I dream weird stuff.

Last time I wrote about those moments before bed. Today I'm writing about those moments before waking. 

This totally wasn't planned.

Sunday night, I dreamed. It was one of those dreams I wake up from immediately knowing I need to do something with it, that it shouldn’t be lost to the void that is daylight, and so I worked to remember, to capture every detail as I showered, as I dressed, and then, before eating, before doing anything else at all, proceeded to throw as many of those details as I could into a note on my phone. It took about ten minutes.

What this will end up being, I couldn’t say. It may end up a story. It may also end up as only part of a story, or just inspire something else entirely. It may never become anything past that nonsensical note. But it was oddly vivid. And complex. There were names and faces I didn’t recognize, abbreviations I’d never heard, technical oddities I can’t put a name to, and sights I’m certain Freud would have a field day analyzing.

Like, what does a grimy bathroom with two doors that won’t lock, no sink, a toilet that won’t flush, and small creatures swimming in the water mean? I clearly remember pinning one foot to the left and one to the right to ensure my privacy, but why no sink? Not that the room wasn’t meant to have one—it clearly did. The wall was marked where it was. It had been removed. Fascinating to remember.

There’s far more to the dream, obviously. Scores and post-its and trains and flying creatures and brainwashing and virtual reality or afterlife or something and another. I loved it. Yet it terrified me. I felt certain I wasn’t going to wake, that I was fighting to do so. I’m not certain that’s ever happened to me before. Though maybe it did. Maybe I only forgot it. That tends to happen with dreams, of course.

There are a number of other dreams I’ve had over the years that I remember to this day, though. One, of a woman running through a park as a group of men in black ties try to capture her, inspired what would become The Nobodies and, later, Sanity’s Flaw. Another inspired a short story from grammar school I called “Koopa School.” It was oddly similar to this.

Why do these dreams come? Do others dream like this?

I remember a conversation I had with my father a few years back, where he told me he’d been having really weird dreams of late. He couldn’t remember them all, or decidedly refused to share the details, but he didn’t understand where they were coming from. He believed he was tapping into someone else’s head, someone else’s memories, as if he had a Dish in his ear. Maybe I’m the same?

Maybe it was just the turkey burger.

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