A few weeks ago I confronted a gargantuan hairy orange spider with a three foot wide web on my back patio. It returned with a vengeance in a dream the other night. I was at a horse race track with this guy who was desperately trying to convince me to lay down a ton of cash on a horse. I told him it wasn’t a good idea because I knew the horse wouldn’t win; I had a premonition. As we walked along this curving walkway around the outside of the betting area, I froze in horror. Draped across the ceiling and down one side was a massive web, the domain of the orange spider, now grown to the size of the fruit of the same name. It scuttled about, occasionally dropping from the ceiling and then returning to the web’s center where it deflated its body to a more compact form. A man standing near the web noted with amusement the spider’s proximity and then returned to his conversation. Only I seemed to think, “Aaaaahhhh! Aaaaaaahh! Look at that big spider!”

Then last night I found myself in some Midwestern field complete with decaying barns. I needed to get back to my car or something, but I realized that the field was full of small webs, each containing a large black spider at its center. It looked as though someone had gone nuts with the clone stamp tool in Photoshop. The webs and spiders were all identical. I’m not sure what I did to escape the field.

The earliest part of the dream I can recall involves me and a crowd of tourists visiting a museum of old movies and special effects, created by Harry Knowles’ family. I remember it being cave-like, as though carved out of the bowels of bedrock. We had just finished a tour and were taking a break before the next event. I encountered a witty and beautiful woman, but I avoided her once I saw she was engaged. I decided to go take a ride on this hoverbike/jetski thing. Apparently it was a game where you zipped through the flooded part of the caverns, following the instructions of a disembodied computer voice: “turn left here,” bank right,” “spin.” Somehow racing along narrow corridors over very deep water seemed fun instead of life threatening.

Cut to me walking outside the museum complex to my car in the parking lot. Dave and I were supposed to go back to the hotel. He had left all his suitcases and stuff just lying on the ground near my car and I had to shove them all out of the way so cars wouldn’t run into them. I was waiting for Dave to come out when I realized he had an audition and that’s why I didn’t see him. So I found Kevin Waltman, a guy I knew in college, and we started catching up. I told him I had read a blurb about him in The DePauw, the alumni magazine. It said he had published a book of short stories. He denied it. I said maybe I had him confused with Jared Howe, another writer in our class. Kevin didn’t remember Jared and had to consult a yearbook to remind himself who that was.

I decided to go see how Dave’s audition was going. I found the museum’s cafeteria which had a large stage at one end. Dave was in the middle of a scene from a Shakespeare play I’m pretty sure doesn’t exist. I can’t remember his character’s name, but it was a name more often associated with a woman, Carmine or something like that. He played a baron trying to win the heart of a woman from a foreign kingdom. A housemaid had told him of a magic cloak that might be just the thing he needed to gain prestige. There was a white satin rope tied around Dave’s waist and whenever someone spoke of the magic cloak, stagehands would hoist him a little higher into the air, indicating his rising hopes. I noticed the housemaid was played by the attractive engaged woman I met earlier. The scene was being directed by Michelle Forbes, seated out in the cafeteria. I had a huge crush on her, the star of many recently cancelled television shows. At a break I went over to talk to her, asking what she thought of the performance. She said the woman playing Dave’s love interest was good, even though the actress had decided to rewrite all of her character’s lines.

Then someone in the downstairs apartment began talking loudly and woke me up.

Unfortunately I haven’t been chronicling some of my latest dreams, which have been a collection of summer blockbusters and indie sleeper hits. Now only a few fragments remain. I recall this remixed version of the Matrix sequels, at least ten times better than what they showed in the theater. I know what you’re thinking: impossible, right? What could have improved *those* cinematic gems? 😉 Well, for starters, *I* was in them. And I could walk on the ceiling. I rest my case.

Then the other night I had a strange spin on the old suddenly-I’m-back-in-college dream. This time I had “returned” to the University of Chicago in order to solve some kind of mystery on campus. I had to decide what classes would require the least amount of effort so as not to distract me from my investigations. Oh, and Noah Wylie was in the dream, too, perhaps riffing on his Donnie Darko role.

Unfortunately, that’s all I recall. In the future I’ll try to be a better reporter on the important developments in dreamland.

Last night, during a dream, I experienced a power outage. I don’t recall what the dream was, only that all the electricity in the scene failed and the lights went out, then the lights of the dream world faded out. Just for a second or two, and then everything came back on again. I didn’t think that the light level in dreams could change.

I was hanging out in some dusty library with two guys I didn’t know, though one resembled Bruce Sterling. They had nooks between the teetering card catalogs where they stored their collection of retro computers, which they proudly showed off to me. One computer keyboard had keys like a manual typewriter, reminding me of “Brazil” and “Max Headroom.” Another keyboard was massive, like that of a pipe organ. It was so large because certain keys were repeated. I tried out this keyboard and liked it very much. I found that commonly used combinations of letters had been grouped together, thus the repetition.

One of the guys was working away at a huge VAX terminal. I noticed changing images of the room around me appearing on a smaller monitor attached to back of the VAX. The guy explained that if he clacked the keys too loudly, the surveillance system would focus in on the source of the disturbance. Indeed, the screen flashed close-ups of his typing fingers, then his shifting eyes.

Later he brought in these massive hard drives the size of Samsonite suitcases. As he hooked them up to a computer via the parallel port I asked their capacity. 20 Gigabytes!

The Bruce Sterling look-alike demonstrated an ancient black laptop which looked like a combination of a portable DAT recorder deck and old-fashioned calculator (the kind with the spools of paper). It had such a fantastic name, but I cannot remember it exactly. It was embossed in the plastic, a cool red logo. Gralaxxon or something like that.

Then he showed me what at first appeared to be a Macintosh G5, only constructed of cheap plastic. It took a few tries to get the thing to boot up. I wasn’t impressed until he petted the front of the computer and a kind of cowl slide down, revealing the letters “C9”. Then four legs extended from the chassis and the computer began jumping about like a dog. It slowly *became* a dog. I watched it with delight, telling the man that if he ever wanted to get rid of it, I would be more than happy to take it off his hands. By the end of the dream the computer was a frisky white Shi Tzu, rolling about at his feet.

I dreamt that when I got my hair cut yesterday that I had received a mullet and it did not show itself until this morning. I lay in bed, caught in half-sleep, afraid to get out and behold my mullet in the mirror. I speculated about what could be done to restore my hair and dignity. Would I have to get all my hair cut shorter to compensate? But then I had to pee and I woke up completely. No mullet! Whew!

I enter the Bank of America. It looks like a college library, with numerous cubicles for studying. I need to deposit a check. Instead of using an ATM or a teller, I am required to use this antiquated system which seems to combine an old fashioned carbon copier and a morse code transmitter. I see from the transaction logs that I have been here before. In fact, I am the only one who has ever deposited a check here before.

I have a problem getting the machine to work, so I approach the woman at the customer service desk. She informs me that the transaction I am trying to make is impossible. I ask “Isn’t this where I can deposit a check?” I am puzzled as to why a bank will not allow this most basic of transactions. The woman refuses to answer any of my questions. She just stares at me silently and eventually puts her head down on her desk. [Note: In waking life, I become very scared if someone does not answer me or acknowledge me when asked a question. There is something terrifying about being utterly ignored when I am speaking.]

I demand to see a manager so that I can make them aware of their employee’s poor customer service and unprofessional behavior. I end up talking to a security guard. As I am speaking to him, he runs away, zig-zagging through the bank like a child on the playground. I decide to leave the bank, thinking they have lost a customer. For some reason, I turn back and go back inside, but the bank has been abandoned for years, dust and cobwebs draping across overturned chairs and empty desks.

This dream is mostly faded, despite its long epic nature. I remember having to smuggle the lower half of a woman (a doll or mannequin) backstage at a wedding. I accidentally walked in just as the crowd was singing “Here comes the bride, all dressed in white.” Only the bride wasn’t in white; she was a short, portly woman in a red wedding dress. Later, the lower half of the woman became a chimpanzee in a cage. I met up with my mentor in a high school and he was explaining the intrusion protocols to me. Apparently we were spies. We found some janitor’s outfits to change into. He was telling me things, but I wasn’t listening because I was so worried about the chimpanzee I had stashed backstage. It was carrying some kind of genetically engineered virus. I was supposed to have taken it to the customs office of the high school and let the chimp get processed along with all the other packages getting imported into the school. My mentor and I wove our way through the students. I saw a guy and a girl making out in the hallway and I thought “Man, I wish I went to this high school.”