Last Night's Dream

I was sleeping last night on my couch, where I sleep almost every night, when I started having a relatively mundane dream that ended with me being horrified, and leaves me now being curious about how the mind works. (How's that for a run on sentence?)

Until I say so, all of this is a dream. I was asleep for all of this, but it felt very real to me.

So, in the dream, I was sleeping on the couch when someone woke me up by knocking on the door. (I'm still dreaming...) I rolled over, and decided not to answer the door because I wanted to sleep. I shut my eyes and tried to go back to sleep when I heard a key go into my door. Then I heard the door creaking as if it were opening, and I sat up.

At this point, I woke up for real.

Now I'm really awake, and I'm on my couch sitting up, looking at my door... just as if my dream had continued into waking life. Just as I realize that I'm awake, I hear someone say "Joshua!" and my heart drops into my gut. I'm wide awake, and I look at the door and see a dark shape standing between the door and my table. My heart is slamming around inside my chest, and I don't have my glasses on so I can't really see what this shape is. I don't want to move because I I am afraid and I just sit there staring at this six foot tall black thing against the wall. Then I realize that the dark shape is just a shadow cast by my dresser on the back wall. I roll over and try to close my eyes, but I'm so afraid because of everything that just happened that I can barely fall asleep again. I lay there for a few minutes wide awake and horribly scared, thinking "Soon, when I'm scared like this, Rachel will be there with me." I lay there for a few minutes like that, and the next thing I know I'm asleep again.

The whole thing only took a few seconds, but I swear I was wide awake when I heard my name. I remember thinking "I'm awake and I heard that. I heard that wide awake." It was almost as if I was awake on my couch when I heard someone from my dream say my name. It was like my dream wasn't over yet, and carried on into my waking life in order to finish. I know this has happened before in that strange space between being awake and asleep. We sometimes feel like we are wide awake, but our minds are still dreaming. That's probably what was going on last night, but, MAN! that was scary.

Anyway... that was wierd...