lucyoncolorado

In which I'm dating my exboyfriend and preparing to do CPR on an infant...

I'm dating my highschool boyfriend but we two are hanging out with my real life social group, including one of my best friends. We are in a hotel suite for some reason, drinking and living it up like rock stars.

I'm standing outside on the hotel patio and I see my best friend's father collapse in the snow below. I jump the railing and dive down towards him. I can see that he is non responsive, but I don't take the time to check for a pulse. I need to pick him up and get him inside where it is warmer. I lift him, and he becomes my nextdoor neighbor's newborn baby. My friends have gathered in the hotel, and I tell one to call 911 and another, who I know is trained in CPR, to come with me to help me work on the baby until the paramedics arrive. I put the baby on a bed, notice she is not breathing and check for a pulse. I'm in a detached state of mind. I'm thinking of all the things I need to do before I do them, but I'm working calmly and methodically. Just as I place my fingers on her chest and face to start working, she gasps and starts crying. I pick her up and we all start laughing in relief.

Later I go back to the party, and in the dream a full night has passed. The social group is different now. I'm still with my exboyfriend, but all the other people in the suite with us are my friends from highschool- not my adult social group. I walk into my room and find my exboyfriend in bed with another woman. I am really upset about it and start to pound on his back with my fists until he wakes up. I'm screaming at him a bunch of profanities.

The other people wake up and start to get dressed for an evening out. My exboyfriend explains that he is going to take the new girl with him instead of me. Our friends are upset about this because they don't want to kick me out of their fun, but they make it clear that since we are breaking up, they will take my exboyfriend's side. I am no longer welcome. I start to cry because I feel like I'm losing not just my boyfriend, but also all of my friends. But then I realize that I don't actually like any of these people anyway- these are people I used to hang out with in highschool and most are really trashy losers. Something seems wrong and I'm confused about why I'm with these people, but I don't remember that I'm married or that I'm an adult now. I look at my exboyfriend and realize that I don't really want to hang out with him either. I'm not even sad that he is cheating on me. I tell everyone that I'm fine and that everything is going to be OK and that I don't mind that I'm not going to see them anymore.

In which Lucy misbehaves, morphs into Morgan Freeman, then goes missing in the woods...


I was sitting in the living room with A who was holding a sandwich. Lucy walked over to him, snatched it out of his hand, and ran off with it to the bedroom. I followed her and told her to drop it, but she just ran off with the sandwich. Finally, I caught her and pried her mouth open and started to snatch it out of her mouth. She growled at me. I was stunned. Lucy has always been gentle with her food. She’s stubborn sometimes, but never aggressive to people and always lets you take things right out of her mouth. I taught her to be that way because an aggressive dog is dangerous to both people and to herself. Aggressive dogs get put down. The best thing you can do for a dog is to teach it to not be aggressive to people. I started to feel really guilty that I had gotten slack on my training. I’d let Lucy be possessive with her ball around other dogs. I’d overlooked it when she didn’t come when I called her. She’s lately been jumping up on furniture. Now she was stealing food and growling. I’d become a bad dog owner because I’d grown so comfortable around her.

If I was going to save her, I needed to be a strong leader. I reached for the sandwich again and she growled again. This time, I shouted “No!” and snatched it right out of her mouth without fear, pushing her to the ground. She cowered and I stood over her and told her to roll over. Once she was completely submissive, I showed her the sandwich and gave her the command to leave it. I told her “good girl” and gave her a hug. She reached her arms around me and hugged me too. Suddenly, I noticed that her hands were on my butt. I pushed her away and saw that she was Morgan Freeman. I asked him if he just grabbed my butt, and he said it was an accident. I didn’t want to believe that Lucy would try to cop a feel, so I tried to hug her again. Morgan Freeman did it again. I was heartbroken. Somehow, Lucy and Morgan Freeman were the same person. I was really upset because I realized on the one hand that Morgan Freeman is a person, and you can’t make a person submit to another person and expect him to love you no matter how well you treat him. So I understood that he would be manipulative and scheme and try to do things behind my back and then act submissive to my face. This meant that we didn’t have a real relationship and I was confused because it seemed that Lucy and I had always been happy. She was a well-behaved and happy dog and we had a great relationship. I could not figure out what had changed. I looked carefully at Morgan Freeman and realized he must be someone else’s dog. This gave me some relief, but then I wasn’t sure where my Lucy had gone off to.

I ran outside and found myself in the woods near my father’s cabin. Mott was there with the new puppy Nac, only instead of one puppy Nac was eight puppies. I knew that Mott and Lucy had been running around the woods together but I didn’t see where Lucy was. Mott and I rounded up all the puppies and locked them in the back of a truck, then we ran out to the road to look for Lucy. My mom insisted that I put Mott on a leash because she didn’t want Mott to run out in front of a car. Then I started to worry that Lucy would get hit by a car herself, and told my father that if he found her crushed and suffering on the side of the road that he should shoot her to put her out of her misery. But just as I was starting to think the worst, she came running out of the woods. She and Mott started rounding up the puppies who were once again loose in the woods. I tried to give Lucy a hug to make up for the fight we had earlier, but Lucy has never been much of a lap dog and really just wanted to run around.

In which I attempt to save RR and her family from a cult but end up nearly falling into a pit of excrement...


What I remember most clearly is that RR and her family were living in what appeared to me to be a religious cult compound of some sort. The layout of the compound’s main house was similar to the downstairs floor of my grandmother’s place.

Several families gathered there in the evenings and at mealtimes. The remainder of the day, they were occupied with cult jobs while cult caregivers looked over their children, collectively. No one was allowed to leave the compound without permission, and the segregation of family members made it difficult for anyone to scheme otherwise.

I entered with an open mind. RR is from another culture and religious background, and I’ve always been respectful of our differences. When our mutual friends told me that she and her family had been taken under by a cult, I was skeptical and chalked it up to their xenophobia. But after she declined my invitation to visit, I decided to go check out her new living arrangements. To my shock, I found that my friends were right. RR seemed unwilling to talk to me about it, but I could tell from the look in her eyes that she wished she could escape, but she could not leave her children or her parents.

I arranged a shopping trip to get groceries and figured out a way to get RR’s children to accompany me. I figured that if I could get them away to safety, that RR would have more luck getting herself and parents away. I was feeling like a hero and backing out of the driveway with the kids in the car when suddenly a pixie-cut blonde insisted on joining me. As there was not room for four people, one of RR’s boys had to be left behind. We didn’t make it out of the driveway anyway as I suddenly had the urge to use the restroom.

I ran back into the house, so like my grandmother’s, and went straight away to the restroom where, to my surprise, RR was fixing the toilet. She explained that I had to squat above the toilet for it to function properly. The toilet was in the middle of the room, and it was surrounded by soggy carpet mats. One thin plywood beam led from the door to the toilet, and RR explained that I must walk the beam to the seat and not step on the mats. She exited the room and I did as she suggested. The toilet then turned into a blackened brass stupa sticking up from the ground. I was confused about how to use it. I looked around the bathroom and the whole room seemed dark and worn down. I was confused about where I was, and I had the feeling that there was a secret hidden beneath the soggy carpets. I balanced on the beam and removed the carpets from around the toilet and discovered that the entire floor had been removed. Aside from the stupa and the one plywood beam on which I was perched, the whole room was just a deep, dark pit filled with excrement.

Like the cartoon character who runs off a cliff but doesn’t fall until he realizes there is nothing beneath his feet, I had been able to stay balanced upon the beam without any problem until I realized there was nothing below the carpets. Once I realized my predicament, I slipped. I was able to keep my senses and not plummet into the mess below, and with one hand I caught the edge of the thin wooden plank. As I hung there, I told myself to stay calm. Aside from how disgusting it would be to land in the waste, it was also likely that the fall would result in more than a few broken bones. And then there were the cult members to worry about. What would they think of the fact that I’d pulled up their carpets and revealed their pit? Would they save me or leave me there? These things all went through my mind, but I kept telling myself to stay calm and focus.

Then, swiftly, I hoisted myself back up onto the beam, got both my arms and one leg over the edge, and then pulled myself upright. I briefly considered replacing the carpets so that no one would know what happened, but then decided instead just to get out of the whole compound as quickly as possible.

In which C shows me the gold he has purchased...

We are in the bedroom of C's old apartment discussing inflation and the corruption of banks. C tells me that he has started purchasing gold. He steps into his closet and pulls out an old game of Pente, still rolled up in its cardboard tube. He pops it open and lets a purple plush drawstring bag slide out. He spills the contents out on the bed. They are the same size and shape as typical Pente game pieces, but upon looking closer, I see that they are actually small gold nuggets.

"When I have enough, I'm going to melt them down and form a golden tiara. That's when I'll know I can retire."

In which I try to hook up with a man I know...

Bizarre and vague stress/sex dream. I'll skip the details. I don't remember most of it anyway. I was on a date with a man I know who in real life I find very attractive but also obnoxious. We went into a dressing room and tried to have sex but it wasn't working out. I was secretly relieved because I didn't like him that much anyway.

In which I cut my hair like Art Garfunkle and then join in on a heist...

I only vaguely remember this dream. I'm living in a co-ed dormitory. I get a kinky perm and then cut my hair just like Art Garfunkle. Later I'm embarrassed by how bad I look, and I start covering my head with a scarf. Meanwhile, a group of students are planning a heist. There are precious jewels locked away in one of the dorm rooms in our building. Because I'm covering my hair, they assume I'm trying to disguise myself and that I'm a part of their group. I'm not, but I'm lured by the idea of becoming wealthy and not completing school.

I participate in the heist- in fact I play a leading role in it. Later, when the police are investigating, we all successfully lie and get away with it. We are now rich. The details of all this are fuzzy.

Years later, I'm bicycling with my husband and confessing to him about my role in the heist. He is surprised that I could have done something so reckless and dangerous.

Things have slowed down a little so I should be able to more regularly record my dreams again- for at least the next two or three weeks. I’ve been too stressed and busy lately to dream very much, but with the holiday I’ve had some down time. The first one is really weird because I was never interested in metal.


In which I’m Dave Mustaine’s theater teacher…

I’m a high school theater arts teacher. Dave Mustaine has just been booted from Metallica and is now returning to school. He has a minor role in a musical production that I’m arranging. He’s polite and humble, but as the other students are only boys, he towers above them and seems out of place. An MTV reporter asks me how he’s getting on. I tell him that Dave’s having some trouble with the more abstract aspects of the play but that he’s got a lovely singing voice and a great attitude. They ask if I think this could be the beginning of a new career for him. I answer that it’s more likely just a temporary diversion, as I believe he will start Megadeath soon enough. They tell me it is 1986, and I spend some time confused since I’m pretty sure that Megadeath had already come along by then. They are worried that he might become depressed at having been booted from such a great rock n’ roll band. I’m less convinced. “C’mon. We’re not talking about Pete Best,” I say.


In which I’m preparing to be executed…

I’m in the final minutes of a failed attempt at a battleground escape. I’m running towards a ferry crossing which I hope will bring me to safety, but the enemy is gaining on me. I jump into the river and start to wade across, heavy in my suit of armor, towards the ferry- it is too far away. I’m up to my shoulders in water at this point, and I can feel the enemy’s horses galloping into the river right behind me. I realize I cannot escape and decide to face them, honorably.

I turn around in the river and announce that I am had. When the enemy army sees that I’m caught and have nowhere more to run, they stop their horses and do not pursue. Their leader comes out from their ranks and calls me to walk to shore. I appreciate him allowing me the dignity of not being dragged out.

I make the best of trying to walk tall. I hold eye contact. I think that death won’t be so bad.

“I’ll allow you a clean death,” their leader tells me. I keep my sword, remove my helmet and kneel in front of him. I can’t think of anything to say, so I tell him exactly what I’m thinking. “It won’t be so bad. Make it fast.”

He raises the sword above my head, preparing to drive it through my subclavian artery and on into my heart. At the last second, my mind panics at the thought of how much it is going to hurt, and it takes all the strength I can muster to hold my body steady and not roll over with fear. As the tip of the blade touches my skin, I scream “Wait a minute! What if this isn’t a dream?”

My enemy stops, stunned. The sword tip is still resting on my shoulder. “If it’s not a dream, you are going to die in anguish.”

I turn and face him. I beg him to give me more time to think about it. I feel desperate. My mind races; there must be some way out.

“If it’s not a dream,” my enemy repeats, “You have died very badly.”

I feel ashamed.

I've been too busy to record or remember my dreams, but here are three that I dreamt over vacation. I don't have time right now to write them out well, but here is just a quick rehash of what happened.

In which I try to prevent R's death but end up complicating things and causing a sort of time paradox...

I returned from a solo vacation to discover that R had died while I was away. He was gone, and what I remember most about the dream is the feeling of the nothingness his absence. It’s really hard to imagine nothing; that’s what it was like trying to comprehend his death. It was so unsettling and impossible that my mind started racing, looking for a solution to this problem. No one could explain how or why he died, just that he had and that it was permanent. I could not accept it. Something deep down inside me was shouting through the despair that it isn’t really that way. There is something I can do about it. There is something that is not quite right. I searched his Facebook account and retraced his steps the day he died. The last thing he’d done was walk down to the store near our house. I clicked on a video that showed his last moments. He walked to the drinks cooler, opened the door, then collapsed, dead, on the convenience store floor.

Since I keep a time machine in my bedroom, I traveled back in time to the moments before his death at the convenience store to see what happened and if I could save him. What I saw was a small demon hiding among the soft drinks in the cooler with its pitchfork ready to strike R down as soon as he opened the door. “NO!” I shouted just as his hand reached out toward the cooler. R turned around and the demon disappeared. I’d done it! I’d saved him!

R was amazed when I explained about the time machine, but he was not relieved to be alive. He explained that he’d found out earlier that day that he’d contracted the Ebola virus and that he would die a gruesome and slow death from the disease. He’d made a deal with the demon to kill him so that he’d have a fast and painless death instead before the Ebola symptoms started taking their toll. Then he started bleeding from his eyes.

I couldn’t stand to see him in this state, so I went back in time even farther, back to the day that he contracted the Ebola virus in the first place. But somehow I got the dates and times mixed up and I arrived just after he’d contracted the virus. It was too late- he was already infected.

I suggested going back in time even farther, but R pleaded with me to just let him die. Originally, he only had to die once- just by the demon’s pitchfork. But now there were two more of him, the R in the convenience store bleeding from his eyes with the onset of the disease and the R who’d just contracted the virus who would fall ill shortly. And because I’d screwed up his bargain with the demon, there was no relief. He would have to die two more times- both gruesome and slow deaths from Ebola.

In which I claim I am having an out of body experience but really just dream that I am...

I dreamt that I was lucid and decided to fly away from our campsite and over to my own house where my friend was house-sitting while I was out on vacation. I asked her if the mouse infestation had her freaked out and whether or not it had rained. She didn't seem troubled or surprised that I was there. Instead she seemed a little irritated, as if I were a nuisance that she had to tolerate. She explained that we are not close enough friends to dream share. I told her that I wasn't trying to dreamshare- I was having an out of body experience. She was awake and I was visiting her in my dream state.

She rolled her eyes at this and explained that I was certainly not really visiting my house out of body. She said I was just dreaming that I was and that I wasn't even really lucid. For proof, she told me to look around the room and tell her what I see. I described the green walls, the bed that she was sitting on and the fireplace.

"Do you have any of those things in your own house?"

I realized I was dreaming for a second, but then when I turned to look out the window it did look just like the window in my living room looking over onto my front porch. Her bed changed and looked like the futon in my living room again, and then I started to think that I was really having an astral projection after all. I was just having trouble focusing on it.

"If you are really in your own house", she told me, "then go down the hall and see what the rest of the place looks like". Down the hall there were a few more bedrooms with people in it. One had an middle aged man who looked sort of like an elder Pablo Picasso sitting on a bed in a room that looked like my Great Grandmother's guest room. I tried to talk to my friend again to get a grasp on what was happening, but I couldn't make the words form correctly and I kept losing track of my thoughts. My friend just sat on the bed away from me, petting a dog and singing to herself. The dream meanwhile morphed into something else.

In which I have a miracle baby and face the horrors of life...

I was at my friend K's house when suddenly my water broke and I went into labor. We called the paramedics who rushed us both off to the hospital. A few minutes later, I gave birth to a full-term blonde haired blue eyed baby that looked like the kids in Village of the Damned. The doctors were amazed because I had shown no symptoms of pregnancy whatsoever. I had not gained weight or even missed a period. K said that if she hadn't just seen it, she wouldn't believe it. By then, the media was there too. Everyone was calling the child a "miracle baby" as if it were some sort of messiah. I was more skeptical. I thought perhaps it was a tumor.

Anyway, the doctors whisked the child from me and took it down to the NICU which was a series of barges along each sides of a long pier that stretched far out into the sea. K was troubled by this because she thought the baby would be better if it were allowed to rest with me. The doctors refused to let me see the child. So K and I escaped from the hospital through its back window and ran down to the pier.

It was a horrible sight. There were dirty sailor men who looked like the harpooners in Moby Dick that had tied donkeys to the planks in the pier. They were slicing body parts off the live donkeys who were screaming in pain and then butchering the meat up for sale. Farther down the pier, people walked along shopping for the fresh donkey meat. The conditions were completely unsanitary. The meat was sitting in the sun with waves splashing over it and flies swarming around it. There was sewage in the water and litter all along the trail. A fat woman sat in front of the meat in dirty underwear, picking her nose. She asked us if we wanted to buy anything. The barges along the pier doubled as incubators for the babies and as garbage dumpsters. The stench was unbearable. The child I'd given birth to was crying on top of a heap of waste and composting branches along with dozens of other babies. I wanted to save all of them because it was the right thing to do, but I didn't feel any real emotional bond with any of them- not even with my own child.

K kept shouting that the babies should be breastfeeding and that nursing is the most important thing one can do for a baby. I told her she was overlooking the bigger picture. In these circumstances, maybe it was more humane just to let them die.

I knew that once the semester started, I would be swamped and have no time to post here. Turns out that has been true! But now things are slowing down a little so I'm going to try to post again. Mostly, I'm too busy and tired to dream recall.

In which Jean Piaget and I teach a class of goats...

I'm in front of a class of goats who are sitting in regular school desks with their hooves on the table. Jean Piaget and I are trying to teach them to balance combustion equations, but they won't pay attention. Jean Piaget keeps smacking the blackboard with a pointer stick to get them to look at the front of the room. Meanwhile, I'm handing out practice pages. The goats keep eating the papers instead of reading them.

In which Lucy and a Jack Russel Terrier fall in love and run away...

Lucy falls in love with a Jack Russel Terrier, and they run off to live happily in Central Park. I go there to look for her and have an elaborate dream that I really wish I could remember. My only clear memory is that I made a deal with Lucy that she can continue to live there with Jack so long as she comes to visit when I call her. The rest of the dream was adventurous, and my frustration with my inability to recall it is part of the reason that I hope to find the time to start posting here again.

In which I watch a silly Kurosawa film with E…

I live in a big house with an entertainment room set up with large, cushy couches and expensive electronic equipment. A giant flat screen TV is on my wall with speakers hanging all around. I’ve rented Rashoman, a movie that I’ve never seen but always wanted to.

(In real life, my house is nothing at all like this and I have seen Rashoman, but anyway this is a dream so let’s roll with it.)

Just as I’ve dimmed the lights and settled down on the couch with a bowl of buttery popcorn, there’s a knock on my door. I get up and open the door: it’s E, H and C. They ask what I’m doing for the evening, and I tell them that I’ve just sat down to watch a movie. H and C say they don’t want to watch it, and they ask if they can just hang out in my backyard. E, on the other hand, seems interested. He asks what movie it is and I tell him it is a Kurosawa flick. He says he’s never heard of Kurosawa, and I ask him if he’s seen Seven Samurai. He says he hasn’t, but he’s heard of it. I tell him that Rashoman is also a samurai film, and he seems excited to see it.

We go back to the fancy, entertainment room, and I tell E that Rashoman is a samurai adaptation of children’s TV shows from the 60s and 70s. He thinks this is really strange but I point out that Kurosawa made a few adaptations like that. I mention that Yojimbo was a samurai adaptation of Fistful of Dollars because I know that he really likes Clint Eastwood. He said he once saw a samurai adaptation of Macbeth and I said, “Yeah that was Kurosawa too!” We can’t remember what that movie was called though, and we think about it for a long time before remembering that it was Ronin. We talk about how much we love the scene in the end in which the archers all shoot arrows at Robert DeNiro.

So we sit down to watch Rashoman, but the first problem is that the subtitles are not in English. We can’t read what the people are saying, but that turns out to not be such a big problem as the plot is abstract anyway. First we see cartoon samurais singing the Ladybug Picnic song from Sesame Street. Then we see samurais in squares like at the beginning of The Brady Bunch. Then a bunch of samurais in miniskirts start dancing like on Laugh-In. Finally, a group of samurai sitting are around on beanbags drinking mate. Toshiro Mifune is one of them and he is wearing a fedora.

E tells me that this is ridiculous and that he doesn’t want to watch anymore. I’m embarrassed because I was only recently singing praises about Kurosawa. I tried to construct some argument about how he was making an ironic statement, but eventually I had to admit that the film was stupid. E went outside with H and C, and they all three called for me to join them. But I told them that I was going to finish the film since I’d already sat through half of it. E responded that I was just hot for Toshiro Mifune. Maybe so, I thought. He was a good looking man in his youth, I said, but I sure wish he’d hurry up and start killing people.

The phone rings and I get up to answer it. I'm not sure what happened then, but the next dream started with a phone call (though in a different setting) so I think they were back-to-back.

In which R is in the hospital…

A continuation of the dream above, I think.

I'm in line at the bank and I get a phone call from my mother and rush to the hospital because R has been in a car wreck. My grandmother and brother are there too. My mom explains that he has broken his neck and one of his vertebrae is lodged into a part of his brain. She says that he is in surgery to have it removed. This is expected to be successful and he should have a total recovery.

After his surgery is finished, we are admitted into his hospital room. His face and head is swollen and there is a large contraption, like an Xray machine, attached to his head. His limbs are being held down with belts and there are tubes coming out of his arms and chest. His eyes are open and he is looking around the room. I walk over to him and touch his face and tell him that he’s been in a car wreck but that he is OK now. He just looks around the room and doesn’t respond. I ask him if he is comfortable or if he has any pain. He still just looks around and doesn’t respond.

My mom is with me. She’s a nurse, and I can tell that his silence makes her nervous. I say, “maybe he can’t talk with all these tubes coming out of his chest.” She nods, cautiously. Then I lean over, close to his face and say, “R, can you hear me? If you can hear me, blink your eyes.”

He still just looks around the room randomly and I start to think that he doesn’t even see me or know that I’m there. This is terrifying, and I grab his head between my hands and shout at him, “Blink your eyes! Blink your eyes!” but he does nothing at all.

I start to cry and my mom pulls me away from him. R moves his arms around and gurgles. I look at him and realize that he is an empty shell. He is not conscious of being a person or that there are other people around him. He is simply an organism responding to external stimuli- whatever made him a person is gone.

I go out into the hall with my mother. My grandmother is waiting there with me. The doctor comes by and explains that the surgery was successful in that R can breathe on his own. But he has lost most of his brain functioning and now has the cognitive abilities of an earthworm. He says that it is a miracle that R survived, and that I should look at this as a gift from above to learn about compassion.

This makes me hysterical. I start screaming at the doctor that his practice is a modern day torture chamber. There is nothing miraculous about this- it’s a horror. R is dead and only his body is left over, kept alive by their interference. If there is no hope that he will ever recover then there is no miracle at all. It’s a miserable situation and I don’t want to hear any b.s. about miracles and gifts of compassion. My grandmother tries to comfort me.

I’m alone now thinking about everything I took for granted- all the days that R and I had together in which I didn’t tell him how wonderful he was and how happy I was to be with him. It was really a horrible feeling. I was also overwhelmed thinking about what to do next. He could live out another 40 years in this condition. He had not made a living will, so the hospital would probably keep his body alive even though he was dead. It seemed like a prison sentence to me that I would have to spend the rest of my life taking care of this hollow shell. Then I thought of the expense and how I’d never be able to work again, and I started to wonder if I could make him a ward of the state. When I asked a nurse about this, she told me that I was being selfish. But I told her that she was being foolish. If there was any hope that he could recover or that he could be aware of anything going on around him, then I would do anything I could to help him. This situation is hopeless though. He will never have any more consciousness than a slug. It’s cruel that he is being kept alive and also cruel that I should have to spend the rest of my life in poverty to take care of him.

Then I realized I needed to tell his family what had happened. R’s cell phone was destroyed in the wreck, so I didn’t have anyone’s phone numbers at the hospital. I didn’t want to go home because I didn’t want to leave him for that long before I figured out what to do and before I talked to his brother. So I decided to go to the hospital Internet café and send a FB message to his brother telling him to call me at the hospital. My brother was there, and he came with me to show me how to use the new computers. These computers looked like leaves with very long vines at the end that had to be connected to a large living stalk. I told him that I wished that technology would stop changing so fast. He connected me to the Internet and then left me alone.

I thought that R’s brother doesn’t check his Facebook page that often, so I decided to send a message to many people- V, A, S, R, and G. Once I’d compiled the list, I struggled with the words. If I just wrote “Tell V to call me- urgent” then I might put a lot of people into the horrible situation of not knowing what had happened. They would imagine all sorts of things and think that R might be dead. Normally when people need to talk about something like this, they say “Everything’s OK” or “R is doing fine” but in this case, it wasn’t true. He was not dead, but he was not doing fine. The news I had to share was so horrible that I couldn’t figure out what to do. I didn’t want to put any of them through the horror of wondering what was wrong while they made their way to a phone to call me. Sometimes the unknown can be worse than reality. But at the same time, I didn’t want to come out and tell them what had happened because it was so horrible that I wanted to do it over the phone- not on Facebook. Then I thought of R’s poor mother and how devastated she was going to be about all this. Really, this was all so upsetting that I couldn’t do anything so I closed the leaf computer and just put my head on the table and cried, wondering what to do. I couldn’t fly all the way to Delhi to tell them because I couldn’t leave R for that long. So finally I decided to go home and get my address book with all my phone numbers.

I asked my brother to take me home. We went down to the parking garage of the hospital and walked to his truck. It was smashed in the front, but the engine was still running just fine. My brother explained that this was the truck R was in when he got in the wreck. I looked at the truck in amazement. It hardly had any damage. How could he have injured himself so badly in a vehicle like that? My brother explained that the truck had rolled over several times so R had hit his head on the ceiling. But I looked at the roof of the truck and could see no indication that it had rolled.

“This doesn’t make sense,” I told my brother. He lit a cigarette and stood outside the truck. We were parked on the side of the road in front of the hospital. There was traffic all around us.

“I thought we went down to the parking garage?” I asked my brother. He turned around and looked at the hospital and the garage behind us. I realized that he didn’t really look like my brother.

“This is a dream,” I told him. But I felt buried down deep in it. I wanted out of the dream, but it seemed so heavy. I can’t really explain this feeling- it doesn’t make sense- but I felt like I was covered by the dream.

I started swimming in the sky up out of the dream. I could see the hospital and the road behind me. I swam up and up until I could feel myself inside my body in my bed. I was stuck in sleep paralysis. I tried really hard to wake up because I knew that I had to hurry up and find R’s brother’s phone number. I tried to swim up some more and finally woke up. It was 6 AM on Martin Luther King Day. I can’t tell you how relieved I was to discover that this was a dream. It took a good hour to shake off the horrible feeling.

Two stress dreams. The second one was extremely vivid and emotionally very disturbing. I woke up distressed.

In which I visit a labyrinth-like bookstore and get trapped in a net...

R and I are in the city running errands and we drive past a small, locally owned bookstore. There is a book I want, so I ask him to stop for just a second while I run inside to see if they have it. I'd rather give them my money than Amazon, I explain.

R parks outside of the store, and I hop out of the truck. Then I realize I'm not wearing shoes. I enter the store anyway and apologize for my bare feet. The owner tells me that there is an extra pair of shoes upstairs that I can wear. I say that I'm just searching for the new book on Afghanistan, and I ask her if she has it. She says that she can't look for it unless I put on that extra pair of shoes. This irritates me a little bit, but I comply.

I walk through the store, which is designed like a maze with bookshelves making the walls. Finally I get to a large staircase and go up, expecting to find the shoes. Instead, I enter a fine dining establishment. There are waiters wearing starched white aprons pouring wine for bejeweled patrons enjoying candlelit dinners. I'm conscious of my bare feet. I ask a waitress if the extra pair of shoes are up here, but she just grabs me by the arm and removes me to the kitchen. She looks a lot like Sandra Oh, and I'm about to ask her if that is who she is when she ushers me over to a slide that she says will lead back into the bookstore. We go down the slide, but it empties into a giant nylon net in the yard out in front of the bookstore. All this time, the waitress is holding a big round tray above her shoulder.

She sits patiently in the net as if she does this everyday, but I'm really frustrated. She keeps telling me to calm down and explains that someone will be along sooner or later to let us out. Meanwhile, I see R in the truck in front of the store. He can't sit on the road for this long, and he starts to drive around looking for a place to park. I decide to make my escape. I pull out a pocket knife and cut through the nylon, ignoring the waitress' demands that I stop. Then I look all around to make sure no one saw me. The busboy is walking into the yard and he must surely have seen me, but I run fast towards the truck where R has just parked. He has already turned off the engine, but he is still inside. I run up to the passenger side, shouting all the while to start up the truck to make our escape.

We get away, but R is annoyed with me for causing a scene. He wants to know why I always forget to wear shoes in the first place.


In which brainwashed cult members throw rocks at my dog and I try to save two of them but they end up making me feel terrible about myself...

I'm sitting in my study in the back of my house when I glance out the window and see four men standing in my backyard. One is an older man, who looks just like Ian Holm, wearing a black duster coat with embroidered button holes over a pair of dark blue jeans and ornate rocketbusters. His black cowboy hat is pulled down low over his white hair, and he stands calmly with his hands in his pockets while my dog and my mom's dog run around excitedly, wagging their tails. A middle-aged man stands next to Ian Holm, dressed more like a farmer than a cowboy in a long-sleeved denim shirt, jeans and practical ranch boots. He is balding. The other two men are younger, tall and lanky. They run around with the dogs. They both wear old clothes, jeans and boots like the older men, with dusty and torn denim jackets. The taller man has longish hair, hasn't shaved for a while and wears a round felt hat; the shorter man is ugly with bad skin, red hair and stupid eyes.

I know who these men are, and I feel my heart start to panic. I calm myself for the dogs' sake and walk calmly outside. Just as I'm stepping onto my back porch, the red-headed man pretends to throw a ball for my mom's dog, Mott, but instead tosses a large cinderbrick. Mott runs out to catch it, and time seems to slow down the way it does when you are about to be in a car wreck. I know that if she jumps up to get it, it will smash in her skull. But meanwhile, Lucy is running towards the Ian Holm cowboy and I know that he is evil and will kill her. For a second, I wonder which dog I should call towards me and feel like I'm in a tricky situation. Then I decide just to distract them both and scream, "HEY!" and stomp my feet. It works. Mott turns to look at me and the cinderblock misses her head by just an inch and smashes to the ground. Lucy stops in her tracks and does not run up to Ian Holm. My heart is still pounding, but I want to act calm in front of the men. The two younger men are laughing hysterically. Ian Holm tips his hat but I don't acknowledge him yet.

"Come, dogs" I call, and Mott comes running towards me but Lucy does not. Lucy starts towards Ian Holm again. My heart sinks, but Mott is very close to me so I grab her first and put her in the house then run back out to get Lucy. Ian Holm is just about to touch her, and I know that if he does, it will kill her. I scream at her again, "LEAVE IT!" and she can tell by my voice that I'm serious. She cowers down in the grass at Ian Holm's feet, but I grab her collar before he can touch her. I put her in the house with Mott, take a deep breath, then go back out to talk to the men.

The two younger men are still laughing idiotically, but Ian Holm is calm. He doesn't care anymore about harming the dogs than a normal person would care about killing a fly. The situation has already left his mind, and he is ready to get to business. He will try to convert me to his cult. I'm one of the few people in the neighborhood who has held out and refused to join his cult.

I lead him into the dining room and he sits down a the head of a huge table (that I really wish I had in real life). It's made of thick cherry oak with hand-carved patterns of intricate vines and flowers over-laid with mother-of-pearl. The middle-aged farmer stands behind Ian Holm and hands him some blueprints and other rolled up papers. They tell the young men to wait in my kitchen. My father enters the room, and we sit down at the table with Ian Holm.

Ian Holm tells me about his cult. He makes persuasive arguments about the current unhealthy speed and stress of life, about the wastefulness of our cheap throw-away culture, about how selfishness and individualism leads to isolation and how we should embrace simplicity and community. He looks into my eyes deeply. It touches me and I tear up. I think of the power of charisma and this brings me back to my senses.

"Don't you realize I can see your sadness? Don't you realize I offer you relief?", he says. It makes my blood run cold. This man is evil. I'm too upset to talk calmly. All my arguments and learning are not available. I just want to shout and throw things. But I control myself.

"I understand what you are saying," I tell him, "and you have made good observations and identified real problems. I'm not arguing about that. I disagree with your solutions. You aren't the first person to realize these things," I tell him. "There is an entire history of social movements and philosophies that revolve around these problems. You are ignoring all that context. There are other solutions to these problems outside of the two sides you see."

His soft, penetrating eyes look at me coldly and I see a flash of evil and violence behind them. I feel triumphant. He didn't know who he is dealing with. My father intervenes before things get ugly.

"Go wait in the kitchen," he tells me. I leave, a little worried, because Ian Holm might just convince my father to follow him. This troubles me.

In the kitchen, I ask the two young men how old they are. The taller one with the hat tells me he is 25 and the ugly one says he is 40. I look at him and tell him that I don't believe that he is 40. He says he is old enough to be my father and that I should respect him. I laugh in his face and tell him that I'm a lot older than I look and that it would be impossible for a 40 year old to be my father. I ask how old he is again, and he admits that he is only 23.

"You're both children," I tell them. "Babies. Why are you following this old man?"

They start to spout a bunch of dogma about community and devotion and freedom from having to make choices. I can see that they are not well-read and that they have not thought very much about any of the things they are saying. I want to help them, so first I ask them if they have jobs or girlfriends and wouldn't they like to have their own money to do fun things? They respond by telling me that even King Soloman grew tired of all those things. I feel ashamed of having made such a lame argument. I wonder why I said all of that. These men are stupid, but it's even more stupid of me to have tried to convince them this way. Then the taller one asks me if I have a job and money. That was the lowest blow. I admit that I quit my job two months back. He looks at me and says, "So you are unemployed? You live here off your husband's money? What do you contribute? Who are you to lecture me about how to live?" He's right. I feel like a loser. I try to defend myself and explain that I worked for years until recently and that I'm going back to school now to change careers, but they just laugh at me.

I get very upset at this point and the dream becomes stressful and deteriorates because it starts to wake me up.

In which I'm on a movie set...

I'm an extra on a movie set. Three actors are standing on a golf field. I'm supposed to be a deranged caddy, and I'm directed to walk up to the three men and shoot them all at point blank range in the face. The director hands me a gun that is loaded with blanks and calls "action!".

I walk up to the men with the gun, but when I point it in the face of the first man, something feels really evil about it. I refuse to pull the trigger. The director yells at me and I tell him it just feels wrong and I can't do it. He asks me if I know what acting is. This is pretending, he tells me. I tell him that I understand that, but it still feels wrong.

The three men get impatient with me. One snatches the gun out of my hand and opens up the chamber. There is one real bullet in the gun. Everyone looks astonished. I say, "That's how Bruce Lee's son died."

In which I fail to stay lucid...

I'm cleaing out my closet and I come across a box of books. I open the first book I see and try to read a page. The words are all real words and they follow a basic sense of English grammar, but they don't make any sense. It said something very similar (maybe not exactly) to this:

The numerous trawling sofas affix zealots in the blind.

I leaned back, touched by the poetry of the words. How pretty "affix zealots in the blind" sounds! Then I started to wonder at the meaning and realized that I didn't actually understand the line. I looked at it again, but this time it said (again, close but not exactly):

Battered and flourescent utilities of ionic compounds lull banners.

I thought that maybe they were talking about the properties of ionic compounds and the banners of zealots. It didn't seem as pretty this time, and I was aware that the words had changed. Some of the phrases kept repeating over and over again in my mind, especially the "affix zealots in the blind" part and the "utilities of ionic compounds" part. I kept hearing them, loud, and finally realized that it wasn't my poor reading skills- these words simply did not make sense.

I realized I was dreaming. I got very excited and stood up to do a reality check. Instead of pinching my nose or rubbing my hands (which is really what I'm supposed to do), I walked over to my window and opened the blinds. I could see my bird feeders and bird bath, but the image was frozen. All the birds were still frolicking and eating, but they were frozen as if in a picture. There was a hawk frozen in mid-flight.

I'm dreaming! I thought excitedly. Then I woke up.

In which I go house hunting...

The realtor and I walk down the sidewalk in my neighborhood past many of the old Southern style houses with large wrap around porches and mature pecan trees shading the wide lawns. Then we get to a small gravel driveway that leads between two houses to a small house built in more modern-style architecture set back off the road behind the other houses. I told the realtor that I'd never noticed that this house was there!

The house was mostly rectangular, and the front was built in the modern architectural style of flat and raised exterior walls with geometric windows, and it was painted bright green and yellow. It was lovely, but did not fit well into this neighborhood of 19th century plantation style homes.

We stepped inside the living room. The interior was deliberately unfinished. It had the look of a trendy urban loft with brass colored piping on the outside of the walls and the metal beams of the ceiling exposed. It was stylishly decorated with minimalist furniture. The floor was the most interesting. It was a wide industrial metal grate through which you could see the piers and beams of the foundation as well as the ground below which had been cultivated with lemon grass. From inside the living room, I noticed that three of the four sides of the house had walls, but the fourth was open to a garden. It was very beautiful, but completely impractical.

"This house is a work of art," I told the realtor, "but how would you stay warm in the winter? How would you stop it from flooding during the rains? How would you keep out snakes and fire ants and mosquitos and possums and racoons and deer and armadillos?"

The realtor sighed. "Yes, well that IS the problem. That's why the owner is selling it and why it is so cheap."

"But why in the world would he have built it like this in the first place?"

"Well, you see, the owner is one of those Californians who is trying to escape to cheaper real estate markets. He purchased the land cheap here, sight unseen, then had these plans drawn up for his dream home. He was so excited about how cheap the construction here is that he gave the project the green light before even visiting! And like a lot of Californians, he assumed that all of Texas was just hot, dry, flat desert. He had no idea that we had a winter here or thunderstorms. He's lived in a concrete city his entire life, you know."

The realtor and I laugh at the Californian's misfortune.

I've been trying hard to become lucid lately and it has been disturbing my sleep. I've been dreaming very little and have had very poor recall. Last night, I took the advice of people on this board and decided not to even try to become lucid last night. As expected, I slept very well and remember one really vivid dream that was probably three or four dreams that happened back to back. Though I was never able to become lucid (and didn't try) there were moments in this dream where I made the decision to change the course of the dream and where dream characters and I challenged the existence of things. For that reason, I think maybe there was still some part of me that was thinking about becoming lucid, so I hope this is progress.

In which I escape catastrophe at an amusement park called Noah's Park only to find myself in a river full of dog-dragon-snakes that are being studied by a scientist who lives in a haunted house...

K and her two kids were down here visiting us. I'd heard that there was a new baby-friendly amusement park nearby, so I asked K if she wanted to go check it out. R came along too and we arrived at a series of entrance gates with long queues full of clean-cut couples and their very young children. When it was our turn to pay, the cashier told us the entrance was free, but that the only way to exit was to make sure to get on the ark. The ark?

We follow the path from the entrance until we are standing under a large dome from which blue paper-mache clouds are suspended and a neon sign reads Welcome To Noah's Park! We all realize that this is a Christian-based theme park. I'm interested in staying as I've heard about places like this and I'm curious, but I'm worried about K getting upset because she is an atheist. She just shrugs her shoulders and says we'll stay because otherwise the kiddos might throw a fit.

Because E is too little to do much, K has taken him to a little baby park where they are relaxing on the swings while R and I take G on the rides. We are having fun and looking at exhibits but at this point the dream is fuzzy. One of the rides has something to do with the Second Coming of Christ, except that it takes place on an It's A Small World type trolley. We are riding through different parts of the world seeing what the Second Coming will be like there.

Then a foghorn is sounded and the entire place becomes chaotic with activity. It seems like people have come out of nowhere, and it is suddenly so crowded that we are surrounded by people, pushing and shoving. Frogs start to fall from the sky and bloody sores appear on people's faces. G starts to cry. He's scared and wants to be with his mother. I pick him up and try to explain that none of this is real. These are actors showing us what the Seven Plagues would be like. I'm acting calm, but really I'm angry. Toddlers are too young to understand this and the scene is convincingly real. Even I'm a little scared.

Suddenly, the ground shakes and the amusement park breaks off from the main land. It becomes an island and starts floating out into the ocean. The people on the edges of the island are falling into the water and drowning. Many of them are desperately trying to get back on the land- they are clawing at the dirt pathetically. In the distance, I see a giant ark coming towards us. It is full of animals. I mention to R that it doesn't look nearly big enough to fit two of every animal on the planet, and he responds that It's only a model. Noah stands at the front looking like Steven Carrell in Evan Almighty. The resemblance is so striking that I lean over to R and mention how surprised I am that Carrell would make appearances at an amusement park.

Then the earth shakes again and I fall over. People start to trample me, rushing to get to the ark. I see G standing alone crying. Then more people run over me. Finally I'm able to pull myself up, but when I look around, I can't see G or R anymore. I'm alone in the crazy crowd.

I notice that all the people are running towards rollercoasters where staff are strapping them in. You have to take a rollercoaster on to the ark, and anyone who is left behind will drown. I run up and down the aisles of the rollercoasters as if they are in a cinema hall. I'm calling for G or R. At one point, I pass by K's husband. I stop and tell him that I didn't know he was here. He says he got on the ark at an amusement park in California and has been struggling to stay alive ever since. He says that the amusement park goes to a new place every day where it releases all the people who are trapped on the ark on to the new amusement park island. Then they must all fight to get inside a rollercoaster to get back on. He says it is more difficult each time because the size of the crowd grows. I ask about the animals, and he says that they have all been thrown overboard. He tells me about seeing an elephant struggling and drowning and I start to get really depressed. He also tells me that it's sad to watch so many people drown. Then he looks at me with horror and asks, "Were you just looking for G? Do you know where he is?" I don't want him to worry, so I lie and say, "He's with R. I was just trying to find them so that I could get on the same roller coaster that they're on." Then he warns me that it's probably too late for me to get on a rollercoaster. He wishes me luck as his cart starts heading towards the ark.

I keep running and calling for G and R. Then I bump into K and E. They are strapped into a rollercoaster car. She can tell I'm distressed so I tell her the truth about losing G. She is surprisingly calm about everything and suggests that I just call R on her cell phone and ask him if G is with him. I feel really stupid for not having thought of this before. We call R and he says that he and G are strapped safely into a rollercoaster on the other side of the park. I am relieved but K just seems amused.

Then I realize that everyone is safely heading to the ark except for me. I'm not going to make it. I start to tell K everything her husband told me and I start to cry that I'll be left behind. She just laughs and says, "Don't be silly. None of this is real."

"But how will I get out of the amusement park if I can't get on the ark?" I ask her.

"I don't know," she says, "but relax and try to have fun." Then her rollercoaster starts to take her away towards the ark. She turns around, looks at me with a big smile and says, "You can swim back. You can fly. You can do anything you want!"

I realize that she is correct. This makes perfect sense. Of course I can swim and fly. I don't become lucid though I do suddenly have the powers to manipulate the dream.

I think that it would be nice if my dog Lucy were with me and suddenly she comes running from the hysterical crowd and licks my face. People all around us are trampling each other and screaming, fighting to get to the ark. Some people are hanging on the wheels of the rollercoaster as it heads up into the loop that takes them aboard. I see some get their fingers cut off. Others fall from the top of the loop. I try to yell at the hysterical people that none of this is real, but they won't listen to me.

So Lucy and I walk to the end of the amusement park island. We look at the raging sea below and jump in. Initially, the swimming was hard for me though Lucy did fine. She was dog paddling without any problem. I got tired fast, so I decided to float on my back and paddle myself with my arms. Suddenly, we were moving really fast through the ocean. The sun was shining on my face and I could see birds circling above me. When large waves hit, at first they splashed me in the face and caused me to tumble underwater and choke. But after a little while I learned to stand up and surf the waves even though I didn't have a board. It was extremely pleasant, peaceful and fun, and if I ever learn to attain lucidity easily I'm going to spend a lot of time swimming in the ocean.

Eventually, we rode the waves up to land and up a river. The river was flowing backwards, away from the ocean and up the tributary to the source. I crossed my arms under my head and floated as if I was on an inner-tube even though I was not. It was a lot of fun. Lucy put her front paws and head in my lap and snoozed. The seagulls were squawking and I could see riverboats in the distance. People were fishing along the shore and I told Lucy that I thought we were on the Mississippi.

Suddenly, the river took us underground and into a dark cave. Something that looked like a giant snake switched its tail beneath the water. Lucy and I scrambled out of the river and stood on the bank under what looked like a limestone cave ceiling full of stalagtites. A hunched back old woman, dark skinned and chubby with matted hair and big eyes, was standing along the bank holding a lantern. She told me that we were almost lunch for the dog-dragon-snake. She introduces herself as a wildlife biologist and explains that we are actually in the Everglades. Apparently a little-known tributary of the Mississippi will take you there.

She holds out a dead chicken, its neck broken, and whistles to the dog-dragon-snake. Suddenly this giant monster emerges from the river. It has a face almost exactly like Lucy's with the typical German Shepherd black mask and diamond between the eyes, except instead of fur its markings are scales. They glisten sickeningly in the light of the hunched lady's lamp. The scaly dog-head of this creature was easily 10 feet in diameter, and its body was that of a long slithering snake except that it had four short legs with sharp claws like a dragon. When it snatched the chicken from the hunched lady, it's snake-eyes rolled back in its head. I felt a shudder of pure evil.

The scientist took us back to her house (which was my house somehow) where she made me some warm tea and explained that the monster was the result of escaped pet anaconda snakes that ate so many stray dogs that they started to merge to form a new animal. Then a ghost came and cast a spell on them that crossed them also with dragons. They breed quickly, and she is worried that they will soon leave the Everglades and move all over the country, devouring dogs everywhere.

I told her I didn't believe in ghosts.

Suddenly, the back door swung open and a ghost flashed by, snatched up Lucy, and ran outside with her. The ghost looked like the typical Japanese style drowning ghost, a female dressed in white with long, tangled black hair. I was holding a stuffed animal, a Snoopy doll that I'd loved as a girl, and I immediately dropped it on the floor of the woman's house and rushed out after Lucy and the ghost. The scientist called behind me, "I told you so".

We ran to a clearing in the center of which were several boulders that had been pushed together to form a circle. The landscape was rocky and arid like in Central Texas, with prickly pear cactus and mesquite trees all around. The ghost had my Lucy dog, but we just stood there looking at each other. The chubby scientist lady eventually made it to the area too, huffing and puffing, but she stayed outside the circle.

"You can't tell her that you don't believe in her," the scientist told me. "That makes her mad!"

I just stared at the ghost. We didn't take our eyes off each other. It felt like I was Clint Eastwood at the end of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. I remained calm, ready for the slightest movement.

Without even blinking away, I shouted back to the scientist lady, "I need you to go back to your house and get the Snoopy doll I dropped. It's important to me. Bring it to me."

The lady left. The ghost hissed at me. I looked at Lucy and told her to come. She simply jumped out of the ghost's arms and ran over to me. The ghost was still standing there and I told her, "I don't believe in you. There might be a ghost in my house, but she's a friendly ghost who has never done me any harm. You aren't real." I felt very brave.

There is one more scene to this dream in which Lucy and I went to a bar. I can picture the bar very clearly though I don't remember anything else about it.