What Dreams May Come

I've been having vivid dreams. It's so strange how in dreams the strangest things seem perfectly normal, like a person who then changes to another person without a pause, like communication without verbal language but telepathic, like being in one place and suddenly another, or being in a familiar place you've never been.

Sometimes I wake in a sweat in the dark of the room. I listen to the sounds of my house, knowing them all by heart as I live alone and it's important if there's sound that isn't "normal", to pay attention. The refrigerator kicks on. The critter living in my walls shifts and I can hear his claws scrape as he turns or whatever he's doing in there. I don't want to know. The clock ticks. The neighbors' son just pulled in the drive. I smoke a cigarette and hope I don't return to the same dream, like a replayed movie or continuing from the moment I left off and woke myself in an attempt to escape the night terror.

They make sense then, in the night's darkness, but in the morning, I wonder, what was that all about? How strange!

I'd like to sleep without waking, just once. I'd like to sleep without dreaming, just once. I'd like to dream of being a dolphin or a horse flying or have happy dreams. I tire of nightmares, both when I'm sleeping and then when I wake, tired from the struggle of the dreams that come without the asking.

Can somebody turn off the subsconscious button?

Thanks much.
Ah, daybreak.