I'm walking in a strange place of rolling hills and wrought-iron fences and flagstone walkways, an old-fashioned park so vast I cannot see any of the border fences. This park is famous for being a hang-out spot for celebrities, especially actors, who wander the grounds impersonating other celebrities. I see Viggo Mortensen impersonating Sean Connery, and under a nearby tree Barbara Streisand is strumming a guitar and singing Blowing in the Wind a la Joan Baez.

Then I encounter Charlie Chaplin impersonating Edgar Allen Poe--or is it the other way around? Either way, this crumpled, black-and-white man sticks out like a sore thumb, drawing stares. He stops to talk to me; we're old friends.

He's on his way to the cemetery. "I have a date with dear Annabel," he tells me. "Perhaps you should tag along; you may find this interesting."

In the heart of the cemetery, Annabel hovers over her grave, glowering at us. She's a ghost! An angry ghost. She clutches at Poe and whines, "I love you." But her energy is completely insincere and malignant.

Poe says, "You're overlooking one thing..."

Annabel interrupts and repeats, "I love you," and I feel her forming a vortex of words. She's trying to suck him into the grave with her!

Poe knows. He says again, "You've missed the point. I cannot love you."

The ghost swells, her white face becoming quite ugly. "WHAT! WHY?" she screams.

Poe replies soberly, "Because you're dead. You're not here. You're not even yourself."

Suddenly it dawns on the ghost. She whimpers, and, like a signal breaking up, she dissolves into static and fades away.

I let out the breath I'd been holding. That energy was strong! "Wow, Edgar," I say weakly. He tenderly places a pale purple rose on Annabel's headstone, and recites a eulogy. We exit the cemetery by a different path, coming out on cliffs above the sea. Poe turns dark and brooding. I leave him to dwell on his Annabel Lee, wander away over the dark hills, and wake up.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Actors impersonating one another: I watched Futurama yesterday, an episode called "Bend Her" in which Bender the robot pretends to be a woman and gets into a relationship with an actor and eventually the entire cast are busy impersonating each other to keep up the lie.
• Poe: 1) Partly V, a lead character in the movie V for Vendetta, which I watched a few days ago. 2) Me. I've been feeling gloomy and feverish a lot lately.
• Annabel: 1) Edgar Allen Poe's final poem mourns the loss of a girl named Annabel Lee. 2) Anne was a vicious assassin in a manga I read recently. 3) I'm reading In Your Eyes, a (terrible) romance novel. Annabel is the name of a character's pet dog. In the dream, Annabel is certainly a bitch.
• Love trap, untruthful "I love you": Not sure. I dwelt on love all day, but this is the opposite of what I feel and what I want. Of course, I've seen this ghost before, in other dreams (she always hides in objects, like walls and urns, trying to suck people in, often through some form of seduction). She's like water demons in old stories, innocently drowning her playmates.
• Poe deals with Annabel: This gloomy side of me may be depressed, but he has power. He deals with everything coolly, blending logic and emotion. Acts for the best, even when it hurts.
• So the antidote to Annabel (madness/selfishness/malevolence?) is logical assessment? More writing? Deep thought, solitude, embracing my darkest moods? Oh...what I've been doing. How comforting. But my insomnia last night, that surge of horrible energy that kept me from relaxing, means that Annabel's not yet under control.
• But...she's also a ghost--not here. She is the ghost of qualities I wish I never had. My shadow?
• Dwelling on Annabel: Duh! It's the same scenario as in other dreams with this girl: I'm in love with my shadow, even though she's bad. Come to think of it, Annabel even looks like Dark Snow (the last form my shadow took) with her inky black hair and eyes, veiny white skin.
• Left a purple rose: 1) V left roses with his victims. 2) I found a dead fox near my house yesterday and I wanted to leave a flower with the body, but it's December and there are no flowers here. 3) Purple, especially lavender, is my color of grief. Since my rabbit Simone died two months ago, I've worn lavender string tied around my wrist.
• If roses are for victims, did we kill Annabel? No wonder she's angry...
• Signal breaking up: 1) At school on Tuesday, the computer I was using kept losing connectivity and my work never made it to my email inbox. 2) Wayan's dream Beware of Overstimulation, about a sex ghost who fades out with too much stimulation. I felt like that last night--insomnia, tense. Ow.
• Oh right--I asked my dreams to explain why my mind won't let my body come. (I've only actually come once in my life, and it hurt. Since then, nothing works.) Over-stimulation and not enough love? Hmm...

Or is it the other way around, is she my mind? Saying "I love you" to my body and not really meaning it, reaching for a goal that might even hurt...

Or are they both my mind? I was standing there in my day-body, watching. Apparently, my body is a spectator; chances are she doesn't know what we're doing any more than the rest of us. So really, this isn't a conflict between mind and body, but between mind and...mind.

Poe dwells on Annabel.
Annabel casts a nasty spell.
Break the spell, quell Annabel...

And then what? What am I missing here?

--Emily

EDITOR'S WILD GUESS

It all sounds quite positive to me, and simpler than you're making it out to be. You ASKED your dream why your mind won't let your body come. And your dream told you. Annabel's your old model of love and sex, and she's dead, dead, dead. She was artificial, gothic, tragic, obsessive. Tense! Ow! No wonder body had nooooo fun! Drama'd to death!

Luckily, your brain won't go along. It won't play the old games any more. They're dead, it's over.

Rather than minutely analyze the problem, or the dream, all you have to do is leave the graveyard and go somewhere non-gothic, non-tragic, uncomplicated. Avoid drama, (that's Annabel's turf. I mean burial plot). Just do things that feel good. Mindless exercise. Or mindless laziness. Scratching. Farting. I don't know. The small stuff. Renewal after a death isn't immediate. It starts with a fallow time, then mere seedlings. Some of the loveliest, sexiest dreams I've ever had came after I just lay around and did massage on myself and stretched and lay in the sun. Simple? No. It's hard. For a Poe. It's easier to be dark, brilliant, intense... and Goth yourself to death.

It takes willpower to be a Raven and say "Nevermore." But if Poe in your dream can say it, stick to his hard-headed truths, so can you. He's your brain, right? You did it in your dream. Now you just have to do it by day. Day by day by day. It's a long-term project, I admit. I'm terrible at it myself. Always slipping.

Beats being dead. And dramatic. Ugh, what a combo.

--Chris Wayan

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