I have distinct memories of three dreams last night. I’ll not torture the net with many details.
I do want to ask Hugh Laurie why he came into my dream.
There were five of us present. We were all in pale white hooded robes, doing some fantastic wizard stuff, when I made some cutting observation that it was all being staged. It was fake. Upon those statements, the action stopped. The lights went up and the robes fell away, revealing us as common, average humans in pants, shirts and shoes. And yes, we were on a sound stage. And yes, one of the other players was Hugh Laurie. He was in charge. Sneering at me after we were exposed, he said, “Thanks for ruining the magic.”
Revelations were the general themes of the three dreams. In one of the other dreams, I was being taught how others reacted to hypothetical situations and what they did to cheat and achieve better results. This was being done in a high school. Classes were going on but I was part of a select adult class being taught this particular subject. We were using the students’ results as study materials.
The students had written their homework and test answers on strange materials. One was written on a metal locker with a black marker. I had to bend down to read it. I sharply remember another was written on a box of Wheaties. (I was amused by that detail, as Wheaties was my go-to breakfast cereal when I was young.) They had neat writing. It was in blue ink, with a pen, cursive, down the side panel, around the ingredients and nutritional information.
They were writing about what they would do if they were given a speeding ticket. This person had written on the Wheaties, ‘I would eat the ticket!’ That made me laugh. Others and I discussed our findings, marveling and joking about how creative these young people were. I was beginning to think in new ways, I realized. Our instructor then appeared ‘off dream’. They announced that we were ready to begin our next stage of training using the knowledge acquired from this exercise when I awoke.
There is so much more but the prospect of remembering all those details exhausts me. Then I would probably fall asleep and dream more. It’s like my own version of Catch-22.
I’m not always a quick thinker. Otherwise, I would have answers today.
It’s about a dream. Yeah. I should have asked myself, why are you dreaming this? I don’t recall ever featuring pigs in a dream before.
I was feeding a pig. He was a shiny little pink porker. He came downstairs in my house, a very happy and excited little creature. I had company. Friends were visiting. I didn’t want the pig downstairs. So I called him and led him back upstairs.
It was messy upstairs. It seems like we were in a transition. My intention was to feed the pig some cornflakes. He found some on the floor and gobbled them up, but he wanted more. I thought he spotted more but they turned out to be scraps of paper. He didn’t want to eat those. As I searched for corn flakes to feed him, another pig, slightly larger but equally pink and shiny, emerged, along with a few cats. So I talked to them, telling them I was looking for food and was going to feed them, even as I couldn’t find the food that I expected. I headed downstairs to find some.
I had company, three former co-workers from a flying unit. Laying on sofas, they were watching television and playing games while they chatted to me and my wife. I was annoyed because they had disconnected the best television and were employing old cathode ray televisions on carts. I set about fixing that.
Meanwhile, another friend from the same unit showed up. I asked him what he thought of his new position. He replied, “This is what war sounds like.” Then, using a gallon paint can, he made a metallic rumbling noise that was loud and unpleasant. “All the time,” he said.
Others, less known but known, showed up. Setting up tables, they sat down to prepare food to feed me. I was embarrassed and grateful for their efforts, but I kept trying to tell them that it wasn’t necessary. They ignored me, continuing to cook.
Pigs…confusion…identity. It’s something to research and think about today, since I didn’t bother to ask myself for clarification when it was happening. I’ll need to think quicker next time.
I dreamed within dreams last night. That began during the dream, after my dream self asked myself, “Why am I dreaming this?”
The dream featured multiple arcs but always centered around one main setting. I was in the Air Force again, newly assigned to this place and in charge. The setting featured an intact building where command and control was going on. It was off by itself on a green knoll, surrounded by green fields, with ‘the base’ in the background. Attached to the building was an end room. The end room, accessible from the rest through a door that I could open and close, was damaged. Its lights were always on and its roof was collapsing and sinking in. Water was running from faucets and burst pipes. Others thought nothing of that.
I walked around for some time studying it. I saw this water was causing damage. Although the water was draining away, I disliked the waste. So I turned the water off. I was surprised the water could be turned off, and I was surprised others hadn’t thought of that. I asked others who worked for me to make it part of their routines to check the water to ensure it was off before they left each day.
The POV changed from internal me to outside of me. Sometimes I would drift further out to watch myself in my dream environment. This would often happen in conjunction with me going out to survey the damaged area. The time of day shifted, sometimes being late morning (I knew this) while it was late afternoon or dusk at other times. I noted it becoming muddier around the damaged area. People’s belongings were mired in mud. Pets were struggling with change. I began talking to those who had lived there (they weren’t ‘me’), assessing the damages, directing clean up, and feeding animals. It was during one of those times when I asked myself the question.
In answer, I was treated to dreaming within the dream.
Awakening from the dream in the dream, I understood. As the other dream ended, I knew the dream was about identity, structure and success. This epiphany came as I salvaged cat food to feed a happy talking kitten and then made requests of people working for me to check on items to save water and electricity, and finally, a vantage shift to survey damages from a distance, where I could look down and see it all in its entirety.
The dream(s) inundated me with thinking points for my waking self. So many ask when you tell about your dreams, “How did you feel?” So I’ll tell: I felt introspective and thoughtful. I felt in charge and in control. I felt like the sun had burned away an enormous swath of Tule fog.
I felt like I’d been given a clear direction. Now I just need to follow that path.
Last night’s dreams were a barrage of chaotic events and images. I vividly remember most of them (it?) because my left calf cramped. Pain shot me out of dreams into full wakefulness. Working the cramp, I remembered the dream.
I was travelling with my wife. We were hurrying through an airport. She was carrying all our baggage. It wasn’t much but included a brown paper shopping bag full of papers. “I can help,” I kept telling her. “Let me carry some of that.” I tried taking some. But no, she dismissed my urging and raced ahead. The airport was immaculate and wasn’t busy. We rushed through doors and across terminals and concourses.
Things were coming beginning to come out of the shopping back. “Here, wait, you’re losing things,” I told her, catching up. Slowing her, I tried re-organizing materials in the bag so they were more secure and suggested I take it, but she was too impatient and started off again.
And then we headed for an exit. I was bewildered. “But we didn’t go anywhere,” I said. “We didn’t fly anywhere.” Wordlessly, carrying the baggage, stopping to put papers back into the shopping bag, she prodded us to the exit.
Act two commenced. We were in a vehicle, I think. I never saw or heard it but we were on a divided white cement four lane highway. I couldn’t tell who was driving. Lightly traveled and free of potholes, the road followed curving green hills. The weather was pleasant. I could only see ahead of me and nothing of us or the car.
A bright orange car burst onto the highway ahead of us. Emitting blue smoke and loud noise out of its single large chrome exhaust pipe that came out the back, it looked like it was a home-made fiberglass creation on a shortened VW Beetle chassis. The car seemed barely under control. Accelerating to overtake one vehicle, it jumped lanes and almost hit another. Swerving back, it barely passed between two other vehicles.
We were commenting on the lack of control, what was going on in the driver’s head, and the vehicle’s construction and design, when they did lose control, spinning out as its engine gave up with a smoky, “BANG.”
We were on the scene instantly and then passing it, talking about stopping and helping – but then this crazy motorcyclist roared by. The rider was a young, well-groomed white man with short dark hair. He was driving insanely, cutting off a semi, causing it to crash, and then doing the same to another car.
This time, he wrecked. He got off his motorcycle, stared down at it a moment, and then started walking up the highway.
We were walking behind him. I could believe he was walking away from the mayhem he’d caused. His indifference appalled me. I raced up to him. Catching up, I began calling, “Hey, excuse me, hello,” before finally tapping his shoulder. Taller than me by at least eighteen inches, he was extremely skinny and white, and dressed in a white shirt with rolled up sleeves and a red neck tie that was loose around the collar. I began telling him, “Do you know what you did back there?” Unimpressed, he began leaving, but I held firm, holding onto him, taking him by his arm, and then his shoulder. I was amazed how muscular he was under his shirt.
I told him what he’d done. “So what?” he answered at last. “I’m working from home and McDonald’s has the right to send and receive faxes at my house. I can’t get any rest and I can’t get anything done.” Then the truck driver, a swarthy man a little shorter than me, caught up and entered into conversation with him.
My wife and I went on. We entered a terminal through a double metal door without any markings. Inside was messy and crowded with an old military base feel to it. Not much energy was put on decor. Food was available. We were hungry and perused the menu. Nothing was calling to us. We still wanted to order something but weren’t sure what we wanted to order, nor where to do it, but were beginning to grasp their system amidst the disorder.
Then it got chaotic. A disheveled greasy man appeared behind us. White, with stringy hair and a few days of beard, he was being disruptive. I didn’t know exactly what he was doing. He was just standing and grinning whenever I saw him. But I didn’t trust him. He was wearing sandals with no socks and baggy, dirty green pants.
Eventually something he did caused a commotion. He disappeared. Two police officers arrived. I could hear them talking about him but only heard fragments. They were attempting to find him. Slipping past them, I decided I could find him.
From here, the dream fractured into true incoherence. At this point, the point of view became external. I was watching myself and these scenes as though I watched a movie except I knew it was me and I wasn’t just sitting somewhere watching someone else. There was something about cutting our grass a certain manner and a bevy of strange rules being issued, rules that would undo what had succeeded. I was being urged to conform and obey. “They will ticket you if you don’t,” they told me. Everyone was worried about being ticketed.
“Enough of this,” I basically said. “I’m not doing that stuff.” I walked out, coming toward my watching vantage. My wife and others hurried behind me, talking to me, asking me to re-consider what I was doing but I was adamant. My dream’s last words were, “They’re just pieces of paper,” spoken by me.
The race begins and after a brief interlude of finding your pace, you enter your zone where your legs and arms are moving with orchestrated pace and you are where you want to be and where you expected to be. Interior dialogue begins to help focus. Time and distance pass and you feel good, even great as your body feels its power and responds.
And then, without warning, here is the wall.
The wall is many impressions at once. It feels like you’re running in sludge. Where your feet were lifting and dropping with relative ease and precision, you suddenly feel wobbly and your feet are heavy. Your legs feel heavy. An undertow has sucked all your energy out to sea. You just want to completely stop, sag and breath.
But you know that this will pass if you can keep your arms and legs moving. That’s why you’ve trained, to learn how to keep your arms and legs moving, how to properly breath, how to find the oxygen in your lungs and get it to your heart, into your blood and to your muscles. You’ve trained to know what to do when it happens and take the pieces of broken focus and put them back together so you can keep going.
Well, I’ve hit the writing wall this morning. My body is sagging despite my stretching and yawning, and my mind is screaming, “I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna.” It’s cold, gray and wet outside. My eyes are tired. My morning coffee is cold and it doesn’t taste good. It’s Sunday, come on, aren’t you supposed to take Sunday off to sit and chill? You deserve a day off from dealing with the Penta Majur.
And I know some of this wall comes from unique places within. Emotional demands have eaten into the writing reserves. I’ve learned that a friend and family member by marriage had open-heart surgery a few weeks ago without telling anyone. Only his wife knew. And you wonder, why wouldn’t they tell anyone this? He didn’t have insurance and her insurance is a miserable and greedy company which is barely covering any of the bill. She’s well employed and a hard worker, with an impressive job title and salary, but this has drained their finances.
I know some of this wall is holiday related as I pause to consider what was and what now isn’t. I understand my nostalgic nature even if I can’t control it.
And I know some of this wall comes from dealing with news and protests and murders and deaths and hatred and racism and bigotry and –
And there is the wall.
My dreams reflected this last night, too,putting me through the paces of trying to sell a car, a sports car which I owned for twenty years but traded in for a new SUV, a car that reflected some of the pleasure I felt with what I’d achieved, where I was and where I was going, a car that then became a reminder of where I’d been and what I’d achieved and that I was no longer going anywhere, car that reminded me that time had passed. And yet a car that I missed because I’d enjoyed considerable pleasure driving that car on trips, and it was associated with the validation found in work and promotions.
I saw all that in the dream as the dream masters chastised me for not following proper procedures while selling my car, ordering me back into line, and confusing me with demands that I need to write my requirements in white on black socks, which totally befuddled me because that makes no sense. And then, there is the waking reflections on what makes sense and does not, with gentle chiding amusement over the expectations that everything is to make sense. That’s the interesting thing about writing: that you must always make sense in a world that doesn’t make sense.
The writer within is demonstrating remarkable patience.He wants to write but he’s telling me, you’re just a little tired. It’s understandable, that’s okay. Take some time to sit in quiet, relax, drink some more coffee, read, surf the net, look out the window, watch the trees, the birds, the clouds and rain, and the passing pedestrians. Observe life. Let your energy build.
The wall is there but you’ll break through. Be patient and persevere.
It’s like writing a history of the second world war. Politics, economics and personalities whirl around galactic and planetary fronts as technology causes surprises shifts and skews expectations. It can be overwhelming on some mornings, sorting out the players. Each time that the action shifts via a new twist or expands on an established twist, research and thought is demanded to understand the people, cultures and civilizations involved.
It’s hard work, and it’s fun. It’s fiction writing. It progresses, pleasing and exciting me. Yes, some boulders of frustrations are encountered, and a block ensues. I hunt around it until I find a way to carry on.
Which, if you read my posts with regularity, takes me to the doorstep of last night’s dreams.
Of course dreams are involved. I seem to be able to do little without my dreams becoming approaching the stage to provide their impressions. I accept their participation with little hesitation because the dreams tend toward the positive.
In last night’s feature, the first of a double-header, I was living under water. Not literally; this is a dream. It was an impression of living underwater. Sounds were murky and distorted, colors were diluted and glazed with an faint olive green hue. I lived as I would on land, walking about, but with the impression I was underwater. The sensation of being under intense pressure all around drove that sense.
And I was tired of it. I didn’t want to live underwater and under pressure. So I took up flying. It was that simple in the dream world, which, when I awoke and thought about it, made me long to live in a dream world.
The flying was pretty terrific. I was up and out of the water without thought (and without any splashing). Everything was sharp and clear. Visibility seemed like infinity. As I perceived the changes in the dream, I gasped and said, “I’m flying.” And a voice answered, “Of course you are.”
“But I don’t have wings,” I replied.
The unseen other laughed. While they sounded like they were located by my shoulder, I saw nothing of them. Their voice, while pleasant, intimate, soft and friendly, didn’t betray a sex. “Why would you need wings? You’re not a bird.”
I laughed on hearing that. No, I’m not a bird, but a human, flying above the world, going to wherever I selected. As dream impressions go, it was empowering cubed. In an aside, I noticed I looked like a younger version of myself and was dressed in jeans with a belt, polo shirt and shoes. Although it was all fully colorized, I barely remember those details except to know I noticed what I was wearing when I looked for my wings. I had no wings, no engines or contraptions attached to me, and was without strings. I was flying on my own.
After that, the other dream, about my home and decisions to make changes, and being overrun by animals from the neighbors amidst efforts of organizing and directing others (some took some of my FedEx delivery envelopes for their use from my big binders of organization, but I had them to spare), seemed as bland as reality, except the good mood from the main feature carried over.
As it’s carrying over now. Ready to write and excited with expectations, just the way I like it.
Keeping it simple today, and following a theme (rim shot). I’ve been dreaming a great deal, and remembering many dreams in the past ten days, more than I usually remember. Of course, it’s my experience that remembering dreams and thinking about them builds the ability to remember dreams and think about them, so it’s a natural function to remember more as I think more….
Sorry for the diversion. To return to the theme, it’s dreams, of course. There’s a lot of music featuring dreams but being a rockboy, I’m going straight to Van Halen. The song and video came out while I was stationed at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan, so it ties in with my recent dreams. And we liked the video – nice beat, easy to play air guitar with it and sing along – although, ahem, they were Navy jets, and we were the Air Force. We didn’t hold that against Van Halen or the song.
Here is ‘Dreams’. Sing along if you know the words, or just make some up.
Update: after watching the above video, I didn’t think it was the one I knew. I believe the one below is the correct one. Same song, though, and, um…theme….
The dream waves continued last night. All the remembered dreams were about going on picnics. Thinking about this, I laughed: this is all a picnic. What a ‘tude.
So the three dreams were about going on picnics. Each had wonderful weather and different settings. I was an adult in each but in different stages of life. In dream number one, I was youngest and my picnic companions were mostly family, augmented with friends. The second dream featured military members (although none were in uniform – I just ‘knew’ they were military members), while the third dream was community. Again, it was a surprise and a laugh to think, interesting, I’m going on picnics with three pillars of my existence in family, military and community. Although I knew in the dream this is what these were, nobody from any of those areas of my life were actually there. That is, Mom was there but it wasn’t my Mom from life.
All the dreams shared a very joyful, flirtatious, happy and energetic atmosphere. The picnics were planned and now were being executed with small details gone awry. For instance, in the first picnic (with the family), there was confusion about my food and the proportions, but I was working it out. In the third dream, the ‘community’ dream, a young female stranger sought me out as we were preparing to leave. She had a computer issue and couldn’t open a file with a certain application, and was asking for my help.
I won’t subject anyone to further details. They were cool dreams and I awoke feeling uplifted, rested and energized. I laugh just remembering them. I give them four point five stars on my scale of one to five.
I dreamed last night about the power of eight. That is literally and explicitly what the dream was about, no B.S. I remember all of this thanks to a cat.
I know that will surprise you.
In the dream, I was in a class with others but not a classroom. I don’t know who the others were. Someone unknown was explaining that the power of eight shapes everything. Basically in a ‘Matrix’ reveal, I was shown how streaming digits make up reality. Then we were told, “If you can find the power of eight in the numbers, you’ll unlock the power of creation.” Then, as we all talked and looked, I grasped that within the threads were sequences that added up to eight. As I realized the implications and began bubbling with the thrill of knowledge, I began showing them to the rest of the class and elaborating on the instructor’s explanation about how to see and capture the power of eight. As example, I explained, laughing, “Like this one.” I captured a sequence. “That’s eight hundred thousand dollars.”
At that point, whiskers, licking and kneading awakened me. Quinn the Black Paw was hungry. The food in the bowls didn’t suit his mood. It didn’t matter that it was oh dark A.M. Resigning myself the power of the cat, I fed him, and then used the opportunity to pee and ponder the dream.
I was pretty much at a loss about what it meant then. Like, what was I supposed to do? Take a pill and find an eight? Returning to bed, I resumed sleeping.
The lessons about the power of eight continued with further dreaming.They were explaining how the power of eight was part of a balance. But now, instead of being in a class room, I was standing atop stairs. Others, like my wife, accompanied me, but they were incidentals. Dark, dark, dark cheery red, these steps were worn smooth. Like contoured hillsides of rice paddies, they extended in either direction, leading down to something that I couldn’t see. In fact, the only other thing seen was a blue grey sky.
I knew I was to go down the stairs, and I did. This was a learning expedition, and I felt pretty good about the whole thing. My wife and a few others accompanied me. At the bottom was a land, and people who…well, they identified themselves as the common people. They explained I was to kill two of them.
That shocked me. It could not be right. But no, they were comfortable with my intentions. I’d done it before and others did it, too. They liked the way I killed them, demonstrating empathy and kindness when I did. Besides, they told me, I often gave others gifts. Which was true, I remembered then, as I absorbed it all. On the way down, I’d left and given packages as gifts.
Then, my instructions were to return to the top of the stairs and resume my lessons in the power of eight. I returned to the top of the stairs and awoke, confused.
What in the hell is the power of eight, and how am I supposed to harness any of that dream information in this real existence?
At that point, I wanted to return to dream with instructions to myself to provide further explanation. But sleep eluded me. Instead, I thought about my recent state of mind.
It’s been that time of month, when I’m coping with my darkness. Essentially, my darkness has a mission statement that I’m to feel so depressed and miserable that I question, why the hell am I even alive? Arriving in this depressed state, I become all, J’accuse: Thou art a shite writer writing shite fiction. Nobody wants to read the hot sloppy piles that you write, so why do you torture myself with this pursuit?
I know, intellectually, I’m coping with an emotional state that affect huge swaths of population. None of that really helps. I’d been reading to manage it. In the marvelous way that the world works, I’d come across a T.C. Boyle interview and a John Scalzi post. Both helped bolster my resistance to quit.
2. The .357 Magnum. The second tip goes (if you’ll forgive me) hand-in-hand with the first. In recognition of the fact that all writers are manic-depressives, alcoholics, drug-addicts and fixedly specialized degenerates, it’s always helpful to keep a loaded pistol on your desk, perhaps located conveniently beside the ballpeen hammer, depending, of course, on the size of the desk. This acts as an aide-memoire, a spur to creativity and, of course, the ultimate solution to writers’ block.
The other post, by John Scalzi, was Rejection. He closed:
In the meantime, I’ve already sent a query off to another agent. You can’t sit around moping after a rejection, you have to rush into the arms of the next rejection. Because who knows? It might not be a rejection at all.
Heartening words, the words that every writer embraces, the essence being, who knows when you’ll get your break? It’s a strange brew where writers reside. As other writers have written, we’ve developed good taste about what we like to read, and we’re attempting to envelope that good taste in what we write in a difficult and often lonely, and solitary endeavor. And I, being of low self-esteem and a person who eschews attention, struggle with writing and wanting attention for what I write against being a solitary creature who is pretty happy writing in his isolation. It’s a messed up, strange brew. And again: I know I’m not alone.
I told my wife about my dream this morning.She suggested I hunt down meanings for the power of eight. Doing a web search, I came across Christine DeLorey’s website, Creative Numerology. She’d specifically written about ‘The Power of Eight’.
Reading her post reinforced my understanding of the dream. Frankly, I was startled by having such a dream and then discovering such explanation on the web. I’d wondered if I’d read about the power of eight before, and had simply regurgitated previously required knowledge.
I don’t know. My wife’s book club met last night. Their book in discussion was ‘Ordinary Grace’. As always, they investigated the author, William Kent Krueger. They’d discovered some good interviews with him that she shared with me, where he discussed his frustrations with writing novels and trying to become published. I mentioned that’s what writers, including me, are always seeking, that perfect strange brew where the good taste that we’ve acquired through reading is blended with the good taste we infuse in our writing, but also with the good taste that civilization displays by finding and reading our work. It’s a very, very strange brew, and none of us are sure of the exact ingredients.
But my wife closed, “Well, you can’t stop writing. Writing is part of the Perfect M. Writing is your drug, and it keeps you balanced.”
M is my private nickname, BTW, to clarify. I began using that initial to sign things like a zillion plus years ago and she adopted it as her term for me. But she’s right. I write because I need to write. Everything else is just the strange brew of being.
And now, since it’s the song that I sang to myself while walking down to write, here’s another shot at today’s theme song: ‘Strange Brew’, by Cream, 1967.
I don’t know what dreams mean but I visited with a dead friend last night.
Randy died this year in May, colon cancer, fifty-nine years old.
He was in the last part of my dream. In the first part, I was in a wilderness area not far from a two lane road. It was a pleasant day, sunshine and clouds mixing to keep it from being too warm or bright. Rugged topography dominated, with mountains in the background. This was difficult land, mostly granite, with a few stands of tall fir trees and meager dry, brown brush.
I was with other men. I think there were eight of us but I’m not certain. We were out ‘visiting with nature’, which is all I can guess from my memory of the dream. We’d deliberately separated, fanning out to do different things. I came across an older friend, Frank. He was part of the group. Frank is alive and I see him every other week or more.
A cougar was stalking Frank. He didn’t know. I saw it and warned him, and the cougar left without incident. Frank and I talked briefly in general terms. He drifted in one direction. I headed back toward the road, where a small pavilion on a stony hillock was erected.
An enormous brown bear appeared. Its size shocked me. As it ambled in my direction, cutting me off from the pavilion, I realized it was far bigger than the pavilion. Round and broad, the bear dwarfed some of the granite boulders strewn about.
I worried about him getting me so I was staying as still as I can, and moving carefully when needed so the bear couldn’t get too close, trying to keep the pavilion between us. When that failed, and the bear might come my way, I went invisible for a bit.
The bear entered the pavilion. He could barely fit and it was somewhat comical. Frank appeared then and I re-appeared to warn him about the bear. As we watched together, the bear left the pavilion and walked away, sniffing the air as he traversed the rocky landscape.
The others came and I told my story, trying to convey the bear’s incredible size. Then we were off, headed for home, separating at different points along the way. I was soon traveling with another group.
Here’s the weird part. They were traveling in a vehicle that wasn’t a vehicle. Five abreast, they were lying in something that conveyed them but had no color or form. It made no sound and was open to the world. It was like they were just lying in the road, five abreast, reclined at a steep angle, like in an airline seat, but they traveled on a unlined black asphalt road faded gray with age.
A guide was with them, talking about what was coming up. She stopped to introduce me to the group as I stood off to one side, calling me by my name, Michael, and mentioning I was one of their leaders. Then, proceeding to tell what was to happen next, she mentioned that they were coming up on Randy’s house on the right. Then she faltered, unsure what to say about Randy.
Realizing she was at a loss, I said, “Randy isn’t there any more. He’s a great guy, but he had to check out early.” After I spoke, the people drove on. I turned, and there was Randy. I put my arm around his shoulder and told him I was sorry what had happened to him. He, in his typical manner, told me not to worry, it’s not bad, that he was alright.
We separated, with him walking away in a green shirt and blue jeans, just like we’d run into each other while shopping. I continued on.
Reaching the end without incident by following the road and then cutting across a field, I came to a large, well-lit white warehouse. I knew this was where I was heading. The doors were open. People were busy inside. Dusk was gathering. I was just beginning to enter when I awoke.
I’ve been researching dreams for a novel in progressand discover that progress about them has been made but we understand little. While Freud and Jung had their ideas, others later bashed those ideas. Studies estimate that 70% of people dream, and the average person has five to seven dreams per night. Dreams seem to take place during R.E.M. sleep. Dreams last longer when they happen later in the sleep cycle, which is usually later at night. It was once theorized that dreams originate in the brain stem and was related to more primitive processing, but a neurologist discovered that people with brain stem injuries continue dreaming while those with parietal lobe damage (in the forebrain) did not dream. We don’t know why we dream or what they mean.
Michael Seidel, writer 