My Father and Immortality

Dream Info: March 7, 2009
Realism Intensity: 2
Content: PG-13

I had spent my life studying potions and elixirs and had become a very powerful wizard. One day, after years of study, I discovered the elixir for immortality. But on that very day, before I was able to finish the potion, my father came to my chamber and attacked me. Wounded, I fled and managed to seal the last ingredient of the elixir of immortality in my personal safe within my secured vault. As I sealed my magic safe, my father found me in the vault and cast a spell on me.

He didn’t kill me. He zapped me back to my youth. He allowed me to flee and then watch as he took over my life.

He lives now in my mansion. He has altered it, added to it, making it his own. He raises my children who now believe him their true father. He sleeps with my wife, who out of fear for the children’s safety, has remained silent.

I am a young child again.

The years have past and I have watched. But I have not forgotten.

I decide the time has come. I leave the small neighboring village I have sheltered in and return to my estate. I am 16 years old now; old enough for my magic to have some strength.

I hire on as a servant in my own mansion. They take me willingly. I am strong and ask a low wage. But the mansion has changed. I hardly recognize it. It is darker inside and feels more like a fortress. My father has added rooms and passages and even a dungeon below the chambers of my vault.

I spend the first week relearning the layout of my estate. In so doing it becomes very apparent that my memory was damaged by the spell that made me young agian. Many things are hazy.

I am the same age as my oldest son. During this first week I have quickly become friends with him.

On the eighth day I find my way down to my vault. No one is around and the chamber is silent and cold. I enter the code on the control panel but the door does not open. My father has changed my vault password.

Walking out and into the hall, the moment came that I have been desperately working to avoid. I turn a corner and come face to face with my father. My only disguise is my disheveled hair and a dirty smudge on my face. I gasp and stop. My body is rigid as he approaches me. His eyes run up my body, taking me in. I try to plan some sort of defense but can’t think clearly. He scowls at my appearance but doesn’t recognize me. He comments off handedly about the weather and continues on his way.

I exhale and lean on the wall for support, my legs quivering. I must avoid a direct conflict. I am too young and remember my spells to poorly to overcome my father.

But he doesn’t recognize me, his own son. And that fuels my hope.
That evening I head into the city seeking help. Carrying the nicest gift I can afford I go to Steve Johnson. His servants usher me into his sitting room. The years have been hard on him. He is balding and heavily wrinkled. But he is still Steve Johnson and caries with him the kind light I know so well.

I explain who I am and he believes me unquestioningly. He immediately calls his allies and within the hour we are in council. Brother and Sister Coveo have come, along with some younger couples I do not remember. They are all looking for a way to end my father’s tyranny.

Steve Johnson’s children, McKay and Terran, are good friends with my son. They convince my son to give them the code to the vault which they then give me. I wait until the weekend when my father is having a feast to sneak down to the lower chambers. I punch in the code and the door to the vault slides open.

As soon as I enter I hear my father coming down the hall. I close the vault with myself inside. I push myself deep in one corner, burying myself behind the hanging VGA and power cables. The vault opens and my father walks right to me. He talks to himself as he hangs some more VGA cables on the wall. His hand brushes my head. He doesn’t seem to notice and he mutters something about the Coveos. He walks out but stops in the doorway. I quietly slide from behind the cables and along the wall to the far corner. I am exposed but in shadow. My father steps back to the cables and parts them looking at the wall. His eyes narrow, but he exits without looking around.

I wait for a very long time and finally open the vault and slip out. My father has activated the security systems. The display on the wall shows all alarms and cameras online. He even activated the Dragon, a large robot built into the outer wall of the mansion. There were several new robots I didn’t remember as well.

I cautiously step into the hall from the room, trying to remember the placement of my cameras. I freeze. Standing at the end of the hall watching me is my son.

He rushes and tackles me and we fight on the floor. We argue and I finally convince him that I am mostly harmless. He sits hunched on the floor, panting. I tell him my reason for snooping, the elixir of immortality. Himself Curious, he then agrees to sneak into the vault with me and see if we can open the safe. There are three circles in a triangle on the cover. I cannot remember the incantation to open it.

On a table is a large lasagna on a blue plate. I take it out and we eat it. Suddenly the vault shuts itself. I can’t get it to reopen. The house security detected the vault open for too long and has locked it down.

Steps in the hall send my son and I under the table to hide. We leave the plate on the table and too late I realize my mistake. Father enters the room.

He does this and that, not noticing anything out of the ordinary. I sit in agony waiting. Finally he notices the vault has been sealed by security. He rubs his beard and turns, seeing the blue plate on the table. He gasps. He knows I have been in the vault. He is putting the pieces together and he rushes out of the chamber.

I am no longer safe in my mansion.

I make my way through the estate to the servants’ quarters. He is already there. Pushing away my fear I enter the squat building. Amazingly he doesn’t kill me. We argue. During the argument I suddenly remember the key phrase to the safe. It is simple, very simple. I give up the argument and flee abruptly, tipping Father off. He knows I know.

The code is so simple, given time he will deduce it. There is no time to waste. The next time we meet he will kill me for daring to hang around.

Sneaking through the estate grounds a large robot scorpion finds me and attacks. I defeat it only to run into a large metal gorilla which lunges for me. I am wounded by manage to disable the machine.

As I approach the mansion, the top of the outer wall unravels into the arching spine of the Dragon. This is the last and ultimate defense of my property. Its head swivels towards me. Fire flickers inside its jaws. Large metal claws rise from the earth in front of the house. It attacks. I dodge. The Dragon is using its default defense program which is fortunate for me. It is predictable and I have a chance of getting by as long as my father does not assume control of it.

I run away and catch my breath behind a hedgerow. My son appears. He is frantic. I try to calm him, but fail. How can I explain the reasons for the estate security targeting me? He won’t leave and he won’t allow me to insanely attack the Dragon.
As fire from the Dragon consumes the hedgerow I explain my history to my son. I am his father. His father is his grandfather and wants me dead. The last of the elixir is inside my safe. I must get to it. It will not only give me immortality, but will restore me to my right age.

I leave my son confused and in tears. I rush the dragon, leaping through its claws. My hair is singed off from its fire. I manage to enter the mansion.

I close the chamber door behind me and jam the lock. I barricade it with furniture. I then enter the vault, say the magic phrase, and open my safe. There, wrapped in cloth, is the last ingredient needed for immortality. I gather the other ingredients from the vault and brew the potion over fire in the chamber.

A pounding starts from the door. My father has come for me. Frantically, I move the fire and potion into the vault and seal the door from the inside. My Father breaks in to the room and then blasts the vault door to pieces. He has grown more powerful over the years. My wife slips into the room and stabs him. He beats her down and leaves her unconscious on the ground and then pulls the knife out of his side. Facing me, he drops the knife which clatters to the ground. All ingredients but the last are in the potion. I hold it in my hand above the fire. I weigh my options: pot, my father gets immortality; fire, he will eventually be defeated but I will be trapped young. Either way he will kill me now. We stare at each other.

And I wake up.

Flight of the Argonauts: Part 3 of 3

Dream Info: November 18, 1998
Realism Intensity: 3
Content: R

The third dream in this Sequence: While not required, reading the first part will help explain some of the significances of this dream.

Part III:

Three large wood frigates floated out bay doors in the side of a giant rust colored building. This building sat perched on the top of a stony mountain. These ships unfurled their sails, turned south, and soared through the air heading over the jagged mountain range. After the ships crossed the last peaks they slowly sank through the air towards the meandering river lying thousands of feet below in the fertile valley. The huge ships plunged into the wide river, causing their hulls to shake and groan; the bow dipped and then leveled. Water splashed over the sides. The frigates continued down the river and into the ocean.

I stood on the bow of the lead ship as we sailed towards the horizon. I watched the jagged mountains that had filled the sky slowly shrink and eventually vanish.

I was on my way. I was one step closer to finding her. I was running out of places to search.

The passengers were all gathering to one side of the boat. Curious, I thrust my way through the crowd. A large rock formation, barely breaking the surface of the water, lay off our portside. On the rocks lay a large mass of walruses. All the tourists were snapping pictures hurriedly. I laughed to myself.

Let them get excited about the walruses I thought. I just wanted to sleep. To this point it had already been a long voyage.

I woke to a crewmember shaking me urgently. He told me to abandon ship, that we had been attacked. How was that possible when I had not heard a thing? I dressed and rushed topside; my mind still in a sleepy daze. All was a blur. I found myself, when my mind finally cleared its fog, hanging onto the bottom of a giant blimp. I was at the back and near the large propellers that lifted the craft into the sky. Behind us, the top of our ships masts struck out of the sea at an odd angle. The ship was sinking. Of the other two, there was no sign.

As I looked around I noticed the captain was next to me and looked none too happy. Hundreds of people from our ship were dangling from the bottom of the craft’s thin metal frame. But something was wrong. The front of the blimp had ripped free from the frame and had just caught fire. The wind, hitting in gusts, blew the flaming fabric wildly about. In this turbulence many people fell to the frothy water, which I just noticed was not very far below.

Quickly enough the fire was extinguished. Too much of the crafts’ balloon had burned and we were losing altitude. We were only about hundred feet in the air and slowly going down. The pilot knew we were in trouble and was steering the airship back in a direction that must have been towards land. We passed over the rock outcropping covered with walruses, but this time the tourists were too panicked to notice. I swung around the craft trying to comfort people as the captain yelled orders above to the pilot who struggled to keep the craft in the air. Now and then someone’s arms gave out and they fell to the water below. Some resurfaced and could be seen swimming weakly. Some hit the water and were never seen again.

Time dragged along and the water drew closer. There: we saw the shore and the jagged mountains farther in with the sun lighting their tops. Not a moment too soon, either. Our feet we skimming the tops of the waves. The craft was still a good way out. A large wave rose high enough to grab the legs of the people in the front, dragging the whole airship suddenly down. It crashed into the rolling waves dangerously trapping many people under it.

I swam under the sinking craft, pulling people out to safety as the water pushed us towards the inlet of a narrow bay, almost a fjord.

The current swept survivors to an island pressed up against the base of some cliffs. Sea lions lined the beach and up on the grassy center stood a group of large buffalo. Many of the survivors tried to climb onto the island, but the inhabitant sea lions rushed anyone attempting to crawl to safety. Many of the passengers tried to swim across the main part of the fjord, but the current was far too strong and swept them away. This island was our only chance for rest.

One of the sea lions stood up and addressed us.

“This is our beach. There is no room for you.” It said in a gruff voice.

“Please, let us on your island temporarily.” I said to it. “We have swum from out in the ocean and are extremely tired. We’ll only use the very northern tip of the island.”

It thought about this.

“Only the tip,” Growled the sea lion in acceptance.

All of the survivors crawled onto the beach of this island and lay on the rocky shore. Everything went well until some teenagers, who had recovered from the ordeal, wanted more room to sprawl out. More room: like the sandy beach the sea lions were sleeping on. A group started throwing rocks at the sea lions. More and more people joined the group trying to move the creatures off the sandy beach. The people yelled, “off dumb animals,” and threw rocks. One rock flew wide and hit a grazing buffalo. It grunted, then turned and kicked a large rock off the ground. The rock shot through the air like a cannon ball and hit one of the members of the crowd square in the chest. The person dropped to the ground dead. This only made the people angrier. They threw more rocks and started moving forward, aggressively herding the sea lions and buffaloes to one corner of the island.

The captain and I looked at each other. We knew we had just worn out our welcome. The captain ran to gather the crew together and left me to attempt to herd the passengers back.

One young man had rushed ahead of the mob and was waving a large stick at the animals, yelling “This island is for us now. You can swim, you stupid animals.” A large buffalo was slowly meandering away and the man whacked it in the rear angrily. The buffalo swung around and rammed the man in the chest. The man dropped the stick and held on to the buffalo’s head as it swung him around wildly. Luckily the man had fit in-between the horns nicely and no matter how hard the buffalo shook or jerked its’ head the man was able to keep its horns from spearing him.

After a few seconds of vain thrashing, the buffalo also realized this. It stopped shaking the man around and stood up on its hind legs. With its massive front legs it grabbed the man. The buffalo thrust him through his horns, impaling and killing him instantly. It then pulled off the limp and bleeding body and threw it at the mob of people, which knocked many over. The crowd stood in shock. Then, the large buffalo charged.

All was lost. No one heeded my cries. I surrender hope and worried about saving myself. I dove into the water, swam the twenty feet or so across to the base of the cliff and pulled myself onto a ledge slightly above the water. Surprisingly I found the ledge I was on was made of rusty metal and had a dirty hatch in it. I tried to open it but couldn’t. I then realized that it was a bathroom drain for the complex we had launched from on the other side of the mountains. If someone would just flush a toilet the hatch would open, the refuse would gush out, and I could crawl in. That hatch was safety.

I turned back to the island and saw that the animals were rampaging everywhere. Many of the passengers were diving into the main part of the fjord where the fast flowing swept them away.

A large buffalo strolled to the edge of the island and glared at me. It stood up on its hind legs and inched into the water. It was coming for me. As it approached, I pried at the hatch frantically.



A woman lay dead. Her blood ran through her beautiful blonde hair dying it red. Her shapely figure lay crumpled in one of the bathroom stalls in the rusty complex on the other side of the mountains. Her purse had fallen open in the struggle and its contents were scattered all over the bathroom floor. A man with black gloves bent over the body, shifting though documents and wallet eagerly. All gold and jewels he collected he slipped into his pocket. Documents he slid into a small black bag.

The woman had not had time to flush the toilet.

Flight of the Argonauts: Part 2 of 3

Dream Info: November 18, 1998
Realism Intensity: 3
Content: PG-13

The second dream in this Sequence: While not required, reading the first part will help explain some of the significances of this dream.

Part II:

Some friends were climbing on the ruins of the Hadrian wall in the warm summer sun. A vast flower-covered field lay infront of the wall. This wall ran into the base of a giant cliff that looked as if a giant knife had sliced the ground, and the far side had then been lifted up to tower above. The stratified rock layers were perfectly intact.

Rob Brown and I were walking and talking at the base of the ruined wall. We came to the end of the wall and waited as the girls that were with us climbed down off it. Then we continued on our way with the foothills sloping up to our left.

One of the girls in our company let out a quick shriek as a band of Indians raced over the foothill’s ridge. They were a band of warriors: faces painted and holding their spears in high. They passed a good way infront of us when one of the warriors turned his horse, trotted a few steps towards us, and let out a cry while waving his spear over his head. He then turned back and galloped after the Indian party.

We were still excitedly discussing the Indian incident when a rumble and loud clatter became audible from the ridge to our left. We stopped, slightly nervous, as a large army came marching over the ridge. Their brown and gray clothes were dusted with dirt; their muskets and gold southern Civil War insignia’s were polished and clean, though. The general rode his horse infront of the procession with his hand on his gold sword. One of his lieutenants rode next to him holding an American flag edged with gold.

The countless hundreds, if not thousands, of these brown and gray troopers marched on expressionlessly. I ran up to a side line and started harassing the soldiers with questions. None of them broke. The general turned on his horse to observe my actions towards the army.

In a gruff voice he said, “Company halt…Right flank!” The army turned and was now facing my friends and me.

The general spit, then continued, “Ready your weapons…aim and fire when ready!” He turned away and gazed at the distance as my friends and I slowly started to walk backwards in the direction we had come.

The army cocked and aimed their guns at us. We turned and ran as fast as we could. A roar exploded behind us. Impulsively I threw myself to the ground. Laughing could be heard through the gun’s roar so I turned. The army was firing their guns into the air as the general sat chuckling at us and trying to get the men back to attention.
The column slowly started its march out to the prairie fields again, the men smiling now. I wiped the dirt off my pants and started heading toward the army again. Rob and the girls timidly followed. As I neared the base of the foothill, the end of the army was coming over the ridge. All the supply wagons and cannons came trundling over the hill slowly, being pulled by people. A small boy was pulling one cannon, and as he came down the hill he lost control. It rolled down the hill dragging the boy. I rushed up to the cannon, grabbed the bar used to pull it, and tried to slow it. I wasn’t able to stop it, but I did free the boy from his harness before the cannon flipped over at the base of the hill with a loud crash.

The small boy and I emerged through the cloud of dust to find the general yelling at a group of his men responsible for the cannons. He then came over and thanked me for trying to stop the cannon, and saving the boy. He insisted that we stay and dine with them that night.
We agreed.

The sun was sinking low in the sky; the army had set up their tents and I was wandering through the midst of the camp when one of my female friends, the one with soft red hair, caught my arm.

“Trevor, there’s something on the mountain,” She exclaimed. I looked and sure enough a lone horseman sat at the edge of the peculiar cliff. As we watched, two more men rode into sight. They all had metal armor and swords at their sides.

“Should I find out what they’re doing?” She looked at me eagerly; I had no choice but to say yes. “I can change into my fox shape and crawl up that fault crack,” She continued. “They won’t even know I’m there!”

With that she was off towards the cliff. A few minutes later the dream became like an animated cartoon and I saw a small red fox crawling quickly up the crack that ran through the heart of the cliff to the top.

The fox was running along the crest when two footmen hopped out of a bush, wrapped a rope around the fox and threw her off the cliff, then disappeared into the bush again. She dangled from the rope, which had been tied to a tree.

In the light from the setting sun we saw an army of knights in light blue armor race across the top of the mountainous cliff and down its side. The sun was glinting off their polished armor. They disappeared behind the foothills.

The rest of the camp, no longer animated like a cartoon, had noticed the knights at the top of the mountain. They weren’t in the least bit happy. The whole camp swarmed to life. People were running everywhere. In the craze of the moment, my friends found and told me that they were going after the fox. I agreed to go with them, but as we ran through the chaos, I caught sight of a woman with blonde hair. I stopped, and through the crowd I saw my beautiful partner from my old job. I had heard her die… I had always assumed it had been her who had died since there had been a swarm of mobsters after her and I’d never seen her again. Obviously she was still alive, for here she was loading a cannon!

Rob yanked me out of my daze and physically forced me to leave the camp and help them save the fox. I kept turning back search for her vibrant hair among the brown and gray of the soldiers.

We slowly forced ourselves up the crack to the top of the mountain (animated again). Our characters reached the top, and we untied the fox (animation stops here). We looked out over the prairie below and saw a massive battle being fought. The blue knights and footmen swarmed and intermingled with the brown civil war soldiers. From this altitude the men looked like ants, or a shifting ocean of colored sand. It was a writhing sea of countless men. I fell to my knees as I watched, horrified. I had just lost her all over again.

But this time I wouldn’t give up hope until I had found her alive, or seen her dead body.

Flight of the Argonauts: Part 1 of 3

Dream Info: November 18, 1998
Realism Intensity: 3
Content: PG-13

We stood to the side of the door as we rang the bell and cocked our guns. We raised and readied them. My partner, a blond with a serious face and an incredible figure, and I had been sent with one objective. She nodded to me. I jumped to the door, kicked it down, and dove in rolling on my back and shooting. The man at the table was killed instantly; my partner was at my side and had taken out the other man coming from the bathroom. No attempts at negotiating. No chance for our targets to escape. Our objective had been achieved easily; this time.

A few hours later we found ourselves being drawn into a small café at the mall. We were both exhausted from the day’s mission. It was my partner’s treat this time, and as she paid for the coffee I grabbed a small table.

We sat sipping our coffee and discussing the latest news. She was commenting on how ugly the new bell bottom pants, the current fashion, were when I spilled coffee in my lap; she laughed. I jumped up in pain—

There were loud shouts and a few shots from the lower mall floor out in the hall. We looked at each other and darted out the café door. I looked over the railing as two men sprinted by below. My gun was in my hand in a flash and I squeezed the trigger gently. Nothing happened. My partner pulled out her gun and took out both of them cleanly, just as they were entering the parking garage. I jerked the trigger several times extremely hard and my pistol finally shot.

“It wasn’t my fault! I fired! Nothing happened! My gun has a malfunction.” She glared at me disbelievingly as I sputter this out. We both knew we had state-of-the-art weapons, the best the government could make, and they did not just ‘malfunction.’

The next day at the mall again.

Three men in pinstriped suits calmly stepped into a large see-through elevator and rode to the next floor as I dashed around the corner. I frantically hit at the doors as they exited on the floor above. The elevator zoomed down, and the giant light-blue doors finally allowed me access. I pushed the button and the elevator shot upward and as it came to the next floor and stopped I jumped to get that flying feeling (As I always do in an elevator), only then did I realize that this was one of the new low-grav lifts. I jumped and didn’t come down. I kicked wildly as the door opened revealing the three men breaking into a shop at the side of the to the side of the elevator. My foot finally found the wall of the elevator and I propelled myself out the door, only I was ten feet up in the air. I crashed to the ground, rolled, flipped, rolled again— dodging their fire. All the while I was aiming at them and pulling my trigger. It would click but nothing would come out.

I had crossed the hall, rolling and jumping, and was now opposite the mobsters. As I jumped backwards my gun started working and I shot the three mobsters as I crashed through a large glass window. I had not been shot once. As I got to my feet and climbed back out the window, I noticed my partner with her arms folded leaning against the opposite wall glaring at me.

She suddenly grabbed and shook me. The elevator had just passed carrying more gangsters.

“The other group,” She yelled.

I rushed down the stairs to try to head them off. She ran to the other elevator and sat impatiently waiting for it to come down.

I ran to the bottom floor just as the elevator reached it. I quickly jumped onto the railing at the bottom of the stairs right next to the elevator so the gangsters would not see me as quickly.

The door opened and the men exited, stopped, and all stared at me on the railing frantically pulling the trigger on my gun. Their bald leader walked up to me; I kept my gun pointed at his head as I continued to pull the trigger, but nothing happened.

“Well well, Mr. Parker. It is so nice to see you again.” The lead gangster laughed, signaling his henchmen to kill me. They raised their guns, aimed, and dropped dead. The leader turned as my trusty partner shot him; he collapsed in a heap on the floor.

Once again she gave me a glare that could freeze boiling water. I attempted to explain, but the words wouldn’t come. I stood there opening and closing my mouth with a stupid frown on my face.

Suddenly the elevator started upward. Four more gangsters could be seen through the glass on the upper floor. We darted down the stairs to the lower floors; the stairs jackknifed every ten steps.

We passed through the lower floor, which happened to be a library, and my partner continued her descent, however I stopped on the library level and looked up the stairs to see where the gangsters were. The goons were catching up quickly. I knew I had to descend faster so I hopped over the railing to fall to the jackknife below. But as I landed with a thud, I realized that somehow I was still on the library floor. I’d jumped over the railing, fallen, and landed right where I had just jumped from. What?

I darted away from the stairs to hide behind one of the chest high bookcases that were scattered across the giant room, as I did so I noticed another staircase on the opposite side of the library.

I heard a shout and turned to see my partner at the stairs yelling, “Trevor! Come on!”

“Get outta here. They’re on top of us!” I shouted, but instead of going down the stairs, she started towards me. “No,” I continued. “Get down the stairs! Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. You just get back to HQ… NOW!”

With that, she darted down the stairs with one last worried glance at me. The gangsters reached the floor and split into two groups, two after me, two continuing down the stairs after her.

I dove behind a bookcase further to the back of the room. All the bystanders continued looking at their books as if nothing was going on. I scanned for the two men hunting me, but couldn’t find them. I was in a bad situation.

I ran, crouched, to another bookcase somewhat closer to the stairs. I peeked around the side of the case, nothing. Instinct told me that the men were behind me, so with a smile on my face, I stood up and turned. Sure enough, a gangster was three feet away with his gun pointed at my head. His friend was a bookcase away smiling at me.

I struck the gun out of the first goons’ hand with lightening speed. It clattered to the ground a few feet away, but he didn’t even attempt to go after it. He lowered his hand and just stood there, a smile cracked his lips.

It suddenly came to mind that I had not been watching the back staircase at the opposite side of the library. Instinct told me again what to expect as I turned. Once again, I found myself staring guns aiming at my face. Four gangsters had entered. A person pushed by one of them and walked up to me.

Smiling, she said, “Hello Mr. Parker. You’ve been a thorn in my side for far to long. You’ve killed some of my best men, and I’m just glad that I’ll be the one who gets the honor of killing you. Lord knows how many of my mob bosses would pay for this honor.”

Susan Packer turned and coughed before finishing. “Yes, and don’t worry, your little friend will not escape either. What was her name?”

Just as Susan said that last line, a violent but quick barrage of gun shots echoed into the room from the floors below. Then there was silence.

“Oh well, I guess her name’s not important now,” Susan laughed.

I screamed and collapsed to the floor. Everything went black. The goons moved closer to get a better look at my anguish.

The Mine

Dream Info: June, 2009
Realism Intensity: 8
Content: R

Accompanied by two friends, one male and one female, I climbed through the collapsed entrance and into the wide tunnel of an abandoned mine. Everything was ordinary enough until several hundred feet in. There, hewn rock walls were replaced by dingy metal. The rock ground descended into wide stairs. The mine suddenly felt like an old underground installation of some kind. Rooms lined the stairs as we proceeded. They were all rather small. Some had doors, some curtains, some nothing. Occasional there were chairs but usually the rooms were empty.

I ducked into a room and stopped. My heart leapt to my throat. The room had a table, a couple of tipped boxes whose contents had spilled out, and several chairs. One of the chairs was occupied.

The person was facing the wall. I could only see his back. He was slouching. His dark hair was matted and unkempt. His headed rested at an awkward angle and both arms hung down. Their flesh was dusty and a sickly gray. The fingers were black and curled.

He was dead.

I must have made a noise for my two friends appeared at my sides. The girl screamed. The guy grunted.

It was as if I was frozen. I couldn’t move. It was incredibly eerie to come across a dead body. I had never seen one before. And here I was deep underground in the dark, in a small room, with a corpse. My mind wasn’t sure how to respond and my heart was pounding.

Somehow I approached the man. I moved the opposite direction his head was titled so as to avoid his face for as long as possible. I was not sure I wanted to see his expression. His chest distracted me from thoughts of his face. The man’s ribcage had been burned and was sunken in which allowed a perfect view of the insides of his lower abdomen. There was nothing identifiable: no organs, or bone structure. Just a yellowish orange liquid pooled down inside the black opening. The smell hit me. It was of orange juice, alcohol, and the bitter twang of throw-up.

I covered my mouth and nose, jerked erect, and discovered the man staring eyelessly at me. The face was gray and still bloated. Stains had dried where fluid had run from his now empty eye sockets. The hair on my neck stood up. I realized his body was too well preserved. Too much of his soft tissue was still on him: his bloated and streaked face, his hanging arms…he appeared to have died rather recently. This was an exceedingly uncomfortable realization.

Clarity came to my mind as I realized we were deep underground in the dark, in a small room, with a fresh corpse; a corpse that had died in a gruesome and undoubtedly unnatural way.

My skin was crawling and I was terrified. And I woke up.

Them Bears

Dream Info: Saturday, April 4, 2009
Realism Intensity: 3
Content: PG-13

Up in the hills just outside of the city was a nice resort of sorts. It was set on the foot hills overlooking the valley.

People were strolling about in the warm sunshine. I was walking near the edge of the resort. The bushes moved and out clambered a large grizzly bear. He was several hundred feet up the road so I didn’t feel threatened. I just stopped walking and stared. The bear scratched itself and then started lumbering lazily towards me. I walked slowly backwards and then turned down a side street, into the resort, leaving before anything bad happened.

I saw no more of the bear. I had an urgent message for the owner of the resort, and continued on my way to her house forgetting about the oddity of a bear in this area.

As I drew close to the house, again the bushes shook ahead of me. I froze as the bear jumped out onto the road. It stood and roared. I was being stalked. Behind me, people stopped their morning walks and those at the café lowered the cups of cappuccino.

“Run. Get out of here,” I cried to them, then turned and fled myself. The crowd vanished into buildings. The bear rushed after me.

I was going to die, I knew it. And I ran fueled with fear. I outran a young boy who was wheezing with exertion. I looked over my shoulder as the bear, catching him, crashed and rolled on the ground; the boy clasped in its great claws. I was overjoyed. The boy distracted the bear which was allowing me to escape. What luck; I was going to live.

I stopped running, consumed with guilt. What had I just thought? That was terrible. So I turned and ran back. Against a building was a stack of chopped wood. I grabbed a log and hurled it at the bear. Again and again I threw. The bear drew back, startled by the sudden attack. Confused it retreated to the nearest trees leaving the boy on the ground. I rushed forward, lifted the boy, and together we ran inside a nearby building.

The building had several rooms and large glass windows. In fact, the door was glass. It wouldn’t keep a grizzly bear out long. I locked it as the bear sprinted from the trees towards us.

There were several people inside the store, a gift shop of sorts, who looked at us questioningly. I pulled everyone into the center of the room, away from the windows. The bear slammed into the door. The glass cracked but held. The bear battered angrily. I led everyone through the rooms to another door. But as we reached it, three more bears attacked. That door was glass as well. We were surrounded. I was shocked at how cunningly the bears had apparently planned this.

The first bear crashed through the door. One of the others had worked its way in through a window. The third and fourth worked on the back door. One had its paw through the bottom and was shattering the glass in a widening hole. The sound of roaring, breaking glass, and screaming filled my ears.

Then I woke up.

The Quarry

Dream Info: February 3, 2009
Realism Intensity: 6 (out of 10)
Content: PG

I stepped into the antechamber of a large stone mansion. Light spilled in from the wide doorway. There were no lights…no electricity of any kind, it appeared. The walls were bare stone, cold and solid.

I signaled my friend to follow me as I opened the next thick wooden door and stepped into the black chamber beyond. Cool light spilled into the room from several tall windows. My eyes quickly adjusted and I could see a large table with ornate chairs. Some large, soft, sitting chairs, a couch, and an enormous fireplace, empty but blackened. My friend closed the door behind us.

I walked around the room lifting objects here and there. There was no dust. My foot steps echoed until, in front of the fireplace, I came upon a thick, coarsely woven rug. High upon the walls were paintings. I stood below the nearest and tried to make out it in the dim light. It was a large oil painting and reminded me of something you would see in a catholic church.

Sudden light appeared in the corner. I jumped back. An old woman stood squinting at us with an oil lamp in her hand, raised slightly above her head.

“Eh, Mario, vieni qui. C’abbiamo dei ladri,” the woman croaked.

A tall skinny man promptly appeared in the hall doorway behind her. He had on an undershirt, worn pants, and sad slippers.

“Bah, Maria, non mi sembrano i ladri. Se non c’e di che, stai zitta e lasciami stare,” the man grumbled. He punctuated his sentence with a waved hand, dismissing us. Maria swatted his shoulder. He pushed her away and trundled back into the dark hall.

I assured the woman we were not thieves. We had no idea this mansion was inhabited and had come exploring.

She walked past me casually and mumbled, “Esploratori, son’ peggiore dei ladri.”

We befriended her and stayed for dinner. She and her husband were quite pleasant. I expressed how shocked I was to have found a structure such as their house in the United States. We don’t build with solid stone often. Maria recounted how their families had immigrated to the US and Mario’s father had started carving this house out of the cliff. It was carved from the living stone. No mortar, no seams; just one piece of stone, a sculpture of a house. They operated a quarry that Mario still ran. Maria’s father had come to the states and found work with Mario’s father. The two had met. The rest was history.

As she and her husband talked, I stared at the beautiful paintings in the flickering lamp light. The night grew late. They invited us to stay over.

The next morning, sitting in the back of Mario’s old pickup truck, my friend and I bounced as we pulled out of the mansion’s rocky driveway. We were headed up the canyon to the side of their house. Jolting back and forth I marveled and the large stone house buried deep with in the shadow of the cliff that surrounded it. Over the decades they had removed an impressive amount of stone. The sheer cliff rose for hundreds of feet. You could clearly see where Mario’s father and his brothers had started chiseling inward. They had removed the raw stone leaving their sculptured house.

The mountains pressed in around us. We drove under a high natural archway of stone. Vines dangled down. There were many strange rock formations. The trees were dense. Here and there we spied cracks and openings in the rocks; possible caves beckoning me to come explore.

Significance of Dreams

Taken From
Science News:

What do dreams mean to you? Are they random images strewn together with occasional story lines your brain simple pulls together trying to make sense of the nonsense? Do they contain messages from God, or the great beyond?

Science News reported on a study just released. They found:

Ideas that dreams come from the brain’s random output or are essential for daily problem-solving or for weeding out the routine clutter in one’s mind appeal to [only] a minority of people, the scientists say.

In one experiment, participants reported feeling closer to a personal friend after imagining a dream in which their friend defended them, versus imagining a dream in which that friend betrayed them.

“Our results suggest that the dreams most likely to affect our daily lives and relationships are the dreams that accord with our existing beliefs and desires,” Morewedge says.

So, whether dreams are messages or just random, we tend to pay attention more when the dream supports our desires. Does that mean any messages we perceive in the dreams are merely imposed by our waking desires? As in, we see what we want to see. Like making voices out of static, or seeing ghosts in the corners of our vision?

Cross Brick

I was in a compound: a factory, storage, housing, hospital, all walled in. There were many buildings but everything ran together. Everything was dusty as well. The compound was lit by dull blue light, as if it were filtering in from dirty windows on a cloudy day. As such there were deep shadow. At best the high, skinny halls and prison like apartments were dimly lit. The walls were gray. The people too.

I’m not sure what we all did. But one day I was working in a dank factory room full of pipes. I was sweeping the floor. On a table in the middle of the room I noticed a strange brick. It was a little larger than the average clay brick, but otherwise the same. It was rough, light weight, and brown. Its color stood out from the rest of the gray in the dream. On one side I discovered a carved raised cross. No paint. Nothing fancy. Just a cross. Immediately I felt uneasy. With it in hand, I looked around cautiously, and decided to head back to my apartment and hide it.

Out in hall an alarm sounded. A voice came on over a scratchy intercom announcing a breach in security and that any suspicious objects should be reported immediately. There was a high probability of bombs or chemical weapons deposited in the compound. Immediately the hall filled with frantic people. They stared at my brown brick. My heart told me to hide the brick. I could not turn it in. They (compound management) would just destroy it. It was special and I could not allow that. I tucked it under my shirt so no one else would see it.

I wound my way through many halls. The voice came on again. There was a small brown object deposited in the compound. That object was extremely dangerous. No one was to touch it, if found, and it was to be reported immediately.

I looked around and saw that a few who had seen me with the brick were still near. They swiveled to face me. I ran. They chased.

Many daring and close encounters happen. I was trapped. I ran into a small garage of sorts. The buildings had all gone into a lock down and I could not open the large door. The sound of feet could be heard in the hall. I noticed the trash compactor built into the wall of the garage and jumped on it immediately. I threw the brick down the short shoot and crawled in after it. I remember clearly the cross brick sitting in the garbage in front of me. It resonated so strongly in me. I couldn’t surrender the brick now if I wanted to. My will was drained; but not in a bad way. It was more as though my resolve had solidified.

I plopped down into the trash bin. The one side was open to the compound. I felt a rush realizing I had made it out of the building. As I climbed out of the bin and lowered myself and the brick to the ground, I realized I was in the center of the compound. Walls and guards were all around. I was far from free. But I was out into the dim blue sun, and that was something.

Then I woke up.

The Griffin

Dream Info: 1997
Realism Intensity: 5 (out of 10)
Content: PG-13

A small group of my friends and I were hiking along the ridge of a small canyon with a creek trickling at the bottom (Like Gold Creek / Webb Canyon). The trees were tropical: palm Trees, large ferns, and such. There was the peak of a red tiled roof stabbing out above the trees some distance away.

My friends and I were moseying down the ridge when one of them noticed a parasailer gliding over head. The man had a large lime green parachute and was wearing a dark green jump suit and a yellow helmet. He careened over the canyon and plummeted into the foliage on the other side with a large crash. We stood there waiting to see any sign if he was OK, but he was completely hidden. Seconds later there was a quiet rumbling; a few of the trees started to shake. The rumbling grew louder. The trees ripped from the ground and fell over. Some flew into the air along with chunks of dirt and roots. An enormous head poked up. As the rubble and dust cleared, we could see a great green body under it. It was the yellow head of an eagle with the green body of a lion.

We stood in awe as the griffin spread its wings and screeched angrily. It lifted into the air with a leap.

My friends and I took off into the forest in the direction of the red roofed house. A large group of hikers had been in the canyon and had seen the griffin emerge. They too were running to that house. I stumbled through the forest to the dull roar of the griffin’s wings. A log caught my foot and I fell. In every direction around me people scurried through the woods. Without warning the constant roar stopped. In a heart beat the canopy above one of the stragglers erupted. Trees around him splintered and the ground shook with an awful force. In a flash the griffin was back in the air. One less hiker ran on to the safety of the house.

I jumped to my feet and ran with a renewed fear.

Many of the runners were dashing through a clearing as quickly as they could manage. Right when I made it to the middle the griffin plunged into the ground just to my left. The force of the impact knocked me off my feet. I looked over and saw the griffin pounce on a few more unlucky hikers, a body or two hung out of its snapping beak. Five people (a group of friends probably) lay mangled and dead where the griffin first landed. I jumped under some dead fallen logs, hoping to hide. The logs over me shuddered and cracked. Large talons probed all around under the logs to find me. Some one screamed, saving me. The griffin leapt away at once in pursuit. Taking a risk, I sprung out from under the logs and ran hard.

I rounded a hill and the forest ended. A giant mansion (Like a giant hotel) lay in front of me. I rushed inside; the people who had already made it were running around crying and hugging everyone else. The roar of the griffin could be heard outside.



- 2 -

I found my friends in a large theater room. It was at least four stories high, and three hundred feet in length. A crash sounded from one of the higher rooms. Someone had foolishly walked in front of a window. The griffin had rammed through the wall to get at them. It must have started an electrical fire for soon, flames appeared on the ceiling. The outer wall collapsed in on itself suddenly. By the time the dust cleared, the griffin had already killed six people. I grabbed my friends and pointed to a staircase we had not previously noticed that went to the basement. We rushed down and into darkness— safety.

The basement was huge but had no lights. In the dim light from cracks in the ceiling we could see the walls had only been framed. The middle had shelves through it like those in a grocery store. Other areas had boxes stacked high, but most of the basement was empty.

I could no longer hear anything from the room above, so I walked to the bottom of the stairs and looked up. The griffin was running past the top of the stairs and my movement attracted its attention. There was a coat rack full of coats at the bottom of the stairs, and I jumped into them right as the griffin rushed back to the top of the stairs. It squeezed down the stairs but couldn’t fit through the door. Never once did it even acknowledge me hiding in the coats. It could not smell well.

I ran to one of the corners in the basement, far from the door we had come down, and stopped below a crack. I climbed on some boxes and pushed one of the floorboards up. It broke. Some people cowering in the room above saw me and came down into the basement with my help. Others to follow. After the last person, I jumped from the box and ran. I felt the now familiar thud. I turned to see the griffin pounce through three wall frames and snap someone in half. My crack in the ceiling was now a gaping hole.

I ran, and ran, and ran; the griffin was careening out of control behind me. Its huge outline could be seen attacking boxes and anything else that attracted its attention. I ducked behind an object, stopped to catch my breath, and tied my shoes. Someone hunched over next to me in the darkness. It was one of my friends. We patted each other on the back, afraid to talk, but we did let out a little laugh. A piercing screech came from behind us and a talon scraped around the object we were against, catching my friend in the chest. I panicked and ran. The griffin jumped through the ceiling. The clatter of broken boards falling to the ground echoed behind me.

In the sudden light from the griffin’s hole I found a semi with a giant parade float on the flatbed. Someone was already starting the rig so I jumped onto the float trailer as he took off. The truck flew through a garage door and we were bathed in sunlight.

Two others were on the float, which was a giant bed with posts at each corner with a thin canopy. It had many decorative pillows strewn about it and small flags were attached to the top of each post.



- 3 -

We were on a two-lane road in the middle of nowhere doing about eighty. Behind us rose the mountain and mansion. In front and all around were small rolling hills. No fences, no trees— just luscious green grass, the sun, and no sign of pursuit.

I was standing on the head board when the roaring sound or wings caught my attention. I looked behind me as a gigantic green dragon flew over the semi. Its yellow head pointed down, looking at us as it cruised over the float. I quickly hid under the pillows and urged the others to do the same, but they said that there was no reason. The dragon had passed us by. I snuggled deeper into my pillow nest with a growing sense of anticipation. The dragon suddenly flipped back at the rig. It smashed head-on into the bed, crushing it and killing the two boys on the float. The dragon roared back into flight, blood dripping from its mouth. It circled the semi. I lay under the pillows in pain from the impact.

For hours the dragon circled, occasionally diving against the truck, almost knocking it from the road. I stayed hidden under the pillows waiting to die. The dragon became more aggressive. I mustered my strength and dove off the float and into a ditch. The dragon kept its attack on the truck.

Later: my family was in our family room watching TV. I was on the couch, tired and sore. The News was reporting on an accident where a semi had somehow been tipped over in a river with the roof ripped off. The entire steering column and driver’s seat were missing. The driver had still not been found. A shadow passed in front of the side windows. I looked nervously at my sisters. Suddenly Lulu, our green and yellow parakeet, flew in through the spa room and landed in his cage.

Mom yelled, “Quick, he’s in! Shut the cage door. Make sure you never let him out again.” Looking at Janean and Kristin she added, “and you had better obey this time!”

Blue Boys

Dream Info: Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Realism Intensity: 4 (out of 10)
Content: PG

I sat watching the sunrise over the towering desert mountains. My tent flaps slapped in the brisk wind. It was a beautiful morning.

As the others crawled out of their tents I reflected on our trip. This was the fifth day we had been on the planet. We had been dropped off near a large city to the east. There were tall, empty skyscrapers battered by years of neglect. One had a jagged hole in its middle looking as though something long ago had struck it.

Our scans had shown no sentient life. Whoever had built these cities had vanished long ago. The cities had sat silent for centuries.

Our small group of five had spent several days exploring the city. We took pictures, samples, and the frequent holographic video. We had then moved west into the dry wilderness gathering general flora and fauna until we circled back to the city for pick up.

I yawned and got up. We broke camp and hiked into a mountain valley. There were ruined wood buildings throughout the basin; these buildings were relatively new and mostly still standing. I led the group up the side of the basin to a series of extensive tunnels and rooms carved into the solid rock. There was no electricity; but bulbs were still intact in the sockets.

Exiting the tunnels I came face to face with a small child. I gasped. It wasn’t a child at all. It was small, like a five year old. Its head was a little too large, like a new infant’s, but its body was well developed; strong muscles, and definitely female. It jumped incredibly fast from me. Upon its face was the most curious look; not of fear, but of embarrassment.

With a bit of work, I convinced the girl we were friendly. By the afternoon she was walking among us. She was quite playful, very much like a small child. Yet a sense of cautious understanding, wisdom perhaps, never left her demeanor.

By nightfall she left. The next two days, as we headed back to the city, we never saw her.

On the eve or our departure we made camp at our pick up spot, on a hill near the heart of the city. As the sun set, our inquisitive friend appeared again. We cooked dinner and shared it with her. She loved it. A sudden bolt of realization hit me as she jabbered away. I had recognized a few words. No, that wasn’t possible. But, wait, yes, I recognized another. I looked up and told the group that she was speaking a mutated version of Latin. That made no sense. We were on a new planet, discovered a few years ago, and yet somehow the native dialect was Latin, a language dead hundreds of years on earth.

- 2 -

Excitedly I hugged the girl, and started speaking slowly in Italian. I was stunned at how quickly a sudden look of realization crossed her face. She too recognized a few of my words. We would be able to communicate given enough time. She excitedly hugged me back.

Several people grabbed note books. Two of us sat with the girl and spoke; he in Spanish, me in Italian. The rest took notes. We were filled with energy.

Shortly into our session, a low hum came to my attention. I looked up at the skyscrapers. There were lights on in the tallest tower. My jaw dropped. More lights moved around the jagged hole: dull red triangles moving towards the center. The sequence repeated over and over.

Our girlfriend jumped up and started jabbering anxiously. I distractedly listened as we rushed about setting up cameras, filming and taking pictures.

One word of Latin penetrated my excitement. My mind grasped it, thrust it into my consciousness. She had said: Danger. I turned but our girlfriend was already gone.

“Whoa, hold up guys. Where did she go?”

No one knew.

Someone pointed excitedly. I looked. There was a dark shape moving into the hole to dock. I could only see its outline. It was an air or space craft of some sort. A sinking sensation gripped my stomach.

“I think we need to hide,” I said.

“What, why?” came the response.

I turned to face my friends and explain as several small natives jump into the middle of our group. They shouted what was obviously a warning and aimed at us what could only be weapons. They were covered head to foot in a suit glowing dull blue. I could make out no facial features.

We all stood stunned for a second, then one of my group dove for his tent. A blue boy sprung nimbly to him and shocked him with the weapon. He convulsed and collapsed on the ground. They were all shouting at us and gesturing. I numbly knelt down and put my hands on my head.

- 3 -

They too were speaking Latin.

High in that tall skyscraper were a series of cells. We walked down a black metal hallway. One by one they separated us into the holding cells; their doors whooshed shut. They were clear, like glass. I was the last. Given a shove, I tripped into the cell. My door shut.

I looked around. There were large windows looking out over the city. I was thankful to at least have a view. There was a large TV blaring noise; a large recliner, a little refrigerator, and two beds.

I stood up and was greeted by a friendly wave from a native in the recliner watching TV. I cautiously backed over to my bed.


Over the next day we got a rough form of communication going. My cellmate had been imprisoned for several months. Oh, and there were these odd red sensors on the ground that I learned the hard way not to cross. He had his half of the room I had mine. I crossed over to talk to him one morning and was met by the prompt appearance of two blue boys who shouted and then shocked me. I awoke hours later in incredible pain.

Hovering In Egypt

Dream Info: Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Realism Intensity: 4 (out of 10)
Content: G

I stood in a deep courtyard, the building’s walls towering above me. The sun bounced down and the floor was brightly lit. There was a small ornate pond in one corner and some palm trees. Several lounges were out, but currently vacant. I was alone in the courtyard except for one man. In the warmth of midday, in the quiet of the courtyard, he stood with back to me. He spread his arms and slowly fell backwards. I flinched as he smacked the ground. Only, he didn’t hit. There was no noise, no impact. He suddenly stopped falling inches above the ground. I gasped, realizing he was floating. He leaned up, as if reclining on one of the lounges now, and moved his arms. He spun to face me.

“I did not know you were present,” the man stated in a thick Arabic accent.

We introduced ourselves. Through a brief conversation, we became friends. He said he would quickly teach me the art of hovering, a long and closely guarded Egyptian secret. It would aide me in my travel around the world. But I must teach no one.

I learned. It was quite easy. Hovering depending completely upon your faith: doubt not, fear not. Just let yourself float. After the man had left, I climbed upon a small tool shed roofed with red tiles, in a cornet of the courtyard. I figured I’d leap on into my practicing. I ran and jumped off the shed. I panicked momentarily, then remembered all it took was faith. No special muscles, no years of practice, just simple, true belief that you would hover. I leaned back and hit the ground. I was hovering, but my lapse of faith had left me with too little time to focus and stop my fall. My tailbone hurt, but sure enough, I was four inches above the ground gently spinning.

I grabbed my backpack and ran out the door of the hostel. I jumped down the stairs, leaned back, and never hit the ground. I just slipped forward, several inches above the ground, and shot off towards the train station.

As I toured Egypt I learned the art of controlling speed with hand and arm positions. I zipped through crowds, floated lazily through museums, and my legs never got tired. My abs were another story. Keeping my torso up, in a sitting or reclining position was an incredible work out, especially with my heavy backpack on.

No one asked any questions. No one even seemed to notice that I was moving along, sitting down, without walking. And slowly I started noticing more and more people like me: hovering through the crowds with head at waist level. Gradually I learned to hover higher and higher. When focusing, and not too physically tired, I could hover a foot and a half above the ground.

Several times, while in a museum, or along a road, I had my backpack stolen. I would be zipping along one moment with forty pounds on my back, and the next it would be gone. I went out and bought a new, cheap, backpack, but after this happened two more times I was out of money. I was also very frustrated. A cute, young, tour guide noted my sudden plight the third time I lost my bag in some pharaoh’s tomb and pulled me aside. She said that by hovering certain types of thieves would target me. Hovering opened me to a new realm: a realm that few openly discussed and fewer honestly believed. These thieves had powers to, say, remove objects from my back, without even being present. I gathered she was hinting at magic of sorts and though I felt uncomfortable with the notion, was I not the one that was touring Egypt by hovering on my rear?

She continued: Not far from where we were there was another tomb. It was closed to the public. In its deepest tunnel there was an old door. I needed to go through that door.

I did so. As I hovered down the narrow, dank tunnel, a light appeared in the distance ahead of me. It grew brighter and I sped forward. Suddenly the tunnel widened. Other tunnels merged with mine. I was no longer alone; several other people hovered along my tunnel. And ahead, carved out of the stone was a vast series of pillars and arches. Behind them, a vast sand field in the sunlight. But I was far underground…

People hovered all around the field. As I exited the cliff face, blinded by the strange sun, I saw hundreds of them. Beautiful buildings stabbed into the impossible blue sky. And there was the keenest sensation in the air. I knew that I was no longer in Egypt anymore.

Then I woke up.

Rotten Teeth

Dream Info: Monday, January 28, 2008
Realism Intensity: 5 (out 0f 10)
Content: PG

I was in high school. I had not graduated yet. The clock on the wall ticked loudly as my teacher droned on about this or that. Looking around the classroom, most of the other students appeared to be in comatose.

And then I feel it. Out of nowhere, a dull sensation of my tooth moving, felt through my tongue. I come full awake. I move my tongue carefully. My tooth is fine, but a piece has come off and is sliding under my tongue. I maneuver it up, out, and into my hand. It is a large piece from one of my molars. I look around embarrassed, but no one has noticed. I put the piece in my pocket and resolve to set an appointment with my dentist as soon as possible. There is nothing I could do now, and I was in no pain.

Class drags on. I start to drift to sleep. My mouth relaxes. I lazily run my tongue along the bottom row of my teeth. I feel the indentation where my tooth had chipped. On the other side of my mouth I feel another gap. This was new. I open my eyes and straighten up in my chair. I check again. Yes, there is another part of my molars missing. I can feel the piece to the side of my tongue. I look around trying to figure out if I am awake. I sure feel awake. I get the piece of tooth on my tongue and spit it out into my hand. It is smaller than the other chip. I slide it into my pocket, and resolve to call my dentist as soon as I get home that afternoon. I’d better try for an appointment first thing tomorrow. I would miss class, but my first class was gym and didn’t really matter.

I slump down in my chair and start to worry. Why did two of my teeth just chip? That was weird. How much was this going to cost to fix?

I suddenly feel something on my tongue. I push it up against my gums and feel something hard. It had to be another part of my teeth. I spit it out and sure enough it is. In the process of spitting it out I feel a sharp pain in one of my front teeth. I put a finger in my mouth and discover that the tooth is wobbling. It had cracked completely in half. I pull my finger out and close my mouth. Pain starts in other places. I feel things on my tongue. I run my tongue along the back of my teeth. They feel jagged and wrong.

My mouth is now full of pieces. I bend over and spit them into my hand which I empty onto my desk. Then I feel around my mouth with a finger. There are many gaps and cracks; as I run my finger along, pieces crumble off what is left of my teeth. It hurts and there is a taste of blood. My finger is red when I pull it out. I look around nervously. Many in the class are now staring at me. I feel very embarrassed and blush.

Jumping up, I put all my pieces in my pocket and run into the hall having resolved to see my dentist immediately. I no longer believe this can wait. Several rooms down, I stop and wave to Dave Marcum. He looks annoyed but comes out to see what I want. I explain very briefly and smile for him. He agrees to take me to the dentist immediately.

We run out to his car. I put on my seat belt and then spit out some more chips of teeth. What was left was still crumbling in my mouth. I flip down the sun visor and open my mouth as I angle the little mirror on its back. I can see the jags that were left of my teeth, and the many gaping holes where some had completely decayed leaving my jaw visible through the gums. There isn’t too much blood. And, for how bad it looked, it really didn’t hurt as much as one would expect.

Dave drives to the dentist. But this is where I wake up.