who was looking at a magazine, suddenly felt a doubt about her position. She could not remember what she had just read; when she re-read it, she realized that it was not worth remembering. The older girl seemed to experience a similar doubt about her own stand. Perhaps they were wrong after all.

12 March 2008: Headed nowhere, with threats and warnings It seems that I had rented a car, and co-worker, someone I knew in the dream but not in life, got in and offered to drive. I had mixed feelings about this. Another man appeared, although not literally. That is, I sensed his presence and could hear him but could not see him. He had figured out my secret and was teasing me, threatening to make it visible on the screen of a notebook computer. I could see the lid moving back incrementally the more he got into it. He was tormenting me, but he was intrigued as well. I was bemused, annoyed, and only mildly interested in him. The driver turned a corner on what I thought was the University of Chicago campus, although nothing was familiar, and there was little to see. His turn was far too wide, and the car leaped half onto nowhere’s sidewalk. This appeared to be a problem because we were approaching the end of the sidewalk and the beginning of a raised edge. A policeman gave the driver a ticket, I thought, but it proved to be only a warning. I wondered how a ticket would work since the rental car was in my name. We turned down a country road with many strange obstacles. I worried about the driver, the warning, and the invisible man and his continued threat to expose me. Never did I wonder where we were going or why.

15 March 2008: The virgin spy It’s best not to go into details, but this morning’s dream was about spies, mountain passes, and shape shifting. At one point, I was both a young virgin and the older man who was fighting his desire for her (me). To save myself, I had to play the accordion, which I was sure was one of my talents. I could not make it work, perhaps because I was holding it with the keys top and bottom rather than side to side. I could not right it, either. In the middle of all this, I had a moment that was both intensely sexual and intensely terrifying, and although I was panting and struggling to breathe I could not wake up.

23 March 2008: The spiral staircase I was at an event or party and was trying to get to a particular part of it, but the only way down was by an impossibly narrow spiral staircase, not even wide enough for two feet at a time. The man stationed next to it told me, “You could do it, but it will be difficult and even dangerous.” I went home to find the mailbox knocked over, which shocked me, and papers scattered all over the grass. Some were mine, while some were related to my mother’s health care. I returned to tell her what I had found and that I had collected everything and put it into its proper place.

When I came home again, I found my Bible opened, pages down, in the yard. This frightened me because it meant someone had been inside this time. It bothered me that they had singled out the Bible my mother had given me. As I retrieved it, I looked around, expecting to see woods but then remembering (from a dream long ago) that everything had been replaced by houses. There were one or two large trees remaining, and I tried to recognize one of them as the one directly behind the yard, in the middle of a thicket that had always seemed mysterious to me. This tree, though, was too far over to have been the one.

25 March 2008: Sensitive plants, broken glasses, and nude nurses It was night, and I turned a corner in a room like the café at work and ran hard into a man who was at a counter. Instead of saying anything, I lightly touched one of the fruiting stalks arranged in a nearby vase, and several of them wilted. Then I noticed that my glasses looked odd; there were plastic flaps that made no sense and extra temples. I went back to the counter area and found the frames, which confused me because what had the flaps and temples been attached to? I noticed then that the glass (not plastic) lenses had broken into impossibly thick pieces. More and more confused, I didn’t know how to explain myself to the man who was still at the counter. I could assume only that I had broken the glasses and somehow torn off the frames when I ran into him. Curious about its reaction, I touched the stalks again, and more of them wilted. I had a sense that they might recover but couldn’t understand why a touch bothered them so. Observing me, the man said to the stalks, “It began on your wedding night, when Opal wouldn’t leave you alone.” I saw nurses preparing a lavish room or rooms for a patient. One of them, perhaps me, was taking photos and video of the preparations. Some of the nurses were nude, and while the film and video never captured this directly it would show in mirrors when the nude nurse passed in front of them. I was at a loss as to what to do to prevent this, but had to keep taking the photos and video.

27 March 2008: Batgirl I was in a room full of silent, hostile men, but I never found out what was wrong. Like them, I had to wear a costume, so I found myself dressed as a giant velvet bat. Despairing at the futility and stupidity of it all, I put my head down on the edge of a sofa or bed and wept uncontrollably. I could not stop myself, but none of them was moved. They would refer to each other and to me only by last name, even the man who came in for a drink. I had never felt so dehumanized and so hopeless.

31 March 2008: Cabin fever Alone in a cabin in the woods at night, I had a sixth sense that I was in danger. I checked out the cabin’s layout. It had a wraparound deck, which made it easier to break into, but even worse—there were no real locks, simply tabs that could be opened from the outside with a little effort. They were so rudimentary that I realized that anyone could get in. As if to prove my point, a man opened the door as easily as if it had not been locked and came in with his family. They were not the danger, but it occurred to me that they

could have brought it with them. As I was mulling what to do and the family was chattering away, one of the children said to me, “Why aren’t you wearing your hearing aid?” while pointing to it. I did not know that I had one, and I started to feel like a stranger to myself. I looked out into the darkness, apprehensively. When I sat down again, I saw a snake enter, and I warned the family. I didn’t know if it were venomous, so I tried to describe its markings; the brown, green, and red colors were patchy and without a pattern. The snake seemed preternaturally intelligent, coming straight for me with purpose. Then I saw that it could not be a snake, because now it had fur, four legs, and ears; now it looked more like a long, thin fox. I was becoming frightened because I had expected the danger to be human. When I looked again, the snake-fox was indeed human and was claiming to be checking up on me. I didn’t believe him.

1 April 2008: Lawn bowling for monster-gods I was with a man and a child and being threatened by a monster-god who was electrical in nature. He seemed to suspect our presence, but for some reason I didn’t understand he couldn’t see us. We knew we were in terrible danger and that the only way to avoid the monster-god’s notice was to roll a ball between us so that it would not lose contact with the ground while rolling but would hit one or the other of us (not the child) at the end of each roll. At the same time, any kind of movement might attract his attention. All of this frightened me because the condition not to be seen—rolling the ball—included the condition to be seen—movement. It was a dilemma. I faced the monster-god, which made the situation more horrible for me because I could see his reactions, if any. I would have to communicate them to the man somehow. The man raised his arms, at which the monster-god raised his. I trembled in fear. The ball never rolled; it bounced, and the monster-god seemed to follow its erratic up-and- down movement. It never went straight; it veered off in different directions, which the monster-god seemed to notice. The more I saw of this, the more I was convinced that I was being toyed with and that I was doomed. I feared the man and child, too.

3 April 2008: Duel I was in an auditorium, where two people from IT announced that they were going to talk about the Web site. They gestured to me to join them, but I was unprepared. Had I known about this presentation? Had I forgotten something so out of the scope of my day- to-day drudgery? I stood, but remained off to the side so no one would notice me and the IT people would forget me. To my surprise, they called upon audience members to come forward and play a game. They showed video of passing scenery shot from an aerial perspective; the object was to guess the location of the destination before the video arrived at it. A young man was the first to be called. His video began in what like a tiny country village with a prominent, almost medieval church. I thought that it might be France; the destination might be somewhere like Arles. The young man was no more successful than I in his guesses. Suddenly, the aerial journey ended at an urban island that everyone guessed to be Staten Island. It was too large, I thought, and I was sure it must be Long Island even though I was puzzled by the skyscrapers.

The young man tagged me to play next (so much for my inconspicuousness), but the IT people said that I wasn’t part of the audience. I don’t know what happened next—perhaps I failed at something—because I was told I had to duel someone, using real weapons. I was given a long pole with a semicircular blade. This seemed too easy, and I wondered what the catch was going to be. For a long time I did not see my opponent or know what his weapons were, but he proved to be a large, bald man with brass stars and other throwing weapons. I did not want to hurt him, so I poked him gently with the blade. It made no impression on him. I wondered with suspicion if the blade magically softened or deteriorated at the edge with each blow, which would have been a nasty trick. I became more cautious. In the meantime, the man threw his stars—but not at me. They never seemed to strike the intended targets, who were people I know and like. Finally, he walked toward me (I was frozen in terror, I’m sure), then veered toward a young man. He used the edge of a star on the young man’s face and neck. Paralyzed and horrified, I was powerless to stop him. I thought he was going to slit the man’s throat, but he made a line in the skin that barely bled. I did not know what to think or do, and I felt guilty.

6 April 2008: Ruined I was in the front row of a classroom, waiting for the professor. When he arrived, he made an announcement. I could not understand what he said, but the students behind me seemed to think he wanted them to introduce themselves. When they started to, he thundered at them, “What are you doing?” I became upset because to me it appeared that he had misled them or that he was overreacting. I remembered that I have a degree and wondered why I was there. I looked on a schedule and found that I was enrolled in two full years of classes and that the first course was on “Potato.” All of this was clearly a waste of time and money, and I dreaded canceling my classes, telling my parents, and packing and moving home again. Had I not been through this before. I went to my room, which was like a warehouse. A stream of water was pouring from the ceiling. In a panic, I went to someone—perhaps my mother?—and told her about the water and that something must be done right away. She looked at me angrily and said, “It’s all much worse than you realize. It’s more than you. Take a look around.” I did, and now there was water pouring down in this room, another warehouse. It was bare, and all the ceiling tiles were missing. I returned to my room; I had a hunch I would find the same conditions there. It felt a little like an apocalypse or that we were traveling backward in time, and the condition of the building reflected a regression from the contemporary to the more primitive. I could see that my life was ruined and felt the waves of despair begin. Again.

8 April 2008: House fires I was returning with someone to an enormous brick manor house, which we saw was on fire. The fire, with flames leaping out of windows and into the sky, was somehow put out quite easily, and I walked around the house to survey the damage. There was no damage. There were no scorch or water marks, no burnt timbers, no structural damage of any kind. Even more interesting, the rooms, including mine, were bare. I loved this place and became afraid for it.

We would leave and return, each time to find the house on fire. It was always empty, and there was never any damage. The fire was always extinguished mysteriously and quickly. Something must be causing these fires, I reasoned, perhaps an electrical problem. Some people volunteered to stay at the house to keep watch over it. Although they lived in it, too, I became suspicious of them. I got into the car, cramming myself into the corner to make room for the many others I thought were coming. “We’re going to pick up your cousin, J.,” the driver, a registered nurse I work with, said. “That’s it.” I heard and understood her but did not believe her. I did not want to leave, and looked back fearfully at my beloved, empty house.

16 April 2008: The treetop road With other people, I was searching the house of a dangerous man when we heard him return. The others escaped, but I had an idea that I could stay behind and observe him without his awareness. I sat in a chair, sure that I would be unobserved. He saw me the moment he walked in—and behaved as though it were normal for me to be there. I did not know what to do; I did not know his name. I began to try to catch a cat that I had seen, an activity that he seemed to find unexceptional. I began to wonder who I was to him. Several times I climbed a ladder that ended in an upside-down V nailed to a rafter and commented that it seemed difficult and rickety, possibly to hide my inability to get off the ladder onto the rafter. The upside-down V was beyond my physical ability to master. Now I was outside in what I thought to be my old backyard at home, with a single old tree in it. The actual yard had had no trees, but I wondered what had happened to the rest of them as if it had. My dad came along and offered to drive me. We did not follow a surface road, but a miniature one made of wood that wound through the treetops. It seemed narrower than the wheel base of our van, which made me nervous. At one point, it rose at a 90-degree angle, so that it was like driving up a dry waterfall from the base. At another point, the road split off into an upper and a lower branch. The latter was low and close, but we took it anyway. My dad executed all these moves adroitly, but I was petrified from fear. There was a house near the exit of the estate, and a crane was swinging another one into place across from it. I took these to be the homes of relatives and did not know why they should clutter our pristine grounds. Dad and I were riding a train between the cars, but it did not appear to be especially dangerous. It may have been a city or commuter train. It wasn’t safe, however, and I knew the journey was to be a long one, so I moved inside to find a place. The authorities captured my dad and as I was trying to say they had to be gentle with him because of his advanced age, I saw them shove him a bit, then debate that they should not be rough with him because of his age. I do not know our destination.

17 April 2008: My mountain, my story I was in a mountainous region such as Alaska. The snow had melted and left behind sedimentary rock, laid out in smooth, even layers of varying shades of brown, like stripes. I

came in to tell a group (church, perhaps), but went out again with a vague idea that I could not ascend to the top (although the side was sheer) or find fossils of the ancient seas. I walked into a college classroom, where everyone was excited because one of my stories had been published in a magazine. When we leafed through it repeatedly, none of us could find it. I did spot a recipe with my name, but did not recognize it. Then I saw the name “Diane” with a different last name; after some puzzlement, I figured out that she was the artist behind the full-page illustration. My name and story were on the right-hand page. I didn’t know the story, nor did I read it. The magazine appeared to have a gardening/housekeeping theme. I was starting to wonder what the class was about and why I was in it. Again I had the sensation of, “Haven’t I had enough of this type of education?” At home, which looked more like a large chemistry lab, I was getting ready to demonstrate something to a group that had not yet arrived, but water was coming out of various parts of the faucet. I called a maintenance man, who wasn’t busy and also wasn’t concerned about the waste of so much water. “I’ll get to it, maybe tomorrow, maybe, if there’s not a gas leak or anything like that,” he said. I could not understand his nonchalance. In the meantime, I was alone.

19 April 2008: The drive down Amsdell Road What a sad dream, and yet I didn’t believe any of it was actually happening. I was somewhere public, with people from the past, and was so despondent that I could not stop crying. The more I cried, the less anyone noticed me or my pain, which left me crying all the harder. I saw people getting ready for a big social event, including a boy I’d known in college. He was a quadriplegic now, but even years later he could not be bothered with me. Another boy I had known had come along in the back of a pickup truck. He scarcely knew me then or remembers me now, but in the dream I understood from him, without words or even looks, that I was to get in. Wordlessly, my high school girlfriends made him promise that he would return me in time for the big party. One of them began to fuss over me, dabbing my mouth, face, and even privates with perfume, because I supposedly had the date of my life for the party, but I knew better than to hope, and I drove her off. The truck ended up on Amsdell Road. The boy, facing me without looking at or even seeming to notice me, was singing in a bland, flat tone into something that resembled a WWII army field telephone. Briefly I wondered if it might be a portable karaoke machine. I didn’t recognize anything he sang and could not follow the words. Although he ignored me, I had a sense that he was waiting me out, that I was supposed to tell him why I was so heartbroken. I couldn’t, nor could I tell myself. I spotted a clump of trees along the left side of the road, a sight that made my heart hurt. On the right side someone was putting out copper goods so densely that the road had become almost too narrow to be passable. Ugliness was all around, and I cried again at the ruin of one of the few pretty roads that had been left. The boy continued to observe me without looking and to wait. I thought that maybe I should explain the perfume and the overzealous friends, and that I expected nothing like that. I didn’t. I wondered if he was ever going to bring me back. Even as he sang almost tunelessly and continued to ignore me, I almost didn’t want him to. I thought he might be taking me to a far better place, as ugly as the journey might seem.

26 April 2008: Zeus’s one-night stand Why do I keep going back to college? What is missing in my intellectual life that makes my sleeping brain feel deprived? Or is it a social life for which I yearn? I returned to an unfamiliar dormitory and found a long line of people on the stairs leading to the basement, waiting to get into a concert. I looked up; a dry-erase board announced: ZEUS—1, perhaps with some other cryptic notes. I knew this notation meant that he was alone (no other band members) and performing for one night only. I also knew “Zeus” was Sting from The Police, although at the moment I couldn’t think of the name “Sting.” I spotted two men in the building who looked familiar. One was unmistakable; he towered over everyone, and his hair was curly. In the dream the other man was familiar, but I could not think of who he might be. “Are you Gabe?” I said to the tall man, noting that he had not aged at all and wondering if I were in a time warp. He admitted that he was, and I asked him, not at all hopefully, if he recognized me. He didn’t. I was not surprised. I explained how I remembered him and about my repeated attempts to return to college, even after graduating. I asked him if he were attending classes. “No,” he said. “I’m here for a secret project that I can’t tell you about.” Instead of thinking he was there as a scientist, I concluded he must be a psychology researcher working in a dormitory and speculated why this would be secret. I also realized that there was a secret message in “I’ll Be Watching You” that had nothing to do with stalking, but I knew I could not articulate it. I may have tried. By now I wanted dinner, but the café workers had pulled a chair halfway across the entrance. I did not understand this obvious hint, so a testy middle-aged woman came over to tell me the café was closed and to pull the chair more firmly across the entrance. I thought, Already I am paying for meals I don’t eat. I am irresponsible. I thought of going somewhere else—the bookstore? another dorm?—but realized now that I was nude. No one earlier had noticed, or maybe I had become suddenly nude. I wanted to leave but to go outside across streets and lawns and through buildings without wearing a top seemed risky. I started to think about why I was there and the classes I still struggled with. I might never pass or perform to my satisfaction; I might never escape.

13 May 2008: Murder at the infirmary Together with a lot of other people, I was stacked in a pile at an infirmary to wait for an operation that I needed badly. The need was holding me there; I wasn’t sure I could move. A large woman got up stealthily, pulled out what appeared to be a penknife, and stabbed a man in the neck. There was no sound, but I was certain that he was dead. The woman came toward me on her way out, so I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep. My conscience, however, wasn’t happy, and, afraid as I was of her, I tripped or stopped her and woke everyone up with a modern hue and cry. She did not seem fazed. Without words, I understood that those people on her side were going to challenge those on mine. This puts the odds with me, I thought, because most people will choose right over such an obvious wrong. Yet nearly everyone in the infirmary gravitated to the murderess. The only person I remember clearly on my side was a co-worker from IT. I felt set up for failure and a growing sense of terror.

My co-worker stepped forward. He proved to be proficient at some martial art, although his blows somehow never connected. I wondered why the masses didn’t get rid of us offhand, or if they meant to drag out the agony one by one. I could see that my coworker was only exhausting himself and that we were being toyed with. Then I saw that some of the men were dressed as cowboys and were quietly trading guns. I thought, “Why don’t they just shoot us then?” I wondered, too, if the cowboys were secretly on the side of justice after all. The suspense continued.

15 May 2008: Hamster eyes I don’t know if this was one dream or several, or if I am placing the events in the correct order. I was with my parents at a diner when I noticed water lapping under the door. Even if the diner were on the shore, I sensed that we should leave immediately. I was frightened by what it seemed to mean. No one else reacted. My dad was driving a van, and I was sitting all the way in the back. I noticed that I could see lights ahead, but little of the road, and that my dad was driving on the left (wrong) side. Thinking that the lights were headlights, he had turned on the van’s headlights. I looked out the back window and saw the largest, blackest storm imaginable filling the sky. With a sense of apocalypse, I realized the lights weren’t headlights, but something more dreadful. I turned back to tell Dad to move to the correct side of the road, but his head had fallen back and was lolling helplessly. My mother was senseless, and I didn’t think I could crawl to the front of the van in time to apply the brakes. I was walking a hamster on a leash. A couple of boys admired it and said, “It would be a shame if it got away—you’d never get it back.” On cue, the hamster escaped, and I was distraught because a hamster wouldn’t have the intelligence to find its way home and would be just another rodent on the streets. It would run off and never look back. When I returned home, I saw an enormous cage located off one room. I wondered why I hadn’t used that space to keep a large, charismatic animal, like the horses I could see across the way. The cage was littered with things like aluminum recyclables. It didn’t seem to be a good home for a hamster. I filled a basin with water and suddenly felt a sense that the hamster was in it, under the water. I couldn’t feel anything, but when I emptied the basin the hamster was somehow on the bottom, lying on its stomach, all four feet splayed out, shivering. Its eyes were looking up at me reproachfully. Relieved, yet frightened that it could still die, I started stroking it dry and saying rhetorically, “Are you all right?” It looked at me sadly, huge eyes fixed on mine, and said, “I’m so cold and so tired.” I kept stroking it and praying that it wouldn’t die. I was sitting somewhere in Cincinnati when I felt movement, as though I were on a train. I looked down and found I was flying over the city with nothing supporting me that I could see. A little girl ran out in front of me; I was shocked to see nothing under her feet. She was running on air just as I was sitting on it, even as we flew forward. Around and underneath us, planes, balloons, and weird flying vehicles rolled over and seemed to taunt us. The mother told the little girl not to go too far, but she must have run off the invisible edge of the invisible flying train because she fell. I was horrified and thought irrationally that I should go after her, but I saw her land safely on a huge, colorful mattress below.

I got off when I saw a tram, like those at amusement parks and zoos. It was decorated with a jungle theme. I was about to get into the first care when a stern man in safari kit scowled at me from the second car. I understood that he was the driver and that all the trams, including his, were full (despite the empty first car). I worried about how I would get back and how the mother would find the little girl.

17 May 2008: Planes and trains These are bits from several dreams. I found out that our community in Maryland has a plane and had a vision, similar to one I’ve had before, of flying in sunshine over acres of green. I saw one of the flight attendants interviewed. She seemed to love the job, and I envied her. A voice reminded me that the plane was flown only a couple of times a week and that the attendants were hourly employees. Suddenly the significance of this sank in, and I could see vividly that no work meant no money and no control. Still I could not get the feeling of soaring, somehow silently, over the green woods and fields and hills out of my head. I was holding an improbable-looking lion cub, all head and mane (?) and very little body. Although its teeth were sharp and its jaws strong, its bites didn’t do much harm. I was training it not to bite at all so that it wouldn’t as an adult. It had a preternatural intelligence and understanding, and continued to nip. I saw a small white alligator below. Two large, broad, red-and-black lizards approached it, and I thought that it might attack them. The next thing I knew the alligator was dead, with its right rear leg cleanly cut off. Then I realized it was dead because its head had been cut off, too. I missed what had happened, but I said to the lion cub, “This must be the first time that anyone has seen lizards engage in tool use!” I realized immediately how insane that sounded. Meanwhile, the alligator lay there, bloodless, the cross section of its stumps looking white and solid like a mutilated monster in a movie I’d once seen. I was waiting for a train to arrive from the UK. Five or six tracks ended in the grass, with no stops. I knew that I was responsible for keeping the waiting people from standing near the tracks. I saw a friend sitting on a concrete bench next to the tracks, which now appeared to be in a station. I didn’t want to tell her to move. We didn’t know which track the train would arrive on, but when the next train came in the old-fashioned steam engine separated and flew off a dock into water.

20 May 2008: The castle, the lion, and the moat I was staying with my cousin, who was living in a castle or chateau. It was like nothing I’d seen. The family pet was a 300-pound Asiatic lion, which at first did not appear strange. He seemed very devoted to me, following me and sleeping with me like a house cat. One day he tried to crawl on top of me. Trapped, I remembered being told that he had mauled and seriously injured a man. I was afraid to move. The castle had an underground yet open moat. For fun, the family picnicked and floated on it on a barge. This seemed intriguing to me, given its underground but exposed location and look, but I couldn’t or wasn’t allowed to go with them. I may have tried to get into the water, but usually I was left with the lion. The less I trusted him, the more untrustworthy he was. He seemed to suspect my suspicions.

21 May 2008: Tripping the light fantastic I found myself on stage and wearing a long hoop skirt. The play I was in may have been about Cinderella. I didn’t know anything about it, nor did I know my part or blocking. I sensed that my role was minor but important. I don’t know how I got through it, or if I did. Others may have spoken in my place. For the ovation, the minor players were supposed to run on stage through a side tunnel and the principals through a main, forward-facing tunnel. I didn’t know where or when to go, and everyone was too preoccupied with lining up or talking (backstage?) to tell me. It was almost like I wasn’t there or was invisible. Finally, I got the impression that I was to come down the main tunnel ahead of the principals. I was so happy that I planned to throw up my hands and blow a kiss to the world, which is far more demonstrative than I usually am. I may have realized that I was bidding farewell to something, perhaps high school. There was still confusion everywhere, so I came out behind the principals. By that time, the house lights were up, and almost the entire audience had cleared out. The few lingerers, those who had been trapped in the front didn’t notice me. I was crushed with disappointment, all my joy instantly evaporated. A friend found me. To get off the stage, we had to climb down through store racks of clothing. She chattered about a hockey game loss that didn’t interest me. I felt like I had been abruptly plunged back into the mundane world without exulting in any of the glory of the spotlight. She didn’t understand my tears or growing depression. I would never appear again on stage. I’d experienced the anticlimax of my life before it had even begun.

23 May 2008: Pudge and the dead people I was in one of the infinite, mystical houses that appear in my dreams. The front door had been opened carelessly, and I was afraid that Pudge had escaped. I might have reassured myself by searching the house and finding her, but it seemed too overwhelming a task. When I thought about looking for her outside, I would open the door and see a landscape blasted by hurricane-strength winds and rain that I couldn’t face. It broke my heart to think of my poor tortoiseshell baby out there. It would occur to me that perhaps she had escaped just then, each time I opened the door to look. It was an ironic cycle of indecision and fear. I don’t know if this was in the same house, but I found a room in which various people, perhaps a large family, stood against a wall, each with his or her head cocked oddly sideways onto a frame projecting from the wall. It was a horrible sight. They appeared to have been murdered, with their bodies on display in this macabre way. Then I saw one of them move slightly, and that was even more terrible and horrifying than had they remained still and clearly dead.

24 May 2008: Blood and madness I had had lunch in a multistory mall and was in the bathroom when I remembered that I had a job interview coming up afterward. I couldn’t find my bag, so I didn’t know where. I looked in the mirror and saw that my ruffled white silk blouse was spotted with numerous dilute bloodstains. I worried less about whether I was injured or where the blood had come from than about missing the interview.

Even if I could find my bag, which surely would have been stolen by now, I didn’t know where the interview was being held without the papers in the bag. I began to wonder about myself because normally I research the company and its Web site for any interview. Finally, I gave up on the interview. I couldn’t even call to apologize. I also thought that perhaps it was not such a loss, that no job like it would be my dream job. I tried to remember what was in my bag and wondered whether I should be desperate to get it back. I ran into my brother, who offered to help. The mall was a strange place, dark and full of odd corners and tiny spaces, more like a fun house than a shopping center. It was a disturbing place, and I thought again about the bloodstains, although I was sure, I thought, that it was my own blood. I found a childhood friend of my brother, who also agreed to look for the bag. Then we came upon a clerestory overlooking a lower level, where a woman was modeling lingerie. I thought he might know her and was about to turn to him to ask when I heard the unmistakable sound of his engagement in a particular activity. I sensed that he was completely absorbed and unaware of me now. I wanted to escape this awful place, even without the bag, but did not know how. I was trapped with blood and madness.

28 May 2008: At university with Todd Rundgren True to a recurring theme, I was at university. Someone asked me why, so I told her that I worked for a quarter and studied for a quarter, although I did not undertake a full load. She asked me rhetorically if I had graduated, and I said I had. Although I did not know her, I recognized her as a former classmate and wondered why there were other classmates there years later. In my room I found my former roommate and one of her friends. They struck a deal with me in which they could have the room to themselves for study in the morning while I planned to be at the bookstore and at classes that I couldn’t remember or find. The room was long, as though two people might share each end of it, with a fireplace for each person. I wanted to get a fire started but didn’t know how to put one out. Water seemed inadequate, and I had a vision of it fueling the flames. I noticed then that my desk in front of the fireplace appeared to be on fire, but it didn’t feel hot, and there was no fire when I opened the drawer. I wondered about putting it out, too, this fire that I couldn’t see or feel. When I looked out the window, to my horror I saw a little blond boy crash through the trapdoor of a fireplace in the room above. Even then this struck me as odd because the second-floor room would have had to extend beyond mine for me to see the fireplace and trapdoor. Perhaps it was a balcony. To my relief, the boy appeared to be fine. Some girls tried to connect me with a paraplegic or obese Todd Rundgren (I was never sure which he was). They wanted to watch, and I was ambivalent about both him as a partner and about performing in public, so to speak. At times I would be very hot; at others, I would be appalled by it all. I described the Todd Rundgren of the dream as 6’1” and weighing a little over 200 pounds, realizing that that didn’t sound obese. He wore dark glasses. We were left alone, and I was confused by all the changes and contradictions.

30 May 2008: Rocky Mountain high I was on a journey and, as part of it, got off the train in Littleton so I could say I had set foot in Colorado. It was a surreal place, where the sand-colored high-rises were covered

with flat, featureless windows like the set of a 1920s expressionist science fiction movie. It was ugly, terrifying, and compelling. I wanted to get away from the station, but the ground was unstable. In the half-light of pre-dawn, people would take a tentative step forward into invisible holes in the grass. Most navigated these safely, but I was afraid. Others left across a divide in the earth that widened to the east of the station and that was higher on the far side than on the station side. With my purse and shoulder bag, I was afraid to cross it. I began to wonder if I had had a suitcase on the train that had departed. I had to go to the bathroom, but I felt like I might be trapped forever. The word “navish” or something like it occurred to me as though it were important. For a long time I resisted looking it up; when I did, I discovered that means “military landscaper.” Perhaps I blamed the rent in the earth that frightened me so on a “navish.”

5 June 2008: Fiery train apocalypse I was outdoors, perhaps at a farm, and found myself talking to boys from high school. They had been bullies, but because this was a reunion I hoped they had grown up and would not torment me. I could tell by their looks and attitudes, though, that they had not. For an unknown reason, I was compelled not to get away from them. I mentioned glasses, but realized that the pair I was wearing didn’t match the ones I was describing. I noticed that “Eddie’s” were Silhouettes like the pair I was describing, only larger. To find common ground (or a target?), I mentioned that my dad would never believe that such small lenses could work, and he said that his father would agree. I felt uneasy, waiting for him and the others to do something to me. A black, roiling cloud filled the horizon. I thought that it must be a tornado, but then I saw that the source was a steam engine. It appeared to be intact, but there was so much smoke that I thought the apocalypse must be nigh. The engine pulled forward as though to move the danger away. It was hauling hundreds of boats of all sizes, styles, and colors. Hundreds of people waved and cheered among the boats like nothing was amiss, then I saw the clowns among them. Now there was no trace of the explosion and fire from the engine ahead. I remembered my own trip coming up in a few weeks and thought, “Surely Amtrak won’t use a steam engine,” mentally picturing a streamlined diesel engine. Remembering the uncanniness of the smoke, I was afraid.

6 June 2008: Splintered spying The killer flatworm and the animated piece of splintered wood first alerted me that this was no ordinary situation. I was in a restaurant talking to a man preparing food. A piece of meat tore cleanly, and inside he found a flatworm that did not look natural. While I wondered how he could be so calm about finding something so disgusting in the food, whether there were parasites in everything else, and what I should do, I suddenly had a prickly feeling that this was not what it seemed. Perhaps realizing that I was onto it, the parasite became animated as he was starting to examine it. Awareness hit me that I was a spy about to engage in an extraordinary life-or-death battle. A flat splinter of weathered gray wood appeared to be my ally and my source as I struggled to understand what it was trying to communicate to me. This situation, in which any living thing or inanimate object could become a friend or enemy, was surreal, or it

involved advanced technology. Even as I tried to comprehend this, I saw ketchup bottles unscrewing their own caps and attacking people, although I could not tell which side they were on. I was afraid that when they squirted someone in the face, that person’s face would melt. I was peering into something dark, and dead eyes peered back at me. I could see the dim outline of a cartoon-like tiger and a black animal. Someone, perhaps the splinter, was telling me that wildlife was being poached, and now I understood that I had to stop it. Slowly, subtly, the animals came back to life or were reanimated, and they killed an entire group of tiny people. When I looked down at the carnage, it appeared to be blobs of red and green modeling clay, and someone was saying that we had to be more realistic than that. Could this be a movie set? I felt surrounded by enemies, animal and inanimate. How could I know who or what to trust in this bizarre world?

9 June 2008: Möbius strip For a long time I’d been walking to the opposite “corner” of an oval to catch a bus. The walk was long, and I was often late, but the bus was going in the right direction from this location. Someone told me (or I may have noticed) that I could go to the nearest “corner” because the traffic flow on one half of the oval was oriented one way, then its orientation switched to the other direction on the other half. I could not figure out how this worked and kept trying to turn the oval into a ribbon. Perhaps my dream self was trying come up with a Möbius strip. I was in the kitchen of a house when I heard knocking on the door. I couldn’t bring myself to answer it, although I could see shadows on the other side of the curtain. Eventually I would have to let them in. I hoped that they would believe me when I said I hadn’t heard them. I was in a dark, empty room that resembled a holodeck from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Across the way, a plane buzzed in from my right and slammed into the back wall’s corner. A tiny man ran away down the length of the wall screaming; he may have been on fire. After he disappeared, there was silence, then a helicopter flew in from the same place and slammed into the same place. This time, the man who ran away screaming stopped just before he would have disappeared and fired a high-powered rifle at me. Stunned for a moment, I could think of only one way to escape—through the back door of the trailer. I imagined hiding in the woods, but thought that he could track me down through sound and breathing. Or did I need only go through the back door? I was paralyzed by indecision.

23 June 2008: Lost pencils on the bus to nowhere After lunch (grilled portobello and mozzarella sandwich at Café Verde), a brief stop at People’s Food Co-op, the haul back, and some reading and writing on the balcony, I slept and dreamed that, as I was trying to get up and get off a bus, I noticed some of my favorite pencils missing from my case. I’m under the impression that I held the bus and made a fool of myself by getting down awkwardly to look under the seats, which I sensed didn’t endear me to my seat mate or other passengers. Then I finally got off the bus and found myself isolated on a quiet country road. The next thing I remember, someone had asked about the long-delayed development brochure, and the responsible person had a shouting fit and nervous breakdown over it.

28 June 2008: Tests of fortitude The Partridge Family was performing in an auditorium. I liked the music, which was new. When I saw people with signed CDs, I decided to get one, which required going on stage during the performance. I felt shy, but steeled myself to do it. To get to the stage, I had to work my way across two narrow ledges and pick up a magazine with each successful step sideways. It was harrowing and time consuming, and I wanted to quit, but it was the only way to get the CD that I now wanted badly. In addition, this ledge crawl appeared to be the only way to get to the bathrooms. As I made it from the right side of the first ledge to the left and was trying to figure how to take the step up to the next ledge to work my way back, I became aware of several things. First, the audience perceived me as a mentally deficient child who couldn’t do such a thing, so they mocked me. Many of the magazines in my hand were duplicates, which seemed unfair, and the next one was a silly fashion/celebrity publication in which I had no interest. I lost track of why I was stuck on the ledge. I looked up and could see one of my objectives, but not the bathrooms, which had become unlabeled, moving targets. David Cassidy looked the same as in the television series, even to his hairline and style, but sometimes his face was worn with the ravages of late middle age. Danny was still a child as though decades had not passed. Was that Danny Bonaduce? It looked exactly like him, but surely he could not be stuck in perpetual pre-adolescence. The CD had “19” in the title, and I never knew how I obtained it or whether it was worth it. I was with some friends in a contraption at the bottom of a steep hill. By the use of pools or some form of mechanical leverage, we were able to extend our physical strength to “walk” the contraption beneath us up the hill. We soon found that it was surprisingly easy. As we progressed, to the left and right we could see prisoners performing day-to-day activities and tasks. Some wore white long johns with yellow polka dots, while others sported different patterns in various colors. Some were lined up at what appeared to be a general store, which seemed to be an unusual haunt for prisoners. Others appeared to be taking care of houses or gardens. As we passed, they would stop what they were doing to stare at us. It was then that I became aware than I and the other women were naked, which now seemed to have been a foolish idea on my part. I couldn’t understand why we had, at my suggestion, done something that would leave us surrounded by prisoners, nor could I imagine why they left such a vulnerable group alone. Suddenly I was afraid. At the top, I realized that getting down the hill would be the harder task. How could we control the contraption’s descent on that steep decline? A man offered an elephant to help us. I did not trust the elephant, who looked at me with preternaturally human eyes. I said that one kind of elephant has gray eyes, while the other has brown—but then I remembered a third kind, which made my neat point ridiculous. The elephant continued to eye me in a meaningful way; I could not read its thoughts, which at the least seemed to bode further difficulties for the group but especially for me. I didn’t know what to do, and again I was afraid. Somehow we began our descent.

2 July 2008: The vampire betrothal and back to school I needed to go to the bathroom, but the room labeled for women was behind a barrier so the door couldn’t be opened outward. I used an ornament to jury rig it open somehow.

When I came out, a handsome but frightening vampire who I understood to be my prospective husband accused me of stealing the ornament, which seemed to be in pieces. I returned the ornament, although I had thought it was a gift, but he still claimed part of it was missing. He seemed to want something from me, but I proved that nothing was missing and left with my friends. Jeanne drove much too fast; there was no traffic, and we were almost flying. I came upon my brother, who was using a rag and a couple of fingers to scrub the kitchen floor. You could see how yellow it had been compared to the snow-white patches he had already cleaned. His motions looked effortless, but I could imagine how hard the work would be on my arthritic knuckles. I walked into my old elementary school to look around, but thought I should check in at the front desk out of courtesy. At first they welcomed me, but when I told them I was a former student, they demurred politely. I could, however, use the bathroom. As I turned to leave, they asked me my interest and my age. I answered, “English,” but I couldn’t think of my age. Then I said, “32,” which didn’t seem right. Only later did I remember that I should have said 47. I also mentioned my degree and university. They seemed most impressed by my age and acted as though they might change their minds because of it. The bell rang, and hundreds of girls ran for the bathrooms, which were small, domed, tent-like enclosures into which they crawled. No matter where I stood, they would get into them before I could. I wondered if they would let me in if I mentioned that I was 32.

3 July 2008: Double jeopardy I came upon a stand full of people listening to an orator, who was declaiming against an elderly woman accused of a murder that had happened long ago. I interrupted her, but she continued speaking. I interrupted her tirelessly until I could finally say what I had to say and engage her in discussion. I pointed out that the woman, who was suffering from dementia, had already been tried and could not be tried again (although I was not sure in my mind of the outcome, that is, whether she had been found not guilty). My passions were high and people were listening to me, but I could not think of the term for a second trial (double jeopardy). My antagonist remained unconvinced, and the people looked torn, while the woman herself seemed confused. I was determined not to lose this argument.

4 July 2008: The whipping boy I was watching one of our high-rise buildings under construction when I saw it rotate 180 degrees, then rotate back. It happened quickly enough that I couldn’t believe my eyes. I saw it happen again later and couldn’t deny it. Someone from development explained it to me, although I am sure I didn’t understand. I was by the pool at home, wondering about what I had seen, when The Flamingo rotated 180 degrees and back before my eyes. I looked at the person next to me, who had also seen it. When it happened again, I speculated about how I didn’t notice this when I was inside, although surely one would be able to feel and see it. That I could be oblivious to my building turning back and forth on its axis periodically was both marvelous and horrifying. I had just passed through security at work when I noticed that the person ahead of me had knelt to clean an escalator rail and was trying to hide his face. An enraged security guard threw me to the ground in his haste to get to this person, who he picked up and slammed violently down. “I know who you are!” he kept shouting.

The person was no more than an adolescent boy carrying toy masks or flat shapes in not-quite-pastel colors. I saw a line of them hanging, including a pink owl. Every time the boy tried to say something, the guard would kick or punch him or throw him to the ground, often hitting me because I was stunned and still in the way. I could not imagine who this boy was or what he had allegedly done that would warrant such violent treatment, and the toys/masks I had seen seemed symbolic of his innocence. I found myself unable to speak up to stop the violence. My silence made me guilty. As I tried to recover myself, I debated with myself whether I should report my ill treatment to the office manager upstairs, but I thought she would dismiss my complaint as trivial and me as a whiner. When I woke up, I was thinking that we are not quite yet the society the founders had envisioned as they risked their lives.

5 July 2008: Alma mater again I had returned to college and was trying to find a reception on the second floor of a building, but there were no stairs that I could discover. I came across a long line of students who might have been waiting to get into the reception, but I needed to bypass them. I found some concrete stairs flanked by dirt banks, but students appeared and began painting them black. I attempted to climb the dirt banks, but was not strong enough. When the students noticed my efforts, they silently began painting them, too. Who paints dirt banks? I thought, wondering why everything was tacitly against me. I remembered that I had returned to college for three quarters and had missed most of the first quarter’s offerings. I vowed to do better, but that meant the money, thousands of dollars, had been wasted already. I tried to explain this to friend I met, along with my horrible feelings of guilt. As I came closer to waking up, I asked myself why the degree I earned 25 years ago was not good enough for me, and a voice—my own?—asked, “Did you really earn it?”

11 July 2008: Full metal jaw I had a robot whose most prominent feature was its metal teeth. It chased me out of the house into the midnight air, and I became afraid of it. It also got away from me on the street and looked as though it were biting a man’s rear end. It attacked so voraciously that I thought it must have chewed up his buttocks and left a bloody mess. Then it turned sideways and deliberately spit out, not blood and gore, but plain saliva. Was I ever to trust it? I felt the building move, which frightened me because the cause was greater than just strong winds. Outside the window I saw trees and knew that it had been uprooted and that I was about to crash with it and be killed. I waited for the impact of the landing and to be dead—but it didn’t come. Everything flew crazily through the air. I was at the community in Reno, where the roof seemed to be all skylight. The surrounding buildings crowding in on ours were urban and futuristic. A jet passed low overhead, so low that it was enormous. Just as I had waited for the building to plummet to the ground earlier, I waited in terror for the impact that never came. I was with some couples traveling, and we came upon a notice that Michael Jackson concert tickets were available to the first people who claimed them for $3. I called a friend to tell him. The price seemed unbelievable, of course, but so was his willingness to

perform, given his legal troubles and all the talk about his appearance. In the photo, however, he looked normal; everything was back to the way it had been, but he seemed older. We did not think we wanted to go to Indiana for the performance. [I am not sure where that came from; I’ve never been interested in Michael Jackson.] One of the couples seemed to be having some marital difficulties. The woman kept dropping things and expecting her husband to pick them up to an extent that seemed deliberate and unnatural. While we were sitting in the balcony, perhaps at a theater., she dropped a piece of paper—a program?—to the floor below and told her husband to retrieve it. This request seemed unbelievable to him and to us. It wasn’t clear how he could descend to the floor. We drove around at night in a preternatural darkness.

14 July 2008: Shaken, not stirred James Bond was being pursued through a large building, most likely a hotel. He stopped to remove his socks, probably just before he was captured. When I found them, I had the presence of mind to pick them up, realizing later that they were the reason that he was being hunted. He escaped and found me, and I thought I was about to learn the secret of the socks when we heard a woman outside screaming, “Help me! I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” A man in the room threw something to her—an inhaler?—but when she reached for it she lost her grip on the building and plummeted. A suspicion about the man flashed through my mind. I couldn’t bear to look, but at the last moment I saw her hit a very crowded pool. The idea that she had been 14 stories up came to me, and I hoped that she would survive, unlikely as that seemed. The swimmers had scattered with the impact, and when the body surfaced it was headless. Instead of a neck, however, there was a peg like the Fisher-Price Little People have. To my horror, the body climbed out of the pool and—sadly and desperately, it seemed to me—began to look for its head, although it would do it no good. It found it, but instead of the head of a young woman, it was the distorted, plain head of a toy. Fretfully and absentmindedly, the body cleanly pulled off one of the puffy, exaggerated ears and seemed anxious to do more to it, but was stumped. It was awful to see and worse to think about, but I wondered what it could mean.

15 July 2008: Identity crisis A young woman opened a door set in a wall on a narrow European-style street to a tall man in cavalier dress. He held and kissed her forcefully—too forcefully—and they disappeared inside. I wondered if all was well, or if I should have intervened. Although I didn’t know her or the man—I thought they might be college students—I went in later to check on her. She was in a large, claw-footed bathtub, but the man in the tub with her was younger and smaller than the cavalier and was intellectual in appearance. In every way he was the opposite of the other man. I stared, unable to understand and afraid of something indefinable. I saw a young man in an outdoor warehouse area, then heard a loud sound as a can of olive oil was punctured. Against my will, I began to imagine that the young woman and

intellectual in the bathtub had knocked out or even killed the cavalier, using the brief sound of the olive oil can puncture to mask the deed. I could sense that the young man I now saw was wondering the same thing and whether he had been duped. He was horrified by the possibility because the woman seemed to be a victim, but he was being overcome by a sense of sexual longing that made him hope he was wrong. His mind was trying to form alternative scenarios that did not lead to murder. His feelings were so strong that it occurred to me he may not have been a third man, an accomplice, but that he may be the young man who had been, or would be, in the bathtub. I wondered if I were seeing backward in time. I felt such a strong sense of his guilt, confusion, and longing that I realized I may be him as he would be in the future, trying to parse the past.

27 July 2008: The accordion, the heroic bird, and the lover I was a young man, and my college roommate had promised an elderly Jewish woman that I would perform the music at one of her family rituals. I was horrified because I knew I was no musician. I dug around in our dorm room, looking for the instrument I would play. I found it in one of the many backpacks in the closet—an accordion. I met the woman at midnight in the rain. I knew I was not a good musician like those who play by ear and from memory, so I asked for sheet music. My roommate produced a single sheet that somehow contained the music for nine tunes; I was to play eight of them. He held the music up for me to see, but I was too nearsighted. I felt that this didn’t bode well for this rainy midnight audition or my future performance. I was a girl at a church service. It had been raining. During the service, someone moved a pillar, and a torrent of water poured from under it. I assumed that the books kept in it had stayed dry and wondered how. More water ran out from within another pillar. I noticed a man and recognized him as my future lover. Did he know me, too? I watched him discreetly, looking him over and thinking that someday all of that would be mine. It was a delicious thought. The minister was talking about a heroic bird that had performed a brave deed. I found the bird, which was a wooden statue of a one-legged robin, near a verdant ditch. At first I thought it was dead, but when I realized it was only a representation, I began to stroke it. I was aware that my mother was glancing at me with disapproval because she believed it to be a dead bird, but my thoughts were only of my future lover and his attention. I dreamed that I had it. I began to sense his growing interest and need.

29 July 2008: Escape from love I was a young woman in an empty warehouse or counting house with another woman. A man, one of our employers, came in and asked me in a whisper to make sure of some numbers he believed to be off. He seemed sad. I thought, “He doesn’t trust the other man.” He looked at me oddly and I sensed that he did trust me and was counting on me to do this right for him. After he left, I looked at the other woman as I had no idea what I was supposed to do and didn’t want to be caught letting the young man down. She helped me to escape. My way lay in front of houses fronted by water—lots of water. I couldn’t run but had to pick my way carefully between the patches of water because I didn’t know how deep they were. A river ran beyond the front yards, and water was everywhere.

A boy spotted me and invited me into his house. I needed to keep moving and didn’t like that he’d seen me, but I needed the break. I came to a train that had open-air cars. As it sped though sunny fields and even forests, I felt horrible and guilty because I had not been able to help the young man. I began to cry because I knew he loved me, and maybe I loved him, too.

16 August 2008: The underground apartment I had sneaked into a man’s unused underground apartment (he lived in a house), where I turned on an unusual TV screen. The images that paraded across it were unlike anything I had ever seen, and I became transfixed. I couldn’t move for a long time. Time passed, and perhaps the images paused or stopped. Absentmindedly I picked up what I thought of as a pipe and bit through the stem, which was more like a somewhat flattened plastic gun handle. An inch or so broke off from the back. I didn’t know what happened to the piece I’d bitten off (had I swallowed it?), but the break was clean rather than chewed. The man came in, perhaps with another person, although later I thought we were alone. I was frightened of him, but didn’t know why as I didn’t think he minded the trespassing although he appeared to. Then I stumbled into a floor-to-ceiling plastic case similar to those used as display packaging; this one had shelves full of crystal and other valuables. I caught the case, but to my horror two tiny pieces of iridescent crystal fell to the bottom. I looked at him in terror and wondered when he would notice the broken pipe stem and what he would do. Somehow he pushed the plastic case away from me behind the sofa without knocking anything off. I marveled at this even as I babbled something about how I was at my best only in the morning, as though I were making an excuse for my intrusion and clumsiness. He seemed to be disgusted and unhappy, and so was I. Both of us were disturbed by my presumptive behavior and my inadvertent destructiveness. I sensed that he was acting, too. Despite appearances, we knew one another and were attracted to each other. It seemed to be my behavior that was keeping us apart and that it was intentional. Why was I trying to alienate him, and why couldn’t he accept me as I was? Later, I was at a party looking for my husband, who had been my elementary school gym teacher. I could not remember his first name, and neither could he. I caught a three- quarter profile glimpse of myself in a mirror. My head was pale and hairless, and my skull the shape of that of a female gorilla. I woke up frightened.

23 August 2008: A watery sideshow in the present tense During this time of multiple medications, I’ve had many interesting dreams and no time or, later, energy to write about them. Now I’ve had a dream twice, with only a few varying details—or I think I’ve had a dream twice. The fact I am not sure is somewhat frightening. In this dream, I am being shown a series of images and told that this is how the sideshow and the illusions work. I can no longer remember all the specific images, although many involve reptiles in a pool of water. In one of today’s, a tiny rainbow horse leaps into the pool and emerges unscathed, and it is clear to me how and why. In every case, the situation and the vision are nightmarish, the odds unbeatable, and yet, as the smooth narrator speaks soothingly into my ear and my eyes track the horrible, unreal

images, I can see how childish, how simple, how safe it all is, and I wonder at my instinctive fear. My perception is the nightmare, not reality. We come to the final image, the final test. I am a young girl, pinned down, with no choice but to move forward. I do, into a changing kaleidoscope of abstract images that slowly congeal into the pieces of a puzzle and then the puzzle itself, changing from monochrome to color. I realize I am seeing through a virtual reality device. When I come to an edge, it’s easy for me to decide to leap—but where to? Looking down, I see the emblems of at least two comic book superheroes in the tile at the edge of a giant pool in the upper right-hand quadrant. I veer toward it even as my natural gravitational descent begins. Out of the water leaps an enormous mechanical supervillain—no, a megavillain, too powerful to be understood. “I AM BACK!” he proclaims. I am to understand that he defeated the heroes whose emblems are preserved mockingly in tile. “SO AM I!” I pronounce, equally pompously. At a loss for a moment, I fling my arms toward the monster, and his torso is spattered as various mysterious moral weapons strike and sink him back into the depths. Now the pool seems to be attached to a high-end hotel, a place for recreation. In moments, I have been transformed from a young girl, trapped and terrified, into a savior, merely by my acquired power to distinguish the virtual from the real. Equilibrium is restored, and I no longer have to listen to the insidious explanatory voice or view the disturbing, hokey, yet exotic imagery. I am at peace. Until I have this dream again.

24 August 2008: Mysterious underwater realm I was in a locker room looking for a bathroom. I found a hole in the floor that seemed to be designed for the purpose and usable. Something, perhaps a thought or a fear, made me leave before I took advantage of it. When I returned, the area of the locker room around the lavatory hole was under water. This didn’t matter to me because I seemed to be able to pass through it as though it were air. Lush aquatic plants flowed past me, along with colorful fish. The beauty of it was haunting, yet disturbing, and I hesitated, uncertain. “We are in danger,” a voice said. It meant that I was in danger. I knew that it was correct, but I did not know from what. As my senses adjusted to this otherworldly environment, I could “feel” the presence of malevolent beings or spirits in the form of bizarre, toothy sea creatures. They could not be seen, but would flash in and out of my perception, trying to lure me to my doom through the beauty of this mysterious underwater realm. The voice was trying to save me. I was more fascinated than frightened.

4 September 2008: The writing on the wall A friend, KK, was visiting me, which mysteriously made me feel trapped. I wanted to get out or to be alone, but I didn’t know why. As I looked around my apartment, which was nothing like any I’ve ever seen, I noticed rust marks and missing paint high up on the kitchen and living room walls. Some of it made sense to me because of leaking and some work that had been done, but much of it mystified me. I discovered writing on the wall. I thought I should call the manager to have the walls repainted, but that the writing must be my responsibility. I ran a finger over the little that I

could reach, and it rubbed off. I wondered how they could repaint all these walls with all my possessions in place. Finally, I got KK outside, where we may have boarded a bus. When we got off, a boy told me about a blind bunny he’d found nearby. Confused at first, I spotted it in the grass by the side of the street. It was ginger and white, like Hodge, so therefore not an eastern cottontail. Its blindness wasn’t obvious. As I was considering my approach, it hopped over and got under a parked truck. As long as it stayed out of traffic, this didn’t seem too bad—but then the truck started to lower itself. It was going to crush the blind rabbit! I grabbed it, but not in time—its head was caught in the mechanism. I was horrified; I couldn’t free it, and I couldn’t tell if it were already dead. I imagined all kinds of horrors, but I couldn’t let go. The truck operator must have realized something was wrong, because the truck stopped its descent. I still felt trapped—unable to free the rabbit, afraid of the mutilation or death I would find if I could free its head.

7 September 2008: The trackless train I was on a stationary train in a car with a large tub with wide ledges, all tiled with 1950s linoleum. The train was an attraction, with vendors in every car. I’m not sure what I did in mine, although it seemed vast and bare. I wanted a whale for the tub—a right whale if nothing else would fit. Yet in my heart I knew that keeping anything other than a few appropriate fishes in the tub would be inhumane. It was late when the fair ended and I left my car. I found a co-worker and sat behind him, but was afraid to say anything. My head kept falling forward and touching him, which I thought he would perceive as sexual harassment. I left even as he ignored me. I found my friend, DW, in the first car, which was big, brightly lit, and buzzing. When I saw the three covers of some books she was selling, I wanted them. I could afford only one at $10 apiece, so I chose the colorful birds over fish and one other. It proved to be an elaborate book of cutouts, stickers, and pictures to be colored. Embarrassed, I told her that I planned to use colored pencils. The plan was for the train to take people to a Carpenters concert. After midnight? I thought. No concert starts after midnight, but this one did. I found myself in what appeared to be a regular car, but it was the front with no engine ahead. I realized it was moving through the grass and weeds at the side of a road, not on tracks. I wondered if it had conventional wheels. Periodically, people in my car asked me how to exit. They expected the exit to be at the front of the car and didn’t notice it in the middle behind them. Why were they asking about getting off before the train arrived? We came to a street and tried to merge with traffic, but aggressive drivers kept cutting or trying to cut us off. I noticed that the cars were so close to each other on either side and were covering such a narrow swath when cutting across that the width of a train could not fit between them. Could any of this be real? How could a concert start after midnight? But I never questioned how it could feature the Carpenters.

10 September 2008: Pool in the grass I returned home to where I grew up and found a swimming pool in the grass next to it. It was set directly into the ground, with no concrete deck. As I walked around it, I came to

a spot where I was especially careful—somehow I knew there was a deep vertical hole to accommodate a wide horizontal pipe that came out from the pool. EP saw me and asked what I was doing. I pointed out the hidden danger, and we discussed it could have been laid closer to the surface even if it would not have looked very good. I wondered why he was speaking to me at all as he never had because I was not popular. I also got it into my head that he attended the same college, which surprised me because I didn’t recall that at all. I began to name boys I knew, but he didn’t recognize any of them. And all I could do was wonder why he was talking to me.

11 September 2008: Urban barn and chute of doom I was at my former job, but it was at the Sears Tower. All of it—the building, the office, the people—was unfamiliar, and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I went outside. It was perhaps late fall or early winter, and it seemed like evening although it must have been afternoon. I looked into the windows of an English-style pub and saw an odd assortment of people. Two working-class men were fighting, with one trying to kill the other. I sensed there was something deeper, more far-ranging, and more terrifying behind this. Shaken, I walked around the block. Behind the Sears Tower, I discovered a rural road with a freshly painted, new red barn at the end of it. To me, it should have been a beautiful sight, but its unreality frightened me, and I hurried back. The elevator I took wouldn’t stop. It had been hijacked because I and the others on it were a threat to someone. It went up forever, beyond the limits of possibility. When it stopped, somehow it compressed and so did we, so that we were only feet from the top of the shaft. The maneuver was meant to terrify us. It worked. Someone spoke to us, but I think we saw only toys. One of them may have been a headless doll the size of a toddler. It, or something, pulled the fingers of my right hand and made them longer. I knew this could be reversed by whoever had done it and wished them back to normal. But whenever I looked, they remained abnormally long. I found a means of escape—a way to slide downward through what looked like tilted fun house tunnels. Only after we had started down did I realize that they were not only painted bizarrely—green, black, and white, in a 1960s hounds-tooth or checked pattern— but they were curving and twisting in impossible ways, like in an Escher painting. They, and the idea of escape, were an illusion. For all we knew, we were in a colorless, straight chute to our deaths. My fingers may not have been stretched, either. I remembered the peaceful country road with the barn, implausibly appearing on a dark afternoon in the city behind one of the world’s tallest buildings. I called for the one person in the group who could shatter the illusion confounding us, and I called to her. I felt doomed. I resolved to visit the country road again. It was convenient and so peaceful.

15 September 2008: No walk in the woods Like Bill Bryson, I sought a walk in the woods. To my amazement, though, wherever I went I was surrounded by countless acres of cultivated land—row after row of crops. There were no woods, nothing wild as far as I could see and, I thought, even beyond. I felt an epiphany—that the world has been settled by humans for so long that nothing of nature is left. I woke up thinking about

tId=368&titleId=3849” target=“_blank”>The New Penguin History of the World and wondering how cultivated much of the Mediterranean world might have seemed from very early historical times. Subconsciously I knew I would never have Eden. It was evening, and I went for a drive in my dad’s car. It was a nerve-wracking experience because I had the idea that I didn’t know how to drive (true), nor did I have permission to. The accelerator and brake weren’t pedals as I expected, and they operated in a way I had never seen before and couldn’t master. When I returned, I took a piece off the brake, perhaps a string, and meant to show it to my dad because it made no sense to me, and I thought he should know about it. I also suspected something important was happening that was beyond my understanding.

18 September 2008: The quest to be real I was at what may have been a movie party with people from high school when I spotted TB. I seemed to be dressed in a showy print—leopard spots?—and thought he surely had to see me at such a gathering. I started to wonder if he did see me and would never admit it, but I know my own lack of power to compel attention. For the first time, though, I felt optimistic that he wasn’t entirely unaware of me and that someday he would have to grant me my right to be a real person, worthy of at least his notice if not his affection. I woke up disappointed as usual, but strangely optimistic.

20 September 2008: The bridge to nowhere I was crossing a street when I heard sirens. An enormous fire truck barreled around the corner; its grill towered over me. It may have stopped, or time may have slowed, because I was not killed instantly. Instead, the extreme darkness around me confused me, and I couldn’t budge. I wondered if I could lay down and hope the truck’s undercarriage wouldn’t drag over me and kill me, but that still required me to do something. I was aware that I should have been killed already. As I was deciding what to do, or being killed (I could not tell which), and feeling guilty for not being able to get out of the way, I understood the nature of the emergency. Large numbers of people were stranded in Ohio on an island surrounded by thousands of miles of water, connected to land only by a bridge of unimaginable length. * * * * * I was entering a dormitory and came upon someone who had rescued two tiny puppies. They were so small they didn’t look real. Later I found a banana-shaped puppy, missing its legs and its face. I thought I could see traces of eyes, nose, and mouth, but I couldn’t be sure. I must have thought it was still alive but I didn’t know what to do with it—whether to keep it and try to figure out how to feed it, to leave it to die on its own, or to kill it mercifully (how?). All of the choices horrified me. As I came closer to waking, I couldn’t help wondering if it was just half of a banana and not a puppy at all. I wanted an easier and less painful decision.

25 September 2008: Abandoned An incredibly loud noise, like that of a prop plane, filled the air and woke me up. I was afraid to get up and look out the window because it sounded so close.

I found I was in a dorm room shared with a male roommate. Although it was the middle of the night and I was very tired, there was something we had to see. My brother came along, too. We found a mobile theater that at first I thought was PuppetBike, but it was an Italian imitation. We stayed a while watching this bright spot on a dark street, where everyone else was slumbering during these wee hours of the morning. Suddenly, they left so abruptly that I could not keep up with them, and to my shock the car departed without me. There I was, alone in a residential neighborhood, with no money or mobile phone and wearing only pajamas. I was nearly petrified. I knew the police, could I find them, would scoff at me. Finally, after tired, panicked rambling, still stunned with disbelief, I came upon a diner, told the owner my story, and asked to use the phone. She seemed jaded, nonplussed, and reluctant to let me. I don’t remember making the call. By the time my roommate and brother arrived, I was nearly hysterical with anger and fear. I berated them the whole back, going on about how could they have not noticed I was missing. Not seeing the problem, they ignored me and chatted with each other.

28 September 2008: Elevated to wisdom I was about to check out of a resort when I realized I needed to go to the second floor to write a testimonial on the outside wall. I got into the elevator, which seemed unusually full. I was in a hurry and all I was thinking was that, although this meant a certain amount of climbing around outside, it shouldn’t take long. The elevator didn’t stop at the second floor, however. It didn’t stop at any floor. I thought of elevator banks and decided it was unlikely an elevator would go straight up so many floors, not to mention that the resort was not a high rise. Now I was frightened, but I kept my fears to myself. At long last the elevator stopped and opened on both sides. The front opened onto an enormous wood-paneled bar/lounge, while the back opened onto a wood-paneled, empty, wedge-shaped room barely large enough to accommodate me. It was more of a hollow wall than a room. Everyone headed to the bar/lounge as though they’d discovered the resort’s hidden gem, but a compelling force, neither physical nor mental, was influencing me toward the wedge. At first I thought I was being entombed and was even more terrified. Some sense, perhaps from the same force pushing me toward it, reassured me that, despite appearances, this was the safer, more desirable place to be. The others had made their choice, and I could only look longingly after them and remember that I had been in a hurry. I felt like I was experiencing a taste of the afterlife, where choices and dangers are not obvious. Maybe all of us were dead. And perhaps my previous perceptions of reality were petty and false.

7 October 2008: Witness to murder I was at a party at EL’s house, which surprised me by its size and mysteriousness; it reminded me of the house I dream that my late aunt in Bellwood had. I was also intrigued by how she had come by it and how she could afford it. It was nothing like her first modest suburban home I’d known.

JT arrived, and at first I thought to avoid her because I thought she was still angry with me. We ended up on a ride together that went around the top floor on rails. The destination was an author’s book signing, but I was told I must meet this person and tell him (her?) about my great story ideas—except that I don’t have any. At first we inched toward the booth because the author was so popular. Subtly, the ride began to accelerate and to fly in higher and higher circles. Just as I was sure I would be flung into the heights and die, it stopped near the ceiling. To extract me, the rescuers had to remove my clothes and cover me with hand and bath towels. I found a tiny little shirt I thought belonged to the daughter of a former co-worker, but she didn’t seem interested. I saw then that it had become a beautiful sweater dress. In the meantime, a little boy kept trying to peer down the back of my pants. Irritated, I looked for his parents, but none were to be seen. His actions and the fact he was getting away with them appalled me as I considered the ramifications of disciplining him myself. I was on a boat, and with each circuit of the bay it seemed to get larger; the deck rose high above the water’s surface. This alone would have frightened me, but I also noticed that the ship was in pursuit of a young woman. Her name flashed through my mind. The ship, which felt like it was flying faster and faster like the rail ride, was forcing her into a defenseless position. I wanted to tell everyone what was happening, but fear silenced me. I looked down and saw her apparently crushed against a wall. Perhaps it was then I knew who was the villain behind the scheme and lost some of my fear. I tried to tell the others, but they didn’t believe me. All they knew was that they were having fun on a cruise to nowhere. By talking to them, I had revealed my knowledge, so the villain tried to corner me in a parking lot. As terrified as I was, I sensed that I would escape—and that his victim’s name and my silence would haunt me always. Finally, he trapped me but I avoided being crushed. He got out of the vehicle and approached me, but I felt that he would have to get close to me to kill me and that he had no physical advantage over me. I saw a tiny needle in his hand and knew I had to avoid it. We struggled, and he pricked me slightly, but I rationalized that this would not hurt me. I gained partial control of the needle or needles and pricked him back several times—enough to save myself. As I did, I realized that now I was the one committing murder. I felt sad.

13 October 2008: Exotic Reno resort plus I was watching a documentary that may have been about a contest to win a stay at an “exotic Reno resort.” The program focused on a couple who seemed to be the bane of the staff’s working lives. They had four rules of behavior, and the husband publicly accused the wife of breaking one. “What do you mean, I’m not friendly?” she screeched at him in the lobby. I thought, “What an odd rule #4!” The desk clerk was shown tacking their messages, called “graffiti,” to a bulletin board and complaining that, while they had accumulated many, they never collected them. The viewer was supposed to be upset by the futility of trying to deal with such an unreasonable couple. I thought, “If the staff feels that way, they should just hand their ‘graffiti’ to them.” I didn’t understand the issue. At the back of my mind, the beaches and palm trees, combined with “exotic Reno resort,” puzzled me. * * * * *

My dad had remarried, and he and his wife had had two children, a boy and a girl. I didn’t live at home, so they didn’t bother me. When I returned, though, something about them and the situation horrified me. “How could you?” I kept asking. He took the rhetorical question seriously and literally and said almost apologetically, “If you leave it alone a while, it works.” In my mind, I treated his actions as though they were fresh and an affront to my mother’s recent memory, but as I was about to say, “She’s been gone only _____,” it hit me hard that she had been gone more than 25 years. I couldn’t believe it. I felt as though I had just seen her. As I woke up, I understood that the children, both under 10, were normal, and I’d felt alienated and violated. I went out and looked up into the half-lit apocalyptic sky.

18 October 2008: The reunion train I knew I had graduated from the University of Chicago, but now—probably years later—I was attending Yale University for an undergraduate degree. I couldn’t understand my own actions, but I had to do it. I didn’t feel as frightened of failure as I usually do when I am returning to complete the degree I already have. Someone asked, “How many military officers have you had convicted?” What an odd question. I was sitting, stooping, or kneeling, but I sensed someone behind me. TB was there with a friend or two, and he was holding up both hands with all fingers and both thumbs spread. Before I knew it, I said, “Do you have enough fingers?” He glanced down at me in disgust at the implication. Again, I had blown it. A military lawyer? Is that what he had been? It didn’t seem likely. The number 10 seemed high if he hadn’t been, though, and I knew he’d run out of fingers. But what a strange question—who had asked it and why? It was time for a class reunion, which involved a train trip. We stayed overnight somewhere; when I returned to my train seat, my computer (Titanium PowerBook) was still there, but the AlphaSmart NEO was missing. I couldn’t remember any of my own movements but in a moment of denial was sure that I had left it in another car and that it had not been stolen. PS, the office manager, was noncommittal but at least did not condemn me for my foolish actions and assumptions. She moved me to the next car, which was nothing like the comfortable one I had been in. Rows of wooden seats were packed in tightly; from above it looked like a cattle car, possibly with straw on the floor. The conductor told me people chose it because the back part was a swimming pool. Later, it would be more of a pond than a pool, and most people ignored it in favor of a chlorinated resort pool that had taken over most of the rest of the car. All of us got out at a building, perhaps a shopping complex. I was clutching a handful of thin legal-size folders and my thick wallet awkwardly; hanging onto these would give me a great deal of trouble in my wanderings. The only way I could find to get between the building’s levels were narrow, railless iron steps suspended above an abyss. I walked up two sets of them at different times, but I would have given almost anything to have let go of my dignity and crawled. On the last step to solid flooring, I tripped and for a horrifying moment or two thought I would fall.

As I walked around, I encountered people I thought I knew, like Lynn(e) P. I was confused, uncertain, and addle about whether they were from high school or college, or if they were there as friends of classmates. I didn’t meet anyone I really wanted to see. I started to worry about missing the train as I didn’t know when it was leaving or how to get back to it. I saw what appeared to be an exodus and tried to recognize someone so I could be sure that it was safe to follow them. Suddenly, I lost the entire crowd. I was alone in the strange building with the terrifyingly tiny suspended iron steps. I heard someone who tried to reassure me, but it was too late. My trust was no more.

22 October 2008: Which witch? My brother and my friend, DW, were driving me to meet a female relative. We passed the trailer park, the front of which was covered with shelves lined with used books for sale. All I could see were rows and rows of books. We backtracked to it, and I picked up a book—something I would never read, probably by Clive Cussler—but didn’t pay. When we left, I asked my brother and DW where they had paid. “Up the steps at the side of the building,” they said. I had seen it and knew I should have gone there, but I thought I would return later. After what seemed like endless hours of driving, I asked where we were. Although it looked like a small town, I guessed that we were in St. Louis or Kansas City. My mother and DW looked at each other significantly, as though I were very wrong and they were very pleased about that, so I looked around again. We were in a declining small American town—with antique stores and diners, and a look and feel of being out of touch with time. It could have been anywhere. There was no frame of reference, and suddenly I became afraid. I no longer trusted my brother or my friend. It was after dark when we rendezvoused with my relative, who proved to be a witch. She was high up in the country sky and cast sparkling red and green bolts to the ground. When I saw her closer up, she consisted of a shadowy form with a sparkly red patch and a sparkly green patch. I was terrified. I was expected to hug her, which I did very reluctantly. I was afraid that if I touched her I’d become a witch, too. Then I began to wonder what a witch is. My brother said some strange, Latin-sounding words to us, which I interpreted to mean, “The less said, the better.” As if the hug had not been bad enough, my words would give her even more power over me. It was not as easy as I thought to stay silent, but I did. After a while, to my horror DW started to talk about nothing. Didn’t she understand that she was endangering us all? The shadowy figure driving seemed to perk up at the words. I was doomed and now damned, I was sure. Inside, I fretted about the book I hadn’t paid for.

23 October 2008: The trailer park problem I was in TC, Texas, sent to settle an outstanding municipality account. I found myself on a small green patch that looked nothing like I expected, with a trailer park on each side. I felt puzzled and wondered if anyone else knew about this. Then I realized that I had no way of returning and was probably stranded in this surreal place. I wandered down a side street that looked like it belonged in Florida, not Texas. Mansions lined the street, which seemed incongruous. My dad came along and closed an open door as a courtesy. A woman on an upper floor heard the door close and yelled at

him from a window as though he were a thief. He didn’t react, but I was outraged even as I felt more and more confused, lost, and dazed.

30 October 2008: Shelved I was trying to be on time for the daily 9:00 a.m. meeting, but was cutting it too close. Mysteriously, I succumbed to an urge to get a particular book, title unknown, from the library before I left. I had to climb onto the bookshelves, which seemed gigantic and crowded to me. I crawled over books as though they were boulders on a steep mountain slope. Some were so high or placed so close to an edge that they seemed insurmountable. Time was ticking away, and I was tiring rapidly. I could not haul myself any further over all these book obstacles. It was horrifying to me that I was going to miss the unimportant three-minute meeting, but inside I was afraid that I had deliberately trapped myself forever to get out of all of them. I woke up early, exhausted and a little panicked. In reality, I was late for the following day’s meeting.

1 November 2008: Surreal snippets I was watching a couple swim in a dimly lit indoor pool. I noticed that the pool merged into a verdant forest. I wondered why all pools can’t be like that.

I was sitting on the porch at home, which overlooked a beautiful rural area from an elevation. I was watching the spectacular sunset, and all seemed to be perfect in the world. Until I noticed the cigarette butts. They had been smoked down to only a half inch and tossed where I was sitting, so there was little room for me. I appealed to my mother to provide an ashtray for the smoker, but she was unwilling to cooperate. I noticed a ceramic clamshell dish and pointed out that the smoker could use it, but again she brushed me aside without explanation. I saw a wooden piece drilled with holes from which blue flames were flickering. If the smoker could light up using this, why couldn’t he or she use the ceramic clamshell? I wondered if the sunset and the scenery that had given me such joy were going to elude me. I felt frustrated and very sad.

2 November 2008: The slippery slope of education I was about to take college entrance exams and was trying to set pens, pencils, etc., into the slots of a holder when I noticed that I must have been suspended in mid-air over a hillside at an angle, because everything I set into a slot slid and fell to the grassy ground below. Nervously, I took a Bic Clic apart, and watched in horror as the refill, spring, and bottom half fell. I consoled myself with the idea that I could look for them later (in that vast amount of grass). I was panicking about having nothing left with which to take the test, but that fear was surpassed by a weird emotional attachment to a cheap, replaceable pen. I felt something strange and overheard that it was only a minor earthquake—nothing to worry about. I became aware that I was in northern California, which seemed wrong. I didn’t want to worry about earthquakes, too. For reassurance, I turned around and looked for KW. I didn’t see anyone.

For the next part of the test, I found myself with no other choice but to lie on a cold, wet, sloping steel surface to have one finger examined carefully. Why? What was the purpose? Why this awkward, nonsensical position? I told someone that there seemed to be fewer people enrolled in the following year’s class. “It’s the bad economy,” I noted. “It’s keeping kids out of college.” This seemed terribly wrong to me, but I felt no concern for myself. The sloping steel finger exam still haunted me.

7 November 2008: The devil in the dark I was eating lunch with my co-workers in a place I’d never been to. When the server came with the check, I realized that I was nude. Embarrassed, I looked to see if anyone else was—no. On the positive side, no one seemed to have noticed my state. As I was walking around an underground stone chamber that looked like something out of the original Star Trek, a young woman stopped me and rubbed a balloon over my head. For a while, I was mesmerized by the strangeness of this action and wondered what it signified. Suddenly, it occurred to me that I was being distracted from my purse and wallet. I felt for them; I still had them, I thought, but they seemed to have gotten farther away. “You’ve sold your soul to the devil!” I screamed at the girl, who looked innocent enough. The next thing I knew, someone was cackling and leading me out of the Star Trek-style stone chamber and into another. At first, I felt claustrophobic under its low ceiling and in its confines. As it dawned on me that these horrible chambers took up infinity and there was nowhere else to go, I realized that I had landed in Hell. And I panicked.

8 November 2008: The money pit At one point, I was clenching my teeth so tightly that my night guard, already broken in back, disintegrated under the force. I could feel tiny plastic shards between my teeth and wondered if I would need a new guard and how I would pay for it. While all this was vivid and sensory, I understood that it was a dream. I was in a classroom, and the instructor asked who some group feared the most. The obvious answer would have been a particular racial or ethnic group, but I knew the real answer, which came out involuntarily: “The working man.” I turned around and saw Studs Terkel few seats behind me. Although he showed no reaction, I hoped I had gotten his attention with my insight. I was in this classroom because I had re-enrolled in college, but I could not recall attending any other classes, and I couldn’t remember what they were. I reluctantly confessed to someone that I had returned to college for another degree that wasn’t even at a graduate level, that I had not been attending classes, and that I had lost track of my progress and status. I began to worry about the money I had wasted, thinking a few hundred dollars up to as much as a thousand. I didn’t understand anything I had done. I wondered whether trying to continue toward such a useless goal with so many questions unanswered and with no motivation would be a waste of more money and if quitting would mean wasting the money already spent. I worried that Studs would find out.

10 November 2008: Sleeping on the trailer train I was sleeping in bed at home and woke up to find that a train was passing a huge window in front of me. It was so close and traveling so fast that it frightened me. I noticed, too, that the trailer was moving, also on tracks. Sometimes the train was faster, sometimes the train. Later, when sensed my dad walking around nearby, I wondered who was driving the trailer. So we went on and on, seemingly endlessly. I didn’t know what kept us on the rails. I was at a mall or other public place talking with acquaintances when I noticed a grill in the wall and realized that the state or the police were listening to us. I felt guilty as though we had been plotting something and fled up some stairs. It occurred to me that this wasn’t far enough to escape the clutches of the people behind the grill and that I was probably surrounded by electronic surveillance, but I didn’t know where else to go and I had a sense that I could evade them. I found myself in an apartment at first, greeted by a cat, then another cat, then another, and another, and another. Had I found refuge with a cat hoarder? She was talking to a rabbit in a cage, which bothered me at the back of my mind. I didn’t know why, but it slowly occurred to me that the rabbit was not a pet like the cats, but was slated for slaughter. Horrified, I fled again. This time, I came out into a courtyard that led to open country. I felt a little more free, but I felt that I still could be seen and heard. I despaired at the lack of freedom, even out here. There was nowhere to left to go and to hide—why I needed to hide, I didn’t understand.

14 November 2008: The wicked visit I was making a quick stop at DW’s house on the way to another city (I would figure out later that it was NYC). I didn’t see most of their house, including the living room, dining room, and kitchen, all of which seemed to be off limits. Instead, I was restricted to a bedroom and/or sitting room. When I tried to use the bathroom, I found that the doorway was so narrow that I couldn’t fit through it. I used the one in the master bedroom once, but had the impression that that was frowned upon. I found another bathroom that was set up almost like a salon, with a woman or two sitting on chairs in a waiting area. I turned to close the door for privacy, but there was none, not even a curtain. This door was also unusually narrow. In the bed-/sitting room, a green toilet seat flapped up and down erratically and mysteriously. Every now and then I would open a door and, instead of a bathroom, I would find an ocean scene with a witch from Wicked astride the waves. I didn’t know what to think. Then there was a game that involved racing herb leaves down the length of the pan. I did well, but discovered only later that the leaves would follow the finger like a magnet. Finally, I accidentally flipped the pan over and panicked about losing leaves. All of them were accounted for. I wondered how my friends could live in such a strange, chaotic place, but noticed that they still retained their old values from childhood. I told DW I was going to meet a friend in NYC. When she looked at me inquiringly, I looked at her significantly, which surprised her. I began to imagine this liaison, although even in my imagination it did not happen as I wished.

I remembered that I didn’t yet have a ticket to NYC and wondered at myself for doing so much flying in such a short time. I felt disappointed because I knew I could not pull it off—there must have been a miscommunication somewhere. And I kept encountering the Wicked witch, atop the waves.

19 November 2008: Stop, thief! I walked into a restaurant bar and found people I’d known in high school, although I couldn’t put all the names with the faces. I was right about a few, and EP introduced me to some of the rest. Many of them were boys who had bullied me, including SF. They, and EP, would not look at me directly. Two fish escaped from an enormous aquarium and began to chase each other and fight outside it. They were much larger than typical aquarium fish and seemed to be getting bigger. I finally wrestled the more aggressive fish to the ground and tried to heave it back into the aquarium. At first it was half in/half out and struggled against me, but with a mighty effort I tipped it in. The other fish was caught, too. Both escaped again and began to terrify the people. One took on the appearance of a cartoon whale, with an exaggerated head, no body, and tiny tail, but that made it no less dangerous, and those unable to flee from before it were bitten, mauled, or worse. As I came closer to waking, I wondered how these fish survived, moved about, grew, and morphed out of the water. I used a wheelchair to get to a store at South Shore Plaza and debated how secure it would be if I parked it outside unlocked. I seemed to have little choice, so I did. Inside I expected to find a glittering, high-end jewelry store, but the shop was stark, mostly empty, and stocked with such valueless but useful items as old newspapers. I reflected upon how much had changed, although there had never been a high-end jewelry store at the plaza. My surprise was a mystery. I still puzzled over the fish, which I had escaped. Only moments later I came out to find my wheelchair missing. I saw the thief running toward the edge of the trees and bushes and called for someone to stop him. A man, perhaps a classmate from the bar, took off in pursuit, but as the foliage swallowed them, I knew he would always be a step or two behind and would never catch the wheelchair thief. I was afraid of encountering the fishes again.

22 November 2008: The vampire and the gargoyle The economy was very bad, and my father was washing his white pickup truck for sale. I asked how much he wanted—$20,000. I looked into its white bed flecked with rust and wondered at his lack of pragmatism. We went for a drive in the country and stopped at the foot of a hill, where a man offered to make my sister and me something of our choice. She asked for a vampire. He disappeared. When he returned with it, his behavior had become very strange. Discreetly and without haste he pursued my sister, never quite catching her but always staying right behind her. He commented on her virtue and beauty and seemed delighted by her mounting nervousness. I asked for a gargoyle, although I’m not sure that that is what I wanted. It was the first thing that occurred to me. When he returned, he did not follow or pursue me, and his comments were of a different nature. I sensed that he was attracted to me for more than

looks alone. I and my attributes were desirable to him on some deeper level, and it frightened me that I could read his mind. His variable character repulsed, horrified, and fascinated me, and I was troubled that I understood him so well.

29 November 2008: Headlines At around 1:30 a.m. I woke up from a vivid dream that may have come from the headlines. I was with an older man, perhaps my father in the dream but not my real father, in an aerie hideout when armed men broke in. They told us they were going to kill him bloodily, but that I could leave with one of them across the treetops. I don’t remember wrestling with the decision, saying good-bye, or leaving; I recall only fleeing through the treetops, hearing gunfire, and being told not to look back. I didn’t need to turn to see the horror in my imagination and to wonder at the ease with which I had left and my cowardice. I did not feel what I should have. When I awoke, I was shaking. Next I dreamed that I was choosing my room at the White House, but it was nothing like the building on Pennsylvania Avenue. I liked every room I looked into better than the last, although all of them were bare bones, and some were underground. I wondered how I had come to be there and to have this opportunity. The strangeness of it frightened me.

1 December 2008: Dream of my parents One day I noticed that my mother’s hair was straight and that she had bangs. With her hair so different, she didn’t look like my mom. “When was the last time you had your hair cut?” I asked, sounding more insensitive than I intended. “Or done?” “Years ago,” she said ruefully. I realized that I was supposed to understand more than she said, and that is how I learned that she was ill. She did not even feel like having her hair taken care of or that she should spend time or money on it. “Let’s go across the street,” I said, getting up to look for my dad. “That place [salon] is long gone,” my mother reminded me. When had so much changed? I kept looking for my dad so we would both know that we had to take her to a salon in town on Saturday. She would not have let her hair go unless the situation were really bad, and if she wasn’t in denial, I was. Had my dad not noticed, or had he simply not told me? Next, I was outside looking at the trailer with someone and trying to explain the scene of devastation around it, as the woods and everything else had been razed for development. I could find nothing that was familiar. “The trailer was sold to that woman,” I said, pointing to a second trailer to the southeast, parked too close to ours. I wondered at the proximity. I was trying to explain what had been there before when our trailer pulled out. “Where is he going?” I asked rhetorically. I was thinking, “How can he drive with all that stuff in there?” as I pictured everything on the shelves crashing, and then pictured it not crashing by magic. I didn’t question how the trailer itself had become self-motored. My dad returned five or ten minutes later, although somehow I missed him backing the trailer into the spot. “Where did you go?” I asked him. “Park Ridge,” he said. “On I55.” He could not have gone so far and returned in five or ten minutes, and I remained mystified by his journey, whether he’d completed it, and how it came to be in Illinois.

I had been looking at two gouged trenches behind the trailer, one deep, gray, and ugly like a scar, the other shallow and dark brown like a garden furrow. I tried to explain to my companion that one or the other—I couldn’t be sure which—marked the spot where our lilacs had grown, the lilacs that in reality had just started to flower when my dad moved away in 1987. The devastation and strangeness around me were depressing, but the sight of that scarred earth where so much greenery had thrived was killing me. My indecision over which trench prevented my companion from knowing how upset I was. Or so I thought.

4 December 2008: Swimming in air I was on a commercial flight and needed to use the swimming pool. I resisted for a while, but finally gave in and went up to it on the top floor of the plane. Even as I used the pool, I could not understand the logistics. It looked just like a hotel pool. Now the plane was moments from landing, and I had no time to leave the pool and return to my seat. The pool was outside the plane, and so was I. For the plane to land, I had to cut the plastic bag that enveloped it. This meant I would have to cling to the skin of the plane for dear life and that I would be dragged along behind it when it landed, which sounded like it might be painful and even deadly. I could not picture any scenario that would come out well for both me and the plane and was stuck in indecision. Ultimately, I knew I had to cut the bag and hope that the consequences would not be too severe and that I could bear and survive them.

7 December 2008: The stairwell I was walking down the stairs in a dormitory stairwell when I heard a single bell or chime. It didn’t sound anything like a fire alarm, but that is what I took it to be. Whether it were a real fire or only a drill, I thought how fortunate I was to be in the stairwell approaching the first floor. I had begun to notice how eerily quiet it was, especially if there were a drill or emergency. Shouldn’t I hear feet running about and voices? If there were a fire, shouldn’t I smell smoke? I went to open the door to the first floor—but there wasn’t one. I looked around, thinking that perhaps I was mistaken about its location. As I turned, I realized there were no doors. And now there were no stairs, either—only a stairwell with no exit. I wondered somewhat incuriously how that could be possible.

8 December 2008: The pulpit Suddenly I found myself on stage at a pulpit in front of an audience waiting for me to deliver a sermon. I found a Bible in front of me and started to look for passages from which I could tell a cohesive story. I don’t know what I talked about, but I felt I was doing well enough that no one would notice that I wasn’t prepared. Realizing that music would be expected, I turned to the music director but naturally did not know the hymnal and could think of nothing that made sense in conjunction with what I’d just said. The music director announced “Hymn #141.” Although I didn’t know what it was, I hoped the selection seemed planned and complementary to the sermon. I had misgivings about the music director because I feared that he (or she) suspected me. My worry stemmed from a sense of guilt, but I didn’t understand its source.

As I was waking up, I was thinking that being a minister isn’t very difficult at all—I had gotten away with it without having had to spend time on agonizing over a sermon. After I became a little more awake, I felt oppressed by the idea of having to come up with something fresh week after week, year after year, while providing spiritual and marital counseling and performing all the other day-to-day duties I didn’t know about. By the time I was fully conscious, my idea of the job had been transformed from “piece of cake” to “overwhelming.”

9 December 2008: The treatment I was at an apartment on the upper floor among the trees and opened the back door, perhaps forgetting about the household pets. The cat got out. I was upset at my stupidity, but he didn’t seem to be going anywhere further than the back porch, so he was easy to retrieve. But the rabbit got out. Then another cat and another rabbit. For every animal we caught and brought in, another seemed to escape. I worried about the possibility they would plunge to their deaths on the ground below, especially the rabbits. I noticed the tile in the kitchen was loose and that the floor toward the porch and on it sloped crazily down, as though it were collapsing in very slow motion. My friend said they needed to follow up with the landlord about the problem. I wondered. In a way, it added architectural interest. The man I was seeing halfheartedly was diagnosed with a cancer. I took him to a place for treatment, which was some form of physical therapy delivered by attractive young women. One day they told him that they could do no more for him—death was inevitable. I saw through this, perhaps because eventually they said the same thing to everyone. No one would get better, they claimed, and I wouldn’t believe it. In the case of my friend, it was inconceivable to me. A woman came out to address me. She was beautiful, but in my heart I knew she epitomized evil. To my shock and horror, a crowd applauded and cheered when she made her dramatic entrance. I could not believe they couldn’t see past the beauty and celebrity to the monstrous evil that was obvious to me. Her popularity alone made her the victor, her air seemed to say. Something else must have happened because in the end my friend and I won, which meant that he was going to live. I felt a great passion for him that I had not known before. As he came closer, I realized that now he was at least a foot shorter than I, as though his size were in an inverse relationship to the strength of my feelings. The therapy people had made me love him by threatening him with death, and I had, in a manner, won back his life. Now that he was safe, he had become diminished symbolically in a way that made my unfulfilled ardor all the more painful. Maybe that was the evil I had sensed.

10 December 2008: Cannonball café To my horror I had bitten off the back half of my night guard on both sides, so a high school classmate said he would go with me to get a new one. He didn’t mean a customized one from the dentist, but a bulky blue one from a drugstore, along with a strange implement to cut the excess off. I was wary of this idea, but it was too late. We went to the bakery café, which looked more like a diner and was filled with characters. When one man in particular entered, everyone cringed. I’m not sure why he singled me out, but he insisted loudly and firmly that I was mentally deficient. Another

high school classmate, who seemed to be the wife or girlfriend of the first, told me it was best to go along with him. I didn’t like that he seemed so certain. We went into another room to see a demonstration of a cannon being fired. This seemed very dangerous to me, but all went well—until a cannonball rolled toward the group from the cannon. I thought it must be hot, but no one along the wall seemed to be afraid of it. Another one rolled out (how?), another, and another, and as the pile grew people became worried that we’d be crushed by a room full of cannonballs. We went back into the bakery café, but stuff was piled outside against the glass wall, and there was no way to get out and nowhere to go. I thought I saw a gap, however, and tried to break the window to get to it. The glass was unbreakable. I wondered if a heel might work, but I was wearing walking shoes. I thought of the device I’d bought to trim the night guard. I’m not sure that we ever got through the glass, but beyond it was a screen—or perhaps the screen was protecting the glass. There must have been a way out. I did not panic.

19 December 2008: Hodge and the caravan I saw an open door and knew that Hodge had escaped. I was in a caravan, I realized, but I didn’t know what this meant. As it turned out, it was parked in a market, and he was hanging from a blue velvet curtain by front claws he doesn’t have. I wondered where my parents were. As I retrieved the cat, I noticed he had started to chew up a toy or stuffed animal; it looked like he had bitten the ear partly off a rhinoceros. My ethical side started to look for a cashier or proprietor. I saw that Hodge was wearing a frilly felt mask, like the face of a stegosaurus. I wondered where it had come from and if it were sewn on. Everything around me seemed a little creepy, including the market, the caravan, and the mask.

20 December 2008: School, torture, sex, and marriage This is a series of four or five dreams, all recalled imperfectly. I was in an enormous classroom when I noticed That Boy. I tried to think of ways to attract his attention that would not be obvious, knowing that any effort would be futile. A Beatles song came on, and I couldn’t help dancing. But is that how I wanted to be seen? I walked into a room where a teacher was performing evil experiments on EP, torturing him with his mind. Although he inflicted no physical harm, the man would think of a torture, and it would happen to a cartoon projection that I could see. It felt real to EP. The cartoon was missing an eye and was covered with burns and other injuries. The torturer then imagined eating EP’s eye. I received an anonymous card with a return address of “Army Concert Band.” I wondered which of my friends had sent it, although I found the anonymity creepy. Inside was a tattered antique booklet graphically depicting the tale of two Indian lovers. The beautiful tiny paintings showed them nude, making love. One even moved, like an animated graphic. I marveled at what it could mean, but it made me nervous, too. Off in the distance was a breathtaking tropical sunset, and suddenly I realized I was married to That Boy. We were traveling with a woman who I suspected of being behind the “Army Concert Band” mailing. As for the marriage, it never went beyond outward forms, and I could not think that it was real. We were disconnected people acting out roles. I worried that he would find the booklet; perhaps I thought that it would look like I

was setting expectations that could never be realized. I tried to be loving, at least outwardly so. The time came to take a flight. I was especially nervous about it. The runway was a strip surrounded by water. The plane never reached takeoff speed, and we ended up somewhere else, still attempting to move more quickly. I would have been more frightened had I known what had happened and how we had arrived there.

21 December 2008: Alpine journey I was in the trailer, which was being driven through Switzerland side by side with another trailer. The slopes were vertical, and I had no idea how we could get up and down them without tipping over or plummeting. We used a clock, navigating according to the vertical line between the 6 and 12. I was frightened when I realized there were no windows, so no one could see where we were going. We lost control and plummeted. Mentally, I prepared for death while hoping to survive miraculously. To my surprise, I found that we landed right side up, side by side with the other trailer, in the snow. This simply wasn’t possible, yet there we were. None of it made sense to me.

22 December 2008: Birds and butterflies I was at home when I noticed a couple of enormous, disgusting cobwebs, so I got the vacuum cleaner to sweep them up. When I did, I saw beautiful butterflies caught in them and nearly became ill. As I went further along, I found entire bird carcasses, which was even worse. Everything about it made me feel sick. I emptied the vacuum cleaner into an underground chamber, which then I could see had a drain. I thought it would be brilliant if I could wash away all those colorful bodies and wings and feathers. It occurred to me that I didn’t know if they would fit though the drains, and I saw, or imagined I saw, all the bodies and parts clustered in damp piles. I became even more ill, if that were possible. As I reached for the tap or hose to pour water into what I now understood to be a kind of oubliette, I saw in gap in the floor between me and the water source. I could reach it only if I could maintain my balance while extending to the furthest extent of my ability. If I fell in, there was no way for me to get out and no one to hear any cries for help. I was torn between washing away those bodies from my sight and memory and the likelihood of falling in and becoming one of them. I wondered if they were truly dead.

10 January 2009: Tree of terror I don’t seem to dream, or at least to remember dreams, during times of petty stress. Perhaps even in my sleep, my subconscious doesn’t have time to relax and stretch its imagination. I was back in college and could not explain in a satisfactory way, to myself or anyone else, why. Not only was I aiming for the same degree, but I had a loan, no, a grant, to fund this futile exercise in “doing it better.” It sounded ridiculous to me and my listeners. Back in my room, I found that my computer speakers played a video of whatever I was listening to, but I had to have a CD designed for it. When I tried it again, the speakers went dark. Or were they now the wrong kind of speakers?

ECP parked in front of the house we rented, bumping the tree in front. Judging from the scar on its trunk, it had been bumped before. I worried because it seemed loose, and I had a vision of it falling over onto the house so that I lost everything I owned, including my computer and backups. I sent AP to the town hall to have it removed, even as I contemplated how it was at the corner of the house and was unlikely to fall onto it, and how barren life would be without it. At town hall, a block away, the functionary told AP that he seemed to be nervous. AP replied, or thought he replied, “Of course—bureaucracy makes everyone nervous!” This surprised the clerk. At the house, I kept trying to see how unstable the tree really was, probably making it even worse. (Did the tree represent my teeth?) Finally, I had ECP take a Polaroid photo of it, although this doesn’t seem logical now. When she turned to me with the camera, unbeknownst to her, her face was screwed up in a combination of pain and horror as though she had been burned. Forgetting that it was a Polaroid camera, I was impatient to see what was wrong, but noticed the photo spitting out. It showed the tree engulfed in flames. The concept that this was happening in another dimension was horrifying to me. We were both frightened by more than a tree potentially falling over. I was watching an old monochrome movie on campus in which men in medieval gear were told there would be a bounty awarded to the man who returned with the king’s right arm. In the next scene, a man cornered another, who I sensed was not the king, and with a short sword hacked at his right arm at the shoulder repeatedly to sever it. The victim, who offered little if any resistance, fell to the ground as the other chopped. Each time a blow was struck, he’d cry out, “ARRR! ARRR! ARRR!” It was terrible to see, but the rhythmic nature of his cries distracted me.

10 January 2009: Like “City on the Edge of Forever” I had discovered a vintage box that somehow showed amazing scenes and items from the past. When I peered into it, I could see scenes of an uncle in action during a war. It was realistic, yet tiny—a strange, magical, and priceless memento of someone I did not know. I imagined this clunky clear plastic brick held infinite memories of the past. Now that I had found it, I could not conceive of life without it. I may have bumped a corner accidentally and fretted that I had damaged it. In a while, the scene went black, and nothing else came on. I noticed a wet spot on the brick and wondered if it were leaking water and if that were causing the malfunction. I was anxious to have it repaired, hoping that the functionality and the memories had not leaked out with the water. I gave it to my mother and asked her to take it somewhere for repair, but she put it aside in a place and way that made me afraid that she was simply going to throw it out. I became terribly upset, wishing that I had been more careful if it really were my fault, hopeful that I was wrong about her intentions, and fearful that I was right. Part of me tried to understand that neither memories nor magic is forever.

22 January 2009: The phaser It’s happened before that I’ve served aboard the USS Enterprise, although it’s not always the same iteration. This time I was in front of something dangerous that seemed to require me to get a phaser and fire at it—but I could not make a decision. I didn’t know where I was, what I was dealing with, what the rules were, or even who I was.

When finally I decided to get the phaser and fire it (hoping not to be caught if I were doing the wrong thing), I wasn’t sure it was at the correct setting or that was aiming at the right spot to eliminate the danger. I pushed buttons randomly, not knowing what they did. I was petrified of killing. But I felt an overpowering urge to take control and do something. I lived through two variations of this scenario. In both, I had to make a decision. In both, I dreaded being caught. It’s interesting how I translated my anxiety about the meeting today into the opportunity to be a confused and anxious Star Trek adventurer. I woke up thinking there should have been a difference between “defense” and “security.”

26 January 2009: Woman, thy name is anxiety As my life becomes less fulfilling, my dreams seem to be losing their rich mixture of visuals and symbols. I wasn’t looking forward to today. I did not dream of demons or vampires, trains or tunnels, or even of the “cold Sargasso Sea.” I dreamed that, at lunch time, I looked into my wallet and found everything but money, my debit and credit cards, and my state ID. I was a person with neither resources nor identity. I think that must be how I feel. I found it mysterious and amazing that these items, and only them, had disappeared, and that my wallet was intact. How could that have happened? It puzzled and disturbed me, as did the fact I did not know who to turn to for lunch funds. Later I dreamed that at work my hearing had worsened and that I could not understand anyone. I didn’t want to admit it, but it frightened me. I am all anxiety.

1 February 2009: Coming home to roost Across the field the only thing we could see from our home were woods and the roof of a white house. I was told that an old man lived in the house and that the flock of pigeons on its roof belonged to him. I don’t remember meeting him, and he and his house seemed wondrously mysterious to me. Simply seeing its green roof among the trees made me feel like I was living near a fairy-tale place. One day the pigeons disappeared. The man had died. A large, unruly family moved into the house. No matter how long and hard I peered at that roof, its surface unbroken by white dots flying in and out and bobbing about, I could not bring the magic back. I always thought it had died with the old man, but now I know I had grown up too much to be able to perceive it anymore. It was gone forever. Now it was just a house among trees, inhabited by a dysfunctional family that didn’t love it or much else. In my dream, I was looking toward the house and the trees that had sheltered it. Most of them were gone, and it had become a vista of concrete monuments. (I attribute this to having seen a photo the day before of the John F. Kennedy memorial in Dallas, a soulless monstrosity designed by Philip Johnson.) When I went to the town board to protest the ruthless destruction of the trees and house (and the symbolic destruction of my childhood and its magic), I remembered I had

also seen concrete Olmec heads along this new skyline. Olmec heads are fabulous, but why had trees been butchered for an ugly, tasteless representation of something that didn’t belong there? Much as I hated what I had seen, something about this point seemed wrong to me, and I struggled to justify it even to myself.

3 February 2009: Icy doom At the midnight hour, this dream should have frightened me, but it didn’t. Not wanting to let it go, I tried but failed to stay asleep. The feeling I had was extraordinary and better than anything could be in life. All I remember is that I was on a ship, perhaps even a boat, and that it had sailed into a silence filled only with ice floes. We did our best to avoid them even as we marveled at their beauty. Apprehension, though, descended on me as I became certain that, if we were not even then sinking into them and the icy, still waters, we were bound to. The sky, the water, the ice all looked like parts of an apocalypse. But I felt relieved, comforted, and happy to experience such magic.

5 February 2009: Wrong side of the tracks I noticed train tracks next to the house I was in, with two branches that ended in front of it. I asked the owner how she could be sure the trains wouldn’t veer onto the branch lines and hit the house. She seemed confident that that would not happen, but I wasn’t so sure. When a train passed, it was uncomfortably close. Another train came toward the house and seemed about to hit it on the other side. At the last moment, it went around a odd, tight loop in the tracks to avoid the house. For the train to go around the loop, its speed had been greatly reduced. I wondered if someday an engineer would forget about the house and the loop and to slow down. I marveled that anyone could live in a house with trains passing within inches on either side, with no right of way or grades. Yet they were not full-sized, modern freight trains, and I didn’t notice noise or vibration. Life seemed to be a train wreck, waiting to happen.

21 February 2009: College reunion I walked into a room and discovered a lot of people I had known in college gearing up to perform some of my favorite classic rock. TB was there, too, I am sure, because I felt that inner longing to be noticed. I even thought that I might perform, and how could he miss that? I was happy and excited about all of it, but soon realized that I had to find a bathroom. Did I want to be noticed for going on a quest for relief? And disappearing would mean not being seen at all. More happened, but I recall mostly a delicious sense of excitement and anticipation about something unexpected and marvelous.

24 February 2009: The purse, the chef, the dancers, Todd Rundgren, and the picnic This must be an amalgam of several dreams. I don’t know the order.

While shopping in a grocery store, I realized I no longer had a purse. I was certain that it was lost, not stolen, and did not know how to find it or what to do. I was in an extraordinarily long kitchen. While it was enormous, it bothered me that its design was impractical. Instead of turning around between, say, counter and island, the chef or cook would have to walk up and down an impressive distance simply to put a recipe together. If someone could afford a mansion and a kitchen that size, couldn’t he or she manage to come up with a better use of the space? Outside a chef was running after a train, perhaps having forgotten to give someone something. It was important for him to catch up with it. He did, and then the train tore off with him on it. He’d been kidnapped! He must have escaped, for I saw him running toward me. I thought he might make it, but the train soon reappeared, traveling at full speed. The chef could not run fast enough along the track, and someone caught him up and carried him off again. The train reversed and retreated. I felt badly that the chef had been fooled into being captured. It could have happened to anyone. When I looked up, the ceiling above was a glass dance floor. The dancers were dressed formally in black ties, tails, and cocktail dresses. I noticed their shoes shuffling, packed so densely overhead that I could see little else. I knew how they were dressed, however. I heard myself being serenaded, although I didn’t recognize the song. The performer was Todd Rundgren, who was no more than two feet tall. I strained to understand what he was saying and to understand the absurdity of it all. I was on a hilltop overlooking a church or community picnic. The scene looked eerily like a bucolic landscape painting, beautiful and serene. It didn’t resemble anything at home that I remembered. I also noticed that one or two of the trees looked tropical and out of place. In the distance I thought I could see CS from my days as a docent. I was torn between staying to enjoy the scene and feeling obliged to walk over and say, “Hi.” I wanted to look at it forever.

7 March 2009: Smelly clothes and walking bus I found myself in a large dormitory room for three and suspected that at least one of the other two beds was HB’s, my former roommate. The third may have been her sister’s. It was a warm, inviting room, but there were no desks. I became nostalgic for our desks, institutional as they were, and the arrangements for them that we came up with. While unpacking my suitcase, I was distraught to find that the only clothes I had were the ones I was wearing and a nightshirt. I had brought bric-a-brac, but nothing to wear. At first I hoped no one would notice as it came to me that I was there for only three days, but in the end I announced my problem and apologized for the way I would look and smell after a day or so. Strangely, I don’t seem to have seen or spoken with anyone, as though I knew all of this was only in my head. I started to arrange the things I had brought, but became confused because there were already a lot of knickknacks around, and I lost track of which were mine and which had been sitting out already. One piece that caught my eye that I thought and hoped was mine was a very thin slice of highly polished or treated wood, the cross section of a tiny tree trunk or a branch. It was an amazing, magical piece. I was on a bus that came to a river. To my horror, the bus kept going as though the driver meant to ford it. I calmed down, thinking that perhaps the river was extremely shallow, and I worried more about being swept away than sinking. The wheels did start

sinking into the water, and I was sure I had come to my end. Suddenly and rapidly the bus unfolded stilt-like legs and walked across, its belly above the water. I was stunned.

22 March 2009: The abductors Lately I have not seemed to dream much, or I have woken up remembering only some uninteresting fragment. Mostly, I wake up as though from a void. I don’t like this. This afternoon I fell asleep while reading A Short History of Nearly Everything and napped longer than I wanted to, but I slept more deeply than I do during the night. It was more refreshing than any sleep I’ve gotten in a while. And I dreamed that I was visiting my father (but not my actual father), who I thought oversaw the golf course at one of our communities. There was something about him, however, that I didn’t trust. He didn’t seem to be much of a manager or to know anything about the job. When security employees, who should have been part of his responsibility, came by, he avoided rather than greeted them. This struck me unpleasantly, and I began to wonder who he really was. He had parked his car in or near grass next to the road and told me we were going to hitchhike our way around the course. Before I could make him explain this strange proceeding or either of us could so much as stick out a thumb, a strange vehicle pulled up. It resembled the mobile billboards that are driven around downtown Chicago, but had a narrow flat panel suspended underneath. I think the seats were all taken by members of the driver’s family, but he offered to let me squeeze into the narrow space between the two billboard sides. I refused, so my “father” said he would. I lay on the panel underneath, only too late realizing I could be thrown out of it as the vehicle rounded bends. Indeed, I nearly was at the first turn, and I was so low to the road that I feared being flayed. The driver seemed to be speeding along on what should have been a golf course road meant for leisurely driving. He drove for such a long time that I began to wonder if I had been abducted. Finally the vehicle stopped, and I discovered that my “father” was gone, and so was the driver’s family. We were alone who knows where, and then I was sure I had been set up. It was all very smooth, but I was not so afraid that I didn’t think I could defend myself. I did realize that he was a sexual predator, even as I remembered that that thought had come from a video recently posted on The Onion site. I don’t know what happened after that. I learned of a sure way to have hair removed permanently from the legs, so I had it done. (This is not something that troubles me when I’m awake.) I had been warned that the treatment might leave the fine, less visible hair behind, but it was guaranteed to remove the growing dark ones permanently. Weeks or months later I looked at the backs of my legs, and the backs of my thighs were covered by thick white hair that was dense enough to be fur. It was very visible. I was both horrified and puzzled, as the back of the thigh typically isn’t hairy, so how had a hair removal process caused white fur to grow where there had been little hair in the first place? The idea was so vivid that when I woke up I expected to see the back of my thighs covered with white fur. I didn’t look at or touch them.

29 March 2009: The pursuit

I was a child, and my parents and I had just moved, although we were now in a place that was so close that it must have been almost next door to the old one. I liked my room, which was very close, cluttered, and dark. But one day I remembered my memories and returned to the old place to find them. I had left many things behind that meant so much to me, but now I could find no way to carry them and no place to put them. I mourned these many small things that were invested only with emotional value, sobbing even as I refused to give up. I was in an empty box car on a freight train and realized that a man was pursuing me. The only place to hide was in an open alcove. If I were fortunate, he wouldn’t look into it. He passed by once without seeing me, but on the return trip he took me captive. Something happened—I said or did something—and my captor, now a woman, pulled the pin from a hand grenade in response. I was horrified. Just then, the train separated, or she fell off it, because I could see her figure on the tracks as the train I was still on pulled rapidly away. She stood rather stupidly holding the hand grenade, neither throwing it or running away from it. I didn’t want to look, but I couldn’t understand why she was behaving so strangely and what was happening.

14 April 2009: Flight and the face in the mirror When I first became aware, I was Ronald Reagan, I was flying a plane, and I was being told to jump. At first the oddest part was being someone who was very old or dead when I knew that I, whoever I was, was in my prime. When I looked down, I saw only inky blackness—not the glimmer of even a light, not the swell of even one shadow. How could I be expected to jump into the void? If I didn’t, how could I land the plane in the void? And even though I could see nothing, I felt the plane descending into the darkness. Once a beautiful young woman, I was disfigured now and had no face, just scar tissue where my face had been. Still, I dreamed of loving and being loved. One day I risked entering the anchorite cottage, where I would be able to see myself as I had been—and perhaps I hoped someone else would see me the same way. This magic came at a dear cost, although I was uncertain what it was. As miserable as I was, it seemed that the reward was worth the price. I looked into the small wall mirror and saw myself with a face, even a beautiful one, but I felt more puzzled than joyous. It was mine, yet not mine. What had been the risk of seeing it? Why could I not stay in the anchorite cottage and enjoy the illusion of having a face forever? A man, perhaps a couple, came in. Maybe this was the man I loved or could love. He or they did not notice me. Without the mirror, I saw that my illusory face was no more. How could that be? It was supposed to appear in the anchorite cottage, but perhaps that was the curse. I had had one tantalizing glimpse, and a dream for the future, and that was it. It was the end of hope.

19 April 2009: Flying fish I was on a small ship in a small sea, like the Mediterranean but colder. I sensed that it was turbulent, and then noticed concrete bumpers everywhere. Strangely, my ship never hit them. I was afraid, though, because I knew that if I fell into the water I would die almost instantly from the cold.

An enormous fish leaped out of the water and flew by. Later I would tell someone that it was airborne for 300 to 400 yards, although in the open water (with the concrete bumpers) I had no way to judge distance. The fish continued to fly around, each time landing a bit closer to the ship. After I woke up, I realized that its landings in the water never created enough disturbance to rock my ship, nor did the turbulence I had sensed, although they should have. Even more than that, I was struck by the intelligent, malevolent expression on the fish’s face as it looked intently at me on its flybys. This was no fish, but a sentient force for evil. Again I felt my awful fear of the icy water even as the fish looked knowingly at me.

2 and 3 May 2009: Twice trapped In the wee hours of Saturday, I had a marvelous dream that I was sure I would remember when I woke up. I didn’t. I think it involved water. I remember a second dream. I had to return to a party because I’d forgotten something, but the only way to it was by a stairway arched like a rainbow. It looked impossible to ascend, but when I touched a step, it flipped, and the contraption started to move like an escalator, with the steps on the other side flipping down. At the top I tried to stop at the doorway, but the escalator kept moving. The door was locked, anyway, and I wondered even as I passed helplessly by it if they would open it for me out of kindness or only if I were demanding. In the back of my mind I may have thought that the weird escalator was a circle, not an arch, in which case it would drag me underground, perhaps crushing me. In Sunday’s version, I thought some friends were getting onto an elevator with me, but when the door closed behind me I was alone. I went to push a button, but there were none. There was no door, either, and no way to get out. The only break in the solid walls of the cubic chamber was the lighted digital floor number. I marveled at how this had happened. I wondered if I should panic.

5 May 2009: Stairs to nowhere More random bits from a few dreams: I came home to find a piece of a cat’s tail on the floor. Horrified, I opened a drawer and found another piece in it. Feeling denial, I looked at the cat, who indeed was missing part of his tail. The end was healed and covered by fur, and there was no blood anywhere. It was as if this, whatever it was, had happened a long time ago. I wondered about bits of flesh ending up in a landfill, which struck me as surreal. When I picked up a dog, perhaps from boarding, I was surprised to find he could speak, and I could understand him. He was equally surprised by my ability to communicate. We thought it best to keep each other’s ability to ourselves. I was at a bar or a house with a friend from high school and left to look for the bathroom I’d found earlier. I went down the same stairs, but they ended in a step up into another room. I found more stairs, but they led down to stairs that went up. Some stairs ended in a step down so huge that it was more like a wall. I could make no sense of any of this, although at least I have seen the step up in some split-level houses. But there was no reason for these oddities. I felt like I was in The House That Jack Built. Finally, I encountered some people I knew from school, always walking away. I recognized them from the backs of their heads, even though I knew they wouldn’t look like I expected now, all these years later. I tried calling to some, but couldn’t make any sounds.

I was grabbed by two robots or androids, one of which pinched my face and breast to pin me down. They were looking for someone named “Marvin,” who I had to protect. A phrase came into my head that I repeated like a mantra even as I woke up. I’ve forgotten it now. I tried to free my face and breast without sustaining injury or damage. I wondered if it were possible.

10 May 2009: Awkward moments A friend invited me to an event where we would be sitting near the members of the Grateful Dead. I was interested in the event so I accepted, even though I wouldn’t recognize any of them. Once there, she pointed them out, so I was spared the embarrassment of having to ask. She didn’t mention names. All I thought was that they looked more cleaned up than I expected and that I hoped no one would notice that I really did not fit in. There was a break in the event, and one of them, who was seated in my row on the opposite side of a semicircle, came straight toward me after my friend had gone to get something. He spoke to me, and I was acutely aware that I was supposed to be thrilled when all I felt was embarrassment that I didn’t know his name and horror that my friend, who would have been thrilled, was missing this. I sensed, however, that he had come over to see me because she had left. I was seated at a table at an elegant outdoor event. I suspect my mind chose that venue because perhaps I would look my best if forced to be dolled up for something special, even if unnatural for me. I was alone when who should appear but TB! All those dreams in which I hoped and prayed he would notice me and all those dreams in which he didn’t, and all those dreams from which I awoke heartbroken—and now, out of nowhere, without my thought or hope, here he was, about to fulfill my fantasy and speak to me! To acknowledge my existence with words! What amazing things would we talk about? How could I help him to discover the incredible, desirable person under the plain, dull, withdrawn veneer? “So,” he said, “what do you know about Bozo the Clown?” (Nothing. I know nothing. I don’t want to, either.) I remembered the wise words of Spock: “After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.” I wonder if I will dream about TB again. Rewind?

8 June 2009: Miracle poles A high school friend invited me and others to a concert featuring a female rock singer—someone who could fill a club or maybe an amphitheater, but not a stadium, a woman who’s more notable for influencing male rock stars than for her own performances. (And someone whose music I’ve never heard.) We sat near the front, where I held two vertical poles that could connect to one another through cross pieces. We won a drawing and were invited backstage during the break. My friends disappeared, and I discovered that I would have to cross a gap high above the stage onto a crumbling concrete ledge full of holes. I hesitated, wondering why this sort of thing always happens to me, and swung over ungracefully by sitting.

While my friends were getting a conventional on the floor below—I could see them from the perspective of a third party through the cross section of wall, similar to how the inside of the Borg ship was sometimes shown on Star Trek: The Next Generation—I was taken backstage and questioned. I was asked to whom a reporter owes his loyalties from an ethics perspective. At first this seemed a simple question—the employer—but later I thought loyalty should be to the public and the public good. Feeling trapped, I suspected my answer was unsatisfactory and wondered what I was expected to prove. I knew they wanted my poles, which could help cure an ailing band member. That’s why we had “won” the tour. It must have worked because I found myself in the band’s inner sanctum, the place they didn’t want anyone to know about. A series of grandmotherly women cried as they lined up to hug me. I thought that no one would believe any of this. Strangely, in all this I had never met the singer herself. As I contemplated and questioned the positive review I would give the experience and thought about how moved I was by it, I passed her and one of her intimate friends. They were deep in conversation and ignored me. I was hurt and wondered what this snub meant after all that had happened. I felt bitter and guilty about it.

10 June 2009: Love and fear in the magical forest I was walking on the path along the woods at home, with the trees on my left and the field on my right. In an instant, I was transported into a dense fairy-tale forest, where among the trees were amiable people and interesting shops full of unusual wares. This secret place, which combined the beauties of nature and the comforts of civilization and art, was deeply mysterious and inaccessible. I had stumbled into a place that felt like home, but I knew that I did not belong there. The people there knew it, too. I sensed that they were afraid for me but they could not warn me. The deeper into this place I wandered, the more at home and the more fearful I felt— fearful that I could not stay and would have to leave. TJB was behind this. He did not wish to drive me away, but I had to go. It was he who was influencing the people, much as he have regretted having to do it. Gradually I realized that I was dreaming, and I resisted waking up. I did not want to break the spell and the hold the forest had over my heart.

8 July 2009: The candy store I was semi-awake for what seemed like a long time, having a featureless dream that resolved into my university campus. On one of its main streets I came across a candy store, which made me sad. How could a candy store, which I associated with little children from a bygone time, survive on such a campus? In the twilight, I peered into the display window and saw a candy snowman with a permanently sad candy face. The sight broke my heart, but I was distracted when I noticed a child knocking on the door. She wanted to get in not for the candy but to play with the little girl I now noticed in the closed store. Her African-American mother, perhaps the owner, sat nearby in a rocking chair and didn’t seem to notice the visitor or the knocking. In a cradle lay a baby with an enormous cartoon head and lots of red hair, like Little Orphan Annie. The inexpressible candy suffering on the face of the candy snowman and

the disturbing surreal appearance of the baby, combined with what I felt had to be the inevitable failure of the store, upset me and made me wish I had not seen it. Yesterday I’d read some articles about senior executives and a few middle managers being laid off, although it was claimed in all cases that the reasons were not financial. I must not believe it. While this recession is different and not as evident as the Great Depression with its lines of hollow-eyed, stony-faced workers, somehow I sense that we can’t hide it, or hide from it, forever. We are the snowman in the window, exposed.

25 July 2009: My dinner with Dracula I was called indoors to a family dinner, which I could not miss. I found myself looking up dozens or hundreds of feet at a doorway to a castle. There was no way I could get in that way, but I had to hurry. I looked for someone to help me. In a dungeon I found what I believed to be the man in charge, who would assist me only if I paid him. I couldn’t. He was poorly dressed for an authority figure, and I mistrusted him and his demands for money. Next I came across a better-dressed man who really was the manager. He agreed to help me into the upper part of the castle, but then he disappeared. As I wandered the dungeon, I discovered an enormous bed, much larger than a king- sized bed, that was old fashioned in design and coverings. It flashed upon me that it covered a tomb where a vampire slept—the vampire who was at dinner waiting for me. I looked up to see that the high doorway had appeared in the midst of nowhere, with the vampire standing in it, beckoning to me. I was terrified but felt compelled to follow even though I didn’t know what to do or how to do it. The vampire and the doorway nowhere mystified, horrified, and paralyzed me.

30 August 2009: Pools and planes I remember a few elements from my dream this morning, which, I think, took place at a school. I was with some girls at the edge of an enormous indoor pool in which marine mammals swam. One or two of the girls, my friends, jumped into the water, which was strictly forbidden. Guiltily, I ran away, not wanting to be associated with such behavior and not wanting to be caught (in the sense that I didn’t stop or report them). I worried about this, and about the mammals catching diseases. I worried less about the girls being hurt. I went into breakfast. The boy or man at the end of my bench started to shake voluminous amounts of salt onto the head of the girl next to me and then mine, so much so that I had inches of salt on my head. Yet I did nothing because I didn’t know what to do. It was something I couldn’t or shouldn’t stop because it seemed to have some meaning. Outdoors, a series of tiny but menacing airplanes came toward us. I didn’t know what to do as I didn’t understand their intention. Vaguely afraid, I caught a few of them in my hands and turned them around. More planes came, and I did the same. I am not sure what happened to the ones I didn’t catch, although I think they continued on Then, thinking that that battle was over, I looked up and saw enormous tanks coming straight for me, rather than for the group. I could do nothing about them as they weren’t robotic miniatures but the real thing. I mentally prepared to die.

Instead, I was kidnapped. The kidnapper was a man who seemed smooth, charming, and ambiguous—I could not tell whether he was evil or not. He talked to me a great deal. I didn’t know his intentions.

9 September 2009: Weird physics I was in a strange house with my brother and other people. Nothing was right, within or without. The flows of time and space felt wrong, and the end seemed to be drawing near. When I saw a vase perched at a right angle to the floor of the fireplace, I had an epiphany—the answer lay in physics. I became even more downcast, however—I know nothing of physics. I thought of a child named Liu, who I knew could help. But how to find him in this strange house, immersed in fluid and darkness?

18 September 2009: This is no place like home I was at a party given by my parents, but the trailer was nothing like it used to be. The rooms were dark and different, as though they had been rebuilt within a different shell. The main room now sported an impossible cathedral ceiling that made it feel oppressive instead of open and airy. My closet, although full of scattered boxes, was much bigger than my bedroom and was covered with black paper. Despite its crammed space, it had become the focal point of the party. I saw my dad from behind, staggering as though he were drunk. As he never drank, I suspected he was gravely ill and tried to catch up to him to help him, but he somehow kept eluding me like an illusion. Something was terribly wrong with my world, and I was frightened.

28 October 2009: Stray man and cat A handsome young man seated at a table with his growing family kept looking up to the stairs to the attic, where his pretty young wife sat with another woman, perhaps her sister. Teasingly, yet meaningfully, the wife would tell him to mind his dinner. Like me, she knew he was interested in the woman. I sensed a playful but real tension. The next time I looked at the women, I realized the companion was just a girl, perhaps even an older teenager. It came to me, too, that the man supported his family through petty crime. The man left to meet another man; together they went in search of a particular cat. But the cat eluded them, and they became transfixed by a different cat, which they caught. It did not seem to mind. I doubted that either cat was really an animal and wondered what their game was. They knew what they were doing and had something in mind. I was a little afraid for the men, for although they were petty criminals, they were not evil at heart.

31 October 2009: Halloween vampire A well-dressed man held a group hostage in an elegant dining room at a mansion. They may not have known it, but I could tell he was a vampire. If they didn’t comply with his wishes, which were unknown to me, he would perform unspeakably gruesome acts. He pointed to what looked like an ordinary coffee mug and handed a girl a twig, almost like cinnamon bark. She, under his control, dropped the twig, a drug or poison, into the cup, although part of me wondered how he would force the people to drink it. I knew

him to be evil, though, and in my mind I saw all of them tortured and dying if they drank what was in the cup. I don’t know if I was the girl, or if I was an opposing power who controlled her, but she tipped the cup so its toxic contents slowly and quietly spilled out. The vampire seemed unaware, and I felt certain she would not be caught or punished. With the cup, the balance of power seemed to have tipped in my favor.

17 November 2009: iPhone addiction While I was visiting family, they offered to take me for a ride in the country. V. took the wheel of the Jeep, which she never does. We drove across the hills in a way that struck me as improbable. At one point the grass turned into a dirt road around a bend, but V. stayed on the corner grass, giving us a bump. Fighter jets flew in formation overhead. A few would have seemed strange, but there were enough to indicate something big was happening here. “In Pennsylvania”? I thought in disbelief. We came to a cliff overlooking an artificially rectangular lake that was an unhealthy green. We could see an enormous helicopter and a smaller plane submerged, but I was told they had been there for years. By now some of the fighter jets were flying full speed into the water, transforming into dark-green submersibles just before impact. As we looked down the strangely sheer walls into the lake, we spotted what we thought were bodies, but although they looked dead we became aware that they were alive. To my surprise and shock, CC threw my iPhone into the lake, which appeared to have the effect of killing the bodies that hadn’t been dead but now were. How we could tell this I don’t know. I felt guilty for their deaths, but mostly I wanted my iPhone back. Neither CC nor anyone else seemed inclined to take responsibility, and I felt devastated even as my waking mind wondered whether a saturate iPhone would work. The lake lurked as the the most disturbing aspect, a chiseled, post-industrial, post- apocalyptic morass, apparently filled with human and mechanical victims—our final destination after an amazing ride among the lovely green hills.

20 November 2009: Around the bend In a recurring dream scene, I returned to college to find that the campus and the neighborhood were utterly unfamiliar. The dormitories had become Borgian labyrinths, modern and strange, yet dark and cluttered. Outdoors I expected to find the usual bland streets and city lights, but, as I usually find, there was a magnificent oceanscape and natural area, just a few blocks away. As always, I wondered why I hadn’t spent time there back then, although I hadn’t known it existed and wasn’t sure it actually had. I mourned the lost opportunity. Some friends and I went to a restaurant in a crowded block of storefronts that looked more like San Francisco than Hyde Park. Someone drove me and others home in a yellow convertible roadster. When she parked in a narrow alley, I could feel the car inching forward after she had gotten out, refusing to stay put. She noticed it, too. I called for help, but the others had left. She and I managed to stop it, and she drove it forward onto what looked like a hilly country road in Pennsylvania, around the bend. In the twilight, the car suddenly looked pink.

The car’s refusal to behave, the changing landscapes, and the altered color combined to frighten me. I felt like I must be in a virtual funhouse, happy one moment, terrified the next.

2 December 2009: Anxiety much? Five days off, one day back to work, and already I’ve relapsed into the habit of falling asleep early, waking up in the wee hours, and nodding off lightly to have dreams filled with anxiety. In this edition, I was lying naked but wrapped in a blanket (as I actually was) in a strange bed, trying to sleep. This is where the line between reality and dream blurs. I froze when the door opened, hoping not to be seen by the intruder. It proved to be my brother, who crawled into the bed next to me while I contemplated the strangeness of this strange place. I could see outdoors into the night. Later, shaking with her irritation, my aunt asked me how I had missed hearing the phone ring. I listened to a long, rambling, almost incomprehensible message from HR about how I’d never received formal permission to take these three days off and how I would be subject not just to pay withholding and disciplinary action, but to dismissal as well. By now, I sensed that everyone was angry with me. I was on a train platform for the next stage of my journey when I realized the train not only was on the opposite track, but was going to pull out momentarily. Leaving everything behind, I ran up the stairs to cross to the other side. Once I was there, children ran down the stairs in front of me. I cursed them for slowing and blocking me, although they kept well ahead of me, and I knew I could not catch up with them. The platform emptied of people abruptly as I arrived, so with a sinking feeling I knew the train was about to leave, and I marveled at myself because I had not brought my luggage. I woke up weary.

24 December 2009: Racing donkeys [Afternoon nap.] Someone was driving when I noticed he was about to hit the stop sign at the edge of the grass. It fell over, so I got out to restore it while explaining to the driver why I hadn’t been able to make my mouth work to warn him. The bottom of the sign seemed to fit in a stand I found in the grass, and I set both on the corner. As I did, I noticed that the stand would fit perfectly into a compartment on a hitch on the back of a parked car, so I set both the stand and sign there instead. Something didn’t seem right, and I realized that when the car drove off the stand and sign would go with it. That didn’t make sense. Somehow I was lured out of my apartment, which was taken over by sinister-looking boys. Through the windows they threatened me with lollipops, then threw them at me when I seemed determined to get in. I threw them back, wondering if they were poisonous or explosive. I was terrified of them. While I was walking behind a cow, a hand reached out from under its tail and grabbed mine. At first I thought little of this, but it held mine more and more firmly as the cow tried to lead me somewhere, I knew not where. This happened several times with other animals, including a donkey. Each succeeding hand held mine more tightly, making each harder and harder to get away from. The

animals, if that’s what they were, and the hands were trying to lead me somewhere bad for me. I never found out where, although I was very curious. With someone I was watching similar farm animals and camels burst into racing speed for a short distance, then stop. We analyzed their movements, which were coordinated and graceful and contributed to the surprising speed they attained. We learned it was due to the influence of alcohol. I woke up afraid, especially of the hands.

27 December 2009: It’s complicated, or dream in three acts While walking down a theater aisle, I spotted TB for the first time in months. As I passed by, I quoted a line from a play in the voice or intonation of Orson Welles—or I hoped I did. That should have gotten his attention. Immediately I wondered if I also looked like Welles and what I had been thinking—that he would fall for the same kind of talent and abilities I do? In these dreams, I try to impress him and others with what I like. I was wearing a light cotton housecoat when I realized I was standing in the middle of a road at night, and a car was coming. I ducked into my closet, which was right up against the narrow, shoulderless road, and tried to pull the housecoat around me and shut the door, but the coat wouldn’t fit around my breasts. The car passed within inches of me, and I felt shaken by nearly being hit and seen. I heard a former boss from PwC come along with someone. They talked about moving some files in the closet on the other side. There was nowhere for me to go. I went back to the hospital for a third procedure/second surgery and ran into T. F. F. while waiting. I felt ambivalent about this, but when he tried to be apologetically affectionate, perhaps even sexy, I didn’t like it. I left to find a bathroom, but everything was strange, with no doors or distinct toilets. After passing through the corridors, I came upon a plaza of quaint stores like those in Wheaton, Long Grove, and Geneva. Now I was confused. I went back the way I thought I had come, but I was lost. Finally, I saw someone to ask for directions, but when I followed them I ended up in what appeared to be a fancy drawing room with no other exit. It was nothing like a hospital. By now, I was panicking that I’d been called for surgery while I had been wandering, and a little worried that T. F. F. would think I had run off. I was anxious because I believed this surgery was critical to my survival, and that I’d walked out on my last chance for life (surgery) as well as a renewed friendship that I no longer had much interest in. All I could think was, “It’s complicated,” but I did not want to explain why.

6 January 2010: Malicious fish In this dream not much happened, but it was disturbing conceptually and visually. My cat seemed normal, but I could tell that he was an empty shell filled with an enormous, vicious-looking fish. I would open a flap to try to remove the fish, but couldn’t bring myself to touch it. It couldn’t be left there, either, because it was evil. I wasn’t sure that anything was left of the cat. It was too late. My mother and I were in the city, a place where I’d never seen her. I observed myself as a giant parade balloon against the night sky. I let go of my mother’s string, and she floated high into the air. Soon she crashed into the spot from which I had released her. I felt horrible as she was injured and in pain—but I must have known this would happen when I let go. She tried to tell me the complicated way in which she’d been repaired up

there, but this made no sense to me as she’d been hurt on landing, not on rising. My head swam. I felt forlorn and terrible, although I thought I should feel light and free.

7 January 2010: Along comes Mary I was with a group of people in a science lab who were intent on making something that seemed like an arts-and-crafts project. I was more interested in flinging Mardi Gras beads around and dancing. One tall man appeared to feel the same way, but he couldn’t quite make his way to me. A musician was half sitting, half lying on the floor, his face stretched and mask-like as though he’d been burned. The only song I could hear was “Along Comes Mary,” which never stopped playing. The tall man, the musician, and I knew something the others didn’t and were right to focus on the dance. I could feel it.

17 January 2010: Trains, planes, and staircase monster Fragments from a longer dream or series—The train was chugging along normally when it decided to break apart. Cars and groups of cars spread out in different directions, forming an instant, disorganized rail yard but without the tracks. The engine—or was it the caboose?—wouldn’t or couldn’t stop and burst into steam or smoke. It was foreboding. Again I was flying over a swimming pool that ran through a city like a river. Huge dark shadows of enormous fish appeared just below the water, and planes ducked under the water in pursuit. “What are they doing?” I asked. “Catching fish,” a voice answered. We seemed to do the same. There were more planes making more dives than there were fish, and I worried and wondered, but not about why. I was looking for a street exit from a building, but kept getting more trapped. I would come upon stairs, but they proved to be channels into which I had to fit to slide down. There was no up. I began to think there was no out, either. I was at the top of an ancient, crumbling stone staircase leading toward the bowels of the earth. At the bottom was a wall—a dead end. A monster I could not escape had run me to ground.

28 January 2010: Leonard Nimoy is ready for his close-up At a strange mall, I was pursued by a group intent on killing me. I found a door, opened it, and entered a space just big enough to hold me. It had no lock, which I hoped my pursuers wouldn’t notice. I tried to hold it closed by the handle, although it kept changing and even disappearing. I didn’t know how long they would look for me and wondered if they were lurking, waiting for me to open the door. Something about the room made me feel safe. At the mall (or was it a film festival?), I took a photo of Leonard Nimoy with my iPhone. Somehow I got word to him, and he searched until he found me. All he wanted was the photo. By then, I couldn’t find it on the iPhone. What should have been app icons had become the blank edges of CDs, so I had no clue as to what was on them. He had cornered me near a creepy house and frightened me without saying a word. Finally he left, with a sad yet menacing expression.

Finally I found the photo, and he reappeared instantly—perhaps I or my mind called out. As he walked off with it (somehow, as it was a file), he turned and blew me the lightest of kisses.

30 January 2010: The cat impostor My brother and I were flying toward and over the ocean on the open seat of a hovercraft. It was exhilarating and more than a little scary. At a house, everyone was preparing for a game or a class, but I kept looking out a window at a street, where something about the buildings and even the weather wasn’t right. I recalled that there was supposed to be some kind of conflict—I wanted trees removed from along the shore to enhance the water views, while a large, powerful group of neighbors was lobbying to keep them. None of it, least of all my viewpoint, made sense to me. The people of the house tried to get me to join the game or class, but I was distracted by a young ginger-and-white cat on the basement steps that I was sure was some reincarnation of my beloved tortoiseshell, Pudge. I didn’t know why I was so certain, and was confused and upset when the cat didn’t respond to me at all. Surely Pudge would have remembered me?

1 February 2010: Ducks in a row Several men were playing an enormously long piano keyboard. Facing them was a row of ducks trained to respond to their movements and cues. The ducks moved in patterns with the music toward the keyboard, an amazing sight to behold. I was standing next to a car door and holding a golf club, the head of which people were supposed to hit (with a ball?). This would prevent something catastrophic from happening. The onus was on me, although I just stood there. A tower with a round top like a revolving restaurant or UFO loomed overhead. The city seemed safe, but I feared that whatever held the tower together, perhaps a ring, would come loose and would cause all to come crashing down around us. I ran into an old friend from my first job, and we talked about her babies, with a misunderstanding on my part because she meant only the youngest, while I referred to all of them. To my dismay, I learned that the boy, the second youngest, was more than 40 years old, when I still thought of him as a 7-year-old. Future shock.

11 February 2010: Back to university, back at home I was at your house, which was full of women and children. While the atmosphere was festive, no one noticed me, and I wanted nothing more than to go to bed. No one would stop to tell me where, and I wondered if I were invisible. I returned to college because I thought there had to be more to the area than I remembered. I set off for the bookstore, which was across a park green, although I knew it might not be open. I expected it to carry the same things it had 20 or 30 years ago, as though I had never left. As happens in this recurring dream, the landscape had changed dramatically, and I found myself at the top of a hill looking down at a lush green hollow where the road curved. Open-air arts and crafts booths, like something you might find in the country, filled the hollow. It looked magical. I wondered how I could have missed such a strange sight in the city 30 years ago.

I was at home in the trailer, where everywhere I looked—the stove, even the kitchen drawers—the gas was lit, although the flames didn’t burn anything. I didn’t question how or why; I knew this to be part of my mother’s cleaning ritual. I looked for her to ask her how long she planned to leave the gas on and the fires burn. She said, “At least one hour,” which made me nervous. She pointed to my dad, who was working outside on a bare pile of dirt, and to an oncoming storm. Several trees had been broken up, and I thought about how too many had been lost to development since I was last at home. I had a strange feeling that soon none of the familiar trees would be left. The storm slammed into the trailer in a way that made me realize it was more of a hurricane or tornado than a summer thunderstorm. Its destructive force filled me with terror. When it moved on, the walls of the trailer were left flattened, and nothing—not even the vintage metal suitcase of photos—had been left behind. My parents were standing off to the side where my dad had been, hugging one another. My dad waved to me without letting go of my mother. Despite the gesture, I had the impression that it would have been okay if I had been blown away, too, but that may have been because the scope of the loss left me devastated. I wondered if the photos would turn up somewhere and if they would be too wet to be salvageable.

1 May 2010: The Star Banger I was in a futuristic city high rise when suddenly a giant star like a cookie cutter banged against one of the full-sized glass windows in front of me. It came back and banged again. Clearly, it was up to something bad as it tried to to break through. Finally it did, but then it left. I raised my hand in salute, which made it return and crash against the glass that was still there. Every time I made a gesture of thanks, it returned and banged again. I couldn’t stop myself.

17 May 2010: In which Lovecraft haunts me I was in a strange house, where a girl or young woman showed me a room that looked like a semi-aquatic exhibit at a zoo. The back half was filled with murky water, and the effect of the house and the room was to fill me a sense of horror and foreboding. The word “Cthulhul” kept appearing in my mind, and for what seemed like hours I spelled it over and over again, obsessively, stopping only when I woke up. I have never read Lovecraft.

6 June 2010: In which I earn a degree without remembering I was watching boys I’d known in high school performing at my college, which confused me. That they were playing the part of dogs controlled by a man at center stage confused me more, but as an audience member I responded enthusiastically. One of them, TL, called me over and handed me a request to pick up his medication. I began wandering the labyrinthine halls of a rundown Gothic building with scratched wooden doors that were missing locks, trying to find what I guessed to be a formulating pharmacy. I understood that this errand wasn’t important to the boy and that he’d wanted me to go away, but I also knew that the request was for asthma medication. I kept hearing, “Asthma: Life or death.”

Finally, after having almost blundered into a secret research lab (one of the doors without a lock), I came away with two bottles of medication. The only bathrooms I could find were filthy. I thought about a couple of people I’d seen and wondered how they could have come to be here. They shouldn’t and couldn’t be here, but here they were. I looked up to find DK staring at me as he was coming down an incongruous escalator, but in an epiphany I realized I no longer cared and that somehow I had earned a graduate degree in political science. I couldn’t remember a single course. I’ve done it again, I thought, squeaked out a degree without having learned anything. At some point, now or earlier, I was walking along a highway and up a ramp toward home. The ramp suddenly blended into a grassy, rock-covered hill with no signs of highway or pavement in any direction. I felt more lost than ever.

13 July 2010: Ducks in a row While looking out the kitchen window at home, I saw my dad pulling a red wagon followed by what I thought was a mechanical duck. I wondered what kept it following him so neatly—a magnet? A string? By the time he’d turned down the middle row, I’d caught up with the wagon, which was now followed by a line of live ducks, most of them young. I couldn’t tell what kept the ducks in line and so attached to the wagon. I felt compelled to scratch them under their bills, which some but not all tolerated. Although this scene seemed inexpressibly charming to me, suddenly I wanted to move me and my dad into a shared two-bedroom apartment. I found one for $1,300 a month, which I thought we could afford between us. My own actions made me sad, and I missed the ducks and their parade with my dad.

14 July 2010: Return and return again (not the poem) I dreamed about TB again, although I seem to have put the details out of my head as soon as I could, or as soon as the tedium of work could. In this one I had at long last gained his attention—not his fixed attention or interest, but at least I wasn’t invisible.

22 August 2010: Being human Clearly I’ve seen too many adverts for Being Human on BBC America. They’ve crept into my dreams. However scary it may be, it’s no more horrifying than everyday life. I saw a high school classmate receive an assignment, with different groups to complete different parts. While I witnessed everything, I missed what I was supposed to do. I went to the group I knew to be mine, but I didn’t know them, and they didn’t know me. The more desperate I became, the more they ignored me. I didn’t know the consequences of my ignorance or inaction, of there were any. Intense frustration washed over me. That wasn’t the Being Human part. That could be any day, every day . . . Monstrous beings—vampires, werewolves—were being pursued through the city by a hunt club. Not entirely visible, they fled hounds and horses. Their flight led the club into the track of an oncoming train. I couldn’t bear to look at the carnage. When I finally did, however, I saw that the train had cut cleanly through part of the lead dog’s face, so that it was in three-quarters profile, with no gore as though it were a paper cutout. I realized that the rest of the tableau must be like that. They were now frozen in place in time, caught in pursuit, with parts of their being slashed harmlessly and painlessly away. Yet I could sense infinite sadness in the lead hound, and the same sadness overcame me.

When I woke up, I realized that what I’d seen had not been a hound or even a dog. It had been a fox.

23 August 2010: The unwelcome guest I was hosting a reception at a reunion when a woman came in and made herself at home without a word. I may have tried talking to her to find out who she was and why she was there, but her actions and silence inflamed me into an irrational righteous anger. I screamed and drove her out. She didn’t make a sound or acknowledge me. I returned to the room, which now seemed like a kitchen, and wrote a nasty note to her. When I tried to deliver it (how could I know where?), I found the room of one of my oldest friends from elementary school, but I hesitated to knock. I wasn’t sure of myself. After leaving my note with indignation, I returned to the reception room/kitchen and found the business card-sized invitations. They consisted of two lines labeled “a” and “b.” I discovered the one I somehow knew had been sent to the mystery woman. The “a” line was addressed to her. The “b” line expressed a heartfelt hope that she would attend the reception from which I had so angrily and crudely ejected her. It was from my dad. I had just revealed myself to be an irrational, cranky fishwife to someone my dad knew and liked well enough to invite to the reception. I wondered if she were confused and surprised by the vitriolic reception she’d received and what she would think of my poor father, who had invited her with such warmth. I wondered about what is wrong with me that I could act so.

29 August 2010: The island I was looking at an island full of animals, each a single example of its species. All off them stood or lay around, looking exhausted or helpless. One, a cat or hyena, appeared to be emaciated. To my surprise, they showed no interest in interacting with one another. Surrounded by prey, the gaunt cat/hyena seemed unwilling or unable to move. Among the animals was a tarsier that looked out of place on the island’s sands, out of the trees. It seemed especially vulnerable. Abruptly, a kudu attacked the tarsier, carrying it off. All of this was so out of the natural order that I watched in shock, feeling a separation but not a detachment. I was afraid to watch, but couldn’t help myself. The kudu didn’t know what to do with the tarsier and kept licking it, although it did appear to want to eat it. The tarsier made no effort to escape, appearing to be resigned to its fate. I felt horrified and inexpressibly sad, as though witnessing part of an apocalypse.

23 September 2010: The watery apocalypse I was under the desk at home, lighting matches and throwing them down. If the papers I was trying to light caught fire, I put it out quickly. It flared once, so I had to tell my dad, then I thought about getting a blanket. I was in a very narrow pool in what could have been an industrial setting, swimming toward a woman who could have been a coach or a friend. I sensed that I was training for something big, even the Olympics, but the setting was all wrong—more like something from a Batman movie or a book than real life. I wanted to avoid the woman.

I had to go to the bathroom, but the toilets were lined up along the pool, and they were too high for me to reach, as though they had been built for giants, or I was very small. Outside my elementary school auditorium, where I was waiting for a symposium to begin, I saw a man I recognized from HR, and he saw me. When he came over, I noticed that he carried a suitcase emblazoned with reach.com and realized I’d met him at another event. I marveled at the idea that I was networking. Inside the auditorium, the stage disappeared, and we could see Lake Erie as though through a window. The water was rising in impossibly shaped columns and in a cataclysmic tumult. The audience seemed frozen in terror, but I had to do something. The end seemed near. At the administrative office, I found the staff going about business as usual. Through their windows I could see an idyllic sunny summer day. I ran to a door to the outside, opened it, and saw more sun. I recalled the horror in the auditorium and wondered which universe was real.

26 September 2010: The drowning bridge I lived on a flexible, rust-painted bridge that snaked its way around a large body of water. Just as I was thinking how fortunate it was that the bridge didn’t dip underwater, I noticed that the end of it next to me was submerged and that I was clinging to a portion that was barely above water level. I also realized that the bridge had an intelligence and will of its own and that I didn’t know what it might do next. It seemed that the end was caught underwater, but I wasn’t sure. I became aware of a boy nearby hanging onto my parents’ open back door and wondered if they’d adopted him. Determined to save him, I reached out, but he cowered from me. I didn’t know where they were, I realized.

5 October 2010: Back to school I was in a dark, oddly deserted apartment, where I noticed that there was no TV. I thought about my roommate, realizing that I’d seen her here only once, several days ago. I was eating lunch at a picnic table with two boys I understood to be my friends, although they were ignoring me. Suddenly there was something I had to tell them. They didn’t listen at first, but I felt immensely gratified when I did get their full attention. “I just had a vision or dream in which my major was hiking and backpacking,” I told them as though this were the most wondrous thing in the world, which to me it was, even as I mentally noted that I had not mentioned anything difficult, e.g., rafting. They seemed happy for me. I asked the boy next to me for a tiny piece of the half chicken he’d just taken, but instead he gave me something from the scraps left behind. I felt distinctly unloved and unappreciated. As in other dream, I recalled that I have a degree, and I was starting to realize that not only was my academic performance just as bad this time, but that I wasn’t getting the degree I seemed to want, in hiking and backpacking. That will teach me to sign up for Road Scholar.

2 November 2010: Gothic college adventure During a rare afternoon nap, I went back to college, was victimized by an administration prank, pushed flatboats that were underwater further underwater, noticed I had nothing with me, realized that skipping a year I would be graduating with strangers, listened to the agony of a boy in love, and horrified my mother with my apparent lack of underclothes. Busy afternoon. I was back at college for a fifth year, this time because I had skipped a year. A couple of boys and I were waiting in a small Gothic-style room, where we heard strange voices and witnessed strange movements. At last a door opened behind us, and a dart flew past us and landed with a hard thwack in the opposite wall. Although it had come from behind, I knew it was no supernatural agency because somehow I had seen the dart thrower—a boy from my high school. Even more odd, the college boys who couldn’t have seen him either and who had never been to my high school recognized and named him. As we tried to open various doors, all locked, to escape, they told me this was all an administration ploy to see how stressed we would be about filling out forms. Forms? I finally forced one door open and found another door beyond it. To my relief, it opened to the outdoors. Water flowed down the steps, and a flatboat passed and disappeared under the flow as it went downstream. Tiny voices from another boat, girls from high school, implored me to push them under and over as they were stuck. Without seeing them, I did, and felt guilty. I wondered why I was here and had taken a year off. I would graduate with strangers, I thought, which I regretted. In a hallway, I encountered a boy from college who was a year behind me, standing in front of a door. Although he talked to me, it was as though I were not there. He poured out his affection for some worthless girl who would never notice him, while expecting comfort from the invisible. I had little to give as I had none for myself. I found myself in a room with a long table, where the scene looked like an elaborate 18th-century banquet. At a sideboard, I bent slightly to pour coffee and heard a gasp behind me. Without looking, I knew it was my mother, horrified by what she perceived as my lack of underclothes under my skirts. I wasn’t wearing skirts.

12 November 2010: Who moved my theater? I was at a high school reunion, where each of us had received a gift, probably a stapler. I left for a while, and when I returned to the table the gift was gone. For some reason, I was disturbed into outrage over this trivial loss and demanded that the hotel staff help me, but they pointedly ignored me. I was beside myself. As part of the reunion, we boarded a bus that headed west on 55^th Street/Garfield Avenue in Chicago. Our destination was a theater, where we watched a musical that seemed to be part Big River, part Show Boat, and part Dreamgirls, with the main story revolving around a African American singer married to a Caucasian man in the 1960s. The bleacher seats we were on started to move, and the scene changed to an outdoor view of the Chicago River and a church in winter. I looked behind and saw tracks through a back window, so I suspected the entire theater was on a track and could be moved to change the scene, but I was mystified by the view of the river from that location. I sensed that the theater could be moved to any scene and that there was more to this mystery than

moving within the limits of physical tracks. This, and that it was occurring in Chicago, where I had not attended high school, bothered me, and I woke up frightened and fascinated.

19 November 2010: Band on the run I was standing up with the Beatles, all four, who were performing live. As with all my dreams, I found myself there suddenly and didn’t know why or what to do. i tried to keep to a small side area I thought to be off camera. I could imagine the resentment if I appeared to mar the reunion. After an uncomfortable time, I noticed there was an audience, a congregation at a synagogue. I was their rabbi and was expected to play a traditional instrument. I may have surprised myself by being able to, unusual for me in a dream. At a banquet hall, I walked past a table where TB was seated. He was quiet, but his companions were discussing girls’ names, coming up with all kinds of dreadful contortions. The only one I could think of was “Anne,” so I suggested it casually without appearing to notice him. TB stirred, seemed to look at me, and to my shock threw in his contribution: “Diane.” Outside, I saw an entire orchestra roll by, each member strapped to an appropriately sized single wheel. I marveled at the wonder and incongruity, then noticed a violinist for whom it seemed especially dangerous. Some threatened others by rounding corners at too much of a tilt. All were riding toward an apocalyptic sky. It was then I realized I, in my form as the musical rabbi, was supposed to be leading them.

18 December 2010: Demon spawn and the steps to nowhere While I was with a friend or relative, she asked me to help her carry her two babies, as they were becoming a heavy burden. I took the carrier, which turned out to be an open-ended denim sling with a handle, designed similarly to a fire log carrier. I was surprised to see that the babies were stacked one on top of the other, and both were precariously hanging out the carrier’s ends. Somehow this was my fault, and if something tragic happened it would be my responsibility. I took one of the babies out. It was an odd infant, with a large, bald head and a tiny body. I began to feel uncomfortable. I took out the one underneath, afraid of what I would find. It was alive and had an enormous head full of thick black hair, but almost no body. Neither looked like any baby or human I had ever seen, and I was filled with a silent horror. These weren’t anyone’s children. They looked at me precociously as I asked myself what they were. I tried to go up steps in a house, but they kept changing. They didn’t connect from level to level. I would reach the top of one set and be stuck, unable to reach the next set, which would be suspended near the first at an impossible angle. I was trapped. Again.

26 December 2010: Road to joy Sometimes it’s difficult to distinguish imaginings from memories. I’m glad of this. It pleases me that I don’t know whether a strongly felt recollection is only a blip of the brain that never happened.

In a variation of a recurring dream, I’d traveled so far up Route 20 that I’d found where it ended in one or more trails leading into the woods. Down one trail lay the home of family friends. It was so remote that we had rarely visited them. Whenever we left, knowing that we would not return for a long time, the place had seemed to disappear into the woods and out of sight, like a sylvan Brigadoon. To go there with my parents had been a rare treat; to return there as an adult would be a thrill. As I stood at the head of the path, I could recall how marvelous this place had made me feel, with its unreal quiet and timeless, mythical serenity. I wondered why we had not come here more often, although I knew that you can visit such a place only on its terms. I couldn’t remember any details, but I could sense them just beyond my comprehension and reach. I was happy that I was about to arrive, but I knew that I never would. When I woke up, I realized there was no such place and never had been. But my memories of it are powerful, and I long to experience those feelings again.

30 December 2010: My aunt’s house I was at a combined high school-college reunion, interesting because I was the only person common to both. I could not get anyone to notice or talk to me; it was as though I were invisible or did not exist. After making countless efforts to participate, I gave up, deeply unhappy and disturbed. It was then I realized I was in my aunt’s house, which I had always found to be mysterious. I remember, as though it were an actual memory, seeing alpine meadows around it, although it was at the bottom of a hill in town. In past dreams, just as I was leaving I would remember that I needed to check out the upper floors of the house that I hadn’t seen in years and the mysterious views of the land around it. By then, though, it would be too late, and I would have to leave. The places and views were always out of reach. This time, although I felt the urgency of time, I started to explore the house. The parts I saw were strange, but not in the way I remembered or imagined. When I looked out any window, I saw the same view—a black rock canyon dotted by many cave openings at which stood middle-class people dressed in middle-class clothes. They did nothing but stand there, apparently peering out—just as I was doing. I came to a floor that consisted of a wide, muddy, oval track—strange, but not the type of strangeness that I expected. I knew I had to wake up when I couldn’t find the views I thought I remembered or the visions I had hoped for. As I woke up, I began to think of my aunt’s house as a variation on the TARDIS.

15 January 2011: In my father’s garden I was at a performance or award ceremony in what I perceived to be my father’s garden. All around me were trees, flowers, and grasses, and I felt supremely happy. I went for a walk, and as I strolled about I noticed the landscape changing. Space was shrinking, and the trees, flowers, and grasses were being replaced by stones, walls, and other hard, colorless barriers. My formerly idyllic universe was changing, shrinking, and hardening, even as I walked through it. I felt as though I could panic at any moment when I realized the alterations were permanent and irrevocable. I couldn’t breathe. I found myself in a cave, clinging to a 160-foot smooth wooden pole that was larger at the top, like a baseball bat. I didn’t know how I could have gotten up there, but I told a

man across the way that I could slide down. He advised strongly against this plan, but I let myself go just as I woke up.

19 April 2011: The glass battle and TARDIS trailer The place was like home in some ways, but it was part of a war being fought by animals and children. An enormous animal, probably a cat or a dog, threw something into the garden. Instinctively, I knew it was deadly glass, but I didn’t know how it killed as it’s easy to avoid stepping on glass when you know it’s there. As I’d predicted, the missile shattered into seemingly infinite shards of glass, but in a limited area that could be avoided. This puzzled me. Someone I’d known from my first job walked up to me. He tried to say something, but when he opened his mouth he spewed huge amounts of glass shards. I marveled and feared. I was back at my parents’ trailer, where I noticed my brother’s bedroom had been ripped out. Now my parents had a large, comfortable sitting room connected to their bedroom, but I didn’t understand how they’d accomplished building such a big room at the back by removing a small room at the front. It was pleasing and puzzling and strange.

3 July 2011: The office I had a new job where I worked at a desk that was side by side with others, like those of Mary and Murray on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Although management didn’t like it, we kept rearranging them like my college roommates and I used to—facing each other, at right angles, and so forth. I seemed to be doing well, although I worried a great deal about approvals. One day when I was wearing a favorite dress (in reality, one that has been donated because the style is too young for me), I was horrified to notice in a mirror that, while it didn’t show anything else, somehow it was sheer enough to show that I was wearing a bright white bra. I was mortified, but no one seemed to notice. If they did, they appeared to accept me rather than judge me. I felt strange and wondered how long it would last. I went home and found that a man who’d been haranguing people in the street was looming in my front window, still shouting, but not at me personally despite the proximity. When I went around the corner to the front door, where he would not be able to see me (unfocused as he was), I found three strangers huddled there, also trying to escape him. Did they think it was natural to walk into a stranger’s house under the circumstances? I accepted this and talked to them. I don’t know why we were afraid of being observed by the man’s unseeing eye.

28 August 2011: Gothic college I was in a dormitory room at college, unpacking and wondering a little why I was there. Something attracted my attention, and I looked out two sets of glassless windows like those found in some neo-Gothic buildings. An angel or Cupid or similar figure was swinging back and forth flush to the opposite wall on a long, black, flat piece of metal. Despite its benevolent aspect, I felt something was wrong. I sensed the figure and the motion increasing in malevolence, then I saw it aim an arrow at me discreetly, a physical impossibility given its plane and angle. I woke up as it released the string with a strong

sense that I should be dead but also that I should have been able to duck the arrow. I was still frightened by the sense of evil.

7 January 2012: Date with a vampire A vampire had threatened to get me, only I didn’t know how. Soon I recognized him near me in different guises, first as a child, then as an elderly woman who changed into a beautiful young woman. I wasn’t afraid to use my strength even against such incongruous characters, but each succeeded in biting me, usually in the arm, but not enough to break the skin. I felt strong but also like he might be toying with me. I’d gotten into an elevator with a cousin who was sitting in a folding chair. The elevator started to go down with him, but my feet weren’t touching the floor. I panicked, although at times my feet did touch. The elevator stopped between floors, with the chair now folded up against the door and me suspended, yet not suspended. It was nighttime, and I began to fear that we would never be found.

16 January 2012: The basketball tournament As part of a basketball tournament my younger niece was participating in, I found a display at my Aunt D’s house. Most of the coaches had provided their players’ photos and statistics on boards, but my brother had sent a large box of disintegrating old books and a small box of photos that had been ruined when someone colored out whole areas with a crayon. Some of the photos were of a beach vacation at a place where the summer light lasted all night, and I kept thinking of Niagara Falls. The photos made me long to be at that half- lit, surreal beach again, which I thought I remembered but didn’t. When I looked again in one hallway, all the displays were gone. The next hallway was also empty. I was going to call my parents to pick me up, but had put my mobile phone aside. Toward the back of the otherwise empty house, I found some women waiting for an elevator. One of them told me my aunt’s house was huge, even after she’d closed off much of it. This part was used for this elevator, which transported these women undergrounds so they could get to their organization in the farmhouse across the field. All of this intrigued me, but I wished I had my phone so I could leave. Somehow I found myself carrying a bucket of ice for this organization across the field. Instead of delivering it, however, I dumped it out into one of the field’s rows, where it mixed instantly with the dirt to become mud. I continued to dream about the land where the sun never sets and my aunt’s limitless house.

17 March 2012: Open floor plan I was returning to my room in a dormitory when I made what I thought was an innocuous suggestion to J. After becoming defensive and angry, he locked me out of my room—I realized too late that he had the key. I didn’t want to call the police because doing so might affect a deadline he was trying to meet. In a panic, I climbed to the floor above my room and saw that it was completely open on top—there was no ceiling, just like in a dollhouse. I couldn’t imagine how I’d lived there without noticing or knowing that. As I looked down, I saw a figure dragging J.

away while looking up at me and grinning evilly. It was someone I used to work for. I wondered about his new role as dormitory head.

18 March 2012: Keeper of the kine I found myself on a TV show, although I couldn’t tell if it was a single episode or a series, as a character called “keeper of the kine.” How I’d become a television cowherd, I had no idea. I was in an empty classroom between classes, being tutored by a college math instructor (real person) on a small part in a musical being staged just so he could spend time with me and get me alone on an iceberg drifting from part of the stage to another. I was supposed to kiss sea otters along the way. Worse, I (and others) was supposed to lip synch because I couldn’t sing. None of it made sense to me, and I was appalled by the effort and expense this man was putting into making an impression on me—and I didn’t even have a major role.

13 January 2013: The hotel apartment I found myself living in an enormous, open space, arranged in a long row like a hotel floor or a ship deck and was excited by the potential — all that room. The entire family appeared, having driven hundreds of miles to see me. I was surprised, then horrified to find water leaking in through the ceiling in one room. As I walked around, I noticed garbage strewn everywhere. I had no idea how that had happened. I knew only that my interesting, spacious home mysteriously had become a sodden, smelly, uninhabitable mess. I was embarrassed and ashamed. I wanted to call for help about the leak before it became worse or spread, but the family wouldn’t lend me a phone. Meanwhile, I found out Hodge had attacked V. Her inner forearm had been ripped open, and I could see that she needed stitches right away. She refused, however, even as she kept trying to make the torn edges meet. I apologized and could not imagine how he had done that kind of damage or what could have provoked him. E. tried to persuade me to help a high school classmate, but for some reason I declined. As suddenly as the family had appeared, they disappeared. The leak stopped. I was left to clean up all the garbage that had proliferated out of control. Even as I was swooping it up by the armfuls to get rid of it, I found that kids had thrown out many useful items and that I was going to have to sort through the smelly, decaying mess piece by piece. I was horrified and sickened by this turn my life had taken. Next thing I knew, an infomercial was being taped in my apartment in one area, while I was in a play that involved my being swung around — until the electricity failed. As suddenly as the family had appeared, I met two of my classmates, including TB, who as usual didn’t see me or know me or acknowledge me in any way. He’s never snobbish, just oblivious. I found out the show was to continue in New Mexico, but I lost both classmates as the one who at least knew me had tired of me. I also learned that the apartment building manager had decided to use my apartment for public works, for example, large parts of it had been converted to soup kitchens. I wanted to say something to the manager but was still fixated on how I could be so invisible to the one human being I would like to see me. And on how V.’s arm could be saved without stitches.

9 March 2013: Walk of the lotus-eater I went for a walk, but then I couldn’t find my way home. I didn’t remember where it was or what it looked like, inside or out, although I had a vague idea about the intersection of streets. Along the way I checked out many buildings, but each was high off the ground and didn’t have steps. I didn’t know how the residents got into it. Suddenly I found wasn’t wearing a top or bra, so I covered myself with my arms. I wondered how this had happened; it seemed so odd. I wouldn’t have left home like that. In the street I saw a small primate and tried to catch it, thinking to return it to the zoo, but when I caught up to it, it turned on me and snarled. I showed it a stuffed animal to calm it, but it tried to steal the toy while saying, “This should be mine.” It seemed to hate me, which puzzled me as most animals react well to me. I found a place I could get into and for some reason showed someone my cleavage, but then noticed there was a child in the room and so ran out. I didn’t understand what was happening to me. While still trying to figure out where I was, I saw a diagram of an airport and assumed it must be O’Hare. It seemed awfully small and too close to the neighborhoods around it, as though there were no boundary areas. I was lying on a stoop when I heard a plane faltering overhead and watched in horror as it dove nose first into the ground. A team of football players ran off the plane toward me. By then I had a blanket, which I pulled up over me as the plane exploded and debris landed on me. Two cowboys were sitting on either side of me. I hoped one of them would take my hand, even out of sympathy. Finally, one of them did. I found another place. Walking through, I saw various people cooking in various kitchens that were in the hallway. I sat down in a living room, hoping no one would realize I didn’t belong there. They handed out white pipes and started to smoke something green. I told them I have never smoked pot so they covered me in it. I said, “Are you hoping I’ll be arrested, too?” “Yes.” They wanted me to burn for being an uptight prude. I told them that it was for health reasons, that my lungs were bad. They accepted that and me. I tried to leave but there was no way I could jump down to the ground from the high doorway. I marveled that I had gotten into all these different places. I wondered that I couldn’t get out of this one. I worried why I couldn’t remember where exactly my place was and what it looked like, inside or out, and about my odd behavior. Am I suffering from dementia? I wondered.

29 August 2014: Game of qualms I was in a tunnel, waiting for a conquering alien species to arrive on a train. They did, "parking" the train by maneuvering it onto a high ledge. It was a daring, stunning move. The people around me thought I was as powerless as they, but I had a wrist bracelet that emitted a deadly ray (it looked a lot like a Fitbit Flex). It needed to charge before it would work. They didn't know that I was not one of them.

When I was attacked, and saw what was going on around me, I had no choice but to try the bracelet. It worked, although weakly, and I had to hit the alien female with the ray several times before she collapsed. To my surprise, instead of draining its battery power, this seemed to make it stronger. We defended ourselves successfully. I encountered an alien male to whom I felt strongly attracted. Despite my qualms about his species' conquering ways, I went off with him in what may have been a conventional car. As we drove along, he touched the back of my neck, and I realized I was going to be transformed into one of them. "It was the only way," he said. My bracelet no longer worked. I didn't know if I'd been duped, or if his affection was genuine. Then he seemed to turn into someone else, and I regretted not paying attention to my qualms.