Dreamed last night that someone stole my stuffed animals. I’ve had dreams like this before, where a bag goes missing or someone steals my mind. In those dreams it felt like someone had yanked my heart out of my chest. It was a horrible, deathly feeling of loss.

In last night’s dream my reaction was a little different. I was angry and irritated, but I did not feel abandoned or sinking as in other dreams of loss.

What happened was I had left a big Wookie furball on the front steps to a friend’s house. I left it unsecured, in the back of my mind thinking that was reckless. Anybody could walk by and steal it.

I walked a few blocks away, in search of something that would secure the Wookie to the steps. On the way I passed someone else’s house where I noticed that someone had stolen all my stuffed animals and placed them in their yard, along with a bunch of other stuffed animals that I assume were stolen from someone else.

I stole back as many of mine as I could hold in my hands. They were all dirty from sitting outside. I walked back toward the house where I had left the Wookie, but for some reason I passed it by. I ended up on Riverside Boulevard over on the far west side of Manhattan. (That’s a kind of new street by the way, not to be confused with Riverside Drive.) I made my way back toward the Wookie, but as I got closer to the house where I had left him I noticed that I had dropped all but one of the stuffed animals I had stolen back from that other house. I was most concerned about the Wild Thing, and what kind of trouble he could get into in the out-of-doors.

I was irritated to find that I was going to have to retrace all my steps to find where I had dropped the stuffed animals. I don’t remember which one I had not dropped and was left with. I think that the one stuffed animal that I had not dropped was not even one of mine.

I started retracing my steps but quickly realized the futility. I had walked several hundred miles in those few seconds, but it would take years to walk those miles again.

I entered a bookstore thinking there might be someone there I could talk to. In fact there was a woman who appeared in a dream I had months or even years ago. I never got her name. But in our conversation we reminisced about the time I showed her how to register a domain name. She had registered christopherjditson.com. I cannot believe I actually remembered that. It’s weird when oddly specific information shows up in a dream.

She registered that domain name because that was the name of her ex-boyfriend. She wanted to set up a vengeance website under his name, making him look like a sadistic rapist and child molester. From the way she laughed it off I assumed she ever actually did anything with the domain name.

I am talking about this like it really happened.

The woman and I talked for quite a while, but beyond guarded and defensive conversation she was unapproachable. Like most women I encounter these days she seemed to consider men to be enemies.

I exited the bookstore. Outside there was a Shetland pony and a young girl dressed up like some kind of clown. A very pretty clown, mind you. Other people standing around were in awe of the cuteness. I could not tell if the Shetland pony was real or a stuffed animal.