I had another bad dream!!  Argh!!  I have to stop trying to sleep at night… nighttime is SCARY.  Maybe you don’t want to read this but I’m going to write it down anyway so I’ll remember tomorrow.  So… it’s a variation of the same dream I have a lot, where I’m running around unfamiliar neighborhoods trying to find my house, or any house where it’s okay for me to stay awhile.  (This tells you something about my basic psychology, eh?)

In the first scene I remember from this dream, me and John were laying in bed in a newly rented apartment.  In my dream I understood that we had just bought a house, but the house wasn’t ready so we’d rented this temporary place to stay.  It was all half-constructed and messy, with boxes and lumber piled everywhere.  John was trying to sleep, and I realized I couldn’t sleep so I needed to get up.  It was awfully hard getting up though, as it always is for me in a dream.  But I did, and for some reason I had to run outside.  I was going to get something… maybe go to the store, I don’t know.  But as I’m walking down the street (which was half-dark… evening time) I realize I only have on my sleep-shorts and a little shirt.  Nothing you should be walking around outside in.  So I turn around and head back towards the house, which is on a big incline.  I see a couple of kids coming, and they’re up to no good.  They look at my clothing and the way I’m walking, and it’s immediately apparent they’re going to try to attack me somehow.  The problem is that I’m in that half-asleep drugged-out state, and can’t really move myself properly.  But the kids are fast, they’re going to catch up to me, no problem.  I start walking up the yard towards the stairs of my house, and the kids are darting around in the bushes running towards me.  CUT…

In the next scene that I remember, I find myself in a darkened house, but it’s the wrong house.  It’s a rich person’s house with lovely thick white carpeting and a huuuuge circular staircase with a chrome handrail.  In the darkness I realize I’m not alone, that someone has followed me into the house.  I turn around and see that it’s Steve McQueen.  (!?) I tell him we have to be quiet.  Let’s go find a room to hide in!!  So I head up the stairs.  At the top there’s a long dark hallway with doors all around.  I get the sense that the owners of the house are in the far bedroom, so I don’t go that far.  I then turn around to see if Steve McQueen is following me, and I realize the person following me isn’t SM at all, but rather my ex-husband from New York, and he’s chasing me.  Slowly.  He’s coming towards me in the dark with his arms out zombie-style, and he’s stomping and growling like a bear.  I get simultaneously scared and pissed — scared because I know I’m in danger with this fucker approaching me, and pissed because he’s making so much noise he’s going to wake up the homeowners.  Ex-hubby then turns back into Steve McQueen, turns around and heads back down the stairs.  Suddenly I’m scared because I’m alone in there, and I don’t want Steve to leave me there.  I run after him down the stairs, saying "Steeeve!!  Wait up!!!  Wait for me!!!!" CUT…

In the next scene, I’m finally in a place that’s warm and welcoming and okay.  It’s my old friend Robbie’s house in Austin.  I’m sitting on the couch in the den and there’s a few other people around, and Rob’s there holding court like always.  He’s not mad at me for not keeping in touch with him, he’s just smiling and relaxed like in the good ol’ days.  Okay, so he has to go upstairs to show something to somebody.  He leads the person up the stairs and I watch him go up.  Then I get to thinking, as I was sitting there on the couch in my dream.  I’m thinking… "Wait a minute.  Robbie died last year didn’t he?" (He really did.) "So… the whole thing was a big trick he played on me.  He didn’t really die at all, he just pretended — it was all a big joke on me.  Isn’t that amazing, and sooo typical of him?!?" And then I got to thinking some more, and I realized… NO.  It’s impossible.  He would have had to get all these other friends involved if he were going to fake his death! Bill, and Steve W., and Mary Jane, and Sandy, the freakin’ newspaper reporters, and all these other people — all of them couldn’t possibly have conspired to play a trick on me.  So at that moment, in my dream, I realized that Rob really was dead.  And the whole house got quiet and empty, and I realized Robbie wasn’t going to be coming back downstairs.  I had been talking to a ghost all along.  :-(

I didn’t get scared knowing he was a ghost, it just made me very sad.  I woke up crying a little, and John woke up too so I told him about the dream.  He held me close, petted my head and said it was okay, etc. etc. until I calmed down.  Then we got up and spent awhile washing the dishes and talking, and he went back to bed.  But I’m crying a little again now, thinking about the Robbie thing.  I really do miss that fucker.  Even though it’s been about a year since he died, it still seems like such an impossibility.  Even though I hardly ever saw him in the last 10 years, I still can’t imagine him not being there, and sometimes it hits me like a punch in the chest when I remember he’s really gone!!!!  But it’s cool that he was so happy at home in my dream.  That’s the way I want to remember him anyhow.

Oh… I wish I could have nice normal dreams.  Wish I could figure out how to control them so I won’t end up in these scary situations where I’m being chased, and can never find my way back home.  Believe me, I’ve tried…!! I’ve read books about this, but the methods never work for me.  The only thing that really helps is the hmm-hmmm.  You know, the greenery. I never have these nightmares if there’s any of that around. But I haven’t had any lately, so… this is the result, bad dreams every night.  :-(