I looked out the window and thought that I saw the lake lapping the ground- or first-floor windows of the buildings across the street. I thought, “That cannot be possible; the lake cannot have risen that much in only a couple of hours.” I looked again, and it seemed normal. But then I looked yet again, and there was the gray water, swirling up higher along the lower windows. I did not dare to think about my own building.

My apartment had a door in a passageway that I never used. One day, I realized that it I did not know whether it was locked, and the possibility it might be open made me nervous. I could find neither lock nor key.

It was only then that I thought of opening it. I walked out onto a ledge, but could not be sure if there were stairs or a ladder leading up to it from outside. Then I noticed that I had unconsciously walked to the edge of the ledge without taking note of its width; I could have walked off it. As in other dreams, it did not seem stable, and it overlooked a tree-filled park or forest that I could not reach and that was not real.

I continued to be anxious about the unsecured door and intruders for some time. When I next looked, there was a lock with a small, jewelry box-type key in it. I wondered briefly how I had overlooked the lock and key before.

I was watching television with my parents. During a commercial, I changed the channel to what appeared to be a movie with Elvis Presley singing and dancing to a gym or auditorium full of high school kids during a Christmas party. I walked up to a large window and could see him and another person on the stage from above. I watched them gyrate and throw their heads back so that their contorted faces would appear briefly. I tried to get my cousin to see Elvis from the window. From that angle, he looked not only human but silly, but my cousin could not see what I could.

I became so engrossed in watching the movie from this angle that it was a while before I guiltily remembered to change the channel back for my parents, just as my dad was saying, “Where is that show we were watching?”