That strange dream happened to me again last night. The same one during the Monterey camping trip and the Montana road trip, both inside my one-man bivouac. I've since had it a couple more times. The one from which I would wake up screaming, fall back asleep, and wake up screaming again.

It happens either right before I fall asleep or just before I wake up. In fact, it was because of it that I was unable to sleep last night, trapped and immobile between dream and wakefulness. The moment I close my eyes, the ground beneath me would shiver and writhe, not unlike sleeping on top of one or many burrowing creatures. Sometimes it feels like a single tunneling mole, sometimes it feels like a swarm of rats chewing through my bed, and sometimes it feels like coils of snakes slithering all around me. The sensation is always very real in a physical, tactile way, and if I try to ignore it the sensation would invariably intensify and eventually I couldn't help but to scream myself awake, for fear of being violently swallowed up.

I would have to restrain myself from screaming, as I am usually quite conscious of my nightmaring at the time. In fact these nightmares are quite lucid, which only adds to their terror, since at the time I have little means of escaping them. I would try to move my body in an attempt to wake up, but due to the pre-REM state of muscular relaxation I always struggle to move even a little bit, and always end up jerking myself violently just before the terror culminates and climaxes. I would wake up, tell myself that it wasn't real, try to go back to sleep. Then the motion would start up again, as if the beast(s) beneath me merely paused due to my movement. This happend at least a dozen times last night, and I yelled (wasn't quite screaming, was aware of Jack still awake and somehow made the attempt to mask the yelling with feigned annoyance, which was REALLY weird: terrified but at the same embarrased, try to hide it but nevertheless couldn't help but remain terrified) at least half dozen times.

I don't think that this had anything to do with the Lakers' defeat, however.