A recent dream:

I am working on a laptop. Several windows are open, the topmost of which is a letter of resignation. Clicking on another window reveals a website for an apartment rental agency in some faraway place. Clicking on another another window reveals a listing of full- and part-time night jobs in the same faraway place. Clicking on yet another window reveals the online registration page for a university nestled in the hills of the same faraway place.

An attendant pulls my motorcycle around. I hop on it and tell Obama to text me the details later. I rev up the bike, jump it up on the hundred-foot long dining table, and speed towards the floor-to-ceiling window at the far end. Some of the guests scream, some fall backwards in their chairs, some are stunned with awe. Fine china and crystal fly everywhere. I blast through the glass unscathed, off to my next assignment.

A recent dream:

It is night. I am in a basement. Two men and a woman are seated at a nearby table and seem to be making a plan of some sort. I approach the table and recognize them: it’s Donna Hayward, James Hurley, and FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper. I’m in an episode of Twin Peaks.

Recalling all the horrific things that happen to various people in the show and Lynch’s penchant for the occasional bit of random violence, I try to figure out when I am in the series. Based on the discussion Coop, Donna and James are having, it seems early in the first season. That means there’s still time to avoid being jailed, getting drawn into a love triangle or paternity battle, having my hair turn white overnight, being drugged with heroin, being imprisoned in a Canadian brothel, hanging myself in my shut-in trailer, getting shot, getting my eye shot out on my honeymoon, losing the last twenty years of my memory, disappearing into thin air, getting an arm cut off, dying of fright, watching the love of my life die of fright, having my soul trapped in a dresser drawer knob, having my soul trapped in a log, being burned alive in a sawmill, being blown up by my archrival who faked his own death, having my head smashed into a picture frame, having my head smashed into the door of a jail cell, having my head smashed onto the corner of a coffee table, being shot with a crossbow while dressed as a giant papier-mâché chess piece, being rendered invalid/tortured by a criminal mastermind/left to die under a cage of poisonous spiders, and being abducted by demons or aliens or whatever.

As they get up to leave, I pull Cooper aside– he’s willing to believe in the supernatural, the irrational, the magical– if anyone will listen to me, it’s him. I ask him if he ever watches TV, and when he does, if he ever imagines how he’d react to situations in the show. Would he act differently than the characters did, knowing how the show turns out? He says he does and would.

I say, what if I told you that that is happening to me right now– that all this is a TV show and I’ve seen it. What if I told you that I know who the killer is, and I can stop all kinds of horrors from happening?

He looks at me quizzically and turns away to take his trench coat off a coatrack.

And then I hit him with the clincher: what if I told you that Windom Earle is coming to town and I know exactly what he’s going to do? How would you react?

Cooper turns back to me. His eyes are glazed completely white.

My jaw drops.

He smiles and says, “Good question.”

He walks up the stairs. James and Donna follow him up. I follow them. Cooper and James walk through the door at the top of the stairs, but I grab Donna and hold her back for a second. I can’t tell in the poor lighting whether her eyes are white.

I ask Donna if she noticed anything strange about Coop. She says no. I ask her if he notices anything strange about me. She asks me what I mean. I ask her if my eyes are white.

She leans in. She looks into my eyes for what seems like forever. She pulls back and says it’s too dark to tell. She turns and walks through the door.

Last night’s dream:

I am sitting in the audience of a comedy club, something I have never done in real life. It is the last night of a three-night amateur competition. They announce that a particular contestant has dropped out of the competition. The competition must’ve somehow been points-based, because they then announce that it is now mathematically impossible for me to lose.

I am surprised because I’d thunk that the competition was only two nights and that the third night was for awards. I am pleased that this other person forfeited because it meant I won. I am relieved because I hadn’t prepared a routine for tonight. I wait to be called up to the stage to receive the trophy, or medal, or cash, or whatever the prize is.

Then they announce that I’m going to come up and perform anyways.

Smiling, I panic. Can I develop a five-minute routine in the next few seconds? If I wait for the applause to finish before walking up to the stage, that’ll give me twenty to thirty seconds to think of something. If I really stretch out the walk up to the stage, I might be able to give myself another thirty seconds.

The only idea that pops into my head is a lecture about developmental psychology and sarcasm. I’ll talk about the simple, straightforward humor that very young children can appreciate, and then how kids begin to appreciate and use sarcasm, and then how they can discern appropriate times for its use. It’d be more academic than stand-up, but at least it’d be about humor.

Fortunately for me, someone who has badly– badly– overestimated her own comedic talent rises from the audience, grabs the microphone from the host and starts telling lame jokes about cooking and in-laws. The host is too polite to shut her down, and lets her enjoy telling her jokes as people barely laugh. This buys me more time, but I can’t think of anything funny or even mildly amusing to say.

The host finally gets her to give up the microphone, and the audience politely and very graciously applauds. I take a few more steps towards the stage, but then another person gets up and starts telling bad jokes. This buys me more time.

The cycle repeats. Applause and bad comedians keep interrupting the host and delaying my arrival on-stage, which is good, but I can’t think of an actual routine, which is bad. With a little luck, this’ll morph into a not-even-good-enough-to-be-an-amateur’s night, and I won’t have to say a thing aside from “Thank you.” I lean against a wall and watch them enjoy themselves.

A dream from this afternoon’s kinetic napping action:

It is nighttime. I pull into the driveway of my grandmother’s old house. The garage door is open and the overhead light is on. The water heater is out of place; it’s right in the middle of the garage. I get out of the car and have a look at the heater. The pipes have been detached and the thermostat has been removed and sits on top. I examine the thermostat and begin to rewire it. Hopefully Gram won’t come out to the garage because it’s late at night and I don’t want to spook her.

The door to the house creaks open. I loudly announce that it’s me and that I’m working on the heater. She looks the same as the last time we spoke: houseclothes, broken nose, a shock of white hair, fragile and pale and tired. How she doesn’t look is surprised; at her age she probably can’t be surprised anymore. She says that when I’m finished I should come inside for dinner.

I set down the thermostat, close the garage door and slide the lock into place. I walk through the darkened house to the guest bathroom, take a tiny Dixie cup from the dispenser, and flip on the faucet. Three times I fill the cup with water and drink, then turn the faucet off and trash the cup. I leave the bathroom.

All of the lights are on. A lot of family is in the den; parents, siblings, aunts, cousins. How they snuck in is beyond me. But there they are, chatting and eating brand-name pizza that’s been delivered (we need an html tag for “revulsion”), which means something is amiss.

Gram emerges from the kitchen. She looks like a CEO. She’s wearing a pantsuit, her hair is dark reddish, short, and professional. She is smiling and vibrant and this centenarian looks like she has another 30 or 40 years in her.

I’m stunned at the transformation, but everyone else acts like this is the normal Gram. I suddenly feel out of place but certainly glad to be here. I approach her, wondering if I’m supposed to find this version of Gram familiar. She acts as if there’s nothing strange at all about the evening. She gives me a bear hug and asks how I’ve been. When she speaks her voice is crisp and strong and confident as ever. She shrugs off the delivered pizza, she shrugs off the incident in the garage, everything is wonderful.

After a few minutes of discussing the last few years, she says Grampa’s in the bedroom if I want to go see him. This throws me even further off guard. Of course, I say, and charge into the master bedroom.

Grampa lies in the yellow-framed bed, which has been moved next to the sliding glass doors. He looks painfully gaunt, even underneath two heavy knit blankets, and has several days’ worth of stubble. He is as he looked in the last few days of his life, but he is far more alert. He speaks to me but I am at a loss for words and can’t say much back.

I take out my cell phone and try to take a picture of him with the camera. It doesn’t work. I fumble around with it, trying to figure out what’s wrong. Someone walks in and says, “That’s not going to work.”

Me: “What’s not going to work?”

Someone: “It won’t be there when you wake up.”

It is a dream, and I’ll awaken soon, but damned if I’m not gonna get his picture anyways. I frantically punch the camera button on the phone. The app finally opens. I aim and click the shutter release over and over again, but the shutter won’t snap.

…

I woke up and, knowing exactly how silly it seemed, dutifully checked my phone.

A not-too-recent dream:

It is late in the movie. I am dying of something that was presumably revealed earlier.

As I fly away, music rises in the background. The music reminds me a little bit of “Tempted” by the Squeeze, but more upbeat, with more triumphant lyrics, and with more horns. The credits roll. Rough sketches of the movie’s cartoon characters appear in the margins alongside the autographs and self-portraits of the artists.

…

I typed this up in the last half-hour when I realized I hadn’t posted anything in almost a week, which would violate 2010 Resolution #5. In response to near-total brainlock and writer’s block, I dug through some old files and found my notes about this particular Roger Rabbit-ish dream from nearly three years ago. I’d almost forgotten about it, and would probably have been able to include more detail if I’d written about it in a more timely fashion. I still have no idea what could possibly have happened earlier in the dream/movie.

Today is the fifth anniversary of my very first journal entry. When I first started blogging, I dreamt of being that daring, edgy writer whose ideas would grab a tragically dull world by its lapels, punch it in the face and knee it in the groin. I was going to change everything.

In commemoration, here’s “First Post” once again, in its entirety:

Testing. Testing. This is my first attempt at a “web log,” or “blog,” as it were. Blog blog blog. Blog blog.

Those were some gonzo times, man, before I sold out. I miss the anger.

…

Last night’s dream:

I arrive at Mole’s old house on the mountain. I ring the bell. He answers the door. He doesn’t look happy.

I ask what’s wrong.

He says, “It’s bad.”

I ask, “What’s bad?”

He says, “You have to go in.”

He leaves. I go in.

Now I see what was bad. Seated in a semicircle of chairs are “Ingrid,” “Martha,” “Selena,” “Gringita,” “The Lady,” and a few other women I can’t really see in the dim lighting. I’m not sure who they are, but I’ve picked up on the pattern.

I suspect that Mole is playing an elaborate prank on me, and look around for cameras. I see none.

I say hello. They say nothing.

I ask whether this is a joke. They say nothing.

I ask if they’ve met each other, even though it looks like they already have. They say nothing.

I ask if they’ve eaten. They say nothing.

I ask if they have any intention of saying anything. They say nothing.

It is bizarre. It’s as though the whole dream were directed by Lynch in one of his slow moods. After another series of questions and non-responses, they get up one-by-one, hand me slips of paper with their phone numbers–each of which begins with a four-digit area code–and leave.

I walk out onto the front porch and watch a convoy of cars navigate down the gravel driveway and disappear into the woods.

Mole reappears. I tell him that I’m not sure, but I think that was bad.

One of last night’s dreams:

I am at a grocery store in Virginia with The Mole and Dr. Hmnahmna, presumably getting sundries for the Great Turkey Fry. We are at the end of a short line, waiting to check out at a customer service counter because the regular checkout lines are packed. The line is moving slowly, so I run over to the spice aisle to grab some thyme.

When I come back, the line has gotten much longer. I see that Mole and Hmnahmna are off to the side, having already checked out. I’m angry at myself because now I’m at the back of the line, delaying our plans.

But Mole, Hmnahmna, and the little old lady working the cash register are smiling and waving me up front. I look at the people in line ahead of me, and they’re smiling, waving me up front, and have absolutely no problem with me skipping ahead in line.

I walk up to the front of the line and hand the thyme to the cashier. She scans it, puts it in a bag with my friends’ groceries, and hands me the receipt. Beaming, she says, “And there you go!”

I dig out my wallet and ask what the bill is.

The Cashier beams, “Don’t worry about it, dear!”

I ask if my friends have already paid for it.

She shows me the receipt, and explains that Mole is a member of the store’s loyalty club, called the “Penny Program.” With every purchase, he builds up store credit. When he chooses to do so, he can redeem one dollar’s worth of store credit by paying just a penny. He used some of the store credit and the appropriate number of pennies to pay for the thyme. She points to a few pennies on the counter.

I am duly impressed at Mole’s thriftiness. I look over the receipt, and something nags at me. A little quick math reveals that we’ve used $15 of Mole’s store credit, but only given the cashier three pennies. I point out to the Cashier that we still owe her twelve pennies.

She looks at the receipt, and beams, “Oh no, it’s fine!”

I insist that we’re still a few pennies short, and that I’d like to pay the difference.

She flatly states, “That won’t be necessary, sir.”

Mole walks over and asks what’s going on. The Cashier speaks to him tersely. Mole responds in kind. I can’t quite follow the discussion, but in less than a minute, they’re yelling at each other.

I interject: “Look, I’ll just put it back, okay?”

Mole says, “I’ve already paid for it, and I’m not gonna give them anything else!”

The Cashier threatens to call the cops, and gets on the store phone and calls the manager.

A woman, about my age with dark, wavy hair, approaches us. She is dressed like a grocery store manager, complete with name tag.

I ask, “Are you the manager?”

The Brunette says, “No.”

The Cashier says, “The police are on the way.”

A gunshot cracks in another part of the store. A scream comes from that direction, and I can hear glass breaking and items falling from the shelves onto the floor.

A deep voice booms, “POLICE!” More gunshots.

The Brunette pulls out a gun. I get the sense that the cops are here for her, and not because of the dispute over the Penny Program. She starts firing in the direction of the police. A few other store employees gather around her, draw weapons and fire at the police.

Mole, Hmnahmna and I duck down, trying to slide as far from the line of fire as possible. We try moving down an aisle towards the front of the store, but hear gunfire from that direction, too, and try to find another way out.

The shootout escalates. I look at the convex mirrors that cover the security cameras and can see that more police are flooding into the store, blazing away. Customers have started drawing weapons and firing, though I can’t tell whether it’s at the cops or at the Brunette and her forces.

More noise: guns blasting.

Bullets zipping.

Children screaming.

Glass shattering.

Shelves collapsing.

Wares crashing.

Bodies crumpling to the ground.

Mole and Hmnahmna and I are lying on the floor, ducking the fire. They glare at me as I gently place the thyme on a bottom shelf.

…

I don’t know if Dr. Hmnahmna intends to use thyme in real life, and I can’t figure out what exactly Mole and the Cashier were arguing about.

I neglected to write about this one a while back:

I am at my aunt’s house for a big family dinner. I don’t know what the occasion is; there probably isn’t one. Car by car, family members show up and march into the house for the feast.

A dark red minivan, which I don’t recognize, pulls into the driveway. Dad gets out of the driver’s seat, goes around the side, and slides the door open. He pulls out a wheelchair, sets it up. He then opens the passenger door and lifts the passenger out, putting her in the wheelchair.

It’s my grandmother. She looks pretty much like the last time I saw her awake: thin and pale, white hair, broken nose. As Dad pushes her towards the house, she seems agitated and frustrated. She’s trying to look over her shoulder at Dad and speak to him, but she can only manage to move her head a little to the side, shift and hop in her seat, and moan and murmur gibberish instead of talk.

They get her inside the house. My aunt calms her down and brings Gram to the dinner table. As the family feasts as we usually do, sitting around two tables and at a bar, people take turns hand-feeding bits and pieces of food to Gram. She is quiet, but still clearly distraught. Her eyes mist, and she silently cries.

I go over to see her–I haven’t seen her in years–and try to figure out how much she can understand. As she stares straight ahead, I stand next to her, asking her how she’s been, telling her what I’ve been up to. None of this stops the tears.

Finally, in a very fluid, calm motion, she looks over her shoulder and up at me, with a very sad look in her eyes. I tell her I wish I knew what was wrong.

I am lifted to the ceiling by something invisible and I start spinning. I yell for help. My family keeps eating. Nobody notices the guy spinning violently on the ceiling; nobody except Gram, who watches the whole thing happen with great and haunting sadness in her eyes. She can’t help me, and everyone else eats lasagna rolls and sausage-rice casserole.

…

I wake up, heart pounding.

I’m in my twin bed in my old bedroom at Dad’s house. It’s dark. My little brother is still asleep in his bed. I shake him to wake him up because I’m on the verge of having a heart attack from the dream. He wakes up, but he’s clearly still sleepy. I tell him about my dream, but he keeps tilting over like he’s about to drift back to sleep.

I reach out to keep him from flopping over onto the floor. As I do, his eyes get real wide and he starts spinning uncontrollably and involuntarily in my arms. He screams.

…

I wake up, heart pounding.

I’m in my twin bed in my old bedroom at Dad’s house. It’s dark. My little brother is still asleep in his bed. I leave him alone this time. I get up, open the door, and cross the hallway. I knock on my big sister’s door. She lets me in her room and I tell her about my dreams.

…

I woke up, calm.

I was in my current bed, calm, in my own house. It was dark. My little brother was at his house in Pennsylvania. My big sister was in her apartment. We haven’t lived together in the same house since 1993. My grandmother died in 2005.

I had a sandwich and went back to sleep.

…

Now that I write this, it occurs to me that in the initial sequence of the dream, no one spoke to me or even acknowledged me except Gram. Maybe that was Gram if she had recovered (at least partly) from her stroke, and maybe I had died somehow and she was the only one who could see or hear me. Who knows.

Last night’s dream:

A co-worker tells me she’s arranged for me to tryout for Cruz Azul, a professional soccer team based in Mexico City. This strikes me as odd for three reasons. First, I’m not a fan of Mexican soccer. Second, I’ve never been close to being good enough to play pro. And third, I’m about 60 pounds heavier than my ideal playing weight, and 10 years older than my ideal playing age. But what the heck, it’s an opportunity to get out of the country, to visit Mexico, to see some high-quality soccer and have a good time, right?

My reaction strikes me as odd, because I’d have to employ my least favorite mode of travel, flight, to get to Mexico City, and because I’m not a big fan of huge cities or anyplace outside America. But I decide to go anyways. Will I make the team? No, but it’ll be a fun time and besides, what’s the worst that can happen?

…

It’s about a month later and I’m dead. I am a ghost haunting an apartment in Charlotte, North Carolina, where four people live: three roommates in their 20s or 30s, and the young son of the oldest roommate, none of whom I knew when I was alive. All I know is that I was murdered in Mexico.

I know nothing else. I don’t know how long I’ve been dead. I don’t know who did it. I don’t know why or how I was murdered. I don’t know if my family’s been informed. I don’t know why I’m in Charlotte. I don’t even know these poor schleps I’m haunting.

Actually, “haunting” doesn’t seem to be the right word. The roommates and the son seem to be perfectly comfortable around me. They talk to me without any fear and without any sense that I’m imposing on them–I don’t eat or sleep, so their bills are the same. They go about their business and let me go about mine, which is figuring out exactly what I should do about my predicament.

I can’t tell how much time is passing, but I haven’t tried leaving the apartment yet. Nobody’s home right now; they’re at work and school. I’m trying to figure out what exactly I can do before I try going outside. I work on using computer keyboards and telephone keypads. I can’t remember e-mail addresses or telephone numbers–they’re all entered onto contact lists on the computer and speed-dials on the cell phones, so I haven’t had to remember them.

I remember only two phone numbers. The first is the landline at Dad’s house, which is the one phone he never picks up. I don’t bother calling. The second is my work number. I dial, and for one mad moment wonder if I could get my old teaching job back. Then I worry that because of the state’s class-size legislation, they might not allow me to teach because they might not be allowed to include dead teachers in figuring out the class-size ratios.

The automated system picks up and some anonymous, robotic-sounding woman tells me to dial the extension of the person I’m trying to reach. I punch in the code to check my voicemail. I hear my own recorded voice say, “Vincent Viscariello,” and wait for the robotic woman to tell me to punch in my passcode.

Instead, the robotic woman says, “Murdered.”

It means someone back home knows I’m dead. I’m stunned to hear it, even though it’s no surprise at this point. I keep the phone to my ear and listen to the hum of recorded silence. Now what?

I go to the website of my hometown newspaper to try and find an obituary. No luck–not because I can’t operate the keyboard, but because the website is so poorly designed I can’t navigate my way around it.

Then a sense of peace befalls me. I can’t be hurt–at least not by anything tangible. I can find out who did this and avenge my own death or turn them in, I can communicate with my friends and family, and I have the time to do it–

…

I’m in front of an old friend, “Karl Winter,” who asks, “Don’t you think people in your position have tried this before? Do you know anyone who has successfully plotted with the dead? Aren’t you wasting your time?” The peace is gone.

…

My hauntees come home. I ask them to give me a ride to Jacksonville. One of them is perfectly willing to do it, but then he says, “Wait, I was thinking of Tallahassee, because I have to go to Tallahassee for work anyways. I can’t fit Jacksonville in.”

I tell them that I’m a ghost, and I’ll haunt them for real if nobody gives me a ride down to Jacksonville. It’s only about six, seven hours and after that they’ll never have to see me again. Alas, they’re still more worried about missing work than they are about getting haunted.

I tell them that I will let them have every last cent in my bank accounts if they’ll give me a ride down to Jacksonville. One of them points out that my accounts have probably been frozen since my death, and that if not, it’d look pretty darn suspicious if some poor folks from Charlotte suddenly emptied my accounts.

I assure them that one way or another, they’ll get compensated for the lost time at work. After enough begging and cajoling, one of them agrees to drive me to Jacksonville. I don’t know what’s waiting for me there, no idea what I’ll do when I get then, and no idea how much time I have left before

…

I woke up.