A Dream
(1995)

I "awoke" in a cave and could hear voices speaking an unknown language. My first impression was that I had been abducted. I stood and was besieged by a horde of goblins. All that I had to defend myself with was a stick which proved effective at warding off the first few assailants. I didn't really want to fight; I wanted to understand them. Then someone to my right said, "Here you go," and handed me a shotgun. The goblins retreated and I asked, "Doesn't somebody speak their language?" and from the distance someone responded, "We haven't had time to learn it." I wanted to ask why we couldn't have made peace with them earlier.I swiveled left and found myself facing a sinister looking man cradling a rifle. The thought, "Looks scary," crossed my mind, and I had to suppress the urge to pull the trigger; I was able to maintain my composure.

A man appeared suddenly from my right, but then he moved quickly out of sight. To the left of the man with the rifle was another man wielding a double-barreled shotgun. It reminded me of the video game Doom. I eyed his firearm and gestured to exchange weapons. He refused my offering but did hand me his double-barreled shotgun. "What are we supposed to do?" I asked. The man who had disappeared responded, "Fight!" I then circled the area to get my bearings and heard growls emanating from an enclosure.

Three enemy soldiers appeared from a doorway about fifty feet away. Two of them began setting up a machine gun. Swiveling to my left, I noticed a tunnel glowing in a luminescent white light, and the man with the rifle commanded me to "Run for your life!" I suppressed an urge to run toward the tunnel. (It felt like an easy way out, but the feeling was one of despair. The tunnel was suicide.) I defied his order to retreat as the odds were in our favor.

I returned to facing the enemy. The nearest one was rushing in to bayonet me. I squeezed the trigger the moment I had the shot. Then the man behind me fired his rifle. The bullet whizzing by my left ear startled me. An urge to hit the deck crossed my mind, but this was combat.

Since the remaining soldier posed no immediate threat, I checked my back. Instead of the man with the rifle, there was a large, hairy monster. I quickly took aim, fired, and almost forgot to turn back around. The final enemy soldier was bearing down on me; I barely had time to shoot. At point-blank range, the double-barreled shotgun discharged its third round. "Three? That's impossible!" I then realized that this was a dream. (I really hadn't had time to think about it before.)

Skeletons from the closet (the tunnel) formed a line as in a shooting gallery. A hauntingly beautiful etude with an elusive melody was playing from the depths of the tunnel. (I wish I could remember how it went.) I began shooting when the skeletons started lobbing blades toward me. Dodging the falling blades, I managed to shoot all the skeletons.

I carefully approached the entrance to the tunnel, but first I was careful to check that the dead skeletons were not reanimating. Peeking inside of the tunnel, the echoes of pain and suffering were a dead giveaway that this wasn't the way out. I backed away from the entrance to find a safer exit. I figured the doorway where the soldiers had come from was not an option, and then I remembered the growling.

The growling I had heard earlier had come from a pylon this side of the building with the door. It rose from a moat, and there was another pylon about nine yards away. A machine gun began firing, and I could see impacts on the wall to my right. Since the line of fire was drawing close, I stepped down into the moat to avoid it. The thought of leaping in head first had crossed my mind, but I didn't want to be completely submerged in the muck. "Stagnant water is a breeding ground for disease."

I waded behind the first pylon toward a ledge on the left-hand side. Just as I reached the ledge, the shooting started again behind me. I immediately pushed backward and swiveled to my left. I glanced a large circular object within inches of my face that resembled the barrel of a large gun, so I pulled the trigger. Since my momentum carried me away from the ledge, I didn't have time to see what I had just shot at. Suddenly there was a loud boom that practically knocked me off my feet. I spun around clockwise. Next to the building was a gigantic .357 magnum which made me think, "Damn, that's a big gun!" (There had been a gun aimed at my head.)

I waded back to the pylon, and inside of it there was a subhuman behind bars, so I shot him. There was an alluring object at his feet that might have been booby trapped, so I returned to the ledge.

Upon climbing onto the ledge and walking down the length of the building, I was confronted by a boy and his dog. His bitch was growling at me, and again I resisted an urge to pull the trigger. Instead, I set down my shotgun. The young man then said something about "fear" that ended with "the boy and his dog," but I didn't quite catch the beginning of his statement. I turned back around and noticed the boy and his dog had disappeared from the courtyard. Instead there was a huge human leg which appeared to be made of marble. Following the pleated contours of the skirt, I slowly looked upward until the towering, cartoonish representation of God disappeared into the clouds at the waist. I immediately lowered my eyes since continuing to look up meant staring at its crotch. When the foot started to tap (a sign of impatience), I walked around it toward the far end of the courtyard.

I was drawn to a fun house entrance on the left-hand side of the courtyard. Inside was a man who resembled someone I knew whose personality would be characterized as flippant and glib, a sociopath. (It was most disconcerting when he greeted me by name.) "So, Kevin, I see that you've been busy since the last time you were here. Can I expect you to be returning soon?" I replied, "Maybe, but there are still a lot of things I need to do. Can you give me your number in case I need to call?" (I knew the number.) I nonchalantly glanced through a doorway that was the same door the soldiers had come through, and I didn't want to go back to the fighting. It was obviously Hell. This man was Satan in human form, and I figured that before I high-tailed it out of there, I should at least try to get some information from him. He responded, "You know the number." I turned around and left the "fun house."

Upon exiting, I was confronted by a person from my life that I distrusted. I "knew" that I needed to lead him out of this place, but my desire to help people wouldn't allow me to just point him toward Hell. At the end of the courtyard was another doorway. At the foot of the steps on the other side, the young man with the dog was gardening. I hurriedly stuck out my right arm and grabbed the door jamb to prevent us from stepping through. There was a look of confusion on my antagonist's face as we retreated. I quietly said that "I was warned about the boy and his dog, but I don't remember if he said if we should fear them or not." (I realized that my aphasia was manifesting itself in my dream: "Damn speech patterns!" I thought.)

Just before the doorway to the right of the fun house entrance was a tall shrub containing a golden pear. As I reached out to touch this exquisite treasure, the dog jumped out from behind the shrub growling and startled me.

A door opened to the left of the fun house entrance, and beyond it was a room containing about nine people my own age. I recognized some of them as immature people I've met in the past. They were sitting around watching television, playing games, and gossiping. I entered the room and asked, "How do we get out of here?" They pointed toward a beautiful door on the opposite end of the room. Since the door they pointed to would've lead back to Hell, I asked, "Are you sure?" Everyone began assuring me that this door was indeed the correct exit. I wasn't convinced. I looked back and saw that the doorway we had entered from was engulfed in flames. They said, "See? You don't want to go there." I said, "Follow me," and jumped through the fire. Nobody followed.

I headed back to where the boy had been gardening and descended the short flight of steps. I noticed a small plant with a pair of serrated leaves. (This dream was becoming just a bit too surreal: that was my impression upon recognizing the plant's genus and species.) The plant was still too young to discern the subspecies without closer inspection, but after the earlier incident with the golden pear, I felt I had better steer clear of this controlled substance.

Around the corner of the wall to my left there was a vintage car in a garage, but I was less interested in that temptation than noticing that I was now standing outside of a house; a front for what happens behind closed doors. The end of a short driveway was blocked by another wall, which confounded me, so I looked to the sky for help. I then realized that I had overlooked the garden.

Bordering the garden was a hedgerow, and upon closer inspection, a path I could go. I entered what appeared to be the beginning of a maze, so I decided to make left turns until I found the exit. After three turns, I was suddenly confronted by a hovering, six-foot tall, tapered, glowing, silver creature. Seated on the left shoulder of this "alien" was a softball-sized fly. "Who are you?" I asked in amazement. Telepathically, the angel began answering, "We are..." (and in unison, both finished revealing) "God."

I suddenly awoke and thought, "Oh my god! The music!" (For a couple of years the only thing I could remember about the dream was the really cool music.) Unlike most of my dreams I've had before, I had to mention it some more.