Fever dreams

      It's been a strange week. It's been years since I've been as ill as I have been these past few days. I'm doing better now. Not right, but much better. I won't have to go to the hospital unless I take a downward turn, but I haven't had a temperature since noon yesterday. Well, I obviously have a temp, but a normal one, I mean.
      Those days of fever induced a weird state in me. I just huddled in bed and thought of nothing, staring at the books in my shelves, their titles carrying no meaning, their stories no attractions. Sometimes I can get sick, and it's a time to read books, watch old movies, and generally pamper myself like a French king. This wasn't one of those times. Instead, I watched the ceiling until I'd fall into fever dreams.
      Dreams are important to most writers I know. An amazing number of them seem to suffer from night terrors or they sleepwalk or they have incredibly vivid dreams, ones that have plots and invoke emotions. Many times I've woke up feeling hurt by something a loved one said in my dreams. Or angry or sad at events that only happened in nighttime fantasies. And sometimes I've awakened terrified by darknesses made tangible.
      Fever dreams affect me differently, though. They last longer, but they have no plot, no story. I drifted through images of my past and different presents and maybe a few dark futures. Dead people appeared and talked to me, including my grandfather on my mother's side, a man I never met in this life. Not zombies, but as if they were alive, somehow all jumbled together in an old country house that I've never been at but know down in my bones. There was sunlight that was too bright and deep cool shadows and an endless summer. A table and Southern singing and kids that shot through the rooms like blurs. Like a family reunion except it went on all the time. I drifted through this, untouched, an unresponsive observer, burning with heat. Sometimes people spoke to me. Sometimes they hugged me or touched me. Most of them I didn't know.
      Whatever wisdom they might have told me didn't stick; unlike my regular dreams, these faded, leaving only snapshots, like old black and white photos. I was there and yet not there, watching me and being me at the same time. Eventually I'd wake up and be sick or take my medicine or stare at the ceiling some more until the dreams took me again.
      I don't read much into dreams at the best of times, certainly not when I'm sick. Dreams, for all their energy and life, are not indications of the future. Most of the time, they don't mean anything. A few times, they can indicate fears or an overflow of stress. I use images from them in my novels, plays and poems, but I don't expect them to be more than a source of creativity.
      Last night, I had regular dreams. The usual jumble of images and actions, the nonsensical plots that only make sense while your eyes are closed. It's a sign I'm getting healthier, helped by your prayers and well-wishes ... and those Victoria Secret models that Joel sent.