I fell asleep around 11 o’clock, and by 11:30 had woken up twice, the second time in terror.

I was at my parents’ new house, which seemed strange to me in some undefinable way. I saw the room I slept in only in the dark. As in many houses, the bedroom had only one window, and there appeared to be a storm going on. Finally I roused myself and looked with great effort at the strangest storm I had ever seen. Random flashes, but not of lightning, and wind. The setting and the storm seemed apocalyptic, and after noticing that I didn’t like the flimsy curtains I wanted new ones to shut it out.

I found that the room was unusually large and that half was separated from my half by a large bench. There was a piano in the other half, which to my surprise I played expertly and beautifully. I found myself composing amazing works on it and marveled how. But I noticed the piano was also a fountain. While this was fascinating, I wondered where the many strong streams from it were going to and what damage they must be doing.

Later I found myself in this same half room with an older female relative. I learned that this was not part of my bedroom, but was a separate sitting room. A cat jumped upon a pile of yarn or material; the cat was blue and white in a distinctive Delft pattern. I remarked on the weirdness of this as I petted the cat and ruffled the pattern, but my female relative said that it’s common. I was slightly afraid of it, although it seemed like a normal cat.

Perhaps it was the next night when a friend showed up with an entourage in my room. He wanted to take me somewhere with his group. I wanted to go with them, but inexplicably I closed my eyes and wished him and them away.

Then I was washing dishes in a kitchen that overlooked the street directly; it was straight down from the window. A couple I knew in a convertible stopped at the red light and chatted with me. This put me into a great mood, so when a silver-gray man came out from under a manhole cover, looking up at me with expressionless eyes and face, I smiled at him at first. Then, as he came toward me, staring with dead but determined eyes, I sensed that he was evil and that I should never have smiled at him. I dreaded his relentless approach even as his features became seared into my memory. I closed the screen door and locked it with a hook, then panicked as I tried to find an inner door with a dead bolt. My terror grew.

I woke up at 11:30, frightened and freezing.