One of the recurring themes in the dreams is that I am the person who "exposes" or hurts someone else. In one, I said something very loud about a wife and her boyfriend. I said this as I was walking down a hall. I didn't realize her husband was inside the kitchen off the hall until it was too late. I was mad at her, but I didn't want to expose her or hurt her husband's feelings. I also have no idea why I was even involved.

In another dream, I was in my parents' front yard at the old house in South Carolina. All these children -- mostly middle school students, boys and girls in plain clothing -- were in the yard playing. Somehow, a game started that required all of us to stand on one another's shoulders -- not in pairs but one person on top of another up and up and up. There most have been twenty of us standing on top of one another. I was the second person from the top. It was very high, and I was very afraid of falling. I wanted to get down, but I had some anxiety about asking -- the feeling was like an amplified version of needing to ask the people next to you in a theater to get up so you can exit the aisle and go to the bathroom. But finally I asked to get down. I scaled down the ladder of kids and back to the grass. I went inside the house and up to my old bedroom. I looked out the window and I saw the boy at the top of the tower of children fall. He fell face down, down, down. Everybody fell. But only the boy who'd been at the top died. It was a terrible accident, everyone said. Nobody connected my exit to his demise, but in my heart, I felt responsible. If I had bore out my discomfort, perhaps the boy would still be alive. But if I hadn't gotten down, perhaps I'd be dead too. The feeling was so terrible and complicated that I woke up.

In the dream last night I was in an airport with J. We were catching an international flight, and as we wove through the concrete and open air check-in area of the airport, I had trouble pulling my suitcase and juggling my bags. When we got to the gate, I realized I didn't have my passport and J said not to worry about it and that she would get me in. The way in was red carpeted and sort of curved like walking into a large silver snail shell. Just as I was about to enter the silver tunnel, my bag spilled and all of these objects -- tiny things that I'd collected over the years -- scattered onto the floor. I tried to gather them up, but I knew the gates were closing. I kept wondering if I should continue to collect everything or leave some of it behind so I could get on the plane. I didn't have time to sort the objects or to make decisions about what I would keep and what I might throw away, so I kept picking things up and trying to get it all in the bag. J came out of the plane, which was like a large living room with curved couches and red carpet, and said c'mon we are leaving. And so I stood up and to enter and then the silver door closed and through a window I could see J in front of another closed silver door. We were both on the outside. J banged on the door to let us in but nobody heard her. I felt bad; not only had I missed the plane, but I'd caused J to miss it too.