I had a dream of my house being on fire. It was both surrealist and realist at the same time. (Note: the house in the dream is nothing like the house I presently live in.) My dearest love was there. The pieces are scattered, disconnected, some more vivid than others. The fire was in a room on the second story, I believe; in the least, it was not the ground floor. I did not think twice about leaving that story down the stairs to the ground floor. My bedroom was up there, and in fact, it may have been my bedroom on fire. I had gone into the kitchen, and dearest was there. I cannot remember perfectly, it feels there are two scenes I am overlapping here. I realized my dogs--who are genuinely my children to me--were still up there, trapped. I think I felt tears in the dream at this realization. But the fire was too much up there to go back up. I searched my mind for a way to get them. What follows is completely impossible, but it is what I did in the dream. I very quickly got my head on straight and went back into the house, ground floor, where there was very little fire still. Dearest was with me, but I do not think he actually said anything at all, only that he was present, and followed my instruction. I had, from whence I know not, some kind of minor explosive, enough to be quite dangerous. I dropped it down some hole into the basement, and immediately told dearest that he needed to get moving, to follow me, that we had to get out of there as quickly as possible and far enough away. For some reason I first ran down to the basement, still instructing him to follow me, every step, and we headed for the cement stairs that led up and out of the basement into the yard; we kept running, and I think I might have even grabbed his hand to make sure he was following fast enough. I remember thinking of my library of books, and I felt devastated at the thought of losing them all, and hoped that they might be saved, too. I ran around to the front of the house, still far enough away, and waited. The explosive went off, the purpose of which was the break the foundation of the house to force it to collapse, but not in on itself, but to fall over. (This seemed to be a narrow and tall house.) It was successful, the foundation broke, and the house began to lean and slowly fall. Suddenly, I was in my bedroom, my actual bedroom, although it was slightly larger than it actually is, and the burning house was like a giant dollhouse, that reached the ceiling of my bedroom. It was coming down, but it took up most of the room. I backed into my closet and closed the doors, just in time, as the tip of the small tower in the roof of the house came crashing down right in front of against the closet doors. Had I still been standing there, well, I would have been killed. I immediately opened the doors and jumped out; I was back in the front yard of the "real" house. I ran over to the fallen building to where my room had been, to the window, and looked inside for my dogs. They were there, frightened, but still okay, and upon seeing me they came running out safely.

That is, in as coherent a nutshell, all that I can remember.