I write;I think;I know.

A little worm

"So why does this dream bother you so much?" asked my cat as she licked her paw in a matter of fact manner. Her self-satisfied expression the obvious result of a tuna breakfast.

"It's the wider context," I replied eventually. I hadn't done an especially good job of relating the story of the dream. Mainly because all I could remember were some key images. The sense of place it had left me with upon waking hadn't made it into my words.

"Well the key to dream analysis," said my cat as she began cleaning her face with moistened paw, "is the personal significance of the images. A dictionary will not help. Begin with the Men in Black."

"Well one of them was the image of someone famous for not speaking," I tried to recollect more of the dream, "He's the one who shouted something to me as they drove away. The one who flashed his ID. The other was a magician," I paused, this was a difficult one.

"You're starting to doubt," said my cat. She then began an attempt to lick her own chin. "It may sound strange but there's a personal validity to your belief. Continue," she murmured.

I grinned, for only a cat may display such arrogance and not irritate me. "Once upon a time this magician was well known to me for being Canadian. Only he's not Canadian any more."

"So he represents a belief that you slipped out of one world and into another," she paused in her toilet and fixed me with a stare. "A change in established fact that only you are aware of. Yes?"

"Yes. There have been other instances," I thought for a moment, "but I only discovered this slippage as a result of a nagging doubt left by this dream."

"So they drove off after speaking to you," she began licking her back leg, "then you wandered into a bus station to do your shopping." I nodded my agreement in response to her momentary glance, "then you found yourself in a fresh smelling room with a handful of pills."

"Yes, blue pills." I remembered a scene from a film involving two pills one of which was blue, somehow this knowledge felt irrelevant to the current discussion. "I took the pills and the dreamscape got all swirly," I paused to take a sip of tea. "The air became fresher, breathing became easier, colours began to bleed into my other senses, and I woke-up."

"Sounds like a rather pleasant dream if you like such things." She leaped from the coffee table from where she had been sitting and curled up next to me. "Yet the room and the blue pills trouble you."

"Yes," I felt uncomfortable discussing the next bit, "because some weeks later I found myself in a well ventilated room being handed a quantity of highly addictive blue pills." I thought about the effect of the pills for a moment, "the kind that makes reality all swirly."

"Face it," said my cat, "you have an ability to dream the future." She hopped off the sofa, "I'm off to find a snug spot for my early morning pre-snooze." She flicked her tail and padded off.