I find it odd that a dream that takes place during the time a person is asleep is the same word as a dream that people have which relates to lifelong goals/aspirations/desires.

The type of dreams that I have are usually never associated with ambitions or hopes (oftentimes quite the opposite!). Rather, I should refer to my dreams as something like "unconscious adventures" or "slumber escapades". Maybe they're just really low level nightmares. I don't know.

What I do know is that my subconscious frequently merges time in the sense that I'll be in situations where I'm either my younger or current self (but always with my complete memories intact) and in real time or the past with people I know now as well as in the past.

The latest "snooze journey" that I had involved the family dog, big brother and two deceased guys.

I was on a ficticious elementary school playground on a chilly, windy evening (apparently, school took place at night in my reality) and the bell rang for everyone to come in from recess. Suddenly, the crowds of children ran back out to the perimeter of the blacktop and the rush of kids going out towards the grassy area very much resembled an ocean's wave for some reason. Within this wave of schoolkids, I found the current family dog, Maddie G, alone with her red leash dragging on the ground and slightly bloodied. I recovered her when the crowd started to disperse and my brother emerged from the group walking quickly towards me. Evidently, he was taking Maddie for a walk when he encountered two guys with a pit bull. The pit bull was starting to attack our frail little beagle when Andy intervened and somehow the smaller of the two guys got knocked down inadvertently. This started a ruckus where a bunch of pushing and shoving occured, but not an actual fist fight. As is his nature, Andy had just walked away and did not want to fight.

Next, as we walked along together, the two guys and a fat, Tony Soprano-looking cop came from behind us with their fingers pointing. The two guys happened to be the bullies that I knew from elementary school, the slightly built Roberto Torres and muscular & intimidating Eric Rice (the latter from whom I received numerous random punches to the stomach which always resulted in getting the wind knocked out of me. They both later died at age 15 or 16 after their alcohol induced motorcycle ride ended up with them launching themselves headfirst and helmetless into a tailgate of a pickup truck).

Back to the story. The diminutive Mr. Torres was accusing my brother of starting the fight himself as well as with our dog attacking his dog. At this point, I had to interject even without knowing all the facts. As, my brother was being handcuffed, I told the police officer that there's NO way it could happened that way because both Andy and Maddie are completely passive to the point of being faults. The law enforcement officer then looked at me and said "Do you want to be arrested, too?" and I quickly shut up in my feeble, 70 pound body. As I looked over the cop's shoulder (which I don't know how was physically possible at my 5'-0" stature), I saw the menancing sneer of Mr. Rice as he knew that he'd gotten the better of the Wong brothers (even though he'd never met my brother in reality). End of dream sequence.

This most recent dream is brought to you all by the fact that:

A) I love my dog. She was savagedly attacked by a pit bull and german shepherd a few years back, I jumped on top of her to shield her from the assault before the other owner got control of her dogs.

B) I was reminicsing about life in Petaluma with my siblings earlier in the week. Mostly about sports, however.

C) I was reading about how the VT mass murderer was bullied in middle school.