I'm with four or five people on this spaceship. It's floating over train tracks that run by a massive refinery. It's dark--no lights at all--and the sky is very dark and cloudy. I don’t remember how I know, but civilization on earth has been destroyed; there are few survivors.

Suddenly there's a huge explosion at the refinery, and these creatures fly out. I don't get a good look at them, but there are hundreds. It's really bad and they're getting closer to us by the second. So we all buckle down and hold on to our seats and there is a deep humming-rumbling sound. A purple flash of light, and... we're in deep space; Earth's too far away for me to see.

I don’t remember why we came to this space station, but we land in its cargo bay and get out to stretch and walk around. We don’t get very far before we realize something’s wrong. The cargo bay's cluttered with random stuff and it's dark and no one's around. Then we hear a familiar screeching far off in the space station and getting closer.

We get our asses back into the ship, pronto; we rocket out of the space station’s cargo bay. As we are moving at full speed and preparing to teleport again, I look back and see thousands, no, hundreds of thousands of those flying things swarming out of the space station. It explodes. Somehow I can hear them screeching even though we're in space. They're so close I can hear them scratching at the ship’s hull. Dozens are right on top of us and countless more behind us. We all sit back in our seats again and as the clawing and screeching reach deafening decibels, the engines rev too, louder and louder. Then comes a loud THOOM and we accelerate to immeasurable speed. There's another purple flash, and...

Suddenly everything's quiet and our ship's gliding down the tracks again, past middle-class suburban homes bordered by tall wooden fences. It must be winter because everything's covered with snow. I think we're going down the train tracks near my old Montessori Children’s School. I’ll never forget how quiet and peaceful it is gliding down the snowy tracks in our spaceship after just escaping all that chaos, even though the world seems deserted and clearly no one living has been around here for a very long time. We all just let the ship glide down the tracks, flowing just above the rails, as we soak in what just happened without saying a thing. Even though I'm relaxed, I keep my high-tech whip weapon close at my side.

Eventually we decide to get out and walk on foot, we're looking for something, but I can’t remember now what it was. Eventually, we come to this one house that fits the description of what we're looking for. Suddenly, a zombie-like human runs out of the house towards us. Stepping forward, I lazily get my whip out and lightly flip my wrist in its direction. The whip extends an insanely long distance in front of me, and decapitates the monster faster than the speed of sound with a loud ‘crack’. As if this sort of thing were a normal occurrence for me, I put the whip back on my hip holster and me and the rest of my group walk up to the house...

NOTES IN THE MORNING

When I was a kid I taught myself how to not have nightmares. Say a monster was chasing me; I'd stop and just close my eyes, even if I could hear it getting closer and closer, and then I'd open my eyes as hard as I could, and I'd find I was awake! I only remembered to do it when it was a real nightmare, but when things got too scary, it worked. Eventually the nightmares trailed off. Once in a while I still have one, but I eject myself from it.

After I had this dream, things changed. I became fascinated with dreams. I read other people's dreams all over the Net, hoping I'd find intense ones like mine. But none of them interested me until I stumbled across this one website... guess what the name of that site was!

Now I have adventure dreams every night. In most of my dreams now I have some kind of power like telekinesis or flying--I've gone from maybe one flying dream a year to about every other night. It almost seems like lucid dreaming, because I have a power in my dreams that adapts to whatever situation I'm in. It's cool because I'm always in control, always the one with the most power.

Do you have any ideas on why that is? It never happened before the last couple months.

--Jamie Sawyer

EDITOR'S NOTE

Why this wave of power? Beats me, but enjoy it while it lasts!

If it does end, don't freak. Dreamworkers tend to solve one set of problems (like powerlessness here) only to uncover another set (parental brainwashing, goals your dreams disagree with, societal constraints, addictions, chronic anger sadness or guilt, spiritual callings, ethical dilemmas, attitudes toward love, sex, ambition, money... oh, the possibilities are endless!)

I've had long waves of powerful dreams like your current set, but they've always faded out in weeks to months--my dreams shift to a new issue. I grow confused and have way less power or control again, because I'm trying to fix other unsolved problems.

So if the buzz does fade, be patient and let your dream characters tell you what the next issue is. They will if you listen. Jung was big on this--he felt permanent control and mastery was unrealistic, and permanent comfort downright unhealthy. He saw it as a spiral--you not only have other sets of problems cropping up, you eventually swing round to face the same problems again, but with better mental tools--you can improve on early, rough solutions.

With each cycle of growth (and discomfort), there's more confidence, though. The highs are as high but the lows aren't quite as low. Because your dreams start with the most urgent problems crawling out of the monster closet and work their way through.

--Chris Wayan

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