Dream Journal; entry 37; November 1st, 2009

Time 11:30 PM; Time of wake 10:00 AM

Dream semi-lucid; Inhibitors none; Scenes one

Last night’s dream was disturbing. I dreamt that I was murdered.

Murder of me aside, it was otherwise a normal dream. Nothing so notable, just only the ending of course, which was spontaneous, nothing had lead to it, it just happened, a man murdered me.

It marks as the third dream of such dreams I’ve had. The first dream I remember was many years ago, back when I was in middle school. I think.

In that dream I was shot dead on my own driveway, by a complete and total stranger. He had appeared in only the very final moment, just to kill me. Again, I remember it was a very long dream. Much had happened in that dream. It was a normal dream. I will never forget that dream — to this day, I still envision the insane grin on his face as he raised his gun and opened fire, from extremely close range — I had tapped him on his shoulder in fact, and when he turned around, he then shot me fucking dead.

And my dream last night is strikingly similar…

Again, being murdered aside, it was otherwise a boring, uneventful dream that would be just as forgettable as any, but then that murder part had to happen. And as in both the other dreams of the like prior, I was murdered, again, spontaneously, completely out of nowhere, after coursing the full of a long, placid, stretching dream. These dreams…are not nightmares… This is really a weird thing I’m starting to wonder. It is a complete different monster entirely than a nightmare. It has to be.

The assailant, this time, was homeless I think. I was walking under some bridge, where there, he was waiting. He was just standing, leaned up against a wall, waiting for me to pass him. And as I did, it was then, he produced a knife… he shanked and gutted me like a lunatic. It’s always some lunatic.

It was incredibly vivid. Outstandingly graphic. Whether I was dreaming or not, and I was, but still, and whether it was semi-lucid or not, and regardless of whether I’m mentally fit or not… when this fucking goddamn crazy bum stabbed his fucking knife into me, I swear, I had felt it. It had woke me up immediately, right there and then, my fist clenching to my stomach. Not fucking cool… not fucking cool at all. I had gotten over it as the dream was over, as I then realized of course, but still, fucking man, damn, it was disturbing…to say the least.

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Ethan Greenbow was nervous. He was rightful to be nervous. He was driving home, having spent his full evening at the home of Jason Tanner–a single story ranch, the only house of such kind in Jason Tanner’s neighborhood–The Highlands, a mammoth sized community of some very big houses.

Jason Tanner’s ranch, though it was comparatively unique, by virtue of its own proportions, was not a sore thumb to be there, as that it had done little to disrupt the architectural rhythm of the Highlands, a neighborhood that, just as virtually all others in the history of  suburbia anything ever, was most generally lacking in that to begin with. And even were it not, Jason Tanner’s ranch, if it were anything like that, it’d be meant the other way around; The Highlands, known formerly as, The Grasslands, was then once a neighborhood of many ranches — Jason Tanner’s ranch, somehow lasted through the years and remained intact, as the only ranch that would, to be the last ranch standing in the entire neighborhood.

Why Jason Tanner’s ranch was the one ranch to survive, who knows — the value held through for many years, through many ranging trends, in what seemingly there was always, a perpetually fated, boom-or-bust market; surviving its own genocide, and lasting the decades, becoming the oldest house in the neighborhood, far much older than any from the newer wave of stucco giants that, popping up like daisies were surrounding Jason Tanner’s ranch from all ends. Maybe there was just something to a house that was made of white bricks, with green copper trimming, trees as wide as tires, and had a wagon wheel submerged into the front lawn — maybe it was that combo of elements that composed a perfect storm, and killed off all the would-be contractors; or maybe more simply it had just made the recipe for immortality — who knows. The ranch was a relic, symbolic even — to those at least who’d know enough to realize it — to be pragmatic enough, to define the objective yet, creative enough to know the good that lies in that antithesis — to possess that kind vision, to have what’s needed to splice the tender division that sits just off of center between the both. That’s the kind of magic that all worthless critiques are made of — the same kind of magic to let Ethan Greenbow’s mind torture itself.

Ethan was desperate to find some luck on that night. Driving home to his wife, Samantha, his thoughts raced as he cruised, coasting down the boulevard, a full-ten-miles below the legal limit. He was overcome with guilt. He had knew that he needed to lie to Samantha again. He felt there was just no getting around that anymore. Ethan would not dare tell Samantha the truth. Lying and, on a very specific and limited list of thing at that, had become such a regular habit for Ethan that it had become routine. The excuse was, as according to Ethan, that on such nights such as this, Ethan would be working out, sweating away in a gym. And at first, that excuse had worked, and worked marvelously well. Samantha approved of his alleged new habit, full heartedly. And Ethan had played things off accordingly; he was soon working out three times a week. Eventually, though, he encountered a slight problem in that he was soon gaining a noticeable amount weight, even despite his regular sessions at the gym — it was just too obvious an anomaly for either to ignore.

Although Ethan desired only to have a workable excuse for Samantha on that night, in those moments his brain was left nearly useless — it had seemed as if the harder he’d thought, the less he would think — all that his brain had managed to muster was just three cycling images: Samantha in her bathrobe, Jason Tanner holding a lint roller, Allan Greenbow his father.