I was walking on the path along the woods at home, with the trees on my left and the field on my right. In an instant, I was transported into a dense fairy-tale forest, where among the trees were amiable people and interesting shops full of unusual wares. This secret place, which combined the beauties of nature and the comforts of civilization and art, was deeply mysterious and inaccessible. I had stumbled into a place that felt like home, but I knew that I did not belong there.

The people there knew it, too. I sensed that they were afraid for me but they could not warn me.

The deeper into this place I wandered, the more at home and the more fearful I felt — fearful that I could not stay and would have to leave. TJB was behind this. He did not wish to drive me away, but I had to go. It was he who was influencing the people, much as he have regretted having to do it.

Gradually I realized that I was dreaming, and I resisted waking up. I did not want to break the spell and the hold the forest had over my heart.

A friend invited me to an event where we would be sitting near the members of the Grateful Dead. I was interested in the event so I accepted, even though I wouldn’t recognize any of them.

Once there, she pointed them out, so I was spared the embarrassment of having to ask. She didn’t mention names. All I thought was that they looked more cleaned up than I expected and that I hoped no one would notice that I really did not fit in.

There was a break in the event, and one of them, who was seated in my row on the opposite side of a semicircle, came straight toward me after my friend had gone to get something. He spoke to me, and I was acutely aware that I was supposed to be thrilled when all I felt was embarrassment that I didn’t know his name and horror that my friend, who would have been thrilled, was missing this. I sensed, however, that he had come over to see me because she had left.

I was seated at a table at an elegant outdoor event. I suspect my mind chose that venue because perhaps I would look my best if forced to be dolled up for something special, even if unnatural for me. I was alone when who should appear but TB! All those dreams in which I hoped and prayed he would notice me and all those dreams in which he didn’t, and all those dreams from which I awoke heartbroken — and now, out of nowhere, without my thought or hope, here he was, about to fulfill my fantasy and speak to me! To acknowledge my existence with words! What amazing things would we talk about? How could I help him to discover the incredible, desirable person under the plain, dull, withdrawn veneer?

“So,” he said, “what do you know about Bozo the Clown?”

(Nothing. I know nothing. I don’t want to, either.)

I remembered the wise words of Spock: “After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.”

I wonder if I will dream about TB again. Rewind?

In the wee hours of Saturday, I had a marvelous dream that I was sure I would remember when I woke up. I didn’t. I think it involved water.

I remember a second dream. I had to return to a party because I’d forgotten something, but the only way to it was by a stairway arched like a rainbow. It looked impossible to ascend, but when I touched a step, it flipped, and the contraption started to move like an escalator, with the steps on the other side flipping down.

At the top I tried to stop at the doorway, but the escalator kept moving. The door was locked, anyway, and I wondered even as I passed helplessly by it if they would open it for me out of kindness or only if I were demanding.

In the back of my mind I may have thought that the weird escalator was a circle, not an arch, in which case it would drag me underground, perhaps crushing me.

In Sunday’s version, I thought some friends were getting onto an elevator with me, but when the door closed behind me I was alone. I went to push a button, but there were none. There was no door, either, and no way to get out. The only break in the solid walls of the cubic chamber was the lighted digital floor number.

I marveled at how this had happened. I wondered if I should panic.

[from 2 and 3 May 2009]

When I first became aware, I was Ronald Reagan, I was flying a plane, and I was being told to jump. At first the oddest part was being someone who was very old or dead when I knew that I, whoever I was, was in my prime.

When I looked down, I saw only inky blackness — not the glimmer of even a light, not the swell of even one shadow. How could I be expected to jump into the void? If I didn’t, how could I land the plane in the void?

And even though I could see nothing, I felt the plane descending into the darkness.

Once a beautiful young woman, I was disfigured now and had no face, just scar tissue where my face had been. Still, I dreamed of loving and being loved. One day I risked entering the anchorite cottage, where I would be able to see myself as I had been — and perhaps I hoped someone else would see me the same way. This magic came at a dear cost, although I was uncertain what it was. As miserable as I was, it seemed that the reward was worth the price.

I looked into the small wall mirror and saw myself with a face, even a beautiful one, but I felt more puzzled than joyous. It was mine, yet not mine. What had been the risk of seeing it? Why could I not stay in the anchorite cottage and enjoy the illusion of having a face forever?

A man, perhaps a couple, came in. Maybe this was the man I loved or could love. He or they did not notice me. Without the mirror, I saw that my illusory face was no more. How could that be? It was supposed to appear in the anchorite cottage, but perhaps that was the curse. I had had one tantalizing glimpse, and a dream for the future, and that was it. It was the end of hope.

Lately I have not seemed to dream much, or I have woken up remembering only some uninteresting fragment. Mostly, I wake up as though from a void. I don’t like this.

This afternoon I fell asleep while reading A Short History of Nearly Everything and napped longer than I wanted to, but I slept more deeply than I do during the night. It was more refreshing than any sleep I’ve gotten in a while.

And I dreamed that I was visiting my father (but not my actual father), who I thought oversaw the golf course at one of our communities. There was something about him, however, that I didn’t trust. He didn’t seem to be much of a manager or to know anything about the job. When security employees, who should have been part of his responsibility, came by, he avoided rather than greeted them. This struck me unpleasantly, and I began to wonder who he really was.

He had parked his car in or near grass next to the road and told me we were going to hitchhike our way around the course. Before I could make him explain this strange proceeding or either of us could so much as stick out a thumb, a strange vehicle pulled up. It resembled the mobile billboards that are driven around downtown Chicago, but had a narrow flat panel suspended underneath. I think the seats were all taken by members of the driver’s family, but he offered to let me squeeze into the narrow space between the two billboard sides. I refused, so my “father” said he would. I lay on the panel underneath, only too late realizing I could be thrown out of it as the vehicle rounded bends. Indeed, I nearly was at the first turn, and I was so low to the road that I feared being flayed. The driver seemed to be speeding along on what should have been a golf course road meant for leisurely driving.

He drove for such a long time that I began to wonder if I had been abducted. Finally the vehicle stopped, and I discovered that my “father” was gone, and so was the driver’s family. We were alone who knows where, and then I was sure I had been set up. It was all very smooth, but I was not so afraid that I didn’t think I could defend myself. I did realize that he was a sexual predator, even as I remembered that that thought had come from a video recently posted on The Onion site.

I don’t know what happened after that.

I learned of a sure way to have hair removed permanently from the legs, so I had it done. (This is not something that troubles me when I’m awake.) I had been warned that the treatment might leave the fine, less visible hair behind, but it was guaranteed to remove the growing dark ones permanently.

Weeks or months later I looked at the backs of my legs, and the backs of my thighs were covered by thick white hair that was dense enough to be fur. It was very visible. I was both horrified and puzzled, as the back of the thigh typically isn’t hairy, so how had a hair removal process caused white fur to grow where there had been little hair in the first place?

The idea was so vivid that when I woke up I expected to see the back of my thighs covered with white fur. I didn’t look at or touch them.