This is odd. Last night I slept in my 5 year old’s bed while the little sick one slept with mommy. Shortly after falling asleep, I was having a fun little dream about watching a TV show on a movie screen in a theater. Happy and fun. Some goofy guy saying goofy stuff. Then the theater got dark and became close and suffocating. My vision tunneled onto the character’s face on the screen. He was growing serious and staring out at us theater-goers. His face turned dark and began to float out of the screen. As his dark face moved toward me, it became green and scaly and demonic. The monster was growling and hissing and baring his teeth. I went from laughing to groaning to screaming like crazy. I could have moved and I could have run, but I didn’t. I was having fun being scared. That’s the point of a 3D movie, right? Then, all at once, I realized this was no movie. This demon was real and he was coming for me. I panicked and did that thing I haven’t done since I was a wee youngster. I willed myself to wake up. Back in my daughter’s bed, with great effort I opened my eyes. Staring into darkness, I could still see the face. And it was still changing, growing in it’s evilness. Neural impulses were still lighting up the visual cortex of my brain – even though I was definitely now awake. My unconscious mind was telling my conscious mind to see this hideous, evil face. And I was scared. Very brief, yet very real fright. Wide awake, laying in bed in the dark, wouldn’t get up to walk to the door afraid. It’s been decades since I’ve felt that. Why on this night? And why in that bed and in that room? Maybe next time Simone tells me she’s afraid at bedtime I will have a different experience than before I had this dream.