Why did the surrealist cross the road?

Fish.

Perhaps I should add something new now and then

Okay, I suppose I am trying to avoid the navel-gazing aspect of blogging by asking others to submit their dreams, but with my readership being what it is, my collection of nightmares resembles a flea with sharp suckers - able to cause anxiety but still extremely small.

So from time to time I will also share my own thoughts on the nature of dreams and their dark shadow siblings known as nightmares. Much has been said about this subject but some of it is so darned interesting that it bears repeating.

A good starting point for me is a well-known piece of cinematic literature known as A Nightmare On Elm Street (the 1984 original, of course.**) If you have never seen it, what's your problem? But seriously, Freddy Krueger, knives on fingers, yadda yadda yadda: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087800/plotsummary

At one point, while Nancy is hooked up to wires in a sleep disorders clinic, her mom has a talk with the doc, who would later go on to be the voice of Roger Rabbit. She says something like "What the hell are dreams anyway, doc?" to which he replies "Hey, I just work here lady." No, actually he says something like "the truth is, we still don't know what they are or where they come from."

You know you're in some serious territory when the scientists say "we don't know." So, I will be looking into what some other people have to say about it in the future. But now I'm off to bed.

**Consider that between sequels, a spinoff and a remake, there have been eight other Nightmare movies made. Two of those were decent, but not one of them was necessary.

Michelle gets scared but is ready to fight, part 2

Another recurring dream that I had as a child started in my grandmother's house:

I'm alone. A witch has murdered my parents and is now after me. Everywhere I hide, she knows that I'm there. If I try to hide in the dark near a window, she is soon staring at me from the other side of the glass.

The witch has turned my dog into a werewolf, and there are other werewolves inside the house. But there are also puppies that I'm trying to protect. Despite the confusion, I have to find a way to kill the werewolves without hurting the puppies. It's terrifying but I have to stay and protect them against the witch and her wolves.

I had this dream several times until a personal trauma in my life was resolved, after which I never had it again.

Michelle P. gets scared but is ready to fight

It's dark out and I am standing outside an old, white house. I see a tall, thin man with a gray complexion. He's wearing a black dress shirt and black dress pants.

Somehow, I know it's the Devil.

There are other people around and I see him grab the backs of their necks and send a demon inside their body. Once the demon is inside, it travels down the spinal cord, tearing it apart as it grows bigger. Everyone is on the ground, writhing in unimaginable agony.

Each person's forehead turns a certain color and I realize that in order to save them, I must let the Devil infect me with a demon. I have to have a complementary color on my forehead to free the others. But I can only succeed if my inner strength can overcome the growing demon.

This is a recurring dream and each time, I am a savior who must fight evil.

Dream submitter John F. has no plans for an Everglades trip

I will probably have this one again with all the news of escaped pythons.

This is a recurring dream that slithers its way into whatever pleasant dream I'm having. I'm outside, usually walking along trail or crossing a creek. I see a snake...it's big and long and I come way too close to stepping on it.

I take a deep breath...no big deal, just turn around and move away from it. When I turn, there's two more...somehow I didn't see them the first time. Now I have to try and maneuver to the side without getting near them.

But the path that was clear seconds ago now has several long, active snakes of varying sizes and colors. They're not attacking me...yet. But I know if I step on even one of them, a painful death awaits.

And now there's nowhere to step. They are on all sides of me and moving fast. I can't risk accidentally ticking one off. There's no way out, no one to call for help, and nowhere to run if one of them just decides it's hungry...

I wake up in a cold sweat.

Two variations of this dream that I can remember:

1. I'm walking along a trail with my 20-pound dog. He's harmlessly getting his nose into things as he tends to do. Suddenly a giant green and black snake juts out of nowhere and swallows him whole.

2. I'm on a swing in a state park playground or someplace like that. I suddenly notice the growing number of snakes below me as I swing back and forth. Not only do I have no escape, I get the horrible feeling that even to stop swinging will provoke one of them to attack...

A "back-to-school" tale of a different sort from Susanna

My high school was built in 1900. My mother went there 20 years before me. It's a creepy building and it has been the setting of more than one of my creepy dreams. I can't remember all of the most recent one, but the first part went like this:

I am walking with my mother down the alley and across the street that leads to the old high school. We're just walking along and chatting until we get closer to the school. My mom stops suddenly and gasps. The path to the school is lined with rows of dead, naked bodies, stacked several feet high. There are pieces of scalp and brain matter on the sidewalk.

My mother is horrified. Inexplicably, I turn to her and say, "Oh, you didn't hear about this?"

This doozy comes from Betsy, a new mom

I am in a rowboat at sea. My baby Soren is in the boat with me. The challenge seems to be to get to land (duh) but all of a sudden, I see the arms and legs of bodies floating in the water. The body parts all belong to dead soldiers.

I struggle to maneuver around them, but the true horror is the sound their limbs make as they knock against the boat and float underneath us. The movement makes the boat rock beyond my control.

The boat tips so violently that Soren is thrown off and into the water, sinking below the dismembered arms and legs.

I am still kind of sick to my stomach as I think about it.

(Editor's note - Some research has been done on the nightmares of new moms and they appear to be quite common and are likely temporary. Dads and adoptive parents have them too, so we can't blame the hormones this time.)