(Male) It was twilight, nearly dark and my wife and I were digging up the last few roots of a tree in the yard of the house where I grew up. The roots were thick and pale, more like horseradish roots than that of a tree. A helicopter flew over head slowly as if it was inspecting was we were doing. I ran up to hide under the porch. I think it didn’t see me. My heart was pounding.

…These folks definitely had the death’s head insignia of the Angels. The sound of their bikes shook my heart and belly like a good Harley does…

Later, camping with my family, one of the entertainments offered is medieval re-enactments. I’m to be shown how to shoot a bow and arrow. The bows come in two pieces, both long, spindly sticks that will be held together somehow by one hand while the other hand draws the string. I get what I think are two parts of the same bow, some arrows and join the others standing in the yard. Just then a motorcycle rumbled by and somehow it is PULLING a van. The van is like a commercial delivery van and it’s obvious the guy had stolen it for the tools that are kept inside. Someone mentions that it was a Hell’s Angel but I didn’t see the guy’s jacket. A moment later, several police cars and a low flying helicopter scream down the same dirt road obviously in pursuit. Then several people desert the re-enactment, hop on their bikes and zoom off down the road. These folks definitely had the death’s head insignia of the Angels. The sound of their bikes shook my heart and belly like a good Harley does.

We left the park ground to visit my dad who was an elderly widower. (Oddly enough in waking life, it’s my Mom who’s been a widow now for nearly 20 years) He was older and slower than I remember him, thinner too and paler. He lived alone in this very small brick house. Dad seemed more interested in listening to a baseball game on the radio than in talking with us, even about the possible danger. He lived near the park and I was afraid for him given that there was an outlaw biker on the loose, one made desperate by police pursuit. My plan was to sit around at his house until the guy was caught. But the police helicopters were swarming overhead which suggested the suspect was somewhere really close by. I didn’t want to worry Dad but I wanted him safe too. I tried to check around a little in the backyard but I just kept finding more and more places where someone could hide and escape detection. I gave up and started checking the front yard. Then I realized that I’d left the car unlocked and for that matter that one of the kids had left the back door wide open. The guy could be in my very car. Or under my car waiting to slash my ankles with a knife at that very moment. My heart was hammering inside my chest. I think that’s what woke me up because it still was beating heavily as I lay there in the dark.

When I went back to sleep, I continued the dream, sort of. Somehow we got home to a neighborhood of extremely small houses, like trailer homes made of brick, tidy, compact. There was no grass on the yards, only dirt. There were very few cars but in front of each was at least one shiny Harley Davidson motorcycle. They ran the gamut from Sportsters to Electra Glides, very old ones to new ones, all very well kept, nothing overly fancy or customized, just honest working bikes. These were what folks road to work. And I was stuck riding down the street on the same bicycle I had as a kid with the banana seat and ape hanger handle bars. I wonder whatever happened to the guy with the delivery van?

(Male, 40′s) This dream had the feel of a film noir, especially the whole sense of “what have I gotten myself into now?”

I was going through some papers that I think my father left and I discovered a file cabinet full of what appeared to be quite rare stamps. I called someone who worked with my dad who happened to be a stamp expert and he came over to evaluate them.

Next thing I knew, this expert had called someone in to help him. They were bent over this one page from a stamp album. Neither man wanted to say definitely whether the stamps were authentic or fakes.

They came across an address of an office nearby. I said that I’d check out the office because I couldn’t be any help with the stamps. My wife and I went to check out the mysterious address. It was in a college, an old European kind of college where all the buildings look like churches with carved stonework and soaring arches. When we found the office itself, the door was locked but we could see through the windows that it had been ransacked. We tried another door along the side and it was unlocked. We let ourselves into the office where we discovered it wasn’t only ransacked, it had been a crime scene. There was blood caked into the furniture and the walls. Papers were strewn along the floor. And the weirdest detail was that a small, disposable camera hung from the ceiling strung from twine. I took this all in at a glance and I knew I had to call the police. I found a phone in the office and dialed 911. A voice answered that said “This 826-4531 how can I help you?” I asked if this wasn’t the police and the voice said that it was the police but that they were doing some remodeling and he didn’t want to confuse people. I told him that he might want to say that it was the police or 911 or something instead. I started trying to explain what I saw and where I was but I had lost the slip of paper with the address. I tried to describe the crime scene and the buildings in the area. Then I asked why they needed me to tell them all that, couldn’t they just trace the call. The voice said of course they’d already traced the call and he was just trying to keep me on the line until the police arrived to arrest me. I tried to explain again that I was just discovering this scene when a man arrived, highly distraught. He looked vaguely like an undergraduate humanities professor I’d had. His blond hair was wind-blown and his jacket — a dreadful wide plaid of pastel colors — was disheveled. He ran toward me saying “No, no” And that’s when I woke up!

(Male, middle-aged) I kept dreaming this dream all night though I woke up a half dozen times. The sense of outrage, of powerlessness still stick with me.

My sister in law came to stay with us for a little while because she was being stalked by one of her customers. The police knew everything about this guy including where he lived, what he did. My sister in law even was shown pictures of him. The stalker had been placed under house arrest and was given one of those electronic tethers, but he had escaped from them before. Furthermore, the stalker had even killed a couple other people — his previous stalking targets — but for the most part everyone was treating him like he was relatively harmless. Not entirely harmless — my sister in law was encouraged to leave town until he lost interest in her — but the stalker also had some kind of special skill or profession that made people overlook his “faults.” He was a surgeon or something, though I shudder to think of him operating on someone I love.

I felt pretty sure that I could protect her, even though I’m not strong or skilled with a weapon. I resolved that as soon as I saw the stalker, I would just have to kill him before he could take advantage of the situation. Somehow, just having that attitude was going to keep everyone safe. I figured I could kill him in a fight and no one would care.

One afternoon, my wife and her sister actually were gone shopping and I was at home with several people — our plan was to have lots of people awake and paying attention at all times so we wouldn’t be caught off guard. A couple of young children knocked on the door I went to the door but I knew it was him. I went out on the porch and closed the door behind me. I recognized him from his photos. He was very tall and very muscular and had short blond hair. When he turned to face me, he flicked a lit cigarette at my face.

“You’re a little jumpy,” He said.

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

“So she’s here”

“You’re not supposed to be out of your house. Your cage.”

I yelled in the screen window for the others to call 911. We started to fight, to grapple, to wrestle. He was much stronger than me, much taller than me. I kept calling for 911. I don’t know if anyone did. My plan now was to keep him busy until the police arrived. He wrapped one arm around me, pinning my arms to my sides. With the thumb of his other hand, he started pushing on my teeth like he was trying to crack them off into my throat.

I awoke face down in my pillow.

(Male, middle aged) This isn’t exactly a nightmare but it was sure thrilling, maybe less like a horror movie and more like an action adventure.

…When we were nearly through the store, we noticed that we had triggered the burglar alarm…

My wife and I were taking our grand daughter for a ride in a stroller. It was one of those huge, old-fashioned strollers with ruffles and big tires. It was a Sunday. We had walked around town all after noon and by the time we started back it was getting dark and we were getting tired. For some reason, we thought it would be easier if we took a short cut THROUGH an antique shop. The first trouble was that the antique shop was closed since it was late on a Sunday. We tried the door anyway and found that it had been left unlocked so we opened it and pushed the carriage inside. We discovered immediately another trouble with this plan which was the aisles of the shop were crammed too tightly with merchandise. My wife and I had to move things from the front of the stroller to the back in order to have enough room to inch it along. The process seemed to take hours – what a short cut! It was dark outside. We were so tired. When we were nearly through the store, we noticed that we had triggered the burglar alarm. We tried to work fast to get through the store. Just as the stroller was nearly out, however, we started hearing police sirens. We pushed the stroller the last bit of the way and an antique ceramic plate got caught in the ruffles. I caught it just before it would have shattered on the cement. My heart was pounding in my chest. My feet and back ached. I just wanted to get home. Just wanted to put my feet up. As we got the stroller out of the door and onto the sidewalk, this huge armored (!) police car screamed around the corner. It pulled up beside us and a couple very young policemen rushed out and started running around the building. My wife and I smiled and started pushing the carriage toward home.