I'm a teenage cashier at a Mexican-ish (think: Taco Bell) fast-food restaurant. It's my first day, and it's not conforting to see a group of space aliens walk in, demanding food in their language to go.

I eventually figure out what they want, nervously awaiting payment.

Instead of money, they hand me a business card in English and several other languages, human and alien.

"Universal Connisseurs," it reads.

Cut to the next day: I'm the first one to work, and there's a sign in similar format to the business card.

"Best Quesadillas in the Milky Way Galaxy," it says.

I was five. My young, chubby hands grasped my favorite princess sippy cup. I got out of the car, following Mommy. As we walked towards Costco, the papers she was carrying blew away in the wind, flying into the overcast sky. I forgot about my sippy cup as we walked into the building. While Mommy signed papers, I remembered that I had left the sippy cup on the curb outside.

I rushed out, and to my dismay, my favorite sippy cup had turned into a gigantic hot air balloon. I sobbed as the light-pink balloon floated out of view.

They say you don't realize you are sleep walking and most of the time you shouldn't remember what you did. But I do. Each time I have a drive to do or accomplish something. Once, when I was a kid my younger brother usually slept in the bed with me. One night I 'woke up' and found myself in my parents room. I was desperately trying to find my brother, I kept asking my mother where he was and that we had to find him. Eventually my mom conviced me that he was in bed where I had left him.

My mother shakes me from pleasant slumbers. She looks overly excited, like a manic kid's show host; her toothy smile almost twists around her ears. "Hey, Julie!" she shrills in monotone. "Let's play muuuusical instruments!" I flinch back, into my postered wall, hoping to disappear. But she grabs me by the foot and drags me back, screaming, tears shaking my chest. "Let's play the drums, Julie!", she yells. She raises her hands and smacks my chest, over and over, until the bones rattle. "Bong bong bong! Bong bong bong!"

When my mother comes to comfort me, I push her away.

I recall a vivid dream from my childhood in which I and my school friends were soldiers in the American Civil War. A brutally intesnse dream, in which we had charged with, bayonets fixed, to capture a stone bridge. Many months later, I woke with a start from another dream. Moments before, I had been an old man, surrounded by others like me. There had been a stong sadness in the dream, as I and my comrades retrned to visit the bridge we had fought so hard to capture those many years before.

I'm in an abandoned mall with a Tall, Dark, and Handsome man. The lights start to flicker--we're confused, but it's an abandoned mall, what do you expect? A soccer ball comes out of nowhere and nails Tall, Dark, and Handsome in the chest. Turns out there was an arrow connected to the soccer ball. The man is dead. I sob, shaking him to somehow wake him up. A blonde man appears behind me, pulls me into an embrace, and I sob into his chest as he whispers in my ear, "He didn't mean to."

I wake up.

The first vivid dream I'd had is one I've had many times. The first time, I was 8 years old and it most likely horror movie induced. Everything was almost entirely black and white and I was a young adult. Standing In a small apartment alone, I located the door to leave. Walking outside, I witnessed the apocalyptic aftermath of a massacred parade. Victims lay slain in the street and included my family. The only color present was their crimson blood that washed the sloped ground. They were thrown atop one another, ruined. Broken. I screamed and awoke in tears.

I’m 5-years-old, alone in a dark room. As my eyes adjust, I see them. Shadows covering every inch of the white walls. They are ominous forms with long arms that reach out to me. I hide my face hoping they’ll go away. It’s scarier not to see, so I peek out around the blanket. A faceless shadow spots me and rushes down, flying back to the ceiling as another begins to swirl off the wall. They are taking turns, rushing me--I scream.

I still sleep with a nightlight.

Because I know when it’s dark, the shadows come.

Waves shattered against the diminutive island, shaking the towering palm tree and flinging sand through the air. Screened by the torrential downfall a I cowered against the tree, wearing a wet yellow raincoat. "I just want the sun," I wept," and perhaps a bigger island too." As quickly as the words escaped my lips the blinding brilliance of the sun burst through the clouds, and dismissed the waves. I clambered up and witnessed his pitiful island expand into an astonishing oasis. Suddenly as quickly as it began, everything dwas stripped away into darkness as my eyes gradually lifted open.