In Dreams
I have really vivid dreams. They've been especially vivid lately. I tend to see things like a movie, and these dreams are like movies that I'm in the middle of.

A couple of months ago, I was having really vivid, really horrible dreams. For like, two weeks, I was killed every night in some bizarre way in my dreams. I remembered everything when I woke up. It was a bit stressful. I'm not sure any one thing caused it. I think it was a combination of things.

But in general, even for no good reason, my dreams are super vivid. I don't usually wind up dead or terrorized in them. So, that's nice.

Then I went to Macomb over the weekend and I believe something there triggered the scary dreams again. I could blame the horror of the town of Macomb itself. I mean, yikes. But actually, I will blame the really bad Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie for this. Which, really, is quite bizarre. Because the movie wasn't scary. It was just bad. A bit gory. With a side of terrible acting. But I wasn't scared of Leatherface afterwards. I was just sleepy.

I think anxiety is a big culprit in the nature and deadliness of my dreams. I ALWAYS dream about things that I worry about during the day. Like, when my luggage didn't come to Macomb last weekend, I went to sleep that night and had not one, but TWO dreams about my luggage. The plan for the luggage was that American Airlines would deliver it in the middle of the night and leave it on the porch, since we would be asleep. So, dream #1 involved waking up to about 20 pieces of luggage on the lawn, none of which were mine. Dream #2 involved waking up to find that only one piece of luggage had been dropped off during the night, but it wasn't mine.

I didn't even realize I was worried about the luggage. Sometimes anxiety sneaks up on me. My luggage arrived to the porch just fine, by the by.

So, since I've been home, and since Leatherface made me sleepy with the bad acting and the lameness of the whole thing, I've had scary dreams again. The first dream involved some guy lurking around in my backyard, in broad daylight. Then when he noticed me in the house, he broke in through my sliding glass doors (which I don't actually have), I assume to come "Leatherface" me, even though he was just a normal guy. Fortunately I was already on the phone with 911 and running out my front door, where I was greeted by Backyard Leatherface's friend who was waiting out front. The police took forever to come. Nothing really happened after the Leatherfaces broke in. But I woke up scared. And tired.

I had no idea I was worried about people breaking into my house. I always feel safe here.

Then I dreamed that I was stuck in our old church building (I worked in there for about 4 years alone at night, and I was constantly afraid of ghosts and creepy people coming to get me). In the building with me was a true Leatherface kind of person who had this super sharp sword thing. He was just wandering around the building slicing limbs off of people. Then we were in a house and he kept slicing. I finally got my hands on one his super sharp swords, but every time I would slice something off of him, it would just come back. And the swords kept breaking. Then the next day when I went to work (still in my dream), my work had hired him as a new graphic designer, which made him my coworker. He had convinced everyone that he wanted to be a kinder, gentler Leatherface-type person. But all of his designs looked like the basement of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and I wouldn't let him come anywhere near me. I didn't trust him.

That dream is chock full of my anxieties, right down to scary designers.

Then LAST night I dreamed that I was working late (as I've done a lot lately) and someone broke into our offices and stole everything, including my beautiful Macbook, which is weird because I never take Alferd Packer (yes, my Macbook has a name) to work. But stealing him made me quite angry. Then my best friend from highschool showed up (I haven't seen her in years). And she told me that the group of thieves was downstairs in a restaurant and the ringleader was hanging out outside. So I was like, "I WANT MY MACBOOK BACK!", and I ran downstairs to get it back. I saw the Head Thief standing there and I totally RAN at him, then JUMPED at him, and KNOCKED HIM DOWN on the sidewalk. I sat on him until he told his crew to give me back my Macbook. I didn't care about any of the other office stuff. I took my Macbook back upstairs and went back to work. There were also carpet cleaners in the building, but they weren't scary.

THAT dream is pretty much my greatest fear. Working late and losing my Macbook, all in one day. Frightening.

Now I'm worried that you'll all think I'm weird. I'll probably dream about that tonight. And Leatherface.

C.T.