This happened in 1976, while I was in high school:
I am driving down a two-lane road on a sunny day – probably in the Spring – in a small red MGB convertible. The sky begins to cloud up, and it looks like it will soon rain. I decide to take the first turnoff to my left, but the off-ramp just veers back into the road, and I continue forward, at a slowly increasing speed. Fine, I think – I’ll just take the next turnoff to the right. Again, that off-ramp melds into the highway, and I am going forward, now at a very high speed. I decide to stop in the road until I know what to do, but as soon as I begin to slow down I see that the road behind me is rolling up like a carpet. Although I accelerate to high speed, the road overtakes me, rolls me up, and smothers me. At that point, I wake up gasping.
The most obvious – and probably the correct – interpretation of this is an expression of anxiety, although at the age of 17 I was not aware of any unusual pressure or fear. I had this dream just as I was coming down with a 104 degree fever-influenza, so it’s surprising I remembered as much coherent detail as I did. Immediately after going back to sleep, I dreamt that a voice was telling me to take everything off of my bedside table and put it into a pillowcase. I have no idea what that means! (I obeyed the instructions, of course!)
The accompanying image is of Daimajin, the monster who haunted many of my Saturday afternoons watching UHF television.
