There was a plane that went down in a terrorist attack. A few passengers survived, and one of them wrote a poem about it. I read it, and was deeply moved. Then I was on the plane as it prepared for flight. Or maybe I was just watching.

I dreamt James Joyce sat in a pub and raised a pint in praise of beer itself. He said, “You’re not so powerful now, but after 11 of you …”

I was in a small club watching Van Morrison sing. He was accompanied by only a guitarist. His performance grew more and more beautiful and soulful. The guitar player was creating percussive bass lines along with his chords, filling out the sound the way a band would.

Later I was driving a car. A. C. was in the passenger seat.

“Are you fucking Van Morrison?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she replied, without hesitation or shame. “About every weekend.”

I considered what this meant in terms of her marriage but didn’t ask anything else.

I was reading some text that said a good way to meditate was to repeat the letters “F-K-C” over and over in a high-speed mantra. In my dream the pronunciation of the letters sounded like “focusy,” meaning “somewhat like focus.” Focusy, focusy, focusy, focusy, I said, and sure enough I fell into a trance. I really felt it. My mind went numb and my vision blurred. I was a little scared, like I was losing control of my thoughts and wasn’t going to be able to get out of it. I thought about the Steely Dan line from “Parker’s Band,” “smacked into a trance.”