August 3, 2002

It was in a dream Thursday night. It's so disturbing... I remember seeing that once before. It's this roller coaster ride like the Cyclone (Coney Island Bklyn) or Colossus (Magic Mtn CA), which lifts into the air, and then starts spinning and stopping to change direction, back and forth the long way. The car doesn't run on the tracks, but stays in place. Part of the track is hinged - something like a third end of it - and bends back from the whiplash gravity when the thing abruptly changes direction of rotation.

Not sure I remember what my original reasoning was to go there, but I walked through a poor area and past a row of shops. I went in one to ask directions, and it was an Asian market, where nobody understood what I was saying and didn't pay much attention to me anyway. But by the end of the street, at the bottom of a hill, I came upon some street fair, with trailers parked in a cluster beyond the booths to the left. Beyond them I could catch the glimpse of a rollercoaster setup. Walking and veering right, I came upon a vendor in a wooden booth. I don't remember what it was I was going to buy, only that while I got my money out was when three late teen thug type kids were trying to be lewd and harass me. I kept my back to them and held onto my money, which was scrunched up in a fist. The vendor - himself a quiet, moody Black man - started retaliating verbally after some minutes; apparently this group was bad for festival sales. When the three went away and I thanked the vendor, he resumed not speaking, just watching me as he had before. It was then that I heard the sound of a rollercoaster and people on it, yelling and carrying on as they usually do. I looked back beyond the trailers, and way up in the sky was that thing, rotating and flipping.

This is about the time I awoke from my dream. It was 4am. Apparently Seven and I fell asleep on the couch with the lights on. Groggy, I had to get bedding. I looked about the living room, then at my bedroom door. Double French doors? This was my previous place of residence! It didn't make sense. I was fully awake and lucid. How could this still be a dream? And if it were, how could I wake up from it? I was really getting anxious. It's like I forgot how to wake up. I could think of a million scenarios I would have liked to wake up into, and this was by far none of them.

At some point, I woke up, startled and wide awake. Did I succeed?? I looked around me in the dimness of the room and saw it was normal and 5am. Needless to say, it was difficult going back to sleep again.

DD 4:40pm EST on Saturday, Aug 3, 2002