I rarely remember my dreams. What I do remember are usually fragments and scenes with no overall narrative arc. This morning I dreamed something far more elaborate and cohesive, so I figured I’d write it down for the hell of it. I use Bob Dylan’s rule from “Gates of Eden” for these things: With no attempt to shovel a glimpse into the ditch of what each one means. Anyway:

A Judgment Day of source fell across the land. There was no religious component to it at all, however. It was aliens. Naturally.

They’d take a big section of humanity – I’d say 25% of it at a time – away via some transport ships. If you resisted you were immediately killed. In the first wave I saw several lizard-skinned aliens basically incinerate men who tried to fight back. After a few hours, however, people were returned.

I was in the last group and watched people come and go. When they came back they were happy and content and told the others to just cooperate with the aliens and keep an open mind and everything would be alright.

I was finally taken. I was with thousands of others in a converted factory in Indianapolis. It was a dorm/workshop setting. We all wore work overalls. The alien captors took human form and were pretty nice to us. What was mere hours back where we came from lasted for several days where we were by virtue of some operation of special relativity (confined to Indianapolis for some reason). The aliens fed us and gave us things to read and patiently answered our questions – including children’s  questions – about space travel and why we were here and everything.

The aliens asked us about ourselves. Who we really were. What we wanted to be. Where we thought we had made mistakes along the line. I don’t remember any of my answers, but eventually the aliens gave me a tabloid-sized newspaper with multiple “stories,” each of which described – in news-story style – a possible life for me. “Craig Calcaterra, local firefighter …” or “Local business owner, Craig Calcaterra …” That sort of thing. I was to choose the life I wanted.

I don’t remember what I chose. I do remember that, within the context of my dream, my girlfriend was named “Rebecca Blue” and that one of the newspaper stories involved me working at “Rebecca Blue’s Bar and Grill.” Based on the feelings I had for the girl in the dream I presume I picked that one but I really don’t know.

We were eventually returned. Life was as it was before, but we were told it would slowly morph into what we chose in a quite natural way. We would soon forget our experience as well. Though, much like a dream, we would retain it for a little while. Everyone spent most of that brief period of time trying to figure out who was killed and who didn’t make it back. People weren’t as sad about those who didn’t return as much as they were sort of wistful and reflective about how they, apparently, did not know where they fit in the world. The dead were essentially like that old college friend you lost track of and whom you doubt ever made anything of himself.

After I woke up I Googled “Rebecca Blue” – a name I never recall seeing or hearing – to discover it is the name of a porn star. I swear I have never seen nor heard of her. But OK, it could mean something.

So how did you sleep last night?