For some reason, John Travolta rang my doorbell and came into my home. I "knew" him but not well. While making small talk (most of which I don't remember), he mentioned that he was going to start making daily runs between Orlando and Miami in his plane and take passengers. I was thrilled and told him that my son loved to fly and that it would be especially exciting for him because he would know the pilot. John looked skeptical.

Been a long time since I've journaled again but it's not because I haven't been dreaming -- I've had tons but when I remember them, they're such small bits and pieces it doesn't seem to be worth the time it would take to record them. Going to try to get back into it again because I really do enjoy the ability to go back and re-read them. I haven't been sleeping well lately, either, so I might as well get something out of being ass-tired all day.

Two dreams last night -- neither particularly long but both chock-full of sensory details.

First: I was at the home of the Pig Divas (to anyone reading this, they're my former step-family whom I used to care about until they decided to sue us over my late father's will. As they say, if you really want some insight into an individual's character, meet them in court). My former step-mother and step-sister were there and I had a very chubby baby boy. My step-sister had just gotten out of the shower and had wet hair and make-up streaked down her face. I laid down on a bed to try to get my baby to sleep and they were hovering over me in a concerned sort of way. I tried real hard to pretend that everything was alright between us but I couldn't bring myself to even look at my former step-sister. At some point, the baby got away from me and I was frantically chasing him before he could fall down the basement stairs. My former stepmother was irritated.

Two: I was on a weekend date with a guy who reminded me of Freddie Prinze, Jr. He was driving me to the airport -- apparently, I didn't live in the same town. I was aware that the date had gone very well and told him what a wonderful time I'd had -- he responded and I couldn't hear him over traffic noise but I knew he was telling me the same. At that moment, I had the feeling that this was a relationship that was really going to go somewhere. He dropped me off at the airport. Suddenly, I was in his house. I don't know how I got there but I was in the guest room getting ready for bed and I realized I was going to have to explain to him why I hadn't left after he'd dropped me off at the airport. Just then, he passed in the hallway pushing his mother in a wheel chair. He didn't see me so I quickly closed the door. Then my mother was with me and we got into the double bed. I was still really stressed about explaining why I was there and I kept telling my Mom, "Tell him our flight was cancelled".

I've actually had tons of dreams lately -- I just haven't been motivated to write them down in the middle of the night and ultimately end up forgetting too much of them to journal.

I had a doozy last night -- one of the rare dreams that makes me a little nervous about closing my eyes again.

I don't remember where I was but I entered a room and my father was there. I knew he was dead but, apparently, it wasn't unusual for me to see him -- I had the feeling that I needed to treat him as I would if he were alive at the same time that I found his presence disturbing and just wanted to get away from him as fast as possible. I sort of breezed through the room and asked him, "How you doin', Dad?" He appeared to be packing a suitcase and mumbled some kind of typical-for-him response. He also handed me two one hundred dollar bills.

Later, I was talking to my sister and I reached into my pocket and pulled out the two hundred dollar bills. All of a sudden, I realized that while I often "saw" my late father, I had always accepted that he was a figment of my imagination or a hallucination -- not real. Now I had received physical proof that he was absolutely real. This disturbed me a lot.

I woke up and looked around the room, a little nervous that I wasn't alone. I was. I had a little bit of difficulty going back to sleep, though.

One of my guilty pleasures this summer has been the delightfully tawdry "Paradise Hotel" on FOX. I think Charla is wonderful and am rooting for her (and Dave or Keith) to go all the way to the end. Lucky me, I got to "visit" them last night.

I was sitting on a couch in a room at Paradise Hotel with all of the contestants. Alex was nearby and commented about some stains on the wall to my left. I looked at it and suddenly realized that the room we were in was actually part of a house I lived in at the age of 15 in Phoenix. I thought this was a real hoot so I stood up and tried to whisper the information in Charla's ear. She couldn't hear me over the ambient noise so I motioned to her to meet me in one of the bedrooms.

When I entered the bedroom, I passed Charla who was sound asleep in a sleeping bag on the floor up against a wall. I looked up and realized the woman I had just whispered to had been Holly, not Charla. I didn't want to share my hot information with her so when she asked me what I wanted to tell her, I just said it was nothing important.

Later, I was in a Paradise Hotel bedroom by myself. The television was on and the tv show was "Paradise Hotel". A bunch of the contestants knocked on my door and walked in -- everyone was chatting away and it suddenly hit me that I was AT Paradise Hotel while watching it on television. So I asked them if they had been able to watch the show all along and they said that they had and didn't seem to think that was a big deal. Then I realized that my revelation that the hotel was actually one of my old homes was not only impossible, but really stupid.

ADDITIONAL NOTE ON OCTOBER 20TH, 2003:

Not feeling the Charla-love anymore. She screwed her teammate Dave over and and is unworthy of both my respect and affection.

Once again, it's been some time since I've made an entry here. It's a combination of lack of dream recall and lack of time. I had a doozy last night, though, and forced myself to write it down before I could forget it. This dream had far more sensory depth than most of my dreams.

I was in the master bedroom of my house (as usual, not the home I actually live in). One or more of my kids were there with me. I decided to take a shower. As I entered the master bathroom, I had to maneuver around Molly's blackboard easel and tall, thin bureau I had apparently place near the bathroom entry. I made a note to myself to tell Molly to move her easel and briefly considered moving the bureau before Bob got home, but decided against it.

I started to head into the shower and noticed a clear plastic package on the floor. I looked more closely and it had a live creature in it. The animal was about ten inches long and resembled the creature from "Creature From the Black Lagoon". Although I had never seen it before, I immediately knew that it was Morgan's and that he had purchased it in the package it was in.

The animal was clearly distressed and in poor physical shape. I knew it needed food and water as quickly as possible. I picked up the package with the intention of finding something for it to eat and drink and was repulsed by the squishy feel of the animal's body inside the package. I then realized that the package was open and the animal's head was sticking out of the top. I picked up a nearby magazine to use it to gently tap on the creature's head to make it withdraw back into the bag so I could seal it.

When I tapped it, though, it violently convulsed and grabbed my fingers with its front claws. It was unbelievably strong. I knew it was trying to bite me so I struggled with it for a brief amount of time. Finally, I gave up and tossed the bag away from me. Then I woke up.

What was unique to this dream, though, is that when I woke up, I was in the middle of making the "tossing" movement with my arm. I immediately felt the contrast between the weight of the creature and struggle with it in my dream and the emptiness of my hand in my waking state. It was one of the most realistic dreams I've ever had.

While I can't see the ocean, I'm aware that I'm in a seaside town. I'm at a park of some kind and Morgan is off to my right, playing on some kind of monument. He's talking to himself and using what I recognize as "astronaut terminology." At one point, he starts talking about "the zone."

There's a man sitting to my left who keeps turning around and looking at Morgan and chuckling to himself. I catch his eye and tells me he's in the space program and asks me how Morgan is so knowledgable. I tell him that when Morgan is interested in something, he self-educates himself.

Later, I'm with the man and we're riding in a car. In the other lane, there are people walking in the opposite direction in the middle of the road. I see some people with young children and babies and I'm really disturbed by that -there are also cars in that lane and I'm worried someone will get hurt.

Then we're back at the park and a young dark-haired woman shows up. I "remember" that she is someone we had met before who had promised to come back and give Morgan some "falafel" -- she had told him about it and he wanted to try it. She pulls out a handful of the "falafel" -- it's looks like oval-shaped Cheerios -- they have a cream cheese and chive center. She tells us to be careful chewing them because they will pull fillings out.

She leaves and the original man returns to see Morgan as well but Morgan isn't around. The man leaves and on his way, he stops at the monument Morgan was playing on earlier -- I "remember" that it is an astronuat memorial.

We were going to visit Bob's daughter and her family. After our plane landed, we had a half hour car ride to the hotel where I had made our reservations.

Bob started walking ... and walking ... and walking. The rest of us were scurrying to keep up with him. I kept telling him that the hotel was too far away to walk but he just buzzed me off.

We ended up in a forested area and we're trudging through the trees, up and down hills, and we come across a house. The house was somehow blocking our progress through rest of the woods. We went up onto the porch of the house and I put several pieces of trash in a small white shabby-chic metal lidded trash can. As I was doing so, I became aware that there was someone moving inside the house and I was absolutely humiliated that we were trespassing.

I turned and looked for Bob, and he's peering over the fence into the backyard, trying to see if there is a way to get through it in order to continue walking to the hotel.

A burgundy colored van pulls up in front of the house. For a moment I wonder if they're there to pick us up and take us to the hotel or if, perhaps, they have our luggage. The door to the van opens and a whole bunch of people spill out -- it's clear by the way that they're dressed that they're here for a wedding. I look around some more and there are suddenly people everywhere - dressed in white, carrying gifts, seated at banquet tables under the trees. I think that we'd better get out of there pretty quick.

The scene changes but we're still at the same house, only inside. Bob is telling me that he's decided that we'll just stay there instead of going on to the hotel. I tell him that it's not practical because we're out in the middle of nowhere and we have no transportation and no luggage or clothing. I also tell him that I'm tired of him making decisions for us without consulting me.

More dental work and more codeine dreams:

I was being held captive (again) although I can't recall any details about who, where or why. I was in a room and found toys belonging to my children that they had, apparently, left behind a year or more before. I grabbed the toys and gave them to my kids - who had suddenly appeared - but held onto a large stuffed animal that I knew belonged to my captor ... then I escaped.

I came across a flight of stairs on the outside of a building and noticed a pile of dog shit underneath the stairs. I decided that it would teach my captor a lesson if I rubbed his stuffed animal in the excrement. I went underneath the stairs and threw the animal onto the shit with great gusto and heard a loud metallic sound behind me. It was a mesh screen my captor had slammed down onto the only exit from the alcove I was in. He had trapped me again.

The next dream was even smaller than a smidgen but I'm amused by it. I dreamt about a water park with a section of bridges that were both above and below the water -- you would walk from bridge to bridge, some would be above the water line and some would be below. What amused me, though, is that I decided to call the water park "Diminuitive Bridge Jumpers."

I don't believe I have ever used the word "diminuitive" in my waking life before.

Two separate dreams last night.

In one, I was working at an elementary school and I was in charge of two little boys. For some reason
I can't recall, we all had to lay down on the floor for a brief amount of time and the two little boys
kept laughing about farting and I repeatedly had to shush them.

A little later, I encountered my former step-sister in the cafeteria. She was very nice and asked if she
could speak to both me and Molly and Morgan. I found Morgan but couldn't locate Molly and told
her she would have to speak to us without her. She handed me a legal document which outlined
some of her demands regarding my father's unsettled estate. The demands were quite ridiculous
so I smiled and handed the piece of paper back to her and told her she would have to talk to
our lawyer about it.

In the second dream, Elton John was living at our house. I don't recall why but it seemed that
he was a good friend of mine who needed a place to stay for awhile. We were having breakfast
one morning when Bob called me on my cellphone. I told him, "You know, while I was taking
Molly to school this morning, it occurred to me that Elton John is staying at our house. How cool
is that?". Elton overheard me and seemed very perturbed until I later explained that I was
talking to my husband.

A little later, I was walking outside carrying Elton under one arm. He was as light as a feather.
He was talking about someone else and said, "You know, he's very cagey politically." I
responded with "Well, I'm pretty political, you know." He asked me what my politics were and
I told him that I usually voted Republican but that I was pro-choice and pro-gay rights. He
seemed satisfied with that.

I always have the strangest dream/sleep experiences when I'm taking codeine.

I dream as though I'm deeply asleep but I'm really not -- I seem to be hovering right beneath the surface of sleep -- and because I'm not really sleeping deeply, the dreams are more vivid and easier to recollect.

I had a really strange one last night. I was outside on a house porch (not my own) and I was wearing a very short denim skirt. The skirt had either rolled or blown up to my waist and my panties were exposed. I suddenly remembered that there was a guy living across the street who liked to sit and watch the house from his front window and I became aware that I was probably giving him quite a show.

I tried to push the skirt down but it was like I was moving in molasses. With a great deal of effort, I could only get the skirt down a fraction of an inch. I struggled with it for a few moments and then focused on the fact that I felt that I was in some kind of vortex which was preventing me from moving well. My fingers tingled and I felt as though I couldn't breathe. I started to panic and then I decided to just let go and let whatever was going to happen, happen.

I woke up.

I'm going to have some oral surgery today in real life. This causes me tremendous consternation, which is evident in the dream I had last night.

I get to the office and enter the treatment area. There is a dentist's chair there but it's completely covered in stuffed animals -- I have to move a bunch of them in order to sit in the dentist chair. The whole room is odd -- there's an old console television and junk everywhere. It's looks more like a dark and sloppy living room from the 60's than a dentist's office.

Then the dentist comes in and starts talking about things I said when I was there earlier that day. I'm completely confused -- I haven't been there earlier in the day -- I have no idea what he's talking about. He starts to get real frustrated with me and raises his voice: "You were HERE this morning! Don't you remember?" I finally conclude that he's out of his mind and decide there is no way this guy is getting anywhere near my mouth with sharp implements.

So I leave.

Just a smidgen of a dream.

I was fighting with my sister over something and the argument sunk to a new low when she started mimicking the way I spoke.

My family took her side.

I was pissed at ALL of them.

Had another peeing dream last night.

I peed several times in my dream -- once, I walked over to a small set of stair in an alcove and lifted a leg and peed standing up, fully clothed. A male acquaintance (no one I know in my real life) walked by while I was doing it and was very, very amused.

Peed once or twice more in the dream before I woke up but I don't remember the details. Finally I woke up and headed straight for the bathroom.

I'm just relieved that my bladder knows better than to REALLY let go during these dreams.

I was young, single, and at a party. I met a guy who I wasn't attracted to at first but after we talked for a little while, I liked him a great deal. After being married almost 24 years, it was nice to experience the courting ritual again. He was sitting at a bar and, after a while, I went to sit one bar stool down from him and he grabbed my hand and pulled me to the bar stool right next to him. I recall being aware that we would eventually kiss but knew that he was too nice a guy to pressure me about sleeping with him that night. The whole thing was very sweet and I enjoyed feeling that sense of anticipation about a new romance once again.

Then my sister appeared with some of her friends. She started talking about an incredible trip they had all taken to New York and all of the high-falutin' places they went, things they did, and people they met. It didn't bother me at all until she mentioned that my father had gone with them and paid for everything. Apparently, he was still alive in this dream. I was deeply hurt that I hadn't been invited and hadn't heard anything about it until after the fact.

Later, I was sitting on a couch talking to a group of people about how much the whole thing bothered me. I looked across the coffee table and realized the guy I had met that night was sitting there listening to me. He kept nodding his head while I spoke and appeared to be sympathetic but I was worried that he didn't understand and would conclude that I was just a greedy, whiny bitch.

This was an unusually long and detailed dream. Very unpleasant as well.

There was a man who was the head of some kind of cult. Somehow, he managed to get control of me -- not willingly, I did what I did out of fear. For the first part of the dream I was still with my family but always mindful of this individual's influence on me.

Then he kidnapped me and Erin, although she disappeared from the dream fairly early on. He brought us to live in his cult. It was a hard existence - ramshackle quarters and unending menial work. I was with a large number of people and most seemed totally devoted to him, with the exception of a few who were there against their wills like me.

Once I was in a car with the cult leader and we were stopped at a random police check point. The police were dressed in odd khaki uniforms and they had a special device that enabled them to scan the car for weapons. Although the cult leader had a gun pointed at my back - I was in the front seat, he was in the back - they waved us through, anyway. I tried to catch the eye of the police officer and implored him with my eyes that I was in trouble -- to no avail.

For awhile, I tried to figure out a way to use my cell phone to call for help. But either I couldn't get away or the phone wouldn't work.

One of the cult leaders closest lieutenants had taken a liking to me and I kissed his ass and flirted with him at every opportunity, trying to gain his trust and biding my time until I could attempt an escape. I thought I was making tremendous progress and was quite confident that I would soon gain enough freedom that would enable a few of us to get away. In fact, I went to a young woman who was also being held against her will and whispered "Can you taste freedom?" in her ear.

There was an old guy who died sitting at kitchen table. We weren't sure he was dead so we asked someone to come and check him. He was some kind of patriarch in the cult and I consoled his widow. They seemed to be starting to trust me.

Later we were working in a room -- picking up all kinds of garbage and odds and ends and organizing it. I gathered a bunch of beige fabric scraps and put them all in a box. Suddenly, the lieutenant I thought I had in the palm of my hand was next to me, yelling at me to throw the fabric away. He was so angry that he poured a bottle of oil on my hair and rubbed it in. I returned to picking up the room with my oil-drenched hair, crying.

After that, I left the cult compound and was stunned that it was so easy to just walk away. I found a car and started driving like a mad woman through a neighborhood, trying to get as far away as possible.

We had some kind of unpleasant dealings with my former stepsister. I don't recall what transpired, just that we left her home with bad feelings.

Later, we had to go back. When we walked in her house, she was on the computer and immediately leaped to her feet and in a gleefully accusatory tone, told me that she had just spent some time on the University of Florida website trying to find proof that I had graduated from that school. She said she had searched the database of all graduates and I wasn't there and that I have been lying all of these years about my education.

I wanted to prove that I had, indeed, graduated from UF. So I sat at her computer, which was a small, roundish, blue clock-looking thingy and tried to access the website. There was a small plastic button at the bottom of the screen that kept falling off and prevented me from going online.

Later, I was in my former stepsister's bedroom and kept trying to ask her what all of her hostility was about. Everytime I asked her, though, one of her kids would interrupt me mid-sentence -- either in person or through an intercom. Finally, I did succeed in asking her and she said she "didn't know" why she was so hostile to me and we hugged.

Really weird dream.

There are events that preceded this portion of the dream but I can't recall them.

Lucille Ball was my mother. My husband and children (a teenage girl and two younger children) in the dream were not my real-life ones, either. We were all living in a movie star mansion with my mother, Lucy.

I was upset about something and my husband and I decided that it was time to move out of the mansion and out from under my mother's thumb. I headed upstairs and as I passed my children's rooms, I told them that we were leaving and to get some things together quickly and wait at the top of the stairs and listen for me to tell them it was safe to come downstairs.

Unfortunately, my mother was in a nearby room and when I saw her, I realized she had probably heard everything I said to the children. I went into my room to get a few things and my mother followed me in. Rather than wait for her to confront me, I decided to tell her directly that we were moving out.

The next thing I remember is that one of her security guards - a black male - was trying to prevent me from leaving. He kept talking to me, both condescending and threatening. My mother stood by and watched. When I still insisted that I was going, he pulled out a pair of handcuffs and grabbed my arm and started twisting it. One of the kids had come into the room and I yelled at him/her to go get my husband.

I turned to my mother and said, "I love you with all of my heart but I don't like you very much right now. Do you understand the difference?"

Just bits and bobs here:

I was in a crowd of people and saw American Idol's Clay Aiken walking towards us. Apparently, I was the only one who recognized him and I said something of a humorous nature to him. He laughed and walked over and said something of a humorous nature back. Wish I could remember what we both said that was so damned funny. I'm a huge fan and I was thrilled.

Later, I was with Erin and Heather, somewhere near the beach. They were telling me that I needed to go to the basement of a nearby building to look for something -- I can't recall what it was. I remember being under the impression that I would be rummaging through a sewer-type place. They told me to remember to put shoes on because there were a lot of rocks I had to climb over to get there. I started to head down the stairs and passed through three or four floors and still never reached the basement.

I woke up from this dream and wrote it down immediately. I've done this before and in spite of my half-awake status, my notes are usually fairly coherent. In addition, the act of writing the dream down usually seems to secure the dream a space in my brain.

Not this time.

Trying to decipher my scrawl, this is what I think I wrote:

I was in some kind of seclusion with a group of young people - it may have been a reality show. I'm not sure if we were released or what but, suddenly, we were all at my house.

I was holding a crab and it kept trying to grab my cigarette. I ended up dropping it and couldn't find him. I felt really guilty.

I went to the kitchen and suddenly a the other people show up, including Erin, Megan, and Molly. I told Molly to go back to bed and one of the kids said, "You should let her stay up." I was frustrated and said, "I think I have more experience being a parent than you do."

End of note. And I can't remember any of it.

We were going to make a family trip to somewhere - all six of us - and were considering taking the train. When presented with our options, the travel agent suggested that we get "a trailer on the train". Basically, this was a train car with one of those small Windstream trailers inside it. The advantage was that it provided privacy and cooking facilities -- even now it doesn't sound like that bad an idea. You had both sleeping and cooking areas and then rest of the car to stretch out in. I was really enthused about having our own private space on the train.

When I showed the literature to Bob, he wasn't impressed. He grabbed the pamphlet from me, turned the page, and pointed to a picture of traditional train seats.