I'm having strange dreams lately. Every morning for the last week, I wake up in the shadow of an ambiguous dream, dripping with beads of cold sweat, curled up in the centre of my thrashed bed. Yesterday I awoke crying; and to think, it may have been avoided if I could have just saved the drowning poet. Last night, I watched a friend, whom I don't know, get sucked into a swirling, violent chasm of quicksand, whislt I watched helplessly from the side. My basketball coach, with a gigantic nasal piercing, patted me on the shoulder, encouraging me, "go Tigers."

My whole life I have dreamed vividly. Not every night, but nearly every night, I lie down and watch a production in technicolor. Most mornings, or mid-nights, I awake and try to piece together what I can from the dream before it vanishes, never to be seen or remembered again. I sometimes marvel at the spin my brain puts on the previous day's conversations and incidents. I have never parked my car on the roof of the house, for instance. I have yet to walk into a group of my peers in nothing but my underwear and tell them to "suck it." No wait. Yeah, that one did happen, I think.

When I was younger, my dreams were more lucid and I could control my them almost as if I were God himself. "You," I'd say. "Get naked," though I'm sure that God doesn't need to command anyone to get naked, I imagine, he has quite a brilliant imagination. Clearly he must, look at the platypus, the camel and Ryan Seacrest. The point is, anyway, that I was in charge of my dreams when I was a kid, and if I didn't like what was going on, or if I suspected I was going to piss all over myself, I'd just politely excuse myself from tea with the Mad Hatter and Alice, and wake myself up. It's was good to be king.

Now, I'm stuck with dreams that make me fear I'm going mental. Not really, of course, because everyone is allowed to have crazy dreams, that's why we call them, "your wildest dreams." Just once though, I'd like to make friends with a friendly, brown monster, or play paintball with the late Queen Mother, or talk women with a eunuch. I just need some reprieve. I'm not having nightmares or anything, but close to it: I was a basketball player.

I'm in simulator training right now. Because my simulator partner and I are so junior in the company, we get the simulator slots that nobody else wants. Our training starts at 6 or 8pm every night, and goes until very late. As you can imagine, at 1 or 2am, after we have been busting our asses for hours, we have some hunger issues going on. Our driver is always happy to stop so we can get some food.

Last night I ate food. Then I went to sleep. I dreamed the craziest dream I believe I've had in a while.

My dream started back in the shuttle van. It was pretty non-eventful. We got out of the van, and I said good night to Nelson and went to my room. As I walked in my room, there was a bulge under the covers of my bed. It was moving. And laughing. And little. I snuck up on it and ripped the covers off. I hit the roof. It was a Chinese hooker. A dirty Chinese hooker, who couldn't speak English and was trying to get me to buy something out of a catalogue she was holding. "Get out of my bed!" I yelled at her. But she threw her hands down and went stiff as a board. Apparently, this was in protest to my protest.

I went down to the hotel lobby and said to the guy at the desk, "Nelson, there is a dirty Chinese hooker in my bed. Get her out." Nelson explained, "I'm terribly sorry sir, but if she's in there you must have let her in or given her a key or something. There is nothing I can do."

"I didn't let her in! She was just there!"

"I'm sorry sir."

"Nelson, you're an asshole," I said as I went back to the elevator.

As I entered my room I noticed that some of my things were missing. But don't worry, the Chinese hooker was still there. "Where is my iPod lady?!" She responded with something I couldn't understand. It sounded like Chinese. "Where is my iPod?!" I said louder this time with more spacing between the words. As I surveyed the room I noticed some other things were missing too, "Where is my money? You took my Skoal too?" She just pointed to her catalogue. "NO!" I yelled, "I'm not buying anything from your catalouge. GET OUT OF MY BED AND GIVE ME MY SHIT BACK!"

At that point, I grabbed her purse and dumped it out. None of my things were in there. Then the lady sprung into the air and onto my back. She started hitting me. Now of course my door was still open. I didn't want to be in a closed room with this woman. But it was very difficult to explain to the police when they rounded to corner to see a dirty, Chinese hooker riding me like a I was a bull and smacking me in the head.

"Help! Help!" I yelled to the officers. They pulled her off and locked her in the bathroom. "Didn't you pay her son? You no them hookers get mad when you don't pay them." BAM, BAM, BAM. The hooker was kicking the door at this point. "Look, officer, I don't know who this woman is. I just got back from work and she was in here. She stole my things, and I can't get them back, and she wants me to buy crap from her catalogue."

"Sure son, if I believed everyone who told me that story, I wouldn't be a very good police officer now would I?" Next thing I knew I was in handcuffs being led out the front door of the hotel. Nelson looked at me shocked and shook his head. "Nelson!" I yelled as they dragged me out, "NELSON!!!!"

They stuffed me in the back seat of their cruiser. As I sat there, the Chinese hooker walked out of the hotel. She was listening to an iPod, counting money, and chewing tobacco.

Let this be a lesson. Don't eat food after midnight before you go to bed.