I dream a lot- every night- more than once every night. I have nightmares frequently, and sometimes they’re so bad that upon waking it feels like I never slept. Sometimes they wake me up, or me shaking and gasping for air wakes me up. One night it’s one long dream, and others it’s channel flipping experience. Sometimes it’s the same dream repeating with different middles or endings. Sometimes I have a recurring dream I originally had years ago. Often I die in my dreams. Sometimes I die more than once (probably from growing up with a ‘multiple guys’ video game concept). Often it’s violent and on purpose. There are times I know I’m dreaming. I can control the dream after realizing I’m dreaming, or I wake up. I dream I’m me, someone I know, a character, a third person disembodied watcher, and I even occasionally play more than one character in my dream (switching from time to time). I fly, lose my teeth, go to school naked, save the world, meet aliens, forget my locker combination, run away from infested humans, make love, eat brownies, turn blue, and more.

I dream, and then I spend all morning trying to forget about the bits and pieces that stick with me. Sometimes I write or type them down.

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It’s Halloween and all I want to do is go trick or treating, but my pillow case is empty and I’m going through the arcade first. On Halloween you get candy from games too, but sometimes it’s hard waiting your turn to get on some of the machines. I’m excited, and I’m here with friends laughing, moving from roped-off machine to machine. I put my bag near the coin slot where candy will come out if I score high enough. The lights are dim and tinted green and red. Fake cobwebs adorn the place. The place is set up like an arcade maze, machines against machines in zig-zagging patterns.

We have to leave (don’t remember why). We’re driving to find houses to trick or treat at, but there aren’t any. There’s just empty roads and countryside. We found a lone house on top of a hill, but they had no candy, only water and a bathroom. None of us know how to drive in the dream, but we do anyways because we want to trick or treat. I wish we could have just stayed at the arcade. One of my friends broke their arm because one of us drove so badly. There was no accident, they just got one from being in the van while it was swerving and stopping sharply.

I didn’t want anything to do with the bad driving, so I left, walking to the center of town. There was a club/bar with two floors and a patio in the back. It was open and packed. The tables were round and everything was wooden and stained- the tables, floor, walls, bar- and there weren’t any decorations unless you count the umbrellaed patio furniture outside. In this dream I’m not old enough to drink (even though I am) but I get served anyways. An old couple looks at me accusingly. I go outside to the patio with the Christmas lights because it’s so crowded inside and my dad was in there being loud and embarrassing. I tried to tell him about the lack of houses, but he didn’t care about my trick or treat woes. On the patio I found my friend with the broken arm. He had a green cast. He sat on the stairs outside alone. The night was clear and crisp. We breathed fog and looked at the moon.