I rarely have nightmares but last night I woke screaming twice.  I was trapped, and the dark was consuming me.  And although Marty tried to calm me down I couldn’t tell if I was awake or dreaming.  I feared that I was still trapped in the dream.

I can still remember a nightmare I had when I was a child.  I dreamt that apes, the ones from “Planet of the Apes”,  had taken over Silverstream Road.  As an adult I find the idea quite amusing, but I was terrified during that dream.  The apes themselves didn’t scare me, it was the concept that the nightmare world is the very place you had thought was safe.  Silverstream Road was the place where my granny lived, somewhere I always felt safe.

Last night I watched “Inception”, a movie that blurs the lines between dreams and reality.  I have often wondered how we tell the difference between what is real and what is merely a dream.

Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.

Zhuangzi