Norwescon / Nightmare

I'm going to Norwescon this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  This is the biggest science fiction/fantasy convention in the Pacific Northwest.  If you recognize me, say hello.

But I'll have to go to bed early, because I had a bad dream last night.  I was sleeping on my right side in some strange room on a narrow bed with just a rough blanket.  I heard a woman's voice outside, getting louder, and I somehow knew she was part of a couple.  The only window was high and small with just starlight and the night lights of the city showing, and it would take a lot of chutzpah for her to look through.  Nevertheless, I covered my face with a smaller pillow, so if she did look in, I wouldn't look very interesting, and the couple would keep walking.  A moment passed, and I could feel her looking down at me through the window.

Then I heard pounding on the stone wall that held the window, and I knew she was doing it to spook me, so I would show myself.  Then I suddenly felt her tap me on my left side.  She had fooled me -- somehow she had gotten inside while the pounding distracted me, and had reached beneath the blanket.  I felt her finger against my skin.

I also woke up at that moment, realizing all the preceding had been a dream, but the hand was real.  I gave a loud growl and jumped out of my bed to the left, ready to fight the intruder.  I looked around in the light filtering through my curtain.  No one was there.  Also, I sleep with my bedroom door closed, and it was impossible for anyone to have opened the door, run out, and closed it again without my hearing something or at least seeing the trailing leg of the fleeing person.

So I decided the hand beneath the blanket was part of the dream.  Observing my empty bedroom is the only way I reached this conclusion -- the finger against my skin felt so real.  Looking back on it, that must have been part of my pajamas bunched up against my left side.  That must have been it, right?

The Vampire by Philip Burne-Jones