I was at a concert. At first it seemed like a Dead concert but then it became some lame jam band. A waitress circulated with a tray of snacks. The band performed a version of "The Music Never Stopped" that featured a rapper. I was concerned about the location of my bag, which contained my laptop. Someone had moved it but everything seemed to be there.

I was somewhere else. It was a football Sunday. I saw flashes of games and scores on TVs overhead, like at a sports bar.

I was talking to Jay L. about his military days. Then he was driving a car and I was in the passenger seat. Some family members were in the back - possibly Jesse, possibly Sally. Jay become confused and sleepy and began to lose control of the car. We were accelerating and veering to the side. I told him to let me have the wheel, let me use the pedals. His foot was entangled and I couldn't get past it to step on the brake.

When It Exploded There Were Some Who Died

Chris W. was operating some kind of program for kids where they'd show up to his house - not his current house, some dream house - and he'd take them into the woods. It was unclear what was to happen there but it seemed like a powerful educational experience. I decided to join him one day. I showed up at the house as the kids were gathered in the driveway. Mike R. was there too. We walked down a path and bit by bit the kids melted into the woods. This did not seem to be cause for concern. Chris, Mike and I manned a makeshift stand beside the path, from which I suppose we could give guidance to passing kids. We also apparently had things for sale. One kid came by asking for a CD of Buddhist chants to meditate to. We didn't have that but I recommended a recording of the Tuvan Throat Singers. "Not Buddhist, though, right?" I said, second-guessing myself. My teeth were chattering for some reason.

We had a van with us - though at first we had been walking - which we had parked at the edge of the woods. Someone had left the hand brake off and it was rolling backwards down a road that led down into a town square. It crashed into a building. My perspective shifted several times: I was in the building, I was a detached observer, I was responsible for the truck. It was full of explosives. After it crashed into the building, actually penetrating the wall, there was a horrible pause before it exploded, when the people in the building thought they were safe but I - being responsible for the truck - knew they weren't. When it exploded there were some who died and some who survived. I imagined myself as someone in the building, seeing the truck coming, running out and to the side to save myself. Fortunately, the building was occupied by Nazis. I didn't need to regret their deaths.

I was at the Eagles game being played today, the wild-card game against the Vikings. It was in Philly rather than Minnesota. I sat at a bar perched over one end zone and ordered Johnny Black on the rocks. It was difficult to discern what was happening on the field. McNabb appeared to fumble, yet the crowd cheered. Later, an Eagle scored in the far end zone, possibly Brian Dawkins after an interception. At times I was on the field, able to scrutinize things closely; for example, the thin dusting of snow half-concealing the "Eagles" painted in the end zone. At the bar, I ordered another drink. The woman bartender said, "Johnny wants to make sure you're for real," or something to that effect, which I understood to mean "Am I a fan?"

"Just watch me, you'll see."

The Vikings recovered a fumbled kickoff for a touchdown and now it was 7-7 at halftime. I wandered around the stadium and saw Mark B., an old schoolmate from Storrs. We exchanged pleasantries and I walked back toward the bar.

I was signaling my father from some sort of platform or parapet overlooking a river. He lay on the shore on the other side.

Something was wrong with my lighter, the Zippo I inherited from my mom. It was sort of coming apart, and it wouldn't light. There was plenty of gas - I could hear it hissing out the nozzle - but there was something wrong with the flint or the wick, or both. Suddenly it sparked, and the gas that had been expelled caught fire. The flame ran up my chest and neck and along the left side of my face. I frantically tried to put it out.

My dad was ailing and yet he was driving somewhere with my brother and me in the car. At a certain point he became incapacitated - not exactly unconscious, but suddenly unable to operate the car. I reached over from the back seat and did my best to steer us to safety, asking my brother to step on the brakes. We managed to pull off the road into a strip mall parking lot in our old hometown, Storrs, Connecticut.

We were indoors suddenly, with other people around us. My dad was slipping in and out of some kind of trance-like, near-death state. Someone asked him, "What's teap?"

"It's peach-flavored tea," he replied authoritatively. I viewed this as a sign that his mental faculties were still strong.

Then he began to describe a fancy dish he'd had, or seen, or was anticipating eating, which consisted of five kinds of small shellfish impaled on the spokes of a kind of radiating fork. He called this dish the "hand of god." My sister-in-law Amy was there and immediately corrected him, saying that in fact "the hand of god" was a phrase used to describe a controversial soccer goal scored by the Argentine player Diego Maradona in the 1986 World Cup against England, in which he deflected a ball into the goal with his hand.

I dreamt I saw a drone up in the sky. This was the night after I think I saw one in real life. In the dream it was darker but still small, jagged-looking. It flew lower and lower and closer and closer to me - it seemed that it knew I was watching it, or knew I was thinking about it, and this compelled it to come closer. I was afraid and rueful that I'd dared to notice it at all. It made a few harassing passes, a bit like a bee. When it was a few feet from my face it opened a mechanized mouth full of arrowhead-shaped metal teeth. I was terrified it would bite me of course, but when it didn't it occurred to me that its purpose was to open my third eye. It hovered right above my forehead and somehow coaxed my third eye from the middle of my brow. When it opened the drone placed a contact lens in it.

I was at a concert by a single woman, sitting cross-legged at the side of the stage. I had a guitar and wanted to play along but knew it would not be appropriate. But then the performer handed out guitars for people to accompany her so I played along to her version of "El Paso," which she was playing in the unusual key of C#.