February 22, 2013

Driving with a friend in a parking lot at a large strip mall.

The lot in front of the store we want to visit has only handicap parking: row after row of blue-lined spaces. I grow frustrated and am tempted to park in one, but decide against it thinking I'd get a ticket.

We park in the adjacent lot in front of Target. This lot is filled with rows of good for sale--reminds me of a flea market. Elderly folks are picking up linens, marveling at them.

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Driving with the husband of a friend and his three small children. He sits in the front passenger seat, a small toddler on his lap, two children to his left (both a bit bigger than the one on his lap). He wears a white T-shirt. I've never met him before.

We drive over a bridge from Philly to NJ. As we approach the town where I live, we see two teens, on opposite sides of the street, pointing guns at each other. At first, this makes no sense to me and I continue driving, but suddenly we find ourselves in the middle of a gun fight. I become terrified as bullets whiz past the car, just missing us. The man next to me tells me to back up. I do and we simply drive down a parallel street.

I'm now in the back seat. No idea who is driving, but the man is still in the front passenger seat surrounded by his children. We discuss the gun fight. I lean way over the seat so I an look at him and his children with complete seriousness, "You will raise good children, and that is how we'll have hope for the future."

February 5th, 2013

Mary Todd was cheating on her husband, Mr. Lincoln. I saw her kissing another man and I grew very worried for her safety. I thought about how Lincoln would kick her ass. And I was mad at her. Who would cheat on Lincoln?

February 1st, 2013

I am standing in a field. I walk forward and suddenly fall into a pool I hadn't seen. It's an in-ground pool with cement sides. I fall like a stone and watch the sides of the pool slip past me. 

Panic. 

Fearful I will drown, I try to stop my rapid descent, but nothing I do slows the pace.

The cement sides of the pool are now gone; replaced by earth and stone. I'm in a subterranean pool that seems to have no bottom. I try to breathe and discover I can in a limited way.

I realized I'm dreaming and try to awaken. My body shakes violently. I've had sleep paralysis in the past. I feel like an etherized patient awakening in the middle of surgery. I sense a force or presence more powerful than me holding me down, preventing me from awakening--which is typical of sleep paralysis.

~~~

In college, I fell asleep after a morning class. I opened my eyes about half an hour later, but couldn't move my body. I could only move my eyes. As I scanned the room, I could see the sun on the carpet, my desk and computer, my roommate's desk. I heard the sound of a TV with no reception--often described as "snow" (but I've never heard snow in this way, only the soft flap as it piles up on the ground). I hear sinister laughing and sense an evil presence holding me down. This experience terrified me, but I later learned about sleep paralysis and that these are typical symptoms / experiences. I also learned that such episodes are thought to be the source of reports of alien abduction. Turns out folks who think they were abducted by aliens and probed or operated upon, may have merely been suffering from this sleep disorder. I completely understand how such a mistake could be made. I certainly have never been abducted by aliens (a fact I find quite sad).