I usually refrain from recounting my dreams in my journal or any other forum, because I know exactly how boring it can be to read or listen to someone doing just that: “Yeah, then we were, uh, in this place with all these, uh, crickets I think, and then there was this Tootsie Pop and an owl, and I think maybe a turtle. Was it a turtle? I think it was. Anyway…”

To which you reply, “Oh, really?” as you struggle to maintain your concentration on anything else.

“Yeah,” the teller goes on. “Exactly! And then we all went up this hill — or was it a valley? — and then…”

And on it goes.

Every now and then, though, I have a dream which is cool enough for me to want to share. Sometimes these dreams go so far beyond cool that they are truly kick-ass. Last night’s dream was like that. It was a truly narrative dream, which I have every now and then, with a distinct beginning, middle, and end. And even though my wife kept shoving me to get me to stop snoring, waking me up just a bit, I was able to dip back down into my dream each time to pick it up where I left off. It was like a DVD in my mind, but without the special features.

In my dream, I was a cop on the trail of a murderer. After some twists and turns in the streets of a large city, I tracked him down and found him in a large bookstore (many of my dreams feature exactly the same bookstore, and have for most of my life, which I think is really interesting). Just as he was about to kill the clerk, I pulled out my gun and shot him. A perfect shot, too.

After he was dead, though, things got weird. Turns out he was not a person after all, but a member of one of the races from the film The Dark Crystal. In particular, he was an ur-Skek.

This is a picture of an ur-Skek:

In The Dark Crystal, the ur-Skek were the race of proud creatures who shattered the Crystal and brought ruin to the world. After shattering the Dark Crystal, the ur-Skeks split into two separate races: the evil Skeksis, and the benevolent urRu, who were also called the Mystics.

In my dream, after the ur-Skek was dead, people started to gather around. Seeing that it was not a human but a monster of some sort, everyone was worried that something worse would be showing up very soon to avenge its death.

Sure enough, a few moments later, along came a skeksis. Here is a picture of a skeksis:

Shortly after that, there arrived an urRu. Here is a picture of an urRu:

Except that in my dream, the urRu in question had a pair of hands instead of a face.

While the skeksis and the urRu struggled with each other outside the doors of the bookstore, a third creature showed up. I have no idea how to describe this creature, except that it looked something like a very heavy skeksis, but much shaggier, and it was wearing a top hat. This creature pushed aside the two who were struggling with each other outside, and came into the store. I spoke with it for awhile, and we turned to the task of dealing with the ur-Skek that I had killed. The new arrival turned out to be the Grim Reaper, even though it looked nothing like any depiction of the Grim Reaper that I’ve ever seen.

There was at this point a musical interlude, as the “grim reaper” summoned a choir to sing a funeral song for the slain individual. The song was awfully cheerful in tempo. I can still hear the tune in my head, and I remember the words of the chorus, even though they were not in English. This is what they were:

By now the dead ur-Skek had split into two separate creatures — an urRu and a skeksis — both of which had shrunk considerably. The grim reaper creature and I bundled both of them up into body bags and deposited them into a closed room. He explained to me that we had to do this, because the energy that would be released would blind anyone who happened to be nearby.

Sure enough, I looked over at the door behind which lay the two dead bodies that had been one. After a few moments, a bright light flashed from under the door. It flashed several times, and then it stopped. When I opened the door again, the bodies were gone.

The “grim reaper” announced then that its job was done. It donned its top hat and left. And that’s when I woke up.

Okay, so it may not be the most exciting dream now that I actually tell it. But I still can visualize all of the different creatures perfectly, and can imagine in my own mind how they related to each other. In Jim Henson’s and Brian Froud’s vision of The Dark Crystal, of course, the ur-Skeks, once reunited, were gentle creatures that would never commit murder, but dreams can take liberty with this sort of thing.

I enjoy dreams like this. It’s like watching a movie or reading a book. I find it interesting that I sometimes have dreams with such complete storylines, and that I can resume them after being interrupted. Most of my dreams are simply incoherent.

What’s more, I can still hear the choir singing its song, and I can still remember those words: