Uninvited guests

I am passed out drunk on the couch and I hear my dad's voice and realize that he has somehow gotten into my apartment despite having no key. He comes into the living room, followed by my mom and my brother — the 12-year-old version of my brother, that is — and they are looking around at the mess and I give them hugs and try to wake and sober up and am just stricken with embarrassment and guilt that they've caught me in a severely mortifying moment.

Choose your own adventure

There was a scene in Mad Men last night that I was sure was going to play out like so: Man falls asleep on couch, man opens his eyes and is suddenly dreaming, man stands up and things happen that the audience understands are dream things, etc., man wakes up. Except it didn't pan out that way; man woke up. But it's a common scenario in movies and television — the falling asleep and dreaming that one is in that sleep position, "waking", and then doing dream stuff. I thought to myself, that doesn't really ever happen to me, self. I never really fall asleep in my bed and then start dreaming that I am in my bed as a starting point for a dream.

Which means, of course, that that kind of happened in my dream last night. Kind of.

Last night in real life, I left my friends D and A's apartment and drove home, like, half a block away.

Last night in dream life, I had a few false starts from D and A's apartment, trying to get home.

During the first one, I was in my car and completely, completely drunk. I couldn't find my way out of the parking lot so I turned around and took some convoluted alternate route and ended up driving over a median and puttering out into the street, unsure if traffic was coming or not. I think I made it home.

Scenario No. 2 had me stumbling out into the parking lot with friends Ay and B, and B lagging behind because he had found something electronic blinking in the grass. He realized it was my Blackberry and handed it to me. I'm grateful, of course, because clearly I dropped it and would have left it behind forever and ever. And then I realize that I must have dropped it hours ago, because it's busted as hell — keys missing, panels warped, screen cracked, not functional at all. I instantly start freaking out because I don't have insurance on it and even if I did, would it cover stupid drunken mishaps like dropping it in a parking lot and people running over it with their cars? Doubtful.

Scenario No. 3 has me leaving D and A's place and getting on some kind of shuttle full of bona fide creepy freaks. I'm sitting in the back of a standard van — two people up front, three in the middle row, and then me and someone else in the back. The driver looks in his rearview mirror straight at me and saying, "Hey, baby, where you headed?" and other barely masked innuendos. He goes on and on and I try to stand strong and silent and wait for my stop. The person sitting beside him turns to look at me and I see what I can only describe as a Satanic nose, pierced by a huge, tribal-looking nosering. The van finally stops at McLean and Poplar and I get out and try to walk quickly across the parking lot of the strip mall there, but the driver of the van is walking briskly to catch up with me. Ay and B are walking close behind and B wants to know what's wrong, so I start yelling at the van driver, who is some skanky old dude with long blonde hair, "You can't just look at a girl like that and say 'Hey, baby, where you heded?" It's creepy!" B's all, "What!? Yeah, man, you can't do shit like that!" I'm screaming at the skanky dude and B and Ay try to console me as I break down into tears.

I don't know if I ever got home.

The dream parade made a stop in my skull last night and the grand marshall was a demon who tried to possess me

You ever think that maybe certain locations are more fruitful when it comes to dreams? Like your brain feeds on the residue there -- if it can pick it up -- and just runs with the craziness?

I ask because any time I spend the night in my childhood bedroom, I seem to have lots of dreams, and some of them fill me with anxiety. Like, not run-of-the-mill anxiety, but life-and-death-of-my-soul anxiety.

So last night I'm having a sweet fix of a dream about a boy (whose reality I knew was hopeless to be had), when suddenly a metaphorical night falls on me and I feel hunted by evil forces. I wake up -- or do I? -- and realize that my mouth is slightly open and A) I am being observed by something malevolent and B) some evil force is possessing me by pushing itself into my open mouth. I can't move my body (damned night paralysis!) so I exhale to expel the evil -- and I make the craziest moan/growl noise in the process. But I feel the evil leaving me. My heart is racing and I lie there and wonder why I always have these horrible demon-related dreams at my parents' house. Because really, I can't think of a time when I've had a demon-related dream anywhere BUT my parents' house.

I finally fall back asleep (if I was truly awake at all) and go into another dream or two ... which I swear I remembered until I started typing this; maybe they will come to me and I can come back and fill this in (stay tuned).

...

And then I am sitting at a table with The Harmony Brothers -- the full quartet -- and I am apparently drunk. We're at some sort of celebration. I don't know that I've ever been drunk in a dream before, but I am totally drunk and unable to control the volume of voice. When I can focus long enough, I realize that Jeff and Jeremy are giving me the most humiliating looks I can possibly imagine -- it's pure disdain mixed with just a hint of embarrassment at how pathetic I am.

I realize that I shouldn't be around them so I scoop up Felix and run inside my parents' house -- much to Phil's protests about how of course I should be there -- and lock myself in the bedroom where there's a window overlooking the party and where Felix can roam around freely.