Will wanted me to post a dream I had last week. I’m not sure why, although I have been compelled to tell it to a few people already. I apologize to those who have been forced to sit through it before. It might be an example of lucid dreaming. You'll have to tell me. Will and Alan tell me I dream differently than they do. I remember a lot of my dreams and they tend to be very detailed. Some of them are fully plotted, material generating, fantastic extravaganzas. I've had some dreams that seemed so vivid and real that I've had to fight to remember afterwards that they were just dreams and not memories of things that have happened.

Thursday night, I started dreaming about being up at my parents' cabin in the woods in northern Wisconsin. I went outside the cabin and there were some big concrete drain pipes resting on the hill and some kind of contractor walking around them.

An aside here: [Ever since the land around our cabin was sold, I’ve been having dreams about the land being developed right next door. They’ve mostly been bad dreams about big tree tearing, earth ripping machines and clear-cutting. We were really spoiled for years and years because the owner of the land lived a few lots down and only sold land to people he liked or only when he needed the money. The lot he sold my parents was the last one that he sold on that end of the property. We had empty woods on our side all the way to the end of the lake, where there were a few hidden cabins. Behind us, the forest was undeveloped all the way back to a small lake. Its mostly deciduous trees (elm, quaking aspen, poplar, oak, and birch) with most of the white pine having been logged out over a hundred years ago. It was enough woods for us to play and explore and not run into anyone else, but not big enough to really ever get lost since you hit water or road eventually – believe me, we tried. When the owner and his wife died, the land passed to her son. A few more lots between us were developed but nothing past us. It went to his children when he died. Now a new big road has been added and the lots are selling and being built. We don’t have anyone within sight of us, yet, but it’s expected to happen sometime soon. It must be causing me a little anxiety if I keep dreaming about it.]

Before I had to do anything about the guy or the pipes, my dad walked around the side of the cabin and I realized I could leave it to him. At this point, a dog ran by me down the path towards the lake. When he stopped about twenty feet away, he changed from being a big black dog to my old dog, Burt, who was put down this past summer. I stopped in the dream at this point and said to myself that I was going to ignore the guy and the pipes and wherever the dream was going and just watch Burt. It was vivid. Burt seemed as real as he ever had been. A minute later, my dad made the same decision and joined me. I was very comfortably hanging from a tree branch with my arms wrapped around it from underneath with my elbows pointing downhill at the dog and my chin resting on my fists. I remember thinking, only in a dream could I make this position work. Burt was only sniffing around and licking himself but we were both enjoying watching him just be himself. After a while, I decided to test the limits of the dream, I guess I wanted more, and got down in a crouch with my arms open wide and called Burt. He came bounding up the hill and started licking me and it felt so real. I don’t remember what happened after that. When I woke the next morning, the dream was, and is still, as fresh as a memory.

I haven't talked to my dad about this, yet. I'm meeting him for lunch tomorrow and I'll let you know if he has anything to add.