I had a dream this morning (as I so often do) in which I was attending a science-fiction convention. It started out with me sitting in a room which was decorated more like a Victorian parlor than a hotel meeting room. It was like something out of a Sherlock Holmes story. A group of us sat watching slides being projected on one wall. While I remember it as being entertaining, I can unfortunately no longer recall what we were watching or who was with me in the room.

But then I got up and wandered. I saw that there were many people standing immediately outside the hotel entrance in the dark night. I was about to step out to join them when a hotel employee warned me that the doors would lock once I left and that I wouldn’t be able to get back in. I stepped out anyway and stood chatting with Jay Lake, Walter Jon Williams, and Lucius Shepard.

The only part of the conversation I can still remember is when I was speaking to Walter about “the dog Snoopy,” and then I stopped and commented on what I’d just said, finding it silly. Because when mentioning Snoopy, isn’t the fact that he’s a dog a given, and so saying “the dog Snoopy” is redundant?

Some people pulled a few comfy hotel chairs into the street, since it was the middle of the night and there were no cars about. Some cars eventually drove up and wanted to get by, but those in the chairs wouldn’t move. As one car maneuvered around the group, I saw that its license plate read JLANGAN, and I realized that the driver was John Langan, whose short story “How the Day Runs Down” I had recently admired (both in the dream and in the real world) in the pages of The Living Dead, a new anthology we’re both in. I flagged down the car so I could tell him so.

As we talked, I opened a copy of the book (which suddenly appeared in my hands) and flipped to his story, but when I tried to read from it, I woke up, because I can never read in dream. Whether it’s a book, or a sign, or a script, or even a note someone hands me, whenever I try to read, it makes no sense. I don’t know about your relationship with text in dreams, but this has been a constant for me. Words are always just random gibberish, and the more I try to decipher them, the more consciousness comes. And in this instance I woke while trying to read a passage from John’s story so I could comment on it.

But I did like it, John, in dream and reality both!