With a name like Dr. Skins...

Have you ever had a dream in which you wake up in the middle, then go back to bed and pick up where you left off? This happens to me sometimes. It happened on Wednesday night, in fact, and I'd like to share that particular dream with you because it was both insanely freaky and totally awesome.

Although I was my current age (41) and teaching high school students in the dream, my classroom was in my old elementary school and all of my teenager-sized students had child-sized desks. It was funny. Anyway... my coworkers Annie and Mary were also teaching high schoolers in the elementary school and we were all meant to be in our homerooms with our students. When I looked into the hallway, however, I saw Annie and Mary booking it toward the exit.

"Where are you going?" I called after them.

The morning was an exceptionally dreary one: cold, dark, and rainy.

"We've got kids in the woods," Annie called over her shoulder. "We need to get them."

"You can't just leave your classrooms unattended and go to the woods," I pointed out. "Have admin track down the kids."

"We told admin about it last time this happened," Annie said. "They didn't do anything. Admin never does anything." (In real life, this is a thing Annie would never say because her husband is an administrator and he does a lot. So do the administrators in my school. I have the utmost respect for principals and APs; they so often get the shaft when they don't deserve it... just like they did in this dream!)

I decided that I, too, should leave my class unattended and therefore followed my coworkers outside. It was pouring and we didn't have any umbrellas. We ducked our heads against the sheets of rain and started down this deserted street on which all the streetlamps were out. As we walked toward the woods, I realized that we were being accompanied by a bunch of shadowy teenagers. They moved like zombies: eyes fixed, hoods hiding their faces, steps focused and methodical. Somehow, I realized that they had been hypnotized and were taking orders from a creature known as Dr. Skins.

Dr. Skins never showed his face, but his presence was creepy. He, like the teens, was always robed in shadow. He didn't really speak, but rather thought in a way that invaded their brains.

There were obstacles along the way and the teenagers handled all of them. So did Annie, Mary, and I. We climbed over boulders, wiggled through rotting fences, and navigated narrow stairwells that led from the town to the woods. Once in the trees, we wove our way through them and ended up at the swamp.

Around this time, I realized that many of the teenagers were female. Not all of them, but many of them. And quite a few of these females were pregnant. Turns out, Dr. Skins was recruiting pregnant teens so he could have them reproduce and thereby create a cult following simply by raising the infants in a way that would brainwash them. Disturbing, right? I know! Annie, Mary, and I were alarmed, to say the least, and hustled to join the kids.

They waded into the swamp, standing with the algae-infested water around their shoulders and staring at the shore. This is where Dr. Skins was positioned. He stood there, cloaked in darkness, preaching to the masses and persuading them to do what he wished. And that is when he saw the teachers!

We knew we were in danger.

He told the kids to go after us.

And that's when I woke up for good. I desperately wanted to go back to sleep, but the latest I ever get up for work is 6:08 (June 8 was my first Airedale Baxter's birthday and I like to wake at 6:08 and think of him), but I actually didn't get out of bed until 6:15 on Thursday morning. I was sooo into the dream! It's probably good that I didn't finish it, though, since there's that belief that if you die in your dream, you die in real life. I have books and blogs to write so I can't die quite yet.

I did share this bizarre dream with several of my students and then later in the day I passed Rei (another teacher) in the stairwell and he said, "Oh, hey. I heard about your dream." That made me laugh; the kids were really into it! They want me to turn it into a short story -- which is exactly what Annie and Mary said when I told them about it.

Mary actually brought it up at trivia last night, wondering how I thought the story would end if I did write it. "We'd die," was my answer.

Mary didn't think we would. She thinks we're resourceful enough to get out of that particular situation, but I pointed out that it was three teachers against Dr. Skins and about forty or fifty followers. I really don't think we'd stand a chance. Plus, horror isn't my genre. I like magical realism... but Mary loves dystopian stuff. Therefore, I have suggested that she turn my dream into a short story and I will share it on my website so you can read it. She's a good writer and you should encourage her to do this because I need to see how she figures out a way to get herself, Annie, and me out of that swamp!