Talking with an Agent about My Writing

I had a strange but lovely dream last night. We were all at some sort of get-together for Chapter Book Challenge members. Jill Corcoran from Jill Corcoran Literary Agency was there and called many of us into another room. She then proceeded, one by one, to tell us what she thought of our books. She really liked them all, and offered to agent for four ChaBooCha members. Those members were Kelly McDonald, Melissa Gijsbers, Cecilia Clark and Becky Chevalier. For some reason, the books of mine she went over were actually two of my non-fiction books. She said they were marketable and well-written.

She mentioned a funny misspelling that was the kind you get with auto-correct (which was the only thing she found wrong in one of the books) - the word "testicles" used where it should have been "tentacles." Since these were my non-fiction books, I highly doubt I have either of those words in them, but I will do a "find word" search on my manuscripts today, just in case my subconscious was trying to warn me.

She was holding one of my manuscripts in book form, with a cover and all. I know I have not published this book yet, and definitely not in the hard back form that it was in within the dream, but I have taken note of the cover in the dream because it was pretty cool. It also meant that she went out of her way to find copies of my books. she actually went out of her way to find copies of all of our manuscripts so she could surprise us. In some cases, she asked our significant others for the manuscripts.

She didn't offer to represent me based on these two books as these two books of mine are already, mostly, published on the web, and she knew I planned to self-publish them. She offered to look at some of my fiction manuscripts though.

The strange bit was that I then woke up, making it possible for me to remember the dream and the great feeling I had at the time. I never wake up at this particular time of night and there was nothing going on in my house to cause me to wake. I think my subconscious mind just really knew I needed that good feeling about my writing to last for a little while.

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Family Reunion

The strange dream I had last night had to do with a family reunion.

In the dream, I was at a family reunion (on my mother's side). It was somewhere in the USA. My grandmother was there. (She died many years ago.) I had forgotten to bring a camera with me, so I had no way of taking photos of my kids with their rarely-seen relatives. My grandmother had brought her camera but didn't know how it worked, so she asked me if I could take some photos for her.

I started taking some random photos, many of which turned out really beautifully. Then I heard that my cousin Dana's wife was in labor at the hospital. Another cousin (one I don't remember having) told me he would drive me to the hospital so I could take photos of the new baby and congratulate the parents.

When we got to the hospital, we entered into a section that was mostly dark. One person was there. I don't know if he was a doctor or a lab assistant, but he gave us directions. We turned to leave, then turned to thank him for the directions but he had already disappeared. He'd told us to change into scrubs, and where to find the scrubs, before we entered the other part of the hospital, so we did.

I got lost and separated from my cousin on the way up to the room, but eventually found it. While lost, I kept wandering into parts of the hospital that were dark, abandoned run down and generally creepy.

Eventually, I found the right floor and entered the maternity ward. I was given directions to the waiting room when I told them I was there for Brandy. (When I asked who I was there to see, I said "Brandy," and the person who came into my mind was not my cousin's wife but another friend of mine named Brandy, and for a brief instant, I thought I had named the wrong person before remembering that they are both named Brandy.)

And, while I waited, I decided I needed to pee, but visitors weren't allowed to use the bathrooms, so I had to wait.

Then I woke up.

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The Love of My Son

I had another strange dream last night.

I was sitting with my five year old son Cameron, on bleachers around a stage. A travelling troupe were performing a play. One of the troupe members sat down beside me, but he didn't look well. Eventually, he slumped over into a more prone position.

As the play finished, the man told me he was very unwell. He said he'd been cursed. He then said that the only thing he needed to cure him and remove the curse was a kiss from a kind-hearted woman. He said, "Help me, please."

I didn't know what to think. I didn't believe in curses, but something about what he said rang true. He was obviously in a lot of pain and whatever was wrong with him had the feel of something otherworldly.

Cameron stood up and took my hand, trying to pull me away. "Don't go near him, Mommy. He's evil."

I looked at Cameron and said, "Don't be silly. He's not evil. He's just a man in pain, and he needs my help," I said.

"No, Mommy. He's a bad man, and he will hurt you. Stay away from him," Cameron said.

One of the actors, a young man who had been on the stage earlier, started running towards us, yelling, "Don't go near him! You're in danger! Get away from him!"

Startled, I took a step back and turned to face the cursed man to see if we were really in danger, but before I had fully turned, the man's arms wrapped around me and he pulled me into an unwilling kiss. I felt my energy leaving me and my skin began to wrinkle and thin with age.

When he let go of me, I was a frail, old woman, and I was in a lot of pain. I slumped down on the bleachers and lay there, without the energy or strength to move.

The man who had attacked me looked even younger than he had before. Instead of a man of about 45, he now looked like he was in his twenties.

The young  man who'd warned me reached us. He said, "I'm so sorry I wasn't in time. He's my father. He made a deal with a demon to stay forever young, but the demon tricked him and gave the gift with the condition that he had to consume the life essence of women in order to stay young, otherwise he would become very sick. I've been trying to keep him from hurting others, but sometimes he gets away. The only cure for this is a kiss of true love."

Cameron was stroking my face. "Mommy, the bad man hurt you," he said.

The young man, watching Cameron for a moment, then said, "You have a cure right in front of you. Your son. He loves you, and a kiss from him, because he loves you so purely, will cure you."

"No," I rasped out, my voice raspy and my breath wheezy. "I won't risk him. There is no guarantee that it will work. And what if it has the same effect that your father's kiss has? What if a kiss from my son just transfers his life essence to me while taking it from him? No."

But, despite my protests, Cameron leaned over and gently kissed my cheek. I was instantly healed, and the young man's father changed into a very old man, with very little strength.

"I am pleased that you are all right. I will make sure that my father cannot harm anyone else," the young man assured us as he carried his father away.

Cameron took my hand and we walked home. I wondered, along the way, how he had known that the man was evil.

Then I woke up.

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Lost in a town that doesn't exist

I don't remember too many details from last nights dream so I will try and summarize it.

I was driving on my motor scooter. (I haven't had a motor scooter since I was a teenager.) I was on a busy main road trying to get to the freeway. I was in California at the time, not too far from where I grew up and I knew where I was going, but somehow I missed the freeway exit. I drove too far along the road I was on and it slowly became a smaller road. I realized I had gone too far and decided to turn around, but when I did that, I found that I was on a very small village road, in a town center and surrounded by buildings. The main road I had been on not only had disappeared, but the road I was on no longer extended back in the way I had come.

I asked people for directions, but the directions they gave me didn't make sense, and when I tried to follow their directions, I wound up in worse neighborhoods, where the people wanted to hurt me. I always wound up back in the same place, in the center of a small village-type town, no matter which way I went or how I tried to get back out.

I entered the library and talked to the librarian, finding out that she had arrived here the same way I had - TWENTY YEARS AGO! She had never been able to find her way out, so she had made a life there. I went back outside and spoke to a policeman and found out he had a similar story.

I began to panic. Remaining there was not an option. I had family that I needed to get back to. I loved my husband and children and refused to accept that I would never see them again. Through my fearful tears, I continued to search for a way out.

Then I woke up.

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The Biggest Loser, Snow and a Strange Friendship

Last night's dream was, as usual, very strange. It didn't have the movie-like quality that most of my dreams have as it moved from one thing to another without much sense.

It started off with me in a classroom. I was sitting at one of those school chairs with the built-in desk. There were other girls in the chairs in the classroom too, and the class was inside a gym. The instructor was Bob Harper. We were all girls who had lost a lot of weight but were either having trouble keeping it off or having trouble losing those last few pounds. He was giving us advice on how to do it.

A snow storm started up outside, and, at that point, we were no longer in a gym but inside a cabin. The snow fell quickly and became many feet deep very quickly. Bob told everyone that he had some skis outside, and we could all ski down to safety. (We were in a cabin high up on a mountain.) He said it wouldn't be safe to take his car.

The rest of the girls were quick to put their coats on and get the skis. They all skied away, one by one, until there was one pair of skis left. I put the last pair on, but realized that it wouldn't leave a pair for Bob. I tried to shuffle, still in the skis, back to the door to ask him how he intended to get to safety, but I fell over and the skis snapped in two. I took the ski off and stepped out on the snow without it and found that I sunk into the soft snow up to my waist.

Bob came out with a husky by his side. He told me that he had a sled that his dog could pull. Once I got down the mountain, I could send his dog back up after him with the sled. I thought that maybe that would be too much work for his dog, but he insisted and started packing some stuff on the sled.

The husky came over to me and started nudging my hand for attention, so I stroked its soft fur and cooed at it a little. (Yes, I am one of those people who gets all gooey over animals.)

I told Bob that I didn't know how to use one of these sleds that used dogs to pull it. He told me that I'd be fine. His dog had done this many times and she knew what to do. I was still worried about what would happen to him in the meantime and I had the feeling I was going to crash on my way down the mountain.

Then a large 4 x 4 truck showed up. It was my cousins Suzie and Margie. My sister Leaetta was with them. They had known where I was and that I would need a way off the mountain , so they came in a vehicle that would be able to get me down the mountain safely. We offered Bob and his dog a ride down the mountain too and he accepted.

The scene switched to another day and I was at a hospital checking on a friend who had gone in for an elective surgery. On my way out, I ran into Bob. He was in a wheelchair. He'd been in a skiing accident, ironically. He needed help getting the wheelchair out of the building as the elevators were out of order and the only way to get downstairs was to use the stairs. I helped him.

He offered to pay me to be his companion, which, according to him, meant to be his friend and help him get around while he was stuck in a wheelchair. I told him I would like to help, but I needed someone to watch my kids while my husband was at work. He told me he could arrange it, so, I called up Robert (my husband) and told him what was going on.

Later, outside the hospital, we ran into some business colleagues of Bob's. They were kind of rude to him. They asked if I had lost a lot of weight like those on Bob's show "The Biggest Loser." I told them I had lost over 145 pounds. They told Bob, as if I wasn't even standing there, that he should make the media think he was dating me. They said it would be good for his career, even if it wasn't for real. I told them that I was married, so it would probably be a bad move for his career if people thought he was dating me. Bob agreed and told them they were idiots.

I helped him get his wheelchair down some more stairs and then I woke up.



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Dangerous Acid

Weird dream again last night.

I dreamed that I was entering a building that was a charity. The charity provided books for children all over the world. A friend of mine ran it and I was dropping off some new books for her. When I got inside, there were masked men there. They were trying to break into the safe. I turned to run away and they chased me.

One of them knocked over a large barrel in his attempt to grab me. This barrel was full of an acid that would burn through anything (except for , apparently concrete, as the road it was pouring out onto after running through the building, didn't burn). I have no idea why there was a barrel of acid in the charity building.

The acid kept pouring and pouring. The men burned up horribly, the acid making them dissolve, but I didn't have to see it happen because they were still inside the building and I had run outside. I heard them scream though.

The acid kept pouring. I grabbed some bricks that were sitting in the gutter of the road and used them to bash against a fire hydrant until it burst open. Water was the only thing that would neutralize this acid, and the water that poured from the fire hydrant made a line of safety through the acid. Unfortunately, it wasn't on the side I was on but on the opposite side and I would have to go through acid to get to the safety it had created, so it didn't help.

I ran again. At one point, I realized the acid was behind me and in front of me. I was trapped. I saw a large metal crate and climbed up on top of it. I climbed up and the acid surrounded the crate. The crate didn't burn though, so, although I was surrounded by the acid, I was safe from being dissolved.

I sat there for ages. The acid looked like it was drying up, but I knew about this acid and I knew that, even dry, it was still there. I still needed water to neutralize it.

I began to worry that people walking on nearby roads would come upon this road and walk onto it, not realizing the acid was there. First, their shoes would start to melt and dissolve, and maybe that would give them time to get away, especially if I was there to explain what was happening and warn them.

A man walked up and turned to go down the street I was on. I warned him, but he didn't pay attention. Then after a step or two, he noticed the soles of his shoes sticking to the ground and he could tell they were melting. He yelped and ran back off the road. (For some reason, the acid had run out on the road I was on and had not spread to the roads next to it.)

This happened with another man who had been determined to come help me down off of the crate. Finally, one of them called the police, who then called the fire brigade. A fire engine showed up and the hose was brought out and water was streamed all over the road to neutralize the acid. I was safe.

That's when I woke up.


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The Neighbor's House

We have recently moved to a new house on a street that is newly built with all new homes. We applied for the 5 bedroom home but a different family got it and we got to move into the 4 bedroom home. The family had six children living at home with them, like us. I met the mother and she seemed really nice, and I like the idea that there is someone living just a few houses away from me who knows what it is like to raise a large family. But I haven't really had the chance to visit with her much or to get to know her much yet.

Last night, I dreamed that I saw my cat go into her house, so I went over to warn the family not to feed him, no matter how much he begged, because he was starting to get chubby. They were having a barbecue at the time, and she offered me a burger. Although these burgers were full of fat and completely off my nutritious eating plan, I accepted anyway and we chatted while I ate.

She showed me around her home and I was commenting on the changes the builders had made to her home when they enlarged it. That's when I tripped and fell, and then I woke up from the dream.

It was an odd thing to dream about, but maybe my subconcious is telling me to go get to know my neighbor better.


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Connor's Dream

My four year old Connor told me he had a "really good fighting dream" last night. He went on to say that he and his 5 year old sister Bella were fighting bad guys and they were winning. But the "Bella got hit by a jet."

Connor rarely remembers his dreams well enough to talk to me about them, so I decided I would share it here.

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School Of Magic

Last night, I dreamed I was back at school, specifically my old highschool. There was a difference this tme though; my school was teaching magic. The problem was that students had been dying grisly deaths due to a magical beast that was stalking the halls and corridors. A student showed me a list, with photos, of students who had been killed by the beast, and I remembered many of them from my days at highschool.

It was up to me to find the beast and either capture or kill it before anyone else got hurt. The reason it was up to me was because everyone else had given up. Some of them had seen the beast and told everyone that there was no way to win against it; it was too terrifying. I refused to believe that it couldn't be beaten or mastered though, so it was all up to me.

I came back to the school at night, carrying a crossbow with
arrows and a large curved knife that Robert had insisted I take with me. He was keeping our kids at home to make sure they were safe. He didn't have any magical abilities anyway, so he would have been at a disadvantage if he had come along.

I walked quietly and carefully down the main hallway at the school. (My old highschool doesn't actually have "hallways" because it had the outdoors and open air between classes, but in the dream, I was in a hallway much like the one seen so often in Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes.) I could hear the beast ahead, but I couldn't yet see him.

That's when my kitten woke me up from the dream. She walked across my stomach and chest, purring loudly, and licked my chin. So I woke up and have no idea what the beast looked like. I knew though, in the dream, that I could best it.


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Children & Princess Adoration

Today I took a nap and had a strange dream. In it, I was a child in a school. One of my friends who sat at my table was fascinated with princesses. She was dressed all in pink, and she was talking excitedly about the princess parade that was going to be held at the school that day. (Looking back at the dream, she reminded me a lot of my 5 year old daughter Isabella.)

There was another girl at our table. She was wearing blue. She wasn't as fascinated by the idea of princesses, but even she was excited about the parade. She explained that the parade was very fun to watch for everyone. (Again, looking back at the dream, she too reminded me of someone; she reminded me of my 8 year old daughter Gabriella when she was about five years old.)

The teacher announced that all of the kids were to go outside for a ten minute recess break and then come back in for a pop quiz. No one was to go out to the parade until all of the tests were completed and she gave the go ahead.

After the ten minute break, we went inside and I noticed that the little girl in pink had not come back in. I didn't want her to get into trouble, so I went outside to go and get her. She was sitting at one of the wooden bench-style tables. She was looking at a little paved area to her right. I looked there too and noticed a funeral coming. It was the beginning of the parade, but it was starting with a funeral procession because a prince had died the night before. (No one was named, but I had the instinctive thought that it was an elderly prince, not one of the young princes.)

She didn't want to come back inside, but I convinced her that she wouldn't miss much, just the funeral and that, by the time she came back outside after the pop quiz, she'd be just in time to see the beginning of the fun part of the princess parade.

(One of the things that strikes me upon remembering this dream is the "princess parade." Princess Parade is the name of a blog of mine and of stores of mine at Printfection, Zazzle and my Princess Parade domain.)

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Wake Up!

I can't remember what I was dreaming last night, only the sense that it had been a nightmare and I had been scared. What I do remember is that, when I was really terrified within the nightmare, I heard a very loud, very deep vice say "Wake up, Becky!" This was sufficent to wake me up for real. I glanced over to my husband laying beside me and he was snoring softly, so I knew it hadn't been his voice I heard. Then I let myself fall back to sleep.


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Cat's Paw

I've been ill today, and I was in bed for most of the day. I fell asleep in the afternoon, and although I don't remember much about the dream I was having, I do remember how it ended.

I was looking for my cat Pagan, and I spotted him as he came running up to me, but he was running oddly and I noticed that he was not touching his back, right-side paw to the ground at all. When he got to me, I picked him up and noticed that the paw had been crushed badly and was bleeding. My first thought was that he might have been hit by a car. I was yelling to my husband to call the vet and that's when I woke up from the dream.

I was really glad it was only a nightmare, and that my cat was okay.

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Giggling Ghost Baby

I haven't had any dreams that I remember well enough to share here lately, so I thought I'd share a dream a friend had recently.


My friend Helen tells me that she never remembers her dreams, but she had one last week that really stuck with her and she said she remembers it vividly. It creeped her out.

She dreamed she was in the bathroom, and something invisible picked her up and slammed her against the wall hard. Then she saw and felt a baby on her shoulder. It was a ghost baby because it was definitely not alive, and it was rocking and bouncing and giggling. It tried to tell her its name by babbling and pointing at something. She tried to guess its name but was wrong (and she can't remember what she guessed). She woke up without finding out the baby's name.

She said the whole thing was really creepy.




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Pregnant

I had another strange dream last night. I dreamed that I had all of the symptoms of that one-week-out-of-every-month curse, but didn't actually have it start. And then I found a spare pregnancy test left-over from before Cameron was born. I knew it wasn't possible for me to be pregnant, but I took the test anyway and it came out positive!

So then I started thinking about all of the implications if that turned out to be true. I wondered how I would cope with an EIGHTH baby! And I really worried about how I was going to break the news to my husband.

Fortunately, I woke up before the dream went any further!

I have absolutely no idea what brought this dream on.

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The New House That Wasn't For Us

Last night, I dreamed I was being given a tour of a house that Robert and I were thinking of buying. An elderly couple lived there and the house had a very homey feel to it.

The couple were sitting together in their living room, but when I got there they went into the kitchen with me and offered me some tea. I sat at the kitchen table and chatted with them for a while. They told me about the children they had raised in their home who were all grown now. They also told me that they had decided to move into a smaller house, since it was just the two of them, which is why they had decided to sell their house.

In the living room, there were two sets of stairs. The stairs on the left were a winding stairs. The woman guided me up the stairs to the right. The stairs to the right were very steep; it was almost like wall-climbing to go up them and I had to use my hands to keep from falling backwards.

Once I got to the top of the stairs, she started showing me the different rooms. Some of the rooms were big. Some of the rooms rooms were very small and many of them were oddly shaped. One was shaped like a triangle and got narrower at the opposite end from its door. One room had a different set of stairs that came up from downstairs and had its landing in the center of the floor. I thought that the stairs must be from the winding staircase.

Some of the rooms could only be gotten to by walking through other rooms. There were five bedrooms altogether. Although the layout was strange, there was plenty of space. There appeared to be three bathrooms upstairs, two of them ensuite, and they were all very spacious.

We went back downstairs and sat at the kitchen table to finish our tea. A squirrel came in through the kitchen window and hopped onto the table where there was a bowl of peanuts. The woman smiled and I could tell that this was a regular occurrence for her.

The house was on a corner though, and the intersection it sat on hosted a very busy street to the side of the house. I suddenly pictured our cat in this house and the way he often ran into the street by our current house without any care for whether any cars were coming, and I knew that if we moved into this house, he'd eventually be run over by a car on that busy road. I knew that I wouldnt be buying the house.

Then I woke up.

Reading Books To Save Ourselves

I only remember the last dream I had last night, though I vaguely recall that there had been other dreams before it. As dreams normally are, it was very strange.

I was living in a very large house with very expensive looking furnishings. My husband and children were there too. An evil creature was coming for us. We didn't know what it looked like or what its powers were. All we knew was that it was demonic, that it had some sort of magical power, and that it wanted all of us dead.

We knew this because an angel had appeared and warned us. The angel was dressed all in white and he carried a very large sword. He told us that we had to use our gifts to vanquish the demon that was coming for us. He didn't tell us what our "gifts" were, only that, if we looked inside ourselves, we would know. He told me the name of the demon (but I can no longer remember what it was).

I immediately thought of books. I am good at reading. A set of very old books that were on the bookshelves drew my attention. I knew I had to read them. I knew that somewhere in them lay the key to saving my family from the demon.

There were a lot of books. I skimmed through the pages because I knew we didn't have a lot of time. It felt as though I would never finish the books, never find the information we needed in time. Just as I heard the roar the dmeon made in the distance and knew we only had moments before it would be upon us, I found the information I needed.

I had to write. I had to write a story about the demon and, in the story, I had to write the death of the demon. My writing would be made real and the demon would die.

I started writing. I could hear the demon getting closer; I could hear the beating of its huge wings as they wooshed through the air and the occasional roar it made was coming ever closer. I could hear people screaming outside.

I told Robert to take the kids to the back of the house to hide, and I kept writing.

Then I woke up.

Useful Magic & Fierce Dragons

I had a very unusual dream last night.

It started off with me being at a play with my husband and children. I suddenly got a very uneasy feeling, as if something bad was going to happen. That's when four young people, two guys and two girls showed up beside where I was sitting. They all looked to be between the ages of 17 and 20.

One of the girls had long dark hair and brown eyes. The other girl had mid-lenght blonde hair and blue eyes. The boys were the same as the girls, with one being a brunette with brown eyes and one being a blonde with blue eyes. The blonde girl and the blonde boy both wore glasses, and the boys both had short, spiky hair. The brunette girl was dressed very business-like in clothes that were clearly designer-made. The blonde girl and the two young men were wearing jeans and t-shirts.

They looked at me as if they were waiting for me to say something, as if I should know why they were there, standing beside me. I raised my eyebrows at them and waited.

The blonde young woman spoke first, "It's not safe here. You need to come with us."

I remained sitting. My instincts were that she was telling the truth, but the reasonable side of my brain couldn't make sense of it.

The young brown-haired man spoke up, "I know you've sensed it. Something's coming. We have to stop it. We need your help."

When I just sat there looking at them, I think they started to realize that I didn't really have any idea what they were talking about.

Amazingly, Robert, sitting beside me, didn't seem to notice any of this going on. He was absorbed in the play, as were our kids.

The four of them started talking amongst themselves. "Can it be that she really doesn't know?" asked the young brunette woman.

"Look," the blonde young man said, "Carly, we all found out when we were young. Our parents knew about our gifts. Maybe hers didn't. It's possible."

The brunette woman, Carly, spoke again,"Travis, how can it be possible that she doesn't know? Surely her gifts would have surfaced by now. Surely, she would have questioned it!"

The blonde woman joined in the discussion, "I agree with Carly," she stated. "Rebecca is older than all of us. By now, she would have noticed that she wasn't normal."

I pondered for a moment about the fact that they knew my name and then the brunette man joined the conversation, "Jynx, I know it's unlikely, but we have to at least entertain the possiblity that she doesn't know. Shouldn't we just ask her?"

"How, Jake?" Jynx asked him. If she really doesn't know, she's going to think we're crazy. And we don't have time for this!"

The girl called Carly turned to me then. "Rebecca, please, what I'm going to say may sound completely crazy, but I need you to hear me out without interupting," she pleaded with me.

And that's when the four of them told me I had powers, that I'd always had these powers. I could perform magic, they said. And, even though it sounded crazy, and even though I knew I should be either laughing at them or calling in the mental professionals, I believed them. Something about their words rang true. I wasn't even surprised when Jake held his palm out and a fire lit in the palm of his hand from thin air, blazing on his palm without burning it, or when Carly blew gently on a pen she held in her hand, and it froze, white ice crystals forming across it.

Then they explained to me that I needed to learn more about my own power. They told me that something evil was coming, and that it would endanger everyone, including the people I loved, but that it would come for us, those of us with magic, first. We were the only things standing between it and the safety of the rest of the world.

They didn't know what form the evil would take, only that it was coming and that it was formless, but would take a form of its own choosing when it got here.

I tried explaining it all to Robert but he didn't understand. Jynx touched his head and he seemed to forget. He didn't forget me, but he forgot that I was there with him and went back to watching the play with the kids.

We left then. The four of them took me outside. I could feel that whatever the evil was that they had spoken of, it was close. I felt it like shivers on my skin.

The told me that we had to fly to the house they were taking me to, to their headquarters. All I had to do was think of flying. Within moments, all five of us were flying through the air at ever-increasing speed. I followed them. Strangely, it didn't even cross my mind how strange it was to be flying, or how incredible it was.

We arrived at a large, three-story house. It looked ancient. Everything in it was antique. It was built in stone, like a castle, but it was just a very large house. The interior was furnished in oak furniture.

Before they had a chance to teach me anything about my powers, I heard a whooshing in the air and realized it was the sound of giant wings. I looked out the window and was the first of us to see the form that the evil had taken.

It had taken the form of a giant dragon. It's scales were more grey than green, and it's eyes were yellow. It was as large as the house we were in, and I could tell from the smoke coming through it's nose that it was able to breathe fire.

Travis yelled, "Hide!" and everyone ran to hide. They hid in large cupboards and in closets. I found a doorway to a closet that looked like it was made out of metal. Would it be safe from fire?

Two seconds later, fire exploded throughout the room we were in. It burned through the space we had been occupying just moments before with explosive force. I could feel the heat of it on the other side of the door, and then it stopped. I knew it would only be a matter of moments before we would feel the heat again.

Then I heard the voices. Robert and the kids were downstairs. Somehow, they had not forgotten my being with them as we had thought they had, and they'd followed us. They were in danger!

I came out of the protective safety of the closet space and faced the dragon. I knew I was going to die, but maybe they could get away while the dragon focused on me.

I yelled for them to run, and then the fire came at me. I held my hands up, and the fire stopped. It was still burning, but it stopped as if an invisible wall were between it and me. I realized that I coud do more with this power that, just a short while before, I hadn't even known I possessed. I thought about turning the fire back on the dragon and then it did. It turned and raged back at the dragon.

The fire didn't harm the dragon, but it surprised it. A large claw came through the window to find purchase to try and pull itself in. The dragon couldn't fit through the window, but it could pull the wall away and that's what it started to do.

I said,"No," and the bits of wall that had been pulled down reformed. I spoke again. My voice didn't even sound like me; it sounded deeper and more ancient, as if it were the voice of many. I said,"smaller" and the dragon shrank to about half of its size. It was still huge though.

I said, "Be gone," and the dragon just disappeared. The others came out then. They said they could have never done what I had done with my powers. They told me I needed to learn more about what I was capable of doing.

I agreed, but at the moment, I just wanted to go and check on my family and reassure msyelf that they were all safe.

That's when I woke up.

Walking Through My Old Neighborhood

Last night's dream was set back in San Jose, California, where I lived for a large chunk of my life.

In the dream, Robert and I were trying to walk home (to my old home), and we had all four of our youngest children with us (Gabriella, Isabella, Connor and Cameron). Cameron was in a stroller. We were many miles away from the home we were trying to get to. Normally on walks, Robert would lead the way, but because I was the only one of us familiar with where we were, I was leading us.

Some of the roads were new, and it seemed to take us a lot longer to get anywhere than it should have. At one point, just before we turned the wrong way, I realized that I had been steering us toward the wrong former residence of mine and needed to correct our direction for the more recently lived in one.

The kids were tired but mostly well behaved. It was hot and sunny out. When we were getting close to our destination, we had to cut through a factory. In the factory, the children all found cushions and started playing with them by hitting each other with them and having a pillow fight. The factory workers thought it was cute and told the kids that they could each keep one cushion of their choice to take with them. All of them chose character cushions that featured their favorite Disney characters.

As we left the factory, we were finally on the road that would lead straight to the house we were wanting to get to. That's when I woke up.

Celebrities and Complaining Teenagers

After quite abit of time passing, I actually have been able to remember a dream again.

Last night, I had another strange dream. I dreamed that I was at church. There weren't very many people there. My teenage daughter Kayla stood up in front of the congregation and complained about my husband's and my parenting. She said she didn't feel supported by us and that she was telling us in front of the church congregation so that she felt she had backup.

I was mortified and angry with her. I almost got up and walked out. Instead I waited until she sat down and explained to her why saying that in front of the church congregation had been a poor move on her part.

Then my husband and I were offered a ride home in a limousine. The person offering was Madonna! We accepted and got in. (My younger children weren't in this dream for some reason.) There was a second celebrity in the car, Amy Yasbeck (actress in "Robinhood: Men In Tights"). Robert started chatting with her as she sat on the other side of him. Madonna was sitting across from me, facing me. I rolled my eyes and whispered to her, "Do you notice how he is actually leaning away from me and towards her?" I laughed. It surprised me a little that his body language was so into her, but it didn't really bother me because I knew he loved me and would never even consider an affair with anyone else.

Madonna and I chatted for a bit about nothing in particular, and then I asked if she would mind if we went back and picked up my teenage daughters Angelica and Kayla. I apologized ahead of time because I knew they would be awed by meeting her and I thought they might act silly and overexcited about it.

The limousine turned around and we picked up Kayla and Angelica. I invited the two celebrities over for a meal, and they accpeted readily. Then I woke up.

The Problem-Fixer

I should have written what I remembered of last night's dream earlier in the day because I remembered more of it this morning than I do now.

In the dream, I was a teenager again and away at a camp for girls. I remember that there was some sort of problem and everyone was relying on me to fix it. But that's all I can remember now.