Been having frequent and dramatic nightmares lately. I think it’s stress. (Actually, Kevin suggested that it might be stress–I hadn’t even noticed that there was an uptick until he pointed it out.) I have deadlines every which way, and I’m at the death march stage of Dragonbreath 3 (two-thirds done! Woohoo!)

Still, as stress responses go, it beats the heck out’ve heart palpitations and acid reflux and whatnot, and I frequently seem to be able to DO something in the dreams, which is positive. I guess.

Last night was short and dramatic. I was in a house alone, and there was a mirror on the wall. I was walking toward the mirror and I saw an alien in it, standing behind me.

Now, it’s worth noting at this point that I happen to be terrified of aliens. Not ALL aliens–I quite like the notion of extraterrestrial life, I am a huge science-fiction fan, I wanted to be a Vulcan when I grew up–but those little grey buggers with the big eyes freakme the hell out. I think it’s the fact that they never want to negotiate, and they don’t appear to want anything. They scare the crap out of me.* Go figure.

So there’s an alien in the mirror behind me. This one wasn’t quite grey, more fleshtone, but short and with the huge eyes. (In this case, red and lizard-like.) I spun around, and it made a noise at me, somewhere between heavy breathing and a really nasty snicker.

Proving that my dream-self, while not particularly bright, is at least not a coward, I launched myself at the alien, got my hands around its throat, and started choking it. This only seemed to bother it a little, but the snickering got rather labored, which was victory of a sort.

Dramatic narrative almost demands at this point that I wake up throttling Kevin or the beagle or something, but in fact I woke up quite spontaneously, not throttling anything in particular, and went "Urrrrggggghhh…fuckin’ aliens…" and staggered into the bathroom.

Ben looked at me like I was weird. "You don’t get to judge me," I told him. He judged me and went back to sleep.

*Also, that one Star Trek:TNG episode with the chair and the scissors and the clicky things in the dark stealing crewmembers and experimenting on them? Scared. The. Shit. Out. Of. Me.  Guh, just thinking about it gives me the willies.

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