It's late Friday night, so I guess I still have time for a Friday Five, right?

1. What's the last vivid dream that you remember having?

Last night, I dreamed that someone I knew, Bill, who lives in New Jersey, showed up with these three friends who were tag-alongs, two dark-haired guys and one that was blondish. They showed up at this store that's often in my dreams (usually during some form of Armageddon!) which is a sort of drugstore, but with fish in aquaria, etc. There was a mysterious Asian storekeeper (think Gremlins. The guys were kind of immature, and Bill was, well, just really really big. I mean, he's 6'5" anyway, but he was a lot taller and dwarfed me. The store came under attack and at one point we tried to get away in a car. One guy was carried off by a big bat-like thing, like something out of Lovecraft. I never got to see how it would end, but we were under a siege for some time.

I was telling Zabet about this earlier. She used to be married to Bill. She said that he had these three friends from high school and that they used to be inseparable. My descriptions matched them. Weird. My dream was detailed enough that I could read the greeting cards in the aisles. That's sort of the norm, especially with the CPAP machine. Apparently I was deprived of REM sleep for so long, there's a sort of rebound effect that makes dreams particularly vivid, almost as if you're drugged. So I pretty much have vivid dreams every night.

2. Do you have any recurring dreams?

Oh, yes, although it's usually recurring elements. There was one dream I had over and over through childhood where I was in an old curiosity shop with moonlight falling on a rocking chair where a ghostly Raggedy Ann doll stepped out of the chair and I knew her name was the same as mine. I was terribly scared. I remember her in the moonlight, seeing the chair through her, while the chair rocked to an eerie music. I turned to run, and found that I was in line to check out and that there was a large grizzly bear behind me that comforted me a great deal; it didn't scare me a bit. I first had that dream at age three, then again at nine, and twelve, etc. I later found out that I'd had a rocking chair that played music. At some point I became very afraid of this chair. I also found out that I'd had a imaginary friend who was a bear. Hmmm...

Some places or people show up a lot, like this store. Last time I dreamed of it, there were busloads of tourists coming into the area while the world was getting ready to end. Go figure.

3. What's the scariest nightmare you've ever had?

The Curiosity Shop--don't ask me why, I've been able to deal with far worse in many other ways, but it was my first real nightmare.

4. Have you ever written your dreams down or considered it? Why or why not?
Occasionally, like now. Sometimes I think they'd make a good starting point to a story. Sometimes I wonder if they have some inner meaning.

5. Have you ever had a lucid dream? What did you do in it?
Hmph. I do this maybe 60% of the time, at least to some degree. The degree of lucidity varies. Sometimes I know it's all a dream, and I can change some of the story. Sometimes it's just a hint. But it's less random than some other resources.