I'm in Redwood City, California, near Bayshore and Whipple, where a long dead-end street used to be. It's been shortened, but still has the mandatory turn-around at the end. Only now, even pedestrians must do it--go round a loop that's marked "Old And In The Way".

I obey the sign--walk to the end, turn round and head pointlessly back toward the main road. Pass a huddle of teenage girls. They look up at me and I recognize two: my sister Miriel, and her friend Ariane! They're both younger than they were... Ariane is stunningly beautiful. I wish I could stop and talk to her. But I have to go on--a crisis is developing and I'm in danger.

The path called Old and In the Way leads me to a huge hearth or kiln of brick and stone--and enters. A brick-walled alley. It arches over. Dark. The passage splits; one VERY narrow branch slips behind the fireplace flue. It's barely passable even for skinny me, sideways, exhaling. The other's wider, but still a squeeze for a normal person. I know the passages meet on the far side of the fireplace, so I take the wider one--it's tight enough.

Behind me, the light suddenly cuts off, as someone follows me in. No. Some THING. Shadowy tentacles grope at me. It's that alien! I've heard it's been asking about me, looking for me. It's caught up at last. Seems hostile. I have a knife, but I don't really know how to use it.

Ahead the two passages meet. Beyond's a dead end. Trapped in this dim tomb!

But I go round to the back mouth of the narrower passage and lure the alien in after me. The monster snatches at me but lags; too big to fit. I slash at tentacles and squeeze into the narrow return passage. If I can lure it another yard in, it may get stuck, and even if not, to chase me it'll have to leave the front door unguarded. I could even get behind it and attack--could pin and kill it. I'll never get a better chance.

Suddenly see I'm ENJOYING this fight, despite my fear: the creature's been stalking me for some time, and I've felt angry but helpless; now is the first time I have a chance for payback.

I almost regret that our fight will be restricted to a narrow range, one or two tentacles. Even if it's riskier, I almost want to fight it in the open where I too could go all out.

But I better keep my tactical advantage; with the monster wedged, I may just end this war today.

NOTES NEXT MORNING

• Bayshore & Whipple means sickness to me--it's the freeway exit for Kaiser Clinic, where my family went when anyone was ill.
• Old And In the Way = a 1970s folk band = maybe I fear younger women I like will reject me as too old (or ugly, or...)
• Beautiful girls = today I couldn't talk to a girl I liked--too shy.
• Dead end = the dead end of being convinced anyone I like won't like me.
• Ariane:
  1. Love, beauty (I had a crush on her as a kid)
  2. Loss! Her dad died in an accident in front of their house.
  3. ESP? She was highly psychic as a kid--could beat us all at guessing games.
• When I turn around/look inside, I face loneliness and sexual longing--and then a monster. What?
• Hearth = heart? The passages looping around the hearth resembled an aorta. So I need to go deep into my heart to fight something? Or is it just... a heart attack?
• Relief to fight the monster all-out = lately I've been snappish. Flashbacks to when I was a taunted outcast in school.
• ACTION: don't condemn myself for angry fantasies right now. I'm reliving my childhood abuse for a reason--to clear it out for good.

One year after the dream, my father was abruptly paralyzed by a rare virus. He entered this hospital, unable to move, struggling to breathe... and died there. Now, "Old and in the Way" has a different meaning; less about me than my dad.

Ariane was psychic, and suddenly lost her father. So her presence may have been warning that the dream was precognitive, foreshadowing the loss of my own dad. This is a possible example of a rare type of dream I call self-flagging. Do dreams try to explain their own nature to us? This one seems to.

The constricted passages and the life-and-death struggle now seem painfully obvious; I felt what my dad faced just a year later. Struggling to move, to breathe...

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