The dream I had two nights ago was a nightmare. The dream I had last night was supremely beautiful.

TWO NIGHTS AGO:

The setting is an amazing house on a bluff on the coast of California. There is a pool, and a deck, and a patio, and multiple levels to this party. There are approximately two hundred people at this party. Everyone is chatting and laughing and having a great time. I am standing near the back of the crowd.

From the adjoining bluff comes a round of gunfire. There is a man on the edge of the cliff who is pointing a gun and strafing the crowd that I am a part of. Lots of people are shot, and everyone else completely panics. I fall down on my side on the patio, with my arm over a young kid who’s standing right near me. The people who haven’t been shot are all falling down, pretending we’re dead so that the gunman will leave us alone.

I pull a blanket over myself and the kid who I’m protecting, and I wait for the gunman to leave. After a couple of interminable minutes, he is looking over my shoulder. I start to freak out. I think, ‘If he sees me move, I’m dead. I’m dead.’ He moves the kid next to me and lifts the blanket I’m holding. I make a point of keeping my arm limp, to preserve the illusion of my death.

That’s the point at which I woke up, scared to death, heart racing and sweat pouring out of my entire body.

* * * * *

LAST NIGHT:

The scene is Portland’s Sunset Highway. For those of you who live elsewhere, the Sunset Highway is a curvy highway that links one of Portland’s suburbs to downtown, via a tunnel cut through the middle of the forested West Hills. You go instantly from natural beauty on one side of the tunnel to downtown Portland on the other. It’s very striking and amazing.

It is the middle of the night in the dream, and the moon is very bright. It has snowed recently, and there are two-foot high snow drifts along the center and both sides of the highway. It is also unseasonably warm, and the snow is melting quickly. So quickly, in fact, that there is a torrent of water flowing down the steeply banked highway. I am not driving, but I’m floating above the surface of the road, approximately ten feet off of the ground, while still restrained by the retaining walls and barriers of the road below. A new red Volkswagen Beetle goes sliding across all of the lanes on the road beneath me, but the driver manages to regain control just before he enters the tunnel. Almost–but not quite–another car crash dream.

The Volkswagen enters the final turn before the tunnel, and I wonder if I will be able to go over the retaining wall. My pace slows, and I find myself floating higher and higher above the ground, and I do pass over the wall, over the hills, and into downtown Portland.

The moon is bright, but fog shrouds the city. As I fly higher and higher, the fog gradually clears. I start to see the buildings of downtown, lighted from within. There is a carnival near the waterfront, and as the fog continues to dissipate, I’m able to see more and more detail of the colors and patterns of the multi-colored lights. ‘Wow, this is really beautiful,’ I think, continuing to fly even higher. ‘Yes! More color!’

I never thought I’d say this, but if only I hadn’t left my clock radio turned on and tuned to NPR, because the distraction of the 3:00 a.m. broadcast of Morning Edition is what woke me up.