It started with accidentally sleeping through Weigh Down. Actually, I'm not sure it was an accident... I know that my alarm went off this morning to take my temperature, and I have a vague recollection of actually turning the thing off rather than just hitting snooze. Very foggy, though, because I've been having weird nightmares that leave me in a daze.

Two nights ago it was a sinking ship nightmare. I absolutely hate these; I've got a terrible fear of drowning. When I was a kid, I never had that fear. I used to wonder what could make a person drown; I'm a pretty good swimmer, and I always thought I could just swim or float in any flood. And then I had a dream...

I was in the large pool at my old YMCA, the one in which I used to be tormented by swim teachers - I actually had one teacher suspend me by my ankles from the diving board as I clung to the end with both hands, tears streaming down my face and screams echoing upward to the building lobby. I was swimming, alone, and everything was quiet and peaceful, but the water kept getting deeper and deeper. I think it was coming in under the doors. I wasn't panicked, though; I just kept swimming. Until I reached out my hand and felt the ceiling. The water was still rising, and there were only a few inches of air left before the water would fill the entire room. In my head, in the final moments of clarity, I thought, "This is what it is to drown."

Ever since then, I've been terrified of drowning, and these dreams, especially boat ones, give me the willies. This most recent one started out as not so bad; I was on an upper deck, and things appeared to be pretty stable. Then somebody told me I had to go rescue my family, and they were on the bottom deck. In a swimming pool. The whole dream went downhill from there.

Last night's was a little more bizarre. The dream started out with typical nonsense, with me wearing a huge "Gone With the Wind" style dress and embroidering a cloth to go on someone's casket - possibly my own? I can't remember. Anyway, I went to find somebody to show them my work, but when I tried to return, I couldn't find the original room. Instead, I found a room with two elevators, one labeled "Graduate" and the other labeled "Undergraduate." I tried the "Graduate" one, but it ended up being a Rubik's Elevator: the door shut and the floor started rising, but the ceiling remained stationary. With each floor it reached, though, a small cubby in one of the walls would open up. I had a few seconds to crawl into the nook before the floor would begin rising again and smoosh the place where I had been before.

Eventually, when I was almost bent completely into a cube myself, the cubby that opened before me had a slot for an application and a speaker through which someone spoke, asking for my properly completed application for graduate school. I shrieked that I was already a student, and that he had to let me out. He informed me that I was in quite the wrong place and that I should go back down the elevator. I yelled at him that there was no way down, that I was stuck, and that he had to let me out.

Finally, he let me climb through a small hole at the top of the elevator and directed me toward three chutes, telling me to pick one. He sniffed that they were usually reserved for new students, but since I had barged in, there was nowhere else for me to go. I had no idea which to choose, but I slid into one...and fell...and fell...

I have no idea what the dream meant, though I'll certainly be trying to puzzle it out. If you have any ideas, you'll help me out, won't you?