I had the dream again last night. I haven’t had it in a year or so, and thought that I was over it, but I guess not.

As a rule, I don’t remember my dreams. I know that I have them because everybody dreams, and once in a while I wake up knowing that I have had one, but it is so rare that I ever remember what it was. I should be thankful because when I was a boy, it was common that I would be awakened by my sister or my mom, because I had awakened them by my screaming, and they would wake me up just so I would stop. Even in Boy Scouts it happened once in a while. We would be camping and my tent mate would wake me up and say that I was screaming. Upon being awakened, I would look at the person and ask why they had awakened me. I never remembered dreaming or screaming. It was kind of embarrassing.    

But this recurring dream has repeated itself for about 20 years, every once in a while, and it is the only one that I wake up remembering. In the dream, my truck has been stolen, and the dream is about my efforts to get it back. It is always the truck that I  have at the time. When I had my maroon Ford F-150, that was the truck in my dream. Then I bought a white Toyota Tacoma, and that was the truck in the dream when next I had the dream. And last night, it was the truck that I have now.

It starts when I find myself walking back to where I had parked my truck, and it is not there any more. It is always parked on the same street, and though I don’t recognize exactly where the street is, it seems to be in a run down commercial area of Cincinnati, or at least it feels like that is where I am. 
I always panic that the truck is not where I parked it. I look up and down the street in case I am not where I thought I parked it, but it is gone. Then, handily, I run across someone who knows where it is, and they want $200 to take me to get it back. Where the truck is waiting is always different, and somehow I get there from the street in Cincinnati.

One time, it seemed like I was in a foreign city like Hong Kong, and I raced up and down on streets with weird foreign named stores and lots of neon lights. Another time, I instantly translated to the back streets of Wilmington, Ohio, and raced around there looking for it. Another time I was in RIo Bravo Mexico, running up and down in a barrio, looking for it. Once, It was somewhere near where I grew up, and I raced back and forth on Fields Ertel road, in the guys car, looking for the truck.

It always costs $200 to get it back. I always seem to have $200 in my pocket, which is not the case in my real life. It is always night  time. And there is always some guy who takes my money, and drives me to where it is. And I always have this sense of panic.

Last night, there were differences. I was not panicking, and I remembered the other times that I had lost the truck. Somehow I knew that if I just paid the guy, he would take me to where it was. He was a guy with greased back hair, and a wife beater undershirt, and he was working at a hot dog and popcorn stand on the sidewalk where I had parked it. I asked him if he had seen anybody  getting into my truck, and he looked at me and said yes, but if I paid him $200, he knew where it was stashed. I remember thinking, this is a scam to make $200. I remember reaching into my pocket and pulling out a wad of money that I had gotten from an ATM. I stood there and counted out the money, but there was unrecognizable foreign money mixed in with the greenbacks, and some of the $20 bills had been folded in half, making it look like more money than it was. I was starting to panic that I didn’t have enough, and frantically unfolding bills and trying to separate $200, and it seemed to take me a long time. Finally having separated the money for him, I looked up, and he was gone.

Then I woke up covered with sweat, from having a hot flash in my sleep, and got up, and looked in the driveway, and my truck was still parked there. I don’t know what this new dimension means, but maybe it will be the last time that I have the dream.

Dumb dream, huh?