hic vigilans somniat
We’re living in an apartment complex, a bit run down and seedy. But this is all we can afford. In the apartment across the way, a young couple live with their two small children. The woman is slight, dark haired and sickly. Her husband is darker, brows constantly knotted with rage. His mentally-challenged brother lives with them. It is a sad… Continue reading the apartment across the way
It’s night and we’re driving, my friend David and me. I’ve known him a long time. Since we were in sixth grade, I think. We’ve stayed in touch that whole time, mostly. Well, we fall out of touch and then back into touch. We haven’t seen each other in years — almost twenty, I think . . . though I’m not… Continue reading david and mickey
...the spider struggles against the pull of the water as the tub drains, a thin filament of almost wire-like web cast out like a dark line . . . it clenches like a fist in the water, and I feel the tug of the web and pull my hand away, leaving it to it’s fate...
Changing the sheet on my daughter’s crib tonight, strange flashes of faces in her room — white and black, bold stripes and contrast, large teeth and bulging eyes framed by wild hair . . . almost like the stark, menacing glee of Japanese oni masks. These flashes, somewhere between a mental image and a visualization — not quite registered by the… Continue reading masks and shadows
...and I have no breath to scream as my daughter falls twenty feet to the hard concrete floor, a gasp pressing out of my as I run to pick up her tiny, limp body. “Oh god, her eyes...” I turn away hiding her face from my wife so she cannot see how our daughter’s right eye has become detached and is floating… Continue reading the floating eye
... a brief visual flash this morning, something white and glossy scuttling across the floor towards me . . . about as wide as the coffee table, slightly taller, ducking its head to pass beneath it . . . insectile . . . vague impression of shiny black eyes, stripes along the legs and torso . . . attention and… Continue reading robotic
...I find myself in the front row, enduring an abysmal production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” directed by my ex-wife. It’s godawful. Pretentious and ponderous. They’ve changed the language, modernized all the poetry out of it. And, insult to injury, they’ve added songs, turning it into a musical. Only Puck holds any interest. Dark and twisted, a spiky clenched fist… Continue reading opening night
I would be delighted if my ex-wife didn’t show up in my dreams, however briefly, ever again.
Pushing through the soft fuzz of the baby monitor, my daughter’s cries jolts me awake: “Daddy, daddy, daddy...” I’m up and across the hall before I have a chance to clear the mist from my head. Standing over her crib, I pat her back and tell her it’s okay. Once she settles down I head back to bed. I make the… Continue reading early morning
...and as I turn to put a glass in the cupboard I startle and flinch backwards from the dark figure standing right at my left shoulder. Vague impressions . . . someone looking into my face . . . a male presence about my height but larger, heavy-set almost . . . broad head, the bare suggestion of something there… Continue reading doing the dishes
Woke early this morning with a handful of broken fragments from last night’s dreams, losing little shards as the day progresses, memories and images slipping through my fingers and lost for good. Here’s what’s left... ...a heartfelt farewell from one of my clients, almost paternal in how touching his words are... ...my wife and I stop off at a local bar set… Continue reading lounge act
...there are three children playing at the curb, jumping in and out of a deep puddle of mud and dirt. The oldest of these, perhaps eight years old, stops in the midst of bossing the other two around and turns as he notices me... ...and a man’s voice tells me “Look to the world around you...” as I wake up,… Continue reading Sunday nap
...we sit together in the small living room, balancing plates on our knees and doing our best to keep up the conversation despite the fact that there are some genuinely difficult conflicts unresolved between a few of us. And the fact that some of us are dead. It’s a surprise to see them, my grandparents. Odder still is the appearance of… Continue reading brief reunion
After dinner, my wife runs to the store. My daughter and I play in my office. The whole time, my skin is crawling. I have a sense that someone — or multiple someones — is passing through my office, moving past us unseen. The sensation is uncanny, disquieting. My daughter seems not to notice. When my wife returns, I make… Continue reading footsteps and flashes
...a long bodied cat, muscular and lean, stalks through the room — insane eyes, gaping mouth drooling as it swivels its head from side to side . . . its long gray fur matted and ragged, trailing after it in the air... ...I turn and see the electrical plug floating in the air before my face, the cord dangling. With a… Continue reading fragments
Mind wandering around as I waited for sleep to come, dozy logic moving from Macon Leary to Edward Gorey to Ernest Hemmingway . . . then, the image of a local highway, the flashing lights of police cars against the pale winter sky.
I find myself on a tour of a city somewhere in Eastern Europe. It is a dank, darkly industrial place — all smokestacks and ornate spires, brick walls stained with soot. Tagging along with a friend from junior high — he has made this trip many times before — I wander through the streets and shops, taking pictures as I go...… Continue reading eastern promises
About a month ago I noticed that whenever I walked into the kitchen of our house I could smell honeysuckle. This went on for a number of days before I mentioned it to my wife. She couldn’t smell anything. Even more strange, this only happened when I walked through a particular doorway. Coming in from another entrance, there was nothing. It’s… Continue reading honeysuckle
...I find that I have overslept and am in a rush to get a stack of deposits to the University’s bank by noon, otherwise all of the faculty and staff paychecks will bounce. The deposit is a stack of checks and slips totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. There are pink and yellow carbon copies, very slippery to keep in… Continue reading payroll
...and I’m surprised to find out that not only are each of us getting our own office in the new building, but we’ll have an attached bedroom as well. A few of my coworkers even have bunkbeds. The gossip around the office is that this is to allow for a more Mad Men like atmosphere. “Aren’t we way too busy… Continue reading the new office
Dozing on the couch while the baby has her bath, I dream… …and at the turn of the stairs I look up to see a shadow slowly slide down the wall and onto the floor, like a black puddle of oil. From this pool, a figure slowly rises — an almost cartoonlike shape of a man, pale eyes like saucers peering out… Continue reading the shadow on the stairs
Somehow, I have become two people. There is the adult version of me, as I am now. And there is the teenaged version of me. Together, we are plotting to rescue my youngest daughter from her daycare. The details of why she needs rescuing aren’t explained but, armed to the teeth and sick with worry, we make our plans. (Even in my… Continue reading daycare rescue
Another entry from one of my old journals, this time from 1996. It begins simply enough... I’m standing in front of a shelf full of journals and books in the dead man’s rooms. You can read the rest here.
And, again, there was music playing when I laid down to take a nap earlier today. Faintly . . . as though someone was listening to a radio in another part of the house. But, of course, no one was.
And, again, there was music playing when I laid down to take a nap earlier today. Faintly . . . as though someone was listening to a radio in another part of the house. But, of course, no one was.
We’re all a little worried about Patton Oswalt. Having known him since we were kids, it’s obvious he isn’t himself lately. He’s depressed, lethargic, and we’re all little bit worried. But he’s a celebrity. It’s not like we can just check him into a hospital. So my wife and I and a few other friends go on Patton watch. I… Continue reading a friend in need
I’m starting the process of transcribing dreams from my old journals. It’s interesting, to say the least. Leafing through those old notebooks, doing my best not to get drawn back into the past while I sift through these old pages for little scraps of dream. The first of these was just posted below. I’ll post more and more of these echoes… Continue reading echo | mother, father, cat
This is the first dream I can remember — obviously, it’s not the first dream I ever had. That’s long gone now. But this is the earliest one I can remember... ...we’re driving in the car, my two brothers and me. Out mother is behind the wheel. We’re on our way to the grocery store. My older brother Scott sits… Continue reading the fuzzy pink octopus spider monster
...for some unknown reason, our family has been relocated to what can only be charitably described as “the bad part of of town.” The neighborhood is a congregation of cheap, prefab homes and trailers jumbled together with only the thinnest of spaces between them. The houses stand (barely) on two hillsides with the street running between them. Each house is a… Continue reading just another white trash weekend
The voices again tonight. No music this time, no men. One or two women, I can’t quite be sure. Possibly a child. I told my wife about the voices a few days ago. She could tell tonight that I was hearing them again. And, of course, she cannot. We keep a fan going at night, even in cold weather. White noise. She suggested… Continue reading again
Two or three times now, I have found myself unable to sleep because of the voices. It sounds for all the world like two men having an argument somewhere in the house. Sometimes there are women’s voices mixed in. Sometimes there are children. I can almost just make out what they’re saying. Almost. Sometimes there’s music as well, faintly. But… Continue reading raised voices
...disturbing discoveries in the new house continue as we settle in. (I should mention that this is not our actual house, not the new house we moved into earlier this year, but some alternate, dreamspace version that has that same-but-not-the-same quality which you only find in dreams.) There is the painting in the upstairs bedroom, for instance. At first glance,… Continue reading the dancing toy
...shocked at how seedy the old neighborhood looks, I feel a pang of survivor’s guilt over my own relatively comfortable life now. Through the open door of the apartment, I can see that our old neighbors are sitting down to dinner. I’m stunned for a moment to find that the little boy my son used to play with is now a… Continue reading an uncomfortable visit
...passing through one of the seedier parts of town, I stop off to visit with an old friend from college. I’m surprised to find him here, in such strained circumstances. We sit out on his little patch of front yard and chat for a bit, but it quickly grows tiresome. He’s consumed by self-involved bitterness about the past and where… Continue reading cages
Waking up in the winterdark, I head downstairs. Cold floors and echoes of early morning dreams. I pass by the front door and see someone out on the sidewalk, a dark shape bundled up against the cold. Halfway to the kitchen, I stop. The dark shape picking its way along the crust of snow, another echo in the back of my head.… Continue reading the pedestrian
As a child, very young, I was rushed to the hospital with the croup. As my mother tells it, I was sick and she went in to check on me when I was taking a nap . . . and I was gray. That was Christmas Eve 1970. I was 18 months old. I remember it. I remember being in the hospital… Continue reading air
...and we’re walking together, my son and my youngest daughter, on the grounds of the local university. It is late afternoon, the sun just beginning to set behind the hills. I stop for a moment to inspect a statue. My son continues on, leading his sister by the hand up the pathway. After a few minutes, I catch up with him… Continue reading statues
...gathered around the table, we trade anecdotes and witty replies . . . just a bunch of guys hanging out, who also happen to be famous — all except me, of course. I can’t believe I’m here, can’t believe that everyone just assumes I belong... ...he’s lying in the shore, dozing in the early evening breeze. The surface of the… Continue reading a jar of mud and other fragments
Slowly but surely, within the next few days...
I said to my daughter “Get behind me.” “What’s wrong?” “I’m not sure. Something weird’s going on.” “I can handle weird, dad.” I looked at her. “My kind of weird.” She got behind me. [I’m guessing at the date on this one, based on something I posted to Pinterest seven months ago. Apparently this dream involved skeletons and a doctor’s waiting room.]
[This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated May 4th, 2003] ...and as I’m walking through the parking lot towards my car, I see two guys approaching — I make eye contact, just to established that they know that I know they’re there . . . One of them nods and says “How’s it going?” And… Continue reading thugs and church
...and when I walk through the door, she’s sitting there on the couch, holding a cup of tea to her lips, one leg tucked under her, staring out the window and I stand there, watching her for a moment and she looks up and sees me, and she smiles. And I wake up.
[This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated July 10th, 2002] Yesterday morning I woke up with splinters in the palm of my hand — not sure how or from where and I couldn’t help wondering where I’d been wandering the night before.
[This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated June 19th, 2002] You wake up with blood in your ears, you wonder what it means.
[This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated November 4th, 2001] This place is full of voices. I can’t tell if what I’m hearing is from one who is here or who used to be here — but it hardly matters which. I’m hearing voices all day.
[This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated September 12th, 2001] And in my dream my three-year-old nephew [REDACTED] — plagued by depression and despair all his short little life — has finally given into his despair, twisting a length of picture hanging wire around his neck and hanging himself. I find his stiff body eyes… Continue reading nephew, demon
[This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated July 25th, 2001] Nothing good is coming... ...and because my brother is being appointed to such a prestigious position as ambassador, our whole family has been invited to come and take part in the ceremony and reception.
[This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated May 15th, 2001] ...and I am sitting there in Nate’s diner waiting for her to arrive. Finally, my time running short, I get up to leave. At the counter, the night shift waitress turns over the reign to the day shift. Nate stands, friendly and smiling wryly with… Continue reading the breakfast date
[This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated May 4th, 2000] ...and because I have been thrown out of my house, lost any connection to my wife and children, I am living in an old building adjacent to where I work — downtown, in the old industrial district, where an empty warehouse is easy to find. I… Continue reading the girl in the warehouse
[This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated September 28th, 1998] Dream of a child, born late and fully formed — with an unmistakeable look of recognition in her clear blue eyes. Another dream of a bazaar in Night City — somewhere in The Midlands, at least — and a momentary flirtation that, once over, stays with… Continue reading blue eyes