nightmare

Morning of August 21, 1976. Saturday.



This very long dream event came about after falling asleep again before eleven o'clock in the afternoon, with the sun streaming through the windows but not directly near me. My parents were not in the house during this time. My more nightmarish dreams happened mostly in daylight, sometimes with the sun’s rays shining in through the curtains or windows as here and perhaps triggered by the body’s need to get up and do things, thus the dream state seems to become “hostile” to the dream self.

This one started out during the longest sleep paralysis I have ever had, about thirty to forty minutes, and it was during this time that I partly woke several times, going back into a very lucidly aware dream state. My head was “buzzing” at different times, but there was no “out of body” perception at any point. I was asleep on the couch in the middle of the living room, facing east, my head to the north. (Normally, sleep paralysis is enjoyable for me.)

The main events involved two pieces of furniture that the sun’s rays had been shining upon now and then in real life, but somehow also creating a nightmarish shadowy gloomy effect in the room. One was a kitchen chair, looking much the same as in real life and starting to “walk” from the same position from near the partially open curtains in real life at the time. The other was the small green metal typewriter table on wheels, with the built-in bendable lamp, with the conical green metal lampshade. (See photo; it is the same as I had). As the sun went behind the clouds now and then, but still keeping the room light enough to see all the details as I drifted in and out of lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis, either the chair or the small table would “walk” towards me in an ominous, menacing way at a particular time. What came the closest to me was the small green typewriter table, its lamp being the “head” and the bendable part being the “neck” of some sort of miniature surreal “giraffe” as it moved towards me, appearing to “study” me (with the light bulb “face”) and I was hearing its groaning and clacking “legs” and “feet” upon the tiled floor (even though it has wheels). As the last energies of sleep paralysis wore off, I finally caught myself staring at the chair in the room in real life (although when it was walking, it did not have as much a menacing presence as the small table). It did not move of course, yet still looked the same as from my dream, facing directly towards me in perfect perspective and still having a creepy essence before I was fully awake. This was fascinating to me after being fully awake for a time. It was almost like a game, where I would open and close my eyes to check whether or not the furniture was really seemingly alive or potentially menacing.

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This is obvious sunrise symbolism with the related dawning consciousness event. A light bulb (especially if on) is also analogous to getting an idea, used as such in various newspaper cartoons and comic strips. It is also a sunrise metaphor (logic related to daytime wakefulness and being “bright” as in contrast to a “dim” person or akin to the phrase “the lights are on but no one’s home”, indicating the dreams self is aware and active but not fully awake and conscious). It is fairly common to have unusual dreams when sleeping in a different location and here, the bendable lamp stretched towards me to create an aggressive sense of sunrise (the yellowish glow) and the need to fully wake. It was as if my conscious self was annoyed by me still being asleep.

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My lovely wife Zsuzsanna has also had a lucid nightmare with this theme, yet she was watching the upright electric floor fan “walking” towards her on its otherwise flat-to-the-floor four “legs” and moving its “head” (the motor and fan) in a very similar way as the small table with the bendable lamp (in a seemingly menacing “observing” way) as in mine.

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Night of August 13, 1976. Friday.



I am within a continuity of false awakenings. There is a somewhat uneasy sense that someone else - a stranger - had somehow gotten into the house. This is unrealistic, as my bed is actually blocking the unused jalousie-window door to the carport (which opens inward). However, there is a shadowy form that I am sure is an intruder. It turns out to be a balding man in a loose, white, robe-like outfit and with some sort of medical kit in a metallic brief case, similar in size and shape to my real-life typewriter case which I then used for part of my Matchbox car, Johnny Lightning, and Hot Wheels collection. For some reason, I get the impression that he is “from Saturn” even though he seems fully human and from Earth. This seems based on some sot of hypnotic muttering he continues with and it is something to do with male surrogate “pregnancy” for an experimental reptile-like offspring, the area of the thumb being the ideal location for several reasons (including a natural tendency to draw the hand forward in defense). I seem to be part of some sort of unorthodox experiment conducted by a publicly unrevealed department of government.

I am unable to move or react as I am in a state of sleep paralysis, but not as vivid as usual. He injects something into my right thumb. I feel I need to escape as soon as possible. The utensil he uses is like a cross between a hypodermic needle, an ankh, and small scissors. There are various other objects similar to this in his case. I somehow manage to get out of my bed and try to get into the living room, but my dream “resets” and repeats a few times, and there is eventually a perception of needles moving on their own towards my right thumb, though possibly relating to some sort of implied magnetic remote control. They seem to fly “in formation” (like a flock of birds in a V-shape) at one point.

This, being one of the few actually disturbing dreams I have had in my life, was part of a relentless change. A few days later in real life, there was a rather small lump growing from the outer side of my right thumb which I only absentmindedly noticed when playing around with a metal band from a cheaper dismantled microphone and wondering why it had not fit on my thumb as it had the day before. Within days, there were five very large egg-shaped lumps (all exactly the same size) going down from my thumb to my wrist. They were apparently atypical ganglion cysts but had hair and bone tissue mixed in (almost like a miniature part of a Siamese twin). The doctor seemed extremely puzzled about the condition of my hand, asked me some unusual questions such as if I had “been putting things in there” which seemed ludicrous to me as there were no signs of cuts or supposed entry points and I certainly would not do something of that nature.

Because of the surgery and hospital stay, I missed the beginning of tenth grade, and eventually (when returning on September 13th), due to problematic scenarios in the school (such as a couple teachers not even spending time in the classroom while the students went crazy throwing knives and orange peels) I no longer went (stopping in October before I was legally “allowed” to though there was only one visit from the police) and got my GED in Wisconsin in 1979, getting told I had the highest results by any student at that time - which was not saying much based on how the other students looked and acted.

This also related directly to a much older precognitive dream (with several levels of precognition at once including seeing a movie that did not even exist at that earlier time - the usually low-rated one with the giant rabbits called “Night of the Lepus”). There was a lot of legitimate mystery around this and I have mentioned this in a few other entries, including in the original “Old Shack” dream documentation.

We left Florida in the last week of June of 1978 (with help from my sister Marilyn and her husband Bob). Looking at Google maps, I have discovered that my playmate’s house turned out to look exactly like it did in many of my earlier dreams - that is, abandoned, mold all over, and covered with vines. No one had lived there very long after my spiritual “outburst” after she moved (two different families actually going in for psychiatric help - Larry D actually killing most of his chickens, some escaping, after giving them a long speech about “not delivering eggs as promised”).

Whether or not this was based on long-term physical precognition (or some sort of natural cellular awareness) because of the additional childhood dream of my right thumb becoming enlarged and painful or perhaps was additionally triggered by a vivid dream state (and the very strange sounds and energies that come with sleep paralysis), is hard to say. I know I have often healed myself in dreams and meditation (even as a toddler regarding the accident with my left wrist and almost losing that hand), so I suppose the opposite is just as possible or even likely, even with the foreshadowing many years ahead.

Morning of April 10, 1976. Saturday.



There is some sort of very rare and special type of larger grouse (though more quail-like in some ways) in the backyard at Cubitis, though their size may be a typical in-dream magnification of perspective. It is supposedly “sacred” and has some sort of incredible ability to prey on humans at times as well as supposedly send human-like emotions apparently telepathically to disorient people. There are about six or seven in the yard at one point, and I am not sure if it is a good idea to even be outside.

I somehow fall down near the south side of the shed (fairly close to the carport) and feel an intense and bizarre sensation like a “deep tickle” in my side and lower back, which I have had on and off all my life, especially more recently. I am aware that I have fallen on one of these “sacred grouse” and thus may be doomed because of this. I see one of them closer to my face as it walks nearer and I feel a deep sense of awe.

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This was similar to a number of other in-dream premonitory events, including the dog with the knife-like nose, the buzzard’s beak, and several others. They all involve this intense spasm in my lower back that is like a mix of unbearable pleasure and a strange mild pain.

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Induction factor: water (man-made; birdbath made by my father for my mother). The setting is known and realistic and mostly private (backyard sometimes shared with friends). There are no other characters directly seen, though I sense my father is also in the backyard. I have a greatly enhanced awareness of my physical body, movement, and weight. Return flight factor features as a large quail or grouse with unrealistic intelligence and human-like sentience. The mood was of a growing awe and eventual mortal fear. Additional coalescence factor: ground (soil), coalescence (as my body inexplicably falling on the bird with the belief I may have crushed it) with the belief that I am dead or at least paralyzed for a long time. Possible explanation: Unknown, other than the back spasm event - but premonitory or causal? I seem to have “died” in this dream, but only my temporary dream self incarnation came to an end here. My father raised quail at the time, though much smaller than the birds in my dream.

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Morning of February 7, 1976. Saturday.



This was in the second month of the upcoming bicentennial in July, but I am not sure if that had anything to do with any potential associations.

There is some sort of unsettling back story in my dream’s origin. It has to do with the end of the world. The “end of the world” is apparently to start when three jets flying over, I assume of the US Air Force, in the form of a “V” (one flying ahead of two others that are somewhat side by side), will indicate that the world only has a few hours or so left (though this may be relative to people only living in the United States). In fact, there is an idea that, even though other jets may be flying over the region, these specifically will make a sound like “doom doom doom”.

Over time, there is not much concern. But eventually, I hear the “woom, woom woom” sound that is supposedly the sign of the three jets approaching and flying over. However, this turns out to be, in reality, as the sound wakes me, a large truck going north down Highway Seventeen - it actually did seem a bit like three loud “wooms” or “dooms” but not really with an additional jet-like sound. This is somewhat odd and seems like in-dream precognition of some sort relating to similar experiences where the dream builds seemingly intentionally to a sound not yet heard or expected. This was in fact the only time I perceived a passing semi in this way. I am also not usually awakened by traffic sounds, even the occasional louder vehicle. (I even missed hearing the train at times during the night other than when it had the blaring horn.)

Morning of December 12, 1965. Sunday.



Summary of meaning: In the need to wake from a vivid dream state (from needing to get up and use the bathroom), my emergent consciousness is rendered as a bull crashing through the wall, as a wall symbolizes the metaphorical divisions of consciousness and the “other side of liminal space” between dreaming and waking. In this case, it seems my father was the parallel symbolism to the bull in representing my more urgent need to wake. The bull’s horn, being pointed and similar to a bird’s beak in hypnopompic physical anticipation (which is experienced as a jab in the lower back), may be a factor.

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I am sitting with a few family members, the two closest being two brothers-in-law, Bob and Verdell, and they are apparently drinking beer. (Verdell is on my right.) I am not sure of whose house we are in (possibly my older sister Carol’s, as it does not seem like Chipmunk Coulee, but it may be a unique composite of both). There are two couches along each wall, perpendicular to each other, with a small end table towards the corner from one couch. Everyone seems cheerful at first.

There is a sudden feeling of impending danger. A bull crashes through the wall from near the corner of the room, directly from in front of me, knocking plaster and such about.

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This dream was recurring for a short time. In one version, Verdell actually says “look out for the bull” at the moment of waking. This was before I ever saw or heard of the “look out for the bull” Schlitz Malt Liquor commercial on television and also before I grew up and worked for Ford Taurus where I was injured on my right wrist by someone throwing a sharp metal part back down the line from them not being able to keep up (though the commercial is more relevant to dream content regarding prescience).

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Night of November 8, 1975. Saturday.



This long but disjointed dream (movie-like in implications) repeated in diverse segments over a longer time period. It was based on an accident Lisa M’s father was involved in when he left a can of gasoline sitting near a bonfire in bright early afternoon sunlight (in the backyard in Cubitis, located just near the border of the large weedy area that eventually met the train tracks) and it exploded. He was not burned fatally, though, just on his arms and chest for the most part.

In my dream, there is not much focus on continuity. The neighbor than becomes a super-villain going by the unlikely name of Gumbala (a possible play on Gumby - a claymation figure/character I could not stand to listen to or watch). (This was a day or so before I heard someone talking about gumbo - a word I was not really familiar with; a type of dish using okra, I think, which we grew to very large proportions, although I discovered I did not care for it; just liked growing it/watching how amazingly tall it got. It was like eating tough, slimy grass. I guess I needed cooking lessons or a better recipe.)

In my dream, I become aware of a possible “attack” by this demonic character (he does not seem quite human in my dream as a result of the accident - yet not a “real” demon in that regard - just a supposedly mutated “super-villain” with apparent special abilities of some kind) while in the new room my father had built. I duck down under the west wall’s single window. He announces himself and begins to take off his shirt to reveal his “real self”. I am aware that his “shirt” is actually a shirt of “false skin” (made from real skin, though, from his victims) to make people think he is not really a “monster”. Also, his unusual lizard-like “hands” are covered with gloves of artificial skin or worse, more skin of his victims (similar to Ed Gein’s crimes, which probably strongly influenced this dream - my brother-in-law Bob actually knew him; at least met him a few times). He is the only other character in my dream, most of which seemingly takes place late at night and very early morning. He has some sort of “lair” which is reached via a corner that turns about somewhat like a revolving door, but is “invisible” unless put into use.

In a way, I suppose this is partly a result of knowing how he lied to his daughter in real life (and I never fully told her about this) whereby her dog (a young, active dachshund) was dead (hit by a car on the very close highway) and he buried the dog in the weedy area near the train tracks (I actually saw him do this). He then got her a different “identical” dog, apparently without her noticing. Eventually, later on, she said she had thought that the dog might be a different one when I only vaguely suggested the idea it did not seem to be the same dog - but her saying that the “original” was probably living at a grandmother’s house in another town. A very similar event happened at our present address (but in this case, it was not even the same type of dog even though she tried to convince us it was the same dog). In all honesty, though, he was a good neighbor in real life.

Morning of September 28, 1965. Tuesday.



In my vivid dream (age 4, originally documented in detail on reel-to-reel, but written in adult grammar here), I am with all of my older brothers and sisters on my mother’s side (Marilyn, Carol, Earl, Dennis, and Jim). My parents are not present at any point. We are walking up an isolated trail on Grandad Bluff in La Crosse, though there are ambiguous associations with Chipmunk Coulee.

Without incident, we come to a large circular clearing deep in the forest where an old log cabin features near its center. I am told to see if anyone is home, so I go onto the porch on my own to look around while my relatives stand near the edge of the clearing (about a quarter of a city block away). I notice an old wooden rocking chair on the porch upon which a tasseled woven cushion sits. Suddenly, I am lying on my back, not remembering having fallen over.

An unfamiliar large white cat, almost as big as me, approaches me and is soon walking on my chest, getting closer and closer to my face. He does not make a sound at any point. Curiously, he has a very long white human-like beard, which almost hangs to the floor. I feel a bit uneasy but I do not call out right away.

Meanwhile, my siblings do not seem to think that I am in danger. They seem to be happy and are smiling and laughing. I remain wary of the cat’s human-like eyes and seemingly superior intelligence as well as its amazing apparent old age, though I am also somewhat annoyed by my physical discomfort and uncertainty of what is going on, so I attempt to call for someone to come and take the cat off me, but they seem to be walking back into the forest, though I get the impression they do not think I am in danger. I cannot call out very loudly anyway.

I am uncertain of what to do or how to respond. I do not want to annoy this “old man” by being mean to him, though he is probably too heavy to push away anyway. I am unsure of the cat’s intentions as they may be meant to be very friendly or even helpful somehow. I get the impression that a lonely old man who had lived in the cabin somehow became one with his pet cat; that the cat and the old man are now the same entity.

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Some basic dream components are rendered here. I had originally been walking, but near the end of my dream, I am lying on my back in the sleeping position my body is in in reality. A porch is autosymbolism for a specific level of unconsciousness of which is closer to the conscious self identity and the waking factor than other typical dream settings, but also hints at an attempt to go back into sleep and lucid dreaming. (This is based on personal experience even in childhood in deliberately using a porch or carport in some dreams to exit a building and enter a more vivid dream state “outside”, which has worked many times as such.)

Some people might assume that this dream was at least partly a result of being exposed to the bizarre ignorant belief of a cat stealing a child’s breath, but there is no way to verify if this was the influence. In reality, I did have a cat walk on my chest a number of times when I was both resting and sleeping. This may be why the transition of the preconscious into the emergent consciousness factor did not seem directly threatening, as well as holding the essence of a friendly old man.

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Ultimately, this remains a personal favorite and was one of many reasons my interest in dreams, including lucid states as here, remained throughout my life.

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Morning of May 25, 1975. Sunday.



Background information: This dream seemed to relate to simultaneous associations of seeing razor blades as primarily dangerous combined with a concern about becoming ill from mosquito bites as well as leeches. There was also a brief incident at Lake Katherine where a few other teenagers (at least one wearing a razor blade as a pendant), walking by when our class was on a field trip, made threats about using a razor blade to slice up our backsides. The female teacher looked worried but did not react and the others just kept walking. I am not aware of anyone being killed in this dream, though the idea seems very plausible. My concern is possibly minimal due to wearing a repellent (such as “Off”) of some kind, though I believe it is a special type of “cologne” in my dream (and even this potential was possibly influenced from a television commercial about “Off”).

This is not a more pronounced nightmare (I am not fully active in it nor emotionally bothered in any sense, although I am actually fully in-body in my Cubitis front yard for the most part, near the culverts that are about one-third filled with water), but it is a somewhat negative dream about a type of “giant flying one-celled animal” like a protozoa (though they are about the size of large moths and likely not one-celled relative to real-life logic), that attack and supposedly somehow eat people when rising out of culvert water and flying in groups of twenty or more (and it seems they live mostly in the water of the culverts or ponds as well as slightly flooded areas of parts of lawns). They have one maneuver where they tip sideways, mostly on the diagonal and moving about in a horizontal semicircular arc as such.

I am not entirely sure why I decided to call this dream “Diamond Crawlers” back in the mid-1970s in my original dream journal entry, as they never crawled anywhere much; they mostly just rose from shallow water (when people were around) and flew around in a diamond-shape formation and were vaguely reminiscent of a diamond in form and body appearance. They resemble a transparent leech, shaped somewhat like a rounded-off truncated plus sign, but longer along the length than the winglike protruding sides (which is akin to an airplane having very short wings and is not realistically feasible), with the mostly translucent pattern of a glass-like razor blade in mid-body. Calling this dream “Razor Blade Flyers” would have made more sense, I suppose, but sounds ridiculous in afterthought. It is possible I was thinking of diamondback snakes at the time and just threw that absentmindedly into my dream’s title.

The new image I made does not do justice to their transparent nature, but is fairly close otherwise.

Night of July 5, 1964. Sunday.



One of the first vivid and somewhat lucid nightmares I remembered with more clarity as a young child is this one from age three. Woody Woodpecker is driving a car (which is rendered in my dream as a real car, that is, not like a cartoon), which seems like my brother-in-law Verdell’s car. Knothead and Splinter are also in the front seat. He accidentally drives off a very steep embankment (which is likely modeled after the road up to Grandad Bluff). His car rolls downward and out of control over the very steep incline with my dream showing (as if I am hovering in front of the scene) terrified expressions from the three of them, sometimes taking on an almost anthropomorphic appearance. His car does not turn over or completely wreck; it just keeps tipping forward a bit, dropping and moving forward. I seem to be hovering closer in front of his car at one point (almost as if switching between being in front of a movie screen as to actually being there, though incorporeal). It seemed to go on for a very long time. This was a late nighttime dream, but which seemed to “reset” and repeat near early morning. It did not cause me to wake with a start as with other nightmares.

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This dream is likely my first remembered “failed flight” waking transition. The birds, even though cartoons, are trapped in the car and there is no apparent escape. There is a transmutation of “I am falling” (waking consciousness shift though sustained here in real-time foreshadowing) to “they are falling” as well as “I cannot drive” to “he cannot drive”. This dream was very likely the result of the memory of riding in a car on the road up to Grandad Bluff and the sustained wariness I had in real life for a time.

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Night of March 15, 1974. Friday.



Flashback to real life. He was thirteen. I was thirteen. Walking from the southwest exit of the school I was surprised by his attack upon me, knocking my books from my arm but not touching me directly. “You’re evil,” he said, “How do you know so much about what’s going to happen?" He seemed so angry and I had no clue what he was referring to other than the fact that certain classmates seemed suspicious of me for no particular reason (likely due to my ethnicity and little else, though many thought I was Asian). We were about the same size. He was born in Queens, New York but came to this small isolated town a couple years before. I never knew this. Until 2014. He was a Catholic. Another thing I never knew until now.

I was totally confused by his unexpected behavior. He had rarely even spoken to me before that day and I did not recall ever seeing him angry before or even that annoyed by anything. I was the last classmate he ever spoke to. I did not know until later. The calmer and friendlier I remained, the angrier and more out of control he got but we did not actually fight or make physical contact at all. He remained standing about four feet away at the closest, facing the entrance of the school, seeming nervous and hesitant. He did not move as I picked up my textbooks and notebooks. I did not have a clue. "Get'im, M,” said another classmate walking by on his way to the bus stop at the end of this school day.

I caught myself absentmindedly giggling as one would laugh at a lunatic on a television show…and of course, this made him even more angry, his breathing more and more coarse, almost as if he had been running for a long time. Eventually, he walked off westerly on his own and off the school grounds, never looking back. Two girls, to my right, the only others around, leaning against the outer wall of the school perpendicular to where I was, gave me an amused look, one whispering to the other and the other shaking their head and looking back at me.

This…made…no…sense. At all. How could a thirteen-year-old boy act so angry? And why?

My dream. It was lucid and almost overpowering. Susan R kept “pushing” at me mentally. “Are you thinking about me?" She kept saying. "Don’t think about M. Think only about me. Please." The imagery was somewhat kaleidoscopic. Her head, her essence, almost seemed like it was on a Ferris wheel. "Please. Are you thinking about me? You must only think about me." It went on for about two hours. I felt dizzy and strange for a time and felt like I was replaying "The Chrysalids” in my mind later on, and actually slept on the living room floor near my door that night and for some reason felt as if all my energy was gone. I was not angry or upset. I was just very puzzled. My mother did not wake me. I had slept there a few times before during a bad storm.

Night of March 16, 1974. Saturday.

In my dream, Susan walks up to me with her arms crossed over her chest. There was a knee-high mist everywhere. “M’s gone…” she informs me. She lowers her head and cohesion is lost.

Night of March 19, 1974. Tuesday.

In reality, I did not return to school on Monday, but on Tuesday due to a mild illness. That was when I learned that M had died suddenly on Saturday; no explanation. I learned this when I asked Roosevelt where he was when I noticed he was not at his desk, only asking because of the previous week’s events - otherwise I probably would not have regarded his empty seat. “He died,” he said sadly. Nothing was said of him after…ever. I did see his photo in a frame in the bank where his mother worked.

A thirteen-year-old should not have so much hate and anger and then just die without cause. This event, for many years, made me even more passive in my communication with people. I thought about it way too much and of course, it took over a year to put it farther back in my mind. Although it was not that often, when people seemed angry with me for no reason, I felt relaxed and calm. In fact, in the back of my mind, I decided that if I were to become angry or aggressive, I could just die suddenly. I have grown out of this way of thinking over the years, but I still do not hold anger very long. It is as if I had been conditioned. In fact, I have learned that even when I “sound” angry (including in writing), I am not, as if people cannot “read” me correctly.

In my dream of this night, I was at my middle school in the homeroom classroom. It is seemingly after hours. I am the only one around, it seems. The room is of an eerie semidarkness.

My attention is brought to two shadowy figures under a large table (almost as if they are indulging in a game of hide-and-seek). They are seated on their knees and clasping hands in silhouette - which I believe is imagery borrowed from a version of “The Newlywed Game”. It is very strange. I sense the female on the left is the “mystery girl” yet I also contemplate it is Susan. The one on the right is “me”. I am watching myself - like an older future version (or perhaps “revision”) of “me”. This seems to be some sort of eerie occult ritual even though it is just a silhouette of two people at the beginning of marriage, perhaps.

A disembodied voice comes through the doorway. “It is alright that M died because his family killed horses!" The voice declares this ominously. A suffocating horse writhes and dies in the classroom directly in front of me, its eyes bulging. A disturbing sound emanates from that area of the room.

I wake in terror…and a year later, I was more at ease.

Night of March 16, 1975. Sunday.

M appears in my room. There is a pale glow all around him. He seems happy. He says things are okay now.

Morning of August 19, 1972. Saturday.



I am deep within an amazingly vivid lucid dream state and in my Cubitis home’s backyard. It seems to be late morning. Being in this state and knowing I am dreaming, I decide to go and visit Lisa in the house next door, to the immediate south. However, when I near the southeast corner of my house, on my way to cross diagonally to her front yard, a large orange dog, which looks sort of like a Labrador Retriever, emerges from behind the corner and growls menacingly and starts to pounce upon me, waking me up with a bit of stress and frustration, but not quite a full-on nightmare due to the lucidity it was not “real”. For a few years, on and off, many of my lucid dreams as a boy were “interrupted” by black or rust-colored dogs attacking me and it annoyed me more in the long run than bothering me in other ways. I did not experience any trauma with dogs when younger and I was not afraid of them in reality. It was only later when my brother Earl owned a black Lab named “Gypsy”.

Morning of February 19, 1972. Saturday.



Around this time period of my life were some of the last but more unusual dog attack dreams. This was also one of my more vividly “energized” dreams of the time.

I am walking out to the backyard and fairly close to the back of the shed my father had built. Some of the area seems as it was before he built the shed. I notice the somewhat bony remains of a dead dog halfway between the railroad tracks and the edge of the backyard prior to the more weedy area (which we later used for a garden). We also had bonfires in the area in real life during one time period. It is otherwise more featureless in my dream and seemingly slightly more elevated.

My dream takes on an unusual eerie mood, a sort of “antiquity” (or sense of “alternate time” - slightly reminiscent to the eerie feeling I got when watching “Jason and the Argonauts” the first time) that seems to begin to dominate my dream. I notice that a smaller dog seems to be guarding the remains for some reason - from the other side and facing me. The dog soon notices me and begins to growl menacingly. The ghost of the other dog rises up from the bones and seems to pose a threat as well. Soon, both dogs (the “dead one” possibly being a golden retriever and the other at least part Labrador but two-thirds the size of the first) run towards me. I turn and flee into the carport and dive into the front doorway (which apparently was already open) and wake just as I contemplate the idea of the dogs getting to my feet and legs, which are still just outside the doorway. I wake with somewhat of a jolt, but it is an interesting sensation as if I was actually leaping out of my dream’s residual energy. I anticipate the feeling of the dog’s teeth on my feet and legs but this never actually occurs this time, although I have felt severe pain in similar dreams.

As stated before, dogs are most often rust-colored or black in my childhood dreams, and almost always invasive to my in-dream freedom, both lucid and non-lucid (though more common in lucid ones). My wife also had very similar associations with such dogs.

On February 18th, the prior night and into this morning, I had watched “King Kong vs. Godzilla” (1963) on Channel 13’s “Shock Theatre” (though found it very amusing rather than scary in any way) as well as the first fifteen minutes or so of “The Mysterious Doctor” (1943) starting from 11:30 pm (apparently about a headless ghost) before falling asleep. However, it is more than likely this dream was influenced by having seen “The Hound of the Baskervilles” (late 1950s version, I think) at an earlier date.

Morning of September 7, 1970. Monday.



A giant lobster is approaching my school from the west and we all have to leave (I had been in a class on the second floor). When I am outside, east of the building and at a fair distance from it, the giant red lobster approaches from the other side, but the scene does not look right. It is as if the school is now only one large wall with windows (and perhaps now implied as four storeys high), since I can see everything supposedly on the other side rather clearly as the creature bashes his claws on the building. Realistically, I should only have seen the building and not what was behind it through any windows to the other side, as I was down on the ground.

Not only that, the movement in each window seems to be the exact same partial scene and movement somewhat like a fly’s eye view, including what is seemingly duplicated sections of the same pieces of blue sky and arc of lobster claw in the background in each and every window. The simultaneous imagery and movement in each window is almost ominous in itself. Still, I actually enjoyed this dream because of its unusual “rare” nature. Although the “fly’s eye view” has occurred in other dreams (this being only one of two more vivid instances over a lifetime), it seems very rare.



This dream, I think, amusingly enough, was perhaps more influenced by the restaurant commercials shown during “Shock Theatre” than by any monster movies at the time, though “The Black Scorpion” (from 1957) might have had an influence.