I dream I'm sleepy. Sleepy but driving! I'm heading north on Bayshore Freeway toward San Francisco, with a friend in the back seat. Well, not much of a friend--when I nod off at the wheel, he doesn't wake me. Still, my dreaming self apparently keeps driving on. Wake to find I'm slower than the traffic flow but still on the road and in my lane. Get back to speed, but still groggy. Wait--it's not all me--the car's as sluggish as I am! Slow to gun, brake and steer.

Get cut off, forced onto an exit I don't want. I try to cross lanes and... the car forks into two quantum possibilities! One's back on the freeway, one on the frontage road. The steering wheel controls both! Quantum-entangled. I swerve this car and the other misses a post it would've hit.

Now the other car goes under a bridge, where I can't see it. Does my alter ego have independent consciousness, enough to steer at least? Don't know.

Now, at an exit near Coyote Point, we split again. A version of my car, presumably with a third me at the wheel, is forced off the freeway. Well, I can't be sure there are three--maybe the previous fork re-merged with me. Suspect not--feel even more depleted, as if my attention's deep-split. Yet I'm not conscious of what's happening in the other car(s) except by observing from this one. I give up even trying to control my alternate selves and focus on this one.

So tired. Shouldn't be driving like this. Whatever this is.

Across a marsh, see a wooded hill. I think that's where my alternate self went. It's in San Mateo, but hidden in the trees is the house my grandfather built in Seattle. This marsh is part of Lake Washington! Ducks all round.

The road shrinks to a trail. The car slows, halts on its own. We get out. I feel relieved. We hike on: me, my passenger... and a highschool science class on a field trip!

We walk a reedy path, nesting ducks around us, open water ahead. A very cute girl hikes alongside me. I recall these trails--none go round the lake, we'll have to backtrack if our goal's my grandfather's house or Juanita Beach. Slow, but I'm happier here, on foot, nature around me and a girl beside me, than I was on the freeway.

Then the dream turns shaky--I realize I'm dreaming, but even lucidity can't help now. I being forced awake by an adrenaline attack--heart pounds, sweats and chills. I won't reach any goal--I won't have time. Just when it quit being nightmarish, too...

Wake fully. 5 AM. The dream ejected me.

All three of me.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Three of me, entangled:
  1. I read Michael Swanwick's Vacuum Flowers--about downloadable personalities, which can be multiple.
  2. Also read an article on quantum entanglement. Didn't expect to experience it, though!
  3. Today the three co-owners of our shared house adjusted our shares. I bought a larger share. Dream points out "good or bad, this is entangling."
• Go lucid due to chills, fever, pounding heart: such attacks have forced me awake before, but it's the first time an attack provoked lucidity--not that it helped! Still forced awake. [2020 NOTE: in 2017 I deduced these were symptoms of a rare genetic illness, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.]
• Girl on path, birds and reeds and pond: path to love? Instead of the survival issues I worked on the last few years, like health, money & housing.
• ACTION (immediate): Don't eat late. I suspected food after dark worsened these attacks so I tried a low-carb snack. Still got sick!
• ACTION (soon): Paint this dream, if only to convey the sensation of trying to steer three cars, three lives, at once...
• ACTION (long-term): Shift focus from survival to romance. But take it easy! Pushing hard just triggers attacks.

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