It wasn’t clear exactly how I knew, but somehow doctors had pinpointed that my heart was going to give up and I was going to die that day.

My mood, I suppose, could be best described as quiet and nervous.

I walked around mostly in a stupor, trying my best to interact with all of the people I saw on a daily basis who didn’t know, yet with this sunken feeling that any moment … any footstep or spoken word … could easily be my last.

I hadn’t told anyone because I didn’t want them to worry, and yet myself I was completely petrified at my fate. I wanted to tell the people that I loved, but how does a conversation like that even start?

As the day grew on and I grew wearier, I began to mention my results to a few people, who walked around announcing it more like an interesting factoid than something so personal.

“You know, Scott was supposed to die today, but he hasn’t yet.”

Though at first I just went about my day, eventually I slipped away and just quietly walked around, with each step almost feeling my heart rate increase and being deathly aware of not wanting to provoke it in any way.

Then I began to wonder how my life would change if it didn’t happen like it was supposed to.

I wanted to talk to my doctor for answers, and I wanted to talk to my wife.

At one point I ran into a guy who was like a knock off version of one of my old supervisors at work, which was kind of weird. He made a joke that wasn’t really funny, but was almost immediately forgotten.

I didn’t end up dying, and yet by the end of the dream it didn’t really feel like I was alive anymore, either.

I’ve had a couple of this sort of dream lately – not sure why, but for a guy who lives on computers they’re almost more scary than things that creep in the night!

Somebody had hacked my computer.

They knew exactly the moment that I logged in because they messaged me vague threats about being watched every single time. It made it hard to troubleshoot, particularly once I started getting comments about my family … did they somehow have access to more than just my computer after all???

At one point I tried digging into the problem at work, enlisting the consulting advice of a few co-workers, but somehow the result was the same regardless of where I plugged the computer in. I briefly contemplated the steps to changing all of my passwords simultaneously in hopes of somehow locking the hacker out of my accounts, though ultimately I didn’t really even know what they had gotten access to aside from my Windows account itself.

Eventually I decided to wage a trap and turned the PC on back at home, with a handful of friends and family, along with a police officer, all there for support. The hacker wanted to chat with me – namely to intimidate me again, making comments about the safety of my sons, to the point where I realized that they must somehow be nearby. We all stood at our posts around house looking out into the yard like sentries around a castle wall until someone saw a figure moving in the distance.

It was then that I killed the power to the house and reassured the kids that everything was going to be ok while another person ran out and tackled the person lurking in the yard.

Who turned out to be a girl who I’d worked with a few years prior.

She made a lot of excuses about how she never meant to hurt anyone, and how looking around it was clear that “we lived in luxury” and probably had this sort of thing happen to us all of the time.

Somehow she even gained a little pity from several of the family, who gave her food and whatnot while we waited for the officer to arrest her.

Before that took place, however, I walked to the front door and noticed a strange car waiting outside. Realizing it was her getaway car, I sent someone over to take a look and the car suddenly bolted.

It turns out that her mother, of all people, had been her accomplice in our harassment.

When the officer finally asked what I wanted to do, I considered all of the trauma that we’d been put through and insisted on pressing charges for blackmail and stalking.

It’s no secret by now that one of my most recurring dreams typically involves my move to Florida, however this one was a little different in that apparently I had already moved and this time had simply returned to retrieve the rest of my bulkier possessions – something that I’d actually planned to, but was never able to do in real life and instead got them over time via UPS and visiting friends…

As is often the case, I started back at the warehouse where I used to work, however that didn’t seem to last long because after a quick calculation in my head of what they were paying me to work on the side, I decided that it wasn’t worth sticking around to make a few bucks and I was probably better off just packing up and hitting the road instead.

So I returned home to start loading up a rather large pickup truck – no idea who it belonged to – with a trailer attached, presumably to help haul the bigger stuff like the speakers to my PA system … which in fact have never made it down to Florida in real life. There were a lot of people around to help – extended family, friends of my parents – and the whole thing was much more of a group effort than just me carrying bags and boxes out to my car like it had been in real life! 😉

Also as a strange aside – throughout the entire packing, I found myself uncomfortably exchanging text messages with a girl back in Florida who I was presumably dating, though it wasn’t clear who she was or whether she’d for certain be waiting for me when I got there.

When it came time to go, I looked out to the truck and found that my sister had stowed away in the back seat of this truck, more or less buried up to her eyeballs in my belongings! After acknowledging that she could make the trip with me, I explained that 24 hours on the road would be a long time to be buried in stuff, and so we worked to reorganize a bit so that she’d actually have an empty seat to sit in for the ride down!

One item that got left behind – a red mattress like what you’d see on a cot at summer camp … in this dream, an aunt had bewilderingly gifted it to me, though we all agreed that I didn’t like to go outside any more than necessary and thus there was really no point in trying to bring it along. As it is, we had boxes of magazines, huge speakers and guitars, buckets of fish from my aquariums, Lego sets and video games – pretty much all of the random, non-essential stuff that I’d deemed unnecessary to cram into my car for the first trip down.

Leaving home, there was an unmistakable urge to get away as fast as possible – something that didn’t occur in real life, mind you – and after sending one last text message … a picture of my old home in Michigan … we hit the road in this gigantic rig of a pickup truck, eager to hit the highway and put as many miles behind us as possible.

I was on a flight that was getting ready to takeoff, trying to assure my Mom over the phone that everything would be fine despite a crash that had happened recently with the same airline. The plane was actually transparent so we could see the sky as we began to takeoff, and then just as I reassured her that everything was fine and went to say my goodbyes before I lost my cell signal, it happened.

The crash was quick, and surprisingly without injury.

One minute we were looking up at the blue sky and the next we were back on the ground, a group of maybe twenty passengers trying to shuffle our way away from the wreckage – which was still falling from the sky – as quickly as possible.

I had been flying with the twins, so somebody soon called me over to a stroller that they had been pushing and showed me that the babies had survived ok, and told me to call right away to let everyone know that we were ok…

When my Mom answered the phone the second time, I could hear the news playing in the background and she was mostly in shock. I simply told her, “Yes, we were on the plane that just crashed. The babies are ok. I’m with a group of survivors and we’re trying to find shelter.”

I don’t think I heard a single word from the other end of the phone before I had to hang-up so that we could keep moving.

The accident had happened over downtown, so there was lots of debris and it was vital that we find someplace safe, however the more time that passed and the darker the sky got, I think we all started to get the feeling that something else was wrong here.

Pausing to sit and rest on a few park benches, we all talked about what had happened and that’s when a few people commented that they’d seen something flying towards the plane moments before we crashed. Considering the idea that whatever happened had somehow been deliberate, we pressed on and talked about heading to my apartment on the other side of town to take cover, though we never actually made it that far.

Disappearing into a tunnel that ran through one of the tall buildings, we began coming across other people that were also running. One man was very cautious and immediately pulled his gun on us, though his itchy trigger finger soon confirmed that it was actually empty and we were safe as we left him behind and ran in the opposite direction.

Inside an abandoned shopping mall, we came upon a stage that was setup for a rock band – instruments and all – so very much at random, one of the guys in our party jumped on stage and started belting out some old tune. Several of us soon joined in at a brief attempt to blow off some steam, with myself grabbing a guitar from an Elvis dummy that had been on the stage, and we played and made all sorts of noise until one of them finally appeared…

It took on a recognizable shape – one of a giant Bill Cosby, but made out of Legos – and its strength was quickly confirmed as it threw members of the audience around like nothing until I approached it … guitar still in hand … and saw it cringe as it heard the music that we were playing.

It reached out to grab the guitar from me, but then my other bandmates appeared over my shoulder and our collective music knocked it back. Then taking the offensive, we all swarmed it until it was nothing more than a pile of red and orange bricks.

Realizing that we might’ve stumbled onto a key to fight whatever these invaders were, we turned and headed back towards the city, walking carefully along the edge of the chaos until we came across sort of a makeshift hospital up in one of the tall towers. Thinking it would be safer for the babies, we went inside and found a small medical crew treating some people who had been injured, and left the twins in a soft-looking room away from all of the chaos.

This was also our first chance to catch up on what the rest of the world was seeing, and we watched as the news described the attack that was currently underway. Strange, blob-like creatures – in all colors and sizes, that could take the shape of just about anything – were falling from the sky.

A dozen of them had taken out a passenger jet trying to takeoff…

So far, resistance had been futile and the military was organizing their own attacks, but nothing had been successful … except for the strange reaction that we had just seen in the mall.

As we attempted to communicate this finding with anyone of authority, somehow the aliens knew and began to swarm the building we were in – entering through ducts and vents, and some even transferring themselves through the walls.

We fought back as many as we could before deciding that it was time to leave for higher ground, however as we ran down the corridor in retreat, I noticed that one of the babies had somehow been infected by one of the green blobs.

He otherwise seemed ok, so we just kept going.

Back outside again, we were destined to come up with a solution to defeat these invaders because the military’s attempts seemed ineffective at best, and through brainstorming several of us finally determined that it wasn’t the music, per se, that had quelled the beast, but our enthusiasm for the music that had disrupted its destruction, which is why we came to the conclusion that being in Florida, our best bet was to mobilize Disney’s cast members to put on their biggest smiles and win our alien invaders over with impeccable kindness in order to stand a chance at defeating these monsters.

The dream faded with a phone call to Disney devising a plan to have their cast members deliver pies to the enemy…

I found myself apparently stuck in a time traveling loop.

It almost played back kind of like the movie Memento, but way more exciting and creative because it was in an adventure-like setting with wizards and warriors. Eventually I realized that the storyline was some sort of puzzle to solve, and each time I was on the right track, the story would reset and I’d have to do everything over again, but now knowing an additional step of the way that I needed to complete.

Although I’m fuzzy on most of the details, there was a lot of running and hiding from whoever was chasing me until finally one time when I reset I found myself as a different person altogether, which was when I realized that I must be making some sort of progress because I’d reached the limit to where the first person … who I thought was me … could progress in the story. Now watching the entire story unfold from a different perspective, I needed to figure out what that character’s role was in it so that I could move her storyline forward.

All I wanted to do was go home, but first I had to figure out how to get there…

* * * * * * * * * *

Staring up at a wireframe tower that climbed hundreds of feet into the air, for whatever reason – possibly “to work on the lights” – me and two friends needed to scale this gigantic tower all of the way to the top.

It was reminiscent of the Empire State Building, but not nearly as sturdy looking. More like a radio tower, but even taller.

My friends tried to convince me that we’d all be on safety harnesses so the height wasn’t a big deal, and they even “fell” in front of me a few feet off the ground to prove it, but all I could picture was myself scaling this tower to hundreds of feet in the air, and then looking down at the city below before losing my grip and falling to my death.

We had no experience doing this, yet they were both gung-ho about the prospect and how cool it would be from the top, yet all I could think about was falling.

* * * * * * * * * *

My wife and I were renewing our vows, and I was running incredibly late.

She had booked a ballroom at the top of this hotel overlooking the water very similar to where we first got married, however I was several landmasses away and needed to cover a lot of ground in order to get there.

This dream segment was also loosely tied into the previous one, in that if I wasn’t willing to climb that gigantic tower which would somehow help me get closer to my destination, my other option was to take a series of bridges that were entirely too close to the water’s surface. And traffic was at a near stand-still, so I just sat there in my car staring at the waves lapping dangerously close to the side of the road.

Eventually the first bridge was behind us and we stopped to grab lunch at Arby’s, which was a particularly bizarre choice both because A) who stops for lunch when they’re late to get married?!, and B) this was one weird Arby’s, with a menu that featured some sort of crab dip sandwich that I actually got because it looked intriguing, though I never ended up sitting down to try it.

While we were waiting for our food, I wandered off into a room on the side that was apparently a child’s bedroom filled with GI Joe-sized action figures. I played with a couple for a while, and then I tried to eat one, upon which I remembered that we were there for lunch, so I went back out into the dining room as I found one of Sara’s sisters – who was escorting me to the vow renewal – waiting, having already finished her food.

Back outside, I was riding in a very small car with Ted Danson! And he wanted to drive, so of course I let him – it seemed only fair because he had been wanting to drive earlier and I was happy to not have to deal with the remaining bridge that we still had to cross.

By the time we made it to the venue, my groomsmen – the guys who wanted me to climb up the crazy tall tower – were already dressed and waiting, though they didn’t seem too shocked about my late arrival. I took a second to admire the view, which did look impressive even with the ominous concrete bridges criss-crossing the water that we had taken to get there. Then I took my suit and disappeared to get ready myself.

And that was it. 😕

I’ve always been kind of curious about dreams, hence for the past several years I’ve occasionally blogged the more memorable ones here for entertainment and posterity’s sake!

Last night I had a particularly interesting one, in that it was peppered with details that were both true and untrue – enough to lead me to wonder what exactly it is that makes up the content of our dreams … sometimes they’ll be completely fictional, sometimes an erie re-creation of past events, and every once in a while they’ll be like this one where fact and fiction seems to be sort of intertwined … and even more strangely enough, there were definitely a couple of moments where I knew that throughout my dream… 😕

I had returned to the auto parts warehouse where I used to work back in my hometown, and it was as if I was already working there again, but I also seemed ready to make my departure … again.

Walking into work one day, I found a note from the boss saying that I wasn’t supposed to keep personal items at work. It had been left in this upstairs second floor that the building had – which was true, however the part about getting in trouble was false.

The note had said that I could get my things – presumably some t-shirts and other clothes – from the manager who was holding them, but when I finally hunted him down, a bunch of my co-workers had gathered into sort of a dinner-type setting because they were all throwing this goodbye dinner for me.

This definitely didn’t happen, although the faces were all real!

What was particularly strange was that both old and newer employees alike were present – in reality, the warehouse got acquired by one of our competitors midway through my time there and some people left while other new faces joined – and yet here was a mix of both, though for some reason it sounded like somehow the original company had returned and managed to make a comeback.

At one point I found myself prompted to give a speech, and so I re-told a few anecdotes from working there through the years which everyone enjoyed, including a rousing story about the actual acquisition … which was booed, but then later applauded when I shared how the actual brand behind that company had still managed to survive.

Parts of this were actually true, in that the brand technically did survive and exists elsewhere today, though it no longer has nearly the presence in Michigan that it did before the acquisition. In fact, I even remember a few of my co-workers hoping that maybe someone else under the same brand would come in and “save us” from being acquired, but nothing ever came of that…

Eventually it was time for me to go, and I was packing up my things – which ended up being far more numerous than just a couple of stray t-shirts – though it was strange because around my desk were mementos from Florida, some rather personal from several girlfriends whom I certainly couldn’t have been dating all of at the same time! 😕

The references were real, and peculiar, and we’ll just leave it at that. 😛

As I was putting everything in bags, I started thinking about my future and about how instead of sticking around, maybe I should just hit the road and head back down to Tampa the very next day. Presumably there was some indecisiveness in my itinerary despite leaving my job up north, though the dream didn’t do much to elaborate.

I had vague recollections of a life that I once had down in Florida, but nothing definitive, and I think I thought that maybe once I got down to Tampa, more of those memories would come back to me.

This is a dream fragment that I have a lot, though admittedly not much as of recent – I’ll be back home, knowing that I used to live in Florida, but now I don’t … and I’m trying to put the pieces back together because I can’t quite remember how they fell apart and I had to go back home.

Mind you, none of this is factual, but I used to have nightmares about it for a long time – I think because moving was one of the most pivotal moments of my life.

The dream essentially faded away here, except for one other random fragment that was just too weird not to share because it involved somebody somehow flooding the warehouse – like an aquarium and we were all just swimming around underwater having a grand time until I finally had to come up for air because one of my children … it was unclear which one … was swimming with us, too, and he was having trouble and just needed to get flipped over!

While I was doing that, I had a pleasant chat with the manager who I’d worked with all of those years reflecting on everything that had transpired, so that was nice. 😉

And though I don’t recall a specific conversation that aligned with this one in the dream, I do remember leaving on a high note where he wished me luck and whatnot whereas it had taken many years for our working relationship to get to that point.

I guess it’s just both interesting and a bit odd to me to look at these subconscious, creative stories that happen inside of my own head and wonder how exactly they get put together in there … though now that I think about it, that’s how most of my creative work gets written, really. I either start with something outlandish and occasionally sprinkle in pieces of reality or maybe focus on a moment of truth, but then exaggerate it into a story that’s more funny or shocking or generally enjoyable than the original ever could’ve been on its own.

I’m not sure what the stats look like now, but I know that when I moved to Florida back in 2003 something like 700 people moved to the Sunshine State every single day. And as I sat there in my stately motel room, eating pizza and trying to write freelance articles for the newspaper that was now the polar opposite of the new world right outside of my motel door, it kind of blew my mind to think that in one form or another, there were another 699 people around the state – many of them right there with me in Tampa – who were going through the same thing!

So while the story itself wasn’t particularly unique, there were certainly bits and pieces that when blown a little out of proportion like any good humorist does make it a fun story to reflect back on, and so maybe that along with its significance in my life is why it seems to keep bubbling up time and time again while I’m trying to get a good night’s sleep, too.

And it makes me wonder if other creative folks find themselves dreaming like this as well. My wife, for example, says that she almost never dreams, which I’m about 95% sure isn’t just because she’s up every 2.5 hours to breastfeed the twins yet again! Despite all having the same general biological stuff on the inside, it tends to function a little differently for each of us … beyond that, though, there’s a reason why I’m a writer and not a biologist!

I did perform Dream On by Aerosmith in the talent show during my junior year of high school, so maybe that has something to do with it??? 😉

I was an astronaut sent with five of my companions on a very important mission.

It hadn’t been long since they had shown up, their gigantic ships hanging ominously in the sky but otherwise not yet giving any hint to their contents, and so that was my team’s job to try and figure out from above. We would launch into space to get a better view of the situation and try to determine the fate of mankind…

We were a tight-knit team that had been up together many times before, however with so much at stake there were suddenly many new voices in the control room which all wanted a say in how we were to do our job, which ultimately led to our downfall … quite literally.

I recall the argument being about something as seemingly innocent as where each of us would sit in our own craft.

Astronauts train for the very worst of conditions using the buddy system much like kids do in the swimming hole at summer camp, though it’s a much tighter bond because up in space we trust each other with our lives and in those emergency situations each pair of astronauts really needs to be able to function as one for our best chance at survival.

As such, it makes logical sense that we sit facing each other on takeoff … but the voices that be had other plans because one of them had made their own seating chart that they expected us to follow, and even after insisting that we ultimately followed the command of our captain, not the people back on the ground, time was of the essence and he eventually caved so that we could get to work.

The last thing I remembered was reaching that point where the sky was both blue and black at the same time, and then suddenly I was waking up from blacking out and we were all floating in the ocean.

My buddy, the captain, and I were the only ones that survived, and we were lucky to even make it out of the water because by the time the helicopter made it out to sea to rescue us, there was nothing behind for it to return to because they had taken our liftoff as a sign that it was time to strike. We sought refuge in an abandoned building as best we could, but as three astronauts without a ship we felt especially helpless to fight the situation at hand.

But astronauts above anything else are problem solvers, so our new problem became how we could find ourselves a new ship.