The Gate of Ivory

Thorny Snakeheads

2011-06-13T00:07:00.000-04:00

They were out in the yard waiting, the man-killers. Her sleeping mind never divulged to her what kind of curse the camp was under, but the thorn creatures were waiting because of it.

The camp itself varied little from her grandmother's fine upstate home -- a little white farmhouse on the border between the rural town and the wilder woodlands. Inside, her dream self glanced around a dining room and salon grown cozy and refined with the accumulated china and knickknacks of decades. Lacy curtains and velvety blue drapes framed a wide, bay window and sliding doors that opened onto a ground-level, wooden deck. There, her eyes gave up roving, fear compelling them to stare at the creatures.

Inexplicably, the word "snakehead" flashed across her unconsciousness, the result of too many news articles, ecological essays, and monster movies raving about how the invasive, fanged fish could breathe air and crawl overland. After she had awoken, the association seemed comically wrong. But the misapplied name added the correct feeling of menace to the clearly vegetative stalkers.

There were three that she could see through the sliding doors, resembling alligators in their shapes and movements, except with bodies formed out of bramble. Each had a distinct kind of thorn sprouting from its stick-like limbs: one had short, curvy rose thorns, another long, straight cactus spikes. All of them had a stem-green coloring that blended fairly well with the back lawn, but their sharp skins stood out plainly from the grass and gave them away. As she watched, the snakehead thorns slithered closer to the deck stairs, setting up an ambush. Anything that ventured down those steps would find itself snared in thorny jaws and drowned by an aggressive wave of plant life.

Even after daylight had called her away from the hunters, she caught herself looking askance at every tree and bush she passed on her way to work.

I Am LeBron James

2011-05-29T18:00:00.008-04:00

Sports should exist free of politics, if the honorable values of sportsmanship and fair play matter most. Unfortunately, any time wealth and power gather around an organization, the government and other political entities will take interest. ...

We were champions, and I was a star player. Proven commodities, our team had finished one season in glory and were preparing for the next campaign when the raid and kidnapping occurred. We had been herded into a dark conference room, somewhere in a government facility. A quartet of dark thugs, more private militia than real soldiers, watched over our frightened dozen while a pale, suited man -- stereotypical political sleaze -- began a presentation to us on our new roles and duties on behalf of the current administration. As he fired up a projector to display whatever charts, graphics, and clips he sought to indoctrinate us with, I hit him with the heavy bag of batteries. Two of the thugs had ducked out, leaving just two toughs for us to fend off. Slipping out of my seat near the end of the table, I tried to use the room's near-dark as cover, throwing the plastic bag full of batteries at one of our guards. (My sunlit self had received the unused AA's from my father-in-law earlier in the day, and my moonlit spirit never questioned why a kidnapped athlete would possess this odd weapon.) The private soldier proved smarter than his suited boss, and he deflected my crude toss. It gave my teammates time, however, to overpower him as the second guard lunged at me. I dropped onto my back and kicked him in the face hard enough that I felt certain the man had lost consciousness. Hopping up, I went for the door.

As I have said, we were a team -- a dozen basketball champions, in fact -- but I was the star, the exceptional one who dared shots and moves considered unthinkable. At the conference room's door, in the middle of our abduction, I again separated myself from my comrades. I left while their cries to stay and think echoed behind me. Two quick turns through empty, unremarkable corridors brought me uncannily to an emergency exit door that led to an outside catwalk. I remember thinking that it would not be safe to take the catwalk all the way to the roof, where guards and helicopters could easily catch me. I kept my vision straight ahead, not glancing now at the building's grounds, and followed the black metal walkway around a corner to a convenient window.

Climbing inside, I found I had entered a locker room of sorts, perhaps for the private militia men. Rather than linger and invite discovery, I walked forward to a door at the opposite end of the room. Either my purposeful stride, my unconcerned carriage, or my incomplete dream reasoning saw me through, and the few faces that looked up from benches or the rows of lockers neither recognized nor challenged me. Passing under the door frame, I saw a broad, low lobby and took a moment to consider my location.

It could have been the lobby of an office, a hospital, a midtown hotel, or one of those cookie-cut police stations that appear in TV shows. Across from the locker room entrance, several functionaries greeted visitors from behind a reception desk that spanned the wall. To my right, tall windows framed the double glass doors of the building's main entrance. The lobby looked out on a square lawn bordered by chain-link fencing that had loops of barbed wire topping it. The lone path leading from the doors ran to a gate with a sentry hut, and I could see military trucks and an airstrip beyond it. I was trapped on a base, clearly, and my plan to walk out the front door had no chance of success. Abandoning it, I walked to the open archway replacing most of the wall to my left, and three carpeted steps led me up into the club and lounge that sat just off the lobby.

My dream persona calmly accepted the shift in scenery from government facility to entertainment venue, and I realized immediately that this was an officers' lounge, a VIP area where I could find the base commander and negotiate our freedom. Then, two occurrences confirmed my suspicions. First, my sleeping body intruded with a command to find a bathroom, which was denied by a frowning bouncer whose look made it clear that even the restroom was for members only. Second, as I moved along the swanky bar and farther into the club's shadowy interior, I spied the base commander's exclusive area near the back.

The typical velvet-rope barrier delineated the commander's private section, and nearest to view was an L-shaped leather couch across from a pair of gauzy green curtains that were secured top and bottom by anchoring wires. On the couch, a trio of gorgeous women in scanty attire relaxed, waiting. I got closer and watched a bodyguard emerge from the green curtains and beckon to a blond woman in a revealing gold miniskirt and tube top. She followed him back through the gauze partition, and I paralleled them, walking alongside what turned out to be a series of multicolored gauze hangings leading to a huge four-post bed with a high canopy. These women, then, were the commander's mistresses , or bought women here to entertain his lusty whims. Sure enough, I saw the blond reach the end of the curtains and flounce into bed with a fat, uniformed man.

Now, I am not sure how I got so far without a guard intercepting me. Nor does my woken mind understand why the base commander allowed a narrow walkway to run beside his personal encounter room. But seeing as how the chief officer would be occupied for some time, I gave up on meeting with him and kept walking. My path continued to a door that opened onto a large, dark room. Immediately, I understood the new chamber to be an exhibit hall for the commander's less fleshy trophies. And the fat hedonist seemed to have a remarkable taste for ancient armor and precious Asian relics. Copper and bronze weapons caked in verdigris lined the walls in glass cases. Soft spotlights picked out old treatises; I spotted at least one tapestry; and a full set of samurai armament rested on a display mannequin. I was impressed. Moreover, with only one door in the room, I had reached the end of my journey.

I still needed to pee, was my first thought. And I really couldn't avoid getting recaptured forever. Plus, I felt more at peace in the present chamber than I had anywhere else on the crazy base. So, willing my bladder to stop bothering me, I sat down, crossed my legs, and tried to sink into a meditative trance. I was a star, this was beyond neither my ability nor my experience. I let the calm of the museum flow through me. The urgency of abduction and escape left me. My spirit settled.

Soon, my dream self sank into a sleep-like trance. And my daytime self opened my senses to greet the dawn.

Sent through the gate between January 7th and 8th, 2011.

Is the rapture coming for me?

2011-05-28T22:51:00.002-04:00

5/21/11 - my growing suspicions

I've been busily denying the signs for some time now, but I can feel that something is searching for me, a greater power calling. My recent dreams have been crowded, their hazy slideshows filled with images of friends, coworkers, and the hordes of the city recreated in shadows. Upon waking, I have recalled few details from my night flights. But invariably, I've carried memories of tense gatherings and conflict into the sunlit world. This dream residue has stuck with me throughout each day, hovering like a toxic miasma around the edges of my consciousness, befouling my mood and outlook. It doesn't help that some mornings I have snorted awake only briefly, then sunk back into the dreamscape for a continuation of the same garbled puppet-plays. I keep drifting deeper, perhaps into some other person's dreams, to the point that other presences have seemingly noticed and cast me out! I feel like some piper is trying to lead me away.

Today, well, today is probably not significant. But it might be a clue. Some godly fool has calculated that the end of the world will begin this evening, when the faithful flock will be shepherded home to heaven, leaving the rest of us to our self-inflicted dooms. He, like other miscalculating prophets before him, has called this calling home of saints the rapture.

Now, I put little faith in the divine predictions of men, particularly those who've picked wrong before. I do not doubt that the sun will rise tomorrow. But I'm becoming ever more fearful that one night I will go to sleep, and dream, and then never truly wake. I can't shake the impression that something has been guiding my nighttime journeys, and drawing me where I don't belong. What if that steering force turns out to be intelligent? Its nature wouldn't really matter -- human, alien, corporeal, ghostly. If it really could invade dreams and yank my mind away from my body, the thing would seem pretty godlike to me!

How then can I be sure I'm not being prepared for another sort of rapture?

Firstborn Underground

2011-05-14T12:18:00.001-04:00

I had joined a refugee group searching for safe shelter in an entirely under-earth realm, where surface traditions persisted against more sensible adaptations. White linen shirts and our lone child in a blue-checked cotton dress – I would have thought reinforced leathers and metal protection more appropriate to a spelunking corps. I knew tragedy on a world scale had driven these to the below lands some years previous, but by their garb I could not decide what earthly decade had birthed them. Nonetheless, our silver-haired leader scrambled forward with heavy responsibility tensing his brow and shoulders. In this inherited subterranean land, our young girl walked unknowing she represented the only autochthon among hundreds of replanted survivors. Deep eyes almost glowing in the shade, she needed not the torches and half-shut lanterns we rest required. I wondered what else nature had wrought in her to preserve mankind.

Such ruminations I put aside, though, as our hard-faced leader turned us into a larger cavern that descended like a jagged scar into the depths. Immediately we noticed the new chamber bore the marks of human inhabitants everywhere. Predictably, the outer earth exiles had carved and dug into the cave’s walls, manufacturing more uniform buildings, structures of multiple stories, and window-pierced facades. Our native child frowned gently to see the artificial legacy her ancestors had brought down for their scions. To my insubstantial eyes, as well, the entire world still appeared uniquely foreign and incorrectly alien. My astral senses, however, could tell that the main bulk of our companions found the familiar geometries and designs a quite welcome homecoming. As such, they caught sight of the intrusion first, and soon drew my vision into alignment with theirs, tugged by the guiding strings of dream bonds.

Along one wall, an utterly lightless circular hole sat alone, its location aloof and surely placed by fate’s whim into its unobstructed setting. Black beyond any underworld stretch we had passed to that point, the hole extended diagonally downward in a limitless chute. ‘A bore hole to the hollow world’s empty gulfs,’ sprang as words and omniscient flashes into my mind. Creatures no kin of man had crafted the yawning, narrow tunnel, and some unheard call would again bring them driving upwards into this ruptured sanctuary.

Now gathered those settlers of the cavern who till that moment of epiphany had hung back beyond rock walls and dream veils. Pressing close, comments uttered soundlessly disdained our coming, though likewise marveled at the autochthonic girl staring with glowing jet eyes about her. These people pointed excitedly at the dark cutout tunnel, fearing it beyond death. Interspersed with their gesticulations were further remarks regarding our pioneering charge. It seemed, according to the mysterious workings of my psychic ear, that whatever hellish entities had formed the bore would hunt the girl with fiendish intent. Indeed, the silver-haired leader of our group already sensed their malevolent climb and ordered us all to blend in and hide. Under no circumstances could we allow the pit spawn to claim their fleshly prize.

What surprised me in the following minutes, as my dream self drifted behind columns and between hiding places in the carved dwellings, was how mind-numbingly scared I became as the monsters arrived. I could feel them creeping, slithering, and floating forth from their hell tunnel. And while my sleeping eyes refused to peek out and view their forms, my astral heart beat thunderously in terror for knowing what unseen horrors lurked around the column. Certainly my companions, sheltering and shuttling the girl among the rooms, anticipated doom in a reconnoitering dark shape. But it has been some time since sheer terror caused me to awake, especially at the sight of one baleful eye.

Executed for Sedition

2011-05-04T06:00:00.001-04:00

We were under some sort of oppressive regime, in a place where either you were totally on the side of the government or they were going to find you and put you in a camp. And I was in a basement where people were hiding out and trying to fight back. I think technology played a big part in the conflict, and the government wanted it. So these people were either trying to get a hold of the tech and spirit it away, or maybe advanced technology had been forbidden and now the underground was working to develop it in some manner. Either way, there were a bunch of us -- I don't know how many -- trying to plot a way out of the country.

We heard a sound upstairs, like someone was coming in, and we got really scared. But it turned out to be this woman, just a normal lady in a coat, no uniform. She was very calm, trying to reassure us that everything was fine. I remember being confused, because it still felt as though we were under an aggressive dictator at war. Being an American, a comparison to Nazi Germany popped into my sleep-muddled head. Right or wrong, we have stereotypical images of that place and era, and I knew my underground gang was in a country like that, which had also gone to war with its neighbors. Then this woman tells us no, the war is between other people over there, across the water. She says nothing is spreading, no tyrant has the people in his sights. I wanted to believe her, but we were convinced that we were completely controlled.

One of my comrades in hiding told her he did not believe it, and it seemed like his words set off a trap.

The woman hadn't moved, hadn't changed her pleasant demeanor, but now a troop of soldiers were marching down the stairs. They wore the dark uniforms of secret police or storm troopers. The soldiers radiated heartless menace. They stomped down into the basement and circled us. One evil man led them. We knew him as the dictator, like some Mussolini come himself to round us up. The soldiers fanned out and one came up to me. I closed my eyes as he put something metal -- it must have been a gun -- up against my neck. I just wanted whatever was going to happen not to hurt. It started to feel so warm on my neck just then, and I got so scared that I woke up.

What bothers me now is how I just closed my eyes and cowered like a rabbit. I should have ducked, or kicked the guy, or fought somehow! I knew the soldier was going to kill me, and all I did was hope it would be painless? I wouldn't act like that in real life, would I?

What are you looking at?

2011-04-27T06:00:00.003-04:00

4/17/11 - notes on dream banishment for next session

I found myself in a village somewhere in the Caribbean or Central America, judging by both the broad-leaf palms outside and the general feelings of relaxation and openness pervading my surroundings. On San Pedro and Tortola, I was struck by the fluid, open nature of the communities -- no doors or windows were ever shut, people were always strolling by or through -- a result perhaps of the heat and untamed wildness of the areas. Wherever last night's drifting landed me (it might have been "us" at one point, I truly do not remember), the buildings and jungle felt equally public.

I stood alone in an empty cafeteria, between meal times, and watched a Chinese man and woman enter. They were not a couple, although the gangling, awkward man certainly wanted such a status, the way he reached after the woman's cold shoulders. She walked away past me, a spoiled, haughty feline. Her skimpy, sequined white tube top and skirt jogged my memory: She worked on her knees and back in porn. My disdain for her rose along with sympathy for the naive, wealthy businessman who now sat at an abandoned table by the door watching her stretch out elsewhere in the room. He clearly did not understand her. I approached, eager to explain her nature to him.

"She wants aggressive, demeaning, a strong man to control and tell her what to do," I said, or words with a similar meaning. "You don't have to be romantic and sweet with her." I could feel the malicious smirk on my face as I armed him to bring her down. He nodded thankfully and walked over to act on my advice.

Unfortunately, while my back had been turned, the cafeteria filled with a tough, insensitive crowd. These ruffians had no sympathy for the misguided businessman. When she rejected his next advance with rude words, the nearby men instantly adopted her as one of their own and jumped the Chinese man in retaliation, beating him into unconsciousness. Shamefully, I stood and watched with cold detachment. Then I saw an open-topped Jeep pull up outside, brimming with dark-skinned islanders. One man in the front passenger seat leaned over to exchange greetings with the pornstar and her new friends through an open window. This man acted like a celebrity, and overhead chatter quickly confirmed my impression of him.

"Yeah, his money's all in cinnamon, but he really did a lot to keep us afloat back in 2005."

"Big boss made sure we didn't all end up poor, he did."

The local kahuna drove on, and I followed his progress alongside and beyond the cafeteria with my eyes, even peeking out the door to see him park farther on in the village. My interest did not go unnoticed.

Coming in just then, a sandy-haired, light-skinned man turned back to me and snapped, "You shouldn't be so curious, stranger. What do you think you're lookin' at?" I started to respond, but the man tossed his head sideways, marking me to someone out of sight. Something jabbed into my neck and I crashed to the floor, looking up to see a burly man pull the needle-like end of a walking stick out of me. I knew immediately that he had drugged me, and I would soon end up powerless in the hands of these heartless thugs. I tried to protest, scared, but my sandy-haired accuser pulled a syringe and stuck me in the chest.

I burst awake, heart racing and a crick in my neck throbbing. For a second time, someone had banished me from a dream.

I should mention it to the specialist when next we meet, though I worry that he prefers to observe rather than cure me...

Residue of Dreams

2011-04-24T22:58:00.002-04:00

Sometimes, even though I cannot remember my dreams, the silty residue they leave behind colors my day. At those times, it feels like the night's emotions were somehow mixed with the dust I raised on the dream road, and the whole mess deposited just out of sight on the edges of my eyes. When no clear images remain of my night-side journeys, I still sense shades of my encounters lurking just beyond my solar-powered vision. Like all good haunts, the silt ghosts want something from me, in this case the chance to tell their stories. They are specters grown out of frustration, dissatisfaction, and a lack of resolution. Until I take a minute to wash, and really clean away the sandy leavings from my eyes, daytime feels tinged with roiling mist, as if at any moment I might get sucked down into the muddy currents of the dreaming once again.

Modeling Nightmare

2011-04-20T06:00:00.010-04:00

From Sex, Magick, & the City

My world had twisted into a modeler's fantasy land, where sorcery, decor, and even people could be worked on with putty, paint, and hobby knife. Clearly, Games Workshop and its products occupy the interest of even my sleeping mind. The new restaurant my dream self had found work in required some renovations and work on the interior before we could open. So one of the senior waitstaff brought me over to the side bar and explained the paint job I needed to complete ahead of my first serving shift. This second bar had been built along a narrow extension of the restaurant that ran beside the blocky kitchen. To open the space up, the designers had replaced the original windows with floor-to-ceiling doors that could open onto patio seating, making the entire side into a long, outdoor bar. More recently, someone had built the end of the bar up with a combination of metal candle holders, wax, and "green stuff" to create a dripping tree of candles, a veritable mountain spire of ridged wax flows and and solitary towers that could be topped with flame. This tumbling cascade of glossy petrified ooze spilled over the edge of the bar and coated its side in a solid, green-and-white sheath. The effect was visually stunning, but unfinished. It looked like a final design to me, yet the veteran server explained that we needed to paint it.

To prepare, we stepped behind the bar and helped ourselves to tumblers of the fine liquid inventory standing ready in front of the wall mirror. The senior server proceeded to fill me in one the plans for basecoating, highlighting layers, and a final varnish. He was using the glass to make broad, demonstrative gestures when two burly men -- bouncers and security staff in the employ of the restaurant -- accosted him.

I had no idea what was happening, and experienced only vague fright that the veteran had broken policy by showing me the intricacies of the bar design and pouring us illicit shots of booze. Then, my twinges of fear turned to sheer terror, as the men held the server's arms and dragged him over to the chopping board installed next to the bar sink for slicing garnishes. The bouncers muscled his forearms together and onto the wood surface, then took up a huge kitchen knife and carved it down through the veteran's wrists, taking off both his hands in the process. I felt my stomach clenching, my throat ached, and besides incoherent cries, I could do nothing. I watched a coworker get his hands chopped off for no good reason and I couldn't manage more than a peep in his defense.

As his hands toppled off, there was no blood, the stumps of his wrists merely chalky pink flesh with ragged edges where the cutting had been less than smooth. My mind refused to take any more, and I jerked into wakefulness. I blinked a few times, stood up and got water, trying to dislodge the nightmare. But it stuck with me. I still have no idea why the server deserved such horrendous punishment. Had the owners truly cared so much about two shots of liquor? Was the end of the bar a secret build meant only to be seen after paint was layered on?

Most frightening of all, I wonder if the bouncers did not intend to punish the server at all, but rather sought to improve his barely adequate hands. Were he and I just models awaiting new components, tacked on with green stuff and painted to blend with the rest of our bodies?

National Park Spectacle

2011-04-13T06:00:00.013-04:00

I think we had some delays and bickered a little trying to get out the door, but the specifics escape me now. Family trips can be like that, you know? I mean, my older sister and I are notoriously slow to clean up, and Dad is always tapping his feet because, "The taxi is ready to leave!" And it can be hard to get five people agreeing on an itinerary, let alone the extra friends you sometimes drag along with you. Still, the right destination (or a jaunt on the dream road) makes you forget there were any bumps in the beginning.

Dad parked in a dirt lot, and we stepped out into what had to be a national park or nature preserve. Towering pine trees rose all around us. I could see Dad and my sister walking with me, and I could sense our brother was there, too. Mom noticed the crazy rock formations first, and my attention got drawn down a path to where Mom stood in front of a typical wooden sign describing the natural phenomenon and its history. Through a break in the trees, you could see the ground turned into a short cliff, maybe ten feet high, with all these sparkling minerals and crystals sprinkled among the chunks of rock. But the coolest part was the few spots where nearby branches had curved down to brush the cliff. Somehow runoff or crystal growth had managed to extend the cliffs up the branches, till they were overhung or encased in thin layers of cement almost. In one place, a tree looked like it had bulked up and was forming new wood back over the rocky arch extending up from the cliff face.

While we enjoyed the natural wonder of the park, we soon moved along the path to the first major exhibition built by the park curators. A domed, modern hut sat in a low clearing with brown pine needles covering the ground. Octagonal in shape, the hut's eight sides each had a square-off arch in the center, leaving the interior open to the elements save for the sheltering dome. Beneath the roof's apex, the curators had installed a large chunk of meteoric rock. Pitted and warped, the oddly blue-tinged stone rested behind a railing on a short pedestal that held it upright where all the visitors to the hut could see it.

We wandered around the piece of space-rock, looking for a sign to explain its history and significance. Before an explanation of the exhibit revealed itself, however, a woman swung into the hut under the nearest arch. She must have been on the roof outside, because her black-gloved hands reached inside to grasp the frame of the arch, followed by her swinging body. The woman pulled herself up, so that she hung by ankles and hands, then paused. A hush came over all of us visiting the hut. We collectively recognized this as a sort of test, with the figure in her black, leathery outfit attempting an acrobatic feat. Something about the meteor needed this kind of physical display, whether to allow study or unlock a secret I could not tell. Still, as the woman curled upward to a leaning crouch, preparatory to a long leap at the rock, I knew we were in for a show. Unfortunately, a curtain of daylight rose then, cutting off the spectacle until another time.

Sent through the gate between December 10th and 11, 2010.

Return of the Dream Wolves

2011-04-06T06:00:00.060-04:00

The second time the dream wolves caught up to me on the sleep-drifter's road, I was busy assisting an assorted team of monster hunters and occult investigators. (I have experience with that sort of thing.) I don't remember having any idea what our mission was, although I knew the three wolfish teens had been introduced as our backup muscle. Maybe we represented Team Jacob, who knows. In any case, their shape-shifting abilities fit in pretty naturally on a team that included an alien girl, a goth telepath, and a hoodie-wearing skater punk whose talent was conducting electricity. But some part of me didn't trust the wolves from the start, and I was looking out for excuses to blast their treacherous hides.

Soon after meeting the six or seven dream folk that comprised our team, one dull-witted lycanthrope wandered through the common area of our base in oblivious defiance of our leader's order to stand guard. Even when she called him on it, the stubby runt simply shrugged his leather jacket a little, then went about the business of making himself a meaty sandwich in the kitchen. Our boss, an unremarkable blond, cuffed him across the ear and ordered him back to his post. Snarling, wolf-boy instead wandered into the bedroom we guys all shared. Perhaps anticipating trouble, our leader, myself, and a skinny kid with black hair and lots of piercings followed. I entered last, and was immediately shoved to the ground by the muscular wolf, who had a knife across the boss's throat. I saw the slim goth boy pressed up against the dresser where I kept my gun.

I realized that was what the wolf had come in to get, but he didn't know where the firearm was. Other drawers were yanked out or rested on the floor in rifled-through shambles. Without a word having been spoken, I understood the threat: Our leader was dead unless I told wolf-boy where the gun hid, and I guessed that once I turned it over, we were all dead.

If only someone else could reach the gun first!

Fortunately, the goth kid's skill was telepathy, and he read both my desire and the simple plan that followed. I turned my body toward the under-bed storage, drawing the wolf's eyes, and it gave my skinny teammate a chance to shoot the beast dead from behind. Silver bullets dog-face, I wanted to shout, we're monster hunters!

Outside, the other two wolves had attacked, as well. The blue alien girl had downed one with a laser pistol when they first charged, but now she was stuck in unarmed combat on the narrow balconies ringing the second and third floors of our headquarters. As we watched, the third teen-wolf struck her in the forehead and sent her tumbling over the second-storey rail. Grinning, wolfie turned to corner our last visible teammate, a lanky skater boy in a concealing black hoodie. Claws swiped toward the youth, but he shouted angrily and unleashed a cloud of blue Zs, the way a cartoon eel might discharge its electricity. The wolf fell, fried. Impressed, my concern was nonetheless with the alien girl. The omniscience of the sleeping reassured me that she lived, but before I could follow up, daytime banished the scene.

Now, once again, I might have ignored the vision -- my boyfriend Mark hadn't dreamt of wolves this time. But on my way out the door to work that morning, I remembered a final detail: At some point the skater-punk's hood had fallen away, to reveal a familiar face, one with shifting blue-brown eyes.

Ghost Story

2011-03-30T06:00:00.033-04:00

From Scooby Doo Games

I slept, to find myself in a town plagued by very corporeal ghosts.

The first scene erupted in a prison or school gym with a ghost hunter using a special spray weapon to imprison and destroy ghosts.

His weapon failed on a freckled fat-girl ghost, who used it against his team. She then began forcefully escorting people and ghosts to opposite ends of the hall.

I spoke up, and she dragged me to the stairwell leading up -- I suspected most ghosts were going up there, and was worried for my life. Her final prod was a threat to bite off my head!

Intimidated, I went upstairs and avoided some pleased-looking ghosts by hiding in a locker room where I could see everything coming and try to dodge danger.

A group of specters I had seen downstairs was talking around the corner in the shower room, when suddenly, they noticed me. So I ran.

The second level of the school met the terrace of a street in back, so I jumped out the window and fled down the street. A car screamed up to me and I irrationally feared more spectral foes. Instead, the ghost-hunter leader picked me up and proclaimed "the specialists have arrived."

In answer, two dumpsters with the classic Mystery Mobile coloration pulled up and spun into place around the car.

Scooby Doo, Scrappy, an extra dog, and several characters beyond the original gang jumped out like a ghost S.W.A.T. team. It was on!

The Night Shift

2011-03-28T14:14:00.000-04:00

I hate dreaming about work, mainly because I don't love my job. I like my job well enough, like having steady employment, like the money it brings, and like doing necessary, engaging work alongside good people. But in a dozen or so attempts, I have yet to find a job that I truly love or that I cannot stand to be away from for any length of time.

One perk of my current job that they do not discuss in the benefits package is the ability to clock out. I can go home at night and choose to not think about work-related issues until the next day. Dreaming about office politics and the petty injustices of the bureaucracy entirely negates that needed separation from my daytime labors. My work dreams nearly always involve stressful situations and feelings of tasks left unfinished. In that way, I find such midnight experiences to be truer mirrors of my open-eyed life than many dreams. Real life comes with frustration, stress, bosses climbing all over one's back, failure, and the shame of unrealized potential. Those are emotions I would prefer to eliminate from my snore-side life. Plus, dreaming of work simply reminds me that my employer currently holds a third of my life hostage. How can it be just to yield another unconscious third to the cubicle meat-grinder?

Now that you've endured my rant, I invite you to share your own awful work dreams either in the comments to this post, or by contacting me.

Tireless Recruiter

2011-03-23T06:00:00.001-04:00

I first remember checking in with building security, not uncommon when on one of these campus visits. Between my company ID card and business casual dress, I did not expect to get a hard time. In fact, for a work dream, I felt remarkably cool and comfortable throughout my night-side journey. I had come up from our midtown office to the suburbs in order to track down three potential registrants for our upcoming conference. I do not specifically recall sitting on a train, nor could I tell you exactly what sort of conference we were planning, or why I needed to follow up in person with three college students who had tentatively signed up. But hey, as long as the checks keep coming, I do what the boss tells me.

With all that in my head, I followed this gray-hair through two doors, around a corner, and into a smallish room on the first floor of an antique-looking, classroom building. He verified my credentials, then sent me upstairs.

I sat down at a three-person desk along the wall of a small library, and laid down my binder-clipped stack of notes and registration forms. My prospective attendees unerringly appeared soon after. While I recognize that we had probably arranged to meet beforehand, I felt like I had basically ambushed them in a well-used hallway. The brown-haired boy and blond girl certainly did not seem like they were expecting me. They actually looked pretty creeped out. I tried my best to explain that I was from the firm of so and so, there to verify whether they truly intended to participate in our two-day training conference for rising second-year students in the field. Their names, as well as that of a third friend, had appeared on our early registration lists, but we had never gotten confirmation from any of them.

The boy responded by asking me questions that signaled he wanted to ditch on the conference, but was reluctant to say "no" if that would result in punishment or a monetary fee. I reassured the pair that I had come as a courtesy before we crossed them off the list, that the entire training experience was offered gratis, and they had no need to worry about their rejections affecting either their wallets or their chances at future employment with the firm. I felt confident, eloquent, and comfortable throughout our short interview, and I was little surprised that they eventually cancelled their registrations, and their friend's.

Job done, I walked downstairs again, and ran into this curly-haired fellow who clearly ran the building, a dean of some species or other. Despite having cleared my presence with building security, I now found myself compelled to explain my presence and errand to this officious, Jeri-curled fop. Worse, he wanted to meet in his office, near the security desk. Now, I could get lost in my own house, and trying to find a desk from an earlier part of my dream proved quite frustrating. Several wrong turns ensued while Mister Oily Hair walked uselessly in front of me, guided by my inept navigation.

We ended up in a converted doctor's examination room, with cabinets, a sink, and paperwork up front by the door, and a working toilet near the rear. A janitor had just deposited a dozen cans of cleaning product, along with tools and gloves, on the floor near the toilet, and we calmly stood aside to let him work before we sat down for our interview. Though supremely confident in my credentials, I think this last crappy bit of bureaucratic time-wasting annoyed me beyond sleeping, for I awoke. Cussing about work dreams coming on Sunday, I got up, ready for that first cup of Joe.

Sent through the gate between February 5th and 6th, 2011.

Scavengers of the Old World

2011-03-16T06:00:00.043-04:00

My wife and I were refugees, tagging along with a band of drifters and other loosely allied exiles. In the post-Earth future, we were cruising through the stars, surviving on what scant shelter and necessities we could scrounge from the husks of decaying worlds. But this trip, we got sucked through a vortex, a wormhole or other portal in space and time. It propelled us down onto the surface of a planet we soon came to realize was Old Earth, the original human home-world. For us, it would be centuries into the future, the 2500s. To the crew of our wandering vessel, it seemed amazingly ancient and legendary, like a place that no longer existed. It felt more familiar to me, though, like maybe my wife and I were from there, and hitched up with the refugees only after they dropped through the hole. I got the sense that I best knew what was valuable and useful in this broken, gutted shell of a land. We were scavenging after all.

We poked our way through a grocery store, yanking old favorite items off the shelves like they do in zombie movies, scrabbling for food that might keep for decades at a time. I soon had a full cart, one that my wife kept straightening so it wouldn't tip over. The rest of our party had gone back to whatever spacecraft we had landed in, so the two of us followed.

Wheeling the cart out of the store, we arrived on a curving road still inhabited by what few people had not perished in the apocalypse and subsequent wasteland. I felt secure, perhaps secretly armed, yet we watched each face we passed to make sure more predatory scavengers didn't ambush us for our rolling mound of salvage. At one point, we passed two men conversing closely across the route, one standing outside the remnants of a seedy bar, while the other sat in a lawn chair beneath a cloth canopy. Under the ragged awning he sold incense, rugs, umbrellas, and other assorted items. Both men met my gaze, one nodding reassuringly, though the other fidgeted at our strangeness. I began to worry that we would not be able to find our way back to the ship in time. But, as if summoned, an old woman in a shawl and thick, sackcloth dress appeared, and directed us around a corner where a very modern, neon sign advertised "Good Eats" in dark letters. Beyond the abandoned eatery we found the rounded hatch that gave entrance to our craft.

Climbing aboard, we entered what I can only describe as a Victorian era mansion, or the alumni club of some over-funded Ivy League institution. Hard-wood paneling, dark leather seat cushions, extraneous wall art and mounted animals heads -- why in the name of all surviving gods did we need to scavenge when we had such lush appointments? In any case, we rolled our cart full of booty through a hall, beneath a clothes line strung across the open space, and into our suit of rooms. While my wife set up our trove in our tiny apartment's private kitchen (again, why scavenge?), I checked out the sitting room.

In the miniature salon, I at least glimpsed some good evidence of post-Earth misfortune and a return to galactic wilderness. No sooner had I entered the room, then I noticed a very large arachnid landing in the empty corner between the couch and easy chair. The thing didn't look that threatening, more like a massive daddy long-legs than a poisonous brute. But it clicked its legs together in excitement at seeing me, and began to scuttle across the floor on ten-inch legs. Had our new digs been its personal home until that moment? Should I step on it, I wondered, or try to drop something on it?

Apparently, these questions, and the sheer oddity of scrounging for frozen waffles and canned beans while coming home to a mansion shorted out my brain. Two smacks of my shoe on the floor and I managed to not only squish the spider, but wake myself up with a pounding headache. In the far future, mighty my shoe and its resounding impacts!

Sent through the gate between February 10th and 11th, 2011.

Hero on the Run

2011-03-12T12:00:00.003-05:00

"Thanks for meeting with me again. I know it's short notice."

"You are welcome, and do not worry about the timing. It is a fact of my studies that dreams often demand immediate recital to ensure accuracy and meaningful interpretation."

"Well, however you say, I didn't want to forget the details before we spoke."

"Indeed. Tell me, what about your dream compels you to share it now?"

"I wasn't me again. I mean, I was in someone else's body in my dream, and I shouldn't have been there. Like last time, my situation was all foreign, and wrong, and I yet I wasn't afraid like you'd expect in a nightmare."

"What happened that you feel you should have been afraid?"

"Well, my first memory is of a bunch of soldiers or cops shooting at me! Although, I wasn't really a hapless victim. We had a gunfight. I started out running through woods on the edge of suburbia firing a handgun back at the badges chasing me. I got the impression my sandy-time persona was a wrongfully accused fugitive. I'd go so far as to say I was a hero, and the guys after me had been conned by a clever frame job. Problem was, we got to this hill just inside the tree line, and I turned to fire a rocket launcher down into a knot of my pursuers!"

"What about that action makes you call it a 'problem'?"

"It wasn't very heroic, self-defense or not! Plus, I didn't get a feeling of guilt for killing cops (maybe they were soldiers), just satisfaction that I could get away easier with them dead. The emotions seemed wrong for me, like my consciousness was attached to another person. Anyway, my out-of-body ride passed out of the trees and emerged into some rich guy's country club home -- you know, great view of the golf course, Greek-style white columns, and a drive-through portico to keep you protected from the weather while getting out of your car. I found the rich guy himself under the covered driveway, popping the tires on a Rolls-Royce and setting fire to an antique convertible of some sort.

"My dream carrier lost our temper. I got swept up in it, and it felt like my temper, but it definitely came from him. I was furious that he had ruined my getaway. I told him so. It was the only thing I remember saying in the last five or six dreams: 'Do you hate me so much that you would ruin your own property to foil me?' I said it very formally, like a dire accusation."

"Was the act of speaking more significant to you than what you said?"

"I think it was a sign of how caught up I was. Do you follow how much back-story I was wading through? They all knew me and wanted to stop me, to the point that I expected the rich guy to deliberately sabotage me. And enough had passed between me and them that I was outraged! It only got worse, too, when the rich guy snarled, 'Yes, I hate you!' and spat at me. I ran on feeling alone and cornered in a mad world.

"Then, confirming my fears, four strong, male nurses tackled me on the 16th green, overwhelming me despite the karate moves I randomly displayed to fight them. This doctor closed in with a syringe, ordering them to hold me still. Right then I could've been a dead ringer for Arnold in Total Recall, or Leo in Shutter Island. I wanted to bellow at them to stop, that I had done nothing wrong, that I didn't even know who I was or why I was there. But before I could, the doctor stuck me and I woke up."

"Hmm, so backing up a little, the abundance of detail in your dream -- 'back-story,' you said -- has caused you to conclude that you were in someone else's body?"

"Yes, whoever I was riding along with, he was too connected with everything to be an ivory figment. And that doc decided me."

"Do you assume the doctor was a psychiatrist, perhaps, and the nurses asylum staff?"

"Oh, I don't know, I suppose that was the impression. But the important thing is that he knew I was there! As the nurses restrained my dream form, he told them, 'Gently, don't hurt him, he's not in control.' It was like they blamed me for the man's violent actions and crimes. And when the doctor injected me, I woke up. He'd driven me out. The sand had sucked me into that man, and the drugs had shoved me back out.

"I tell you, my dreams are not my own!"

Dorm-Warming Gift

2011-03-02T00:00:00.004-05:00

I don't remember where I got the thing, but it was easily the best housewarming gift ever. Excited like Christmas, I rushed out of my dorm room, looking for a place to try out my new javelin.

I exited the building by a ground-level door I just happened to be at -- no hallway, stairs, or elevator getting me there. And I walked onto a plain side street lined with brick or concrete school buildings and smaller, brightly painted houses that could have been college property, too. It could have been a part of nearly any campus I've seen in NY, New England, or western PA. I even checked for cars, and approved of midday's lack of traffic. Stepping out into the road, I watched my right hand heft the white, wooden javelin. And then, feeling like Zeus surely did with his first lightning bolt, I made a first, experimental toss.

It sucked.

My first four throws all sucked, in fact. I posed really well before each one, striking a classic Greek stance with the shaft extended along my arm. But upon launching the javelin each time, it wobbled forward a few yards and then clattered down awkwardly on the pavement. Not once did I manage to even get the pointed tip aimed down first. Apparently, I had the best gift ever, and no ability to use it. I shrugged and moved on.

After some completely illogical dream-reasoning, I concluded that I simply needed a better practice venue. My final toss had landed past the row of cars parked street-side. Retrieving the javelin, I walked over to the closest building and entered, for no discernible reason. Fortunately, the hangar-shaped structure turned out to house a gymnasium with high ceilings, a wood-paneled floor, and wide windows that looked out onto a hillside scene of winding trails and pine trees. Sadly, the entire floor of the gym was taken up by couples practicing various types of ballroom dance, and even my dream self knew better than to hurl a sharp javelin among a horde of swaying, circling bodies. I carried the pointed pole through the center, feeling that the trails and hillside paths beyond the far doors held more potential.

Tracing an upward winding path over rocky outcroppings and past drooping trees, I failed to discover a clearing where Zeus-style hurls could be mimicked with my white, wooden lightning bolt. Instead, I proceeded down a decline that curled around into a natural spa area of mud pots and lounging bathers. In round, brown-filled cauldrons, a series of swimsuit clad hedonists enjoyed the twin luxuries of mineral-rich mud and sexy bodies. Further along the line, the partakers of the dirty baths became decidedly more Indian in appearance, skin matching the pot contents while lavish, colorful wraps floated unspoiled on the surface. The lighting had gone from mountain-top sunlight to subterranean cavern-crawl dimness. Yet here, in the shadows, the mud-pop steam wafting to the tunnel top, amid the secretive bathers, I found help. An older Indian woman, wrapped clothes untouched by the mud she lounged in, beckoned me to join her, with the promise of assistance in my javelin-tossing endeavors.

It was about then that the real sunlight streaming through my apartment window tore me back to the real world, where my best college dorm trinket had been a mug labeled "JAVA" on one side. Oh, well.

The Dream Wolves

2011-02-23T00:00:00.002-05:00

I don't remember how we got there, but suddenly me and this other guy were at the house's front door, and werewolves were trying to get in. The four adolescents looked human enough, but I knew fur and lupine snouts hid under their white skins. Something about them just broadcast pack hunting and predatory intent. By similar omniscience, I knew the guy next to me was on my side, stuck in that house facing a bunch of wolf-hearted teens. My companion didn't look like anyone special. Sandy blond hair ringed his face in downward spikes, the kind of messy bowl cut half the Irish boys in Boston sport. When he turned to mouth a warning to me about the prowling young-bloods, blue eyes flashed, though I could have sworn they were brown the first time. But my debate had to pause, as one of the wolf kids lifted a gun and the warning became clear. My companion and I dodged three hasty shots that cracked wood and glass in the door. Then we crashed forward and slammed the front door into the would-be invaders. It worked. Our ploy had to, or we'd have been shot, and my all-knowing sleepy brain refused to let that happen.

This was still my dream.

Anyway, my blue-brown pal knocked the gun away under the porch, and some quick wrestling extracted us mostly unharmed from the snarling teens. I took off for the stairs, letting my companion drift out of focus into that state of dreamy irrelevance whereby all sidebars are ignored till we want them again. The stairs were great: They climbed up using all four sides of the house's foyer until three floors up they ended in a balcony landing in front of the attic door. Having ascended that far, and sensing snapping jaws behind me, I did the logical, cinematic thing and leapt over the balcony rail.

Unfortunately the fall hurt, my legs crumpling as I tumbled to the floor. To compound my woe, the pack had anticipated my action -- the adolescents obviously weened on a similar movie diet -- and one wolf- boy hopped on top of me, ready to tear and bite. But my egocentric mind had one more epiphany to share: These werewolves were just kids, and I was in no danger. I could easily win the physical struggle.

At that point, the dream battle lost my interest. I realized the wolf teens were wasting my time, and I resented their keeping me in that house. A couple mental twists on that floor, and I awoke. It's the ultimate expression of control in the night realm, choosing to be done dreaming.

It had been my dream the whole time.

I might have gone through my day and gleefully forgotten the visions. Except then, my boyfriend woke up and mumbled, "Gosh, Roland, I had the worst dream. These teen-wolf types were running me ragged through my grandparents' farm!"

And that was my first encounter with the dream wolves.

Weird Day's Journey by Night

2011-02-16T00:00:00.002-05:00

I've heard this from enough people that I'm comfortable saying, what you see by day often ends up in your dreams. Some things hop directly out of the daylight and into your shut-eyed visions, like angry bosses, sports you play, or the girl from third-period English class. (Those last two examples may come with some nighttime embellishments, but you get the idea.) Other things are left to ferment in your memory until they're sucked up by a passing sand wave and plopped as one big, muddy mix behind your eyes. Last night, my dream self stumbled headlong into one of those muddy mixes:

However things began, I ended up in the middle of a dramatic conclusion, wherein a frustrated soldier was attempting to prove his worthiness to join an elite squadron. I stood with the conflicted man in the lobby of a luxury hotel, whose levels of interior balconies, dangling vines, and stone warrior statues were probably pulled straight out of my in-laws' latest vacation slide show. The soldier had obtained a set of torso armor and a closed helmet, both made from glossy blue metal with gold ornamentation along the edges. The war-gear rested on his head and shoulders like antique football pads, but I knew instinctively that he hoped this power armor would enhance his abilities and usher him into the ranks of the Space Marines. (Clearly, my ongoing fascination with Games Workshop has begun populating my dreams.) So accoutered, the soldier charged up a nearby stairway to a third-floor balcony, where he confronted the planetary governor and demanded a spot among his retinue. Of course, the governor's bodyguards immediately burst from cover with guns leveled and ordered everyone to stand down. So I left.

Walking around a corner, I rejoined my parents, brother, and wife, who were all hurriedly packing. We were about to miss our train, and I was the hold-up. We stuffed our bags, checked our watches -- it was 2:55, we needed tickets by 3:00 -- and started running for the platform, which we could glimpse across the hotel lobby through our room's window. As we charged down a side hallway, my wife assured me that the train would not leave until 3:15, and we had plenty of time. (She told me something similar the other day as we ran to catch our train home: "Don't worry, it's only 1:25, we can easily catch the 1:30." "Then why are we running?!") Still, in our rush up the next escalator, my brother and I tangled, tripped, and brought all five of us down in a heap sure to stall our travel plans. I hopped up.

And suddenly we were back home in my parents' kitchen. The room appeared exactly as I had last seen it, including the piles of snow on the driveway outside. Moreover, three of our guy friends were there. They had come for Christmas, but were now putting on footwear before leaving. We exchanged hugs, and I was pleased that one of my buddies was making good use out of the Hercules-style sandals my mother-in-law had been trying to foist on every male in the house during our last visit. The three walked out of the house, and the closing door woke me.

Now, that kind of dream melange rampages through my brain all the time, full of images that come from easily recognizable sources. Nonetheless, I do also get truly left-field weirdness. Like, after awakening briefly when the door closed in my parents' kitchen, I went back to sleep and was dropped into a rough, flashy nightclub. I had been entered into a crazy karaoke contest where I had to perform a Lady Gaga song while threatening some old lady with a giant cleaver. Only halfway through, I really needed to pee. So I headed over to a convenient urinal and took care of business while some mountain-man type threw up in the stall behind me. And all the time I kept singing along and aiming the cleaver at the old lady's forehead.

If you want to offer an explanation of where I got that last bit, be my guest!

Sent through the gate between January 29th and 30th, 2011.

Belize Boat Ride

2011-02-09T00:00:00.004-05:00

Getting to the airport in Belize City involved a lot more gators and water than I remembered. And while ultimately the trip raised questions having nothing to do with my honeymoon in one of Central America's up-and-coming frontier countries, I think my stay there left some interesting impressions. See, I distinctly recall my first taxi ride through Belize City from the airport to the dock. Belize's big coastal city was the poorest-looking place I had ever been, and that look featured heavily in the dream, even if the streets were ridiculously, irrationally flooded and become canals. The faded paint, shabby roofs, drifters on stoops, and general dilapidation remained as it had been, even as I rode by on a small San Pedro skiff. Indeed, the swarming alligators all around us surprised me less than how faithfully the dream's cheap motels, shop-home combos, and half-built structures mirrored reality. Nevertheless, the prehistoric survivals with their armored hides and gaping jaws hogged my attention.

We took a left and started down a side street by a public park. There, a line of gators waited with only their bony heads above the surface. It looked comical, the kind of set-up you might find in a cartoon, or a James Bond flick. What else could we do but oblige by zipping forward over the top of them? Bump, bump, bump we skipped along. And in a classic dream-time move, my POV hung back to watch our boat go hopping by, gators jaws leaping open as the keel smacked their heads.

My eyes jumped suddenly back into their proper perspective as our skiff curved onto a wide canal. Here our dark pilot was weaving down the flooded avenue, gesturing wildly for me to grab an oar. As he swerved once more, I saw a yawning pair of jaws aiming jagged teeth right at us. So I swung the oar right quick, and we ran the gauntlet after that, with our pilot dodging and me swatting down the boulevard.

When we first got to the airport, there was barely a change or transition. We were all suddenly there: me, my wife, our piloted boat, the flooded byways, and the green alligators. At least the scaly beasts didn't swarm here so much as lurk, sitting in corners until a traveler got careless. We checked in still on-board, then followed the signs until we found the ramp down to security. After negotiating how to get to the bottom uneaten -- boat first, then people, FYI -- we drifted slowly to the gate and boarded a larger, gator-free craft.

So, what struck me odd about the whole journey was the general authenticity of my setting, you know, despite the ubiquitous reptiles and agua. The pervasive poverty in Belize City I've already mentioned. And I have no excuse for my suburban American bias with that one. But I also remember that feeling in the Belizean countryside of having critters everywhere looking to bite me. Whether the omnipresent mosquitoes, the jaguar print we found while hiking, or the flying ants buzzing wasp-like around every meal, I always had a bite threatening. That might explain the comic look of the gators, the lack of danger, don't you think?

Well, in any case, I'm just happy the dream ended before I saw what LaGuardia airport turned into. It's a jungle out there!

Night Investigations

2011-02-02T00:00:00.005-05:00

My 9:00 a.m. brain is having trouble sorting out how many dreams there were, and whether last night's images had one unifying plot, or several unrelated threads. Near the end of one dream, or the beginning of another, I was piloting a blocky spacecraft and trying to use positioning satellites to deliver a load of industrial equipment. Really, it could have been a bare-bones flight simulator, the kind of flash-based video game built as an experiment and posted on a free gaming forum. My cockpit was little more than a rectangular window. Within the frame of that window I was maneuvering a tangle of mechanical parts, the industrial equipment, through a grid of triangular claws, the satellites. My dream self knew that I was controlling the path of the equipment, but I do not remember a robotic arm or any thoughts of something more high-tech like a gravity beam. As the tangle of gears touched each satellite, the claw grabbed it, then the whole apparatus spun to another bearing and pushed the load along. It was entertaining, engaging even, but I think my conscious mind is reaching by attributing any plot significance to the action.

What has 9:00 a.m. me confused is that the following dream, full of cops and robbers, felt like it had begun with theft or sabotage. I was an investigator, hired privately, and my team of four was trying to figure out whodunit. The crime had taken place in a multilevel building that reminded me of a shopping mall blended with one of those midtown subway stations where trains converge on several platforms stacked on top of each other. We had followed a lead to an up-ramp, trying to determine how the culprit had gotten away. Suddenly, the two investigators in front of me pressed a button, or hit a certain frequency on their scanners, and they began to float upward on a localized anti-gravity field. I had this overwhelming feeling of satisfaction, like we had the guy nailed, we knew who and how all of a sudden, like this was the final clue we needed. Stepping back, clear of the metal walkway directly above my head, I sort of spread myself out and drifted up three floors on an anti-gravity field of my own in search of a wider view of the whole mall.

I found him.

Running down a hallway further on, a figure in a black, hooded cloak -- uniform of slasher-movie villains everywhere -- was fleeing our crime scene. I was after him like a shot, propelled through the building on an invisible flight pack or driven by will on my personal energy field. Dropping to the ground as the culprit turned a corner, I confronted the cloaked figure, who turned out to be a dark-haired man in a superhero-style eye mask. He immediately raised a crossbow and started firing bolts at me, which I countered by loosing arrows from an energized short bow that just appeared in my hands. Our terrible, cinematic aim resulted in lots of missiles zipping around us as we remained entirely unharmed. The commotion, as we ranged up a short flight of stairs and in-between store fronts, attracted the attention of a real policeman, a character in an astronaut's round-helmed, puffy uniform of shiny gold fabric. He appeared on the catwalk above us and added shots from his own bolt gun to our firefight.

It didn't take long for this intense action to roust me out of the dreamscape, back into my bed. But the jumble of information I received in those last moments has left me confused, pondering. The policeman seemed after me as much as the criminal, like I had somehow committed a crime or implicated myself over the course of our investigation. And I cannot shake the impression that the equipment delivery I had first participated in was related to the eventual crime. Now, my daytime self has an investigation to conduct, as I try to figure out what really happened in the realm of sleep.

Sent through the gate between January 22nd and 23rd, 2011.

Letting Go

2011-01-30T09:53:00.000-05:00

I have been trying to remember and write down certain of my dreams for a long time, at least fifteen years by loose count. But I have been trying a lot longer to forget others. See, while I believe strongly that dreams are great sources of inspiration and story material, I do not deal in nightmares. For one thing, I have never felt drawn to write horror stories, so chronicling nocturnal fears serves less practical purpose than jotting down my latest adventure dream. Also, I really dislike being woken up at 4:00 a.m. by heart-clenching terror, only to realize that I then have to scrounge what rest I can in the hour and a half left before my alarm goes off. Add in the very personal, ugly content of many nightmares, and I am forced to conclude that such dreams are generally useless, exhausting, and disturbing neural misfires. I would much rather forget them.

The problem is, nightmares can blaze searing trails through memory, making them easier than usual to remember. Worse still, because nightmares jolt me prematurely back to consciousness, I often linger half-awake long enough for the dreams to solidify more fully in my mind. So I am frequently unable to escape my bad dreams completely. Like the incubi of legend, they squat on my chest, constricting my breath while they worry at my mind. In the end, letting go of the nightmares often takes as much effort as holding onto the dreams. And though I do not have time to thoroughly discuss techniques for recalling dreams, I think I can offer a fairly simple recipe for letting go of nightmares.

First, I try to wake up my body. I get up, drink some water, go to the bathroom, walk around -- anything to warm up my limbs and let muscle memory take the burden of control off my mind. Usually, getting ready for work in the morning is a great dream-killer, so similar behavior should work great on nightmares.

Second, I distract myself. I turn on lights, check my face in the mirror, and focus harder on my surroundings to help dispel the nightmare influence. If my brain seems reluctant to cooperate, I may read a book, lay out my clothes for the morning, or let the TV screen beat my gray cells into submission.

Beyond those two steps, I think everyone's mind works a little differently, and it is important to discover one's own idiosyncrasies. Personally, I think a white noise maker and the bottom of a whiskey shot do wonders!

Any Old Town

2011-01-26T00:00:00.010-05:00

The dream opened in a normal New England town, similar to my hometown in size, layout, and make-up. But rather than feeling comfortable, it seemed weird for some indescribable reason.

I was watching, like a fly on the wall, a group of three brothers heading north to meet their parents at a lake house. They ended up spending the night in one of the town's motels, only to enter a nightmare.

In town, a gang had formed of adult, child, and college-aged men who wore mostly single-color outfits of hooded top and pants. They also painted their faces a single color to match their clothing, and each carried a form of razor edge, ranging from X-Acto to Bowie knife in size.

A scene flashed into view of a gang member interrogating a bar customer and apartment tenant about a "nurse" who happened to be a good "dentist" and a "painter."

The boys were running around, up an internal stairwell and down a fire escape, while overhearing the above interrogation, and they got caught by younger gang members -- about ten years in age. The brothers fled.

What followed was a roof-top escape (using sandals to slide down a clothesline) that ended under a big tree where a figure in a pure red outfit appeared overhead, obviously a top member of the gang.

The chase continued on through an older, well-to-do section of town with Victorian houses, larger-sized residences, where the occupants sort of sauntered out after the three boys. It felt as if they were chasing the brothers, but not really trying to catch them, more like they were shuffling along weirdly in order to keep watching the pursuit.

Eventually, the brothers' flight lead to a large brick house that could have been a former mansion, but now converted to a school. Here, only the three could open the outer doors, and they ducked inside to see if safety or further weirdness would greet them.

Campy Reunion

2011-01-19T00:00:00.013-05:00

Reunions on the dream road generally blend familiar and foreign, while mixing who people have been with who they could be. The summer camp I woke up in last night seemed fairly standard in its wooded, lakeside setting, as well as in the loosely controlled chaos of K-12’ers running about the grounds. But after a couple of quick meetings with fellow campers, it became very apparent that my subconscious was contributing an undercurrent of magic to the tent and lodge community.

When my former music teacher, Tony, dismissed my group from our morning lesson, we folded up leathery textbooks Agrippa would have loved and left with assignments to try mimicking Crowley. Mr. Potter should be so lucky.

Then, as we lamented the shortage of players on my squad’s flag football crew, my former class- and teammate Jake arrived, plus one, to fill out the roster. Now Jake had been a big guy in high school, but he’d puffed up even more between then and last night's camp. And even if he’d always seemed a little self-absorbed, there was some definite weirdness to his appearing with an androgynous, ambiguous, maybe-female double of himself. Suddenly, we had a borderline legal, all-Jake offensive line. And the zebras couldn't find a penalty in the rulebook called "too many of the same man on the field."

But the metaphysical vibe came to a head with a former third-grade camper of mine. First he told me about the shiny creatures living in a two-foot puddle, and then he proved it by diving in bodily to explore. Concerned, I went to Tony -– a reasonable, flexible authority figure -– to reveal what I’d learned about the young camper. I nearly interrupted a romantic encounter between Tony and a pre-school counselor, which would have been embarrassing under any circumstances, but I figured complaining to him about magic use would be futile while he and Miss Liplock were floating in the air on a joyful cloud labeled “9.” It ended up being too late to discuss preventative intervention for my third-grade buddy, anyway, because he was outside getting ready to explore a dime-sized wet spot at the time.

I’ll let you guess how that went for his noggin.

Stillwell Sinclair's Toys

2011-01-12T00:00:00.000-05:00

The night-scene took place at the end of a story.

Having cleaned up some sort of menace, a group of five heroes including the dreamer were in Stillwell Sinclair's study -- the menace had been linked to Sinclair, and their investigation had led them there.

A peach-sized metal sphere on the floor appeared to be the main object of inquiry.

On a nearby end table, a small, metallic bird sculpture asked one hero who approached, "Who? Who? <<Identify yourself.>> Who?" The voice came out comically owl-like at first, but the command to identify was brassy and frightening in timbre. There was a sense of consequences if the wrong answer (or no answer) was given.

The hero responded, "Doctor Stillwell Sinclair."

His turned out to be both the right and wrong answer: The man was allowed to approach further, but the metal globe on the floor opened at the same time, releasing a miniature mechanical beetle and several egg-like spheres. The freed objects seemed related to the previous menace, suggesting that the investigative party now faced the rebirth of something terrible.

The man who had used Sinclair's name managed to scoop everything back into the globe and close it, but already the eggs had multiplied. Almost twice as many were scooped back in along with the lone beetle.

Asks the dreamer: How would the heroes deal with Sinclair's interesting toys? And would the prior menace rise again?

Dream-Source

2011-01-05T00:00:00.030-05:00

"The Sandman's been teasing me father away in the dreamscape, lately, and it's starting to frighten me."

"Are you having nightmares more often than not?"

"Well, not exactly. I wouldn't call them nightmares really. It's hard to explain."

"How so?"

"See, I generally think of nightmares as dreams where something is trying to hurt me, or where I'm expecting a terrible fate if I do wrong."

"Do you mean that you feel fear during your nightmares?"

"Yeah, like I'm actually scared of what's happening, same as if I'm awake. Or I at least believe that my situation is real enough to be horrified by how wrong things seem."

"Then would you characterize your more recent visions as less realistic?"

"Well, yes, or maybe I should say more dreamlike. Because some of them are pretty vivid, but I can tell that they're just nighttime illusions."

"So you do not believe in these dreams enough to feel afraid while they are occurring, as you would during a nightmare, but the nature of these dreams disturbs you once you wake up?"

"Yes, that's a pretty good summation. But I think maybe I'll tell you about the latest one, in case that sheds more light on things:

"We were on a spaceship, that much I caught onto quick enough. It resembled one of those dark, pseudo-organic things you see in monster-heavy scifi flicks. Picture the insect-styled ships from the Alien movies or that living Leviathan ship from Farscape. Beams made of segmented black carapace were all around us, and every arched corridor felt like a vein we were flowing through. Beyond that my description fails because, frankly, I had no idea what I was seeing. The vessel was alien, but whether I gleaned that from the dreamscape or from my own sensations of confusion, I don't know. In any case, we were exploring the craft, it wasn't ours. Outside my vision we had our own spacefaring vessel; we had boarded this one. And we had gotten really spooked by the emptiness and evidence we had found. Again, I had no grasp of the specific discrepancies bothering us, but a general air of wrongness had taken over my mood. Then we walked into a chamber with rows of raised pallets -- the barracks, infirmary, or morgue? -- and my dreamland prescience pulled my eyes to the ceiling. Arcing blue electricity danced across the room's vaulted roof in jagged, branching patterns. The overall tension of the scene increased. Then a new spit of lightning traced an oval shape that filled with blinding light and suddenly disgorged an armored form down onto the floor. The moment this alien landed I knew it would open fire on us. Human-shaped in futuristic army gear, the intruder did not fail my prediction, blasting incandescent cylindrical shots at us. I keep referring to 'us,' but besides a vague sense of companionship, I never found out anything about my allies, nor had I seen much of them until that point. But as the alien from the ceiling portal attacked, I began to spot humans in more stereotypical American Army garb firing back laser beams around me.

"Now, the conflict picked up here, which really disoriented me in the dream. More of the armored aliens were dropping from light flashes in the ceiling, my visible companions were shooting back at them, and I was dodging and diving in an attempt to not get blasted. Even as my view was shifting, though, and I was knocking over pallets in my scramble, I didn't fear getting shot. Like, I intellectualized that I didn't want that result. I acted to prevent injury to myself. Yet I felt less worry about harm to my dream body than I would to a video game shell. Just as easily could I have been operating the first-person POV camera on a movie set -- that was how little I cared.

"Eventually, the aliens fighting us -- not knowing whose ship we were on, I can't rightly say attacking or defending -- drove my group out of the contested room. At the door, however, I sensed the lone human behind me fell trapped and wounded. I had lingered fearlessly in the second-to-last position for exiting, and that final rearguard was our Lieutenant. The aliens pressed in on us, and I immediately calculated my chances of being hit were rising fast. But the officer needed saving. Typical dreamland futility, I could not cry out to alert my allies. Nor could I force my own laser weapon to ignite, no matter how my sleep-addled mind imagined me fiddling with the mechanisms. To my invisible left, one opponent seized the LT. Then one of the aliens' cylindrical photons passed through me, and my overworked dream processor failed to register the hit as damage. I was too confused and frustrated with my gun and the overall scenario to even generate or comply with dreamscape rules.

"And I awoke then, somewhat more tired and weirded out for the night's journey."

"I am sorry to say, but your dream sounds fairly routine in its details thus far. What elements struck you as most weird?"

"Well, I had to think about that one, because the dream seemed normal enough, or at least too similar to movies I liked to warrant my emotional reaction."

"That was a very good starting thought. Where did it lead you?"

"That's just my problem: The dream road led me. I mean, if the dream had come entirely out of my own mind, I think it would have played out even more cinematically, and my emotions would have stayed monotone and intense."

"Please explain."

"I would have felt excited the whole time, and I would have known what to do. Or, if it was nightmare sand that got me, I would have been really terrified and understood exactly why. Either way, I think all my frustration with the gun and the foreign sense of my setting would have vanished!"

"So you believe your brain would craft a dream scenario in which the component structures, details, rules, and plot points -- I think those are the four areas that struck you as bewildering -- all would make sense and be subject to your omniscience."

"That's a lot of words, there. But, yes, my normal dreams don't usually confuse me until I wake up and wonder what the hell I ate."

"If your mind didn't entirely concoct your example dream, then where did it come from?"

"Some bad sand got in my eyes? But that's what has me spooked: I feel like the dreams don't come to me anymore, so much as I drift out into them. I'm not sure I want to go."