Every few months I will have a dream about characters from Star Wars. I used to be a big fan of those action figure toys as a child, and I suppose Star Wars has put an indelible mark on my subconscious. I told a professor of mine who did Jungian dream interpretation of the dreams, and she told me to pay attention to Darth Vader, as he represented my shadow. Last night, I was shooting antitank missiles at Darth Vader, who stood defenseless in a little bunker with his storm troopers, armed with petty ray guns while I had that antitank missile launcher to bring to bear on him. I went on firing missiles at his puny black figure with its worthless plastic body armor until my alarm clock began going off. I had gone off to sleep at 7:30 a.m. and I figured it would get me on the wrong schedule if I slept past 3:00 this afternoon so I had my alarm set, which I rarely do. Anyway, I found my alarm clock had transformed into a load of buzzing flies, as I reached out to hit its buttons, to go back off into that lovely world where I was shooting missiles at Darth Vader. The Jungian professor had suggested I embrace the Darth Vader/shadow in these dreams, as this would lead to psychological balance; but I was having too much fun shooting those rockets to care. Again that nest of buzzing flies would rouse itself, until I pushed it in the right spot, and off I would go into the confusion of that dream. Finally, I was sitting and speaking with some alien creature from Jabba the Hutt's little palace, some disgustingly sniveling, helpless tiny creature that looked like a reptilian monkey, who told me something confused which I do not remember, and I awoke under a sleepy fog, realizing that now I would have to deal with the headache this novel has become, with absolutely nothing in mind to write, thinking, "Oh, there is nothing, nothing, nothing else I have to say; who can write a novel on my little hermitage of a life? It's so completely boring & meaningless: there is nothing to say about it at all." That was 17 pages ago. I still haven't cleared my head of that amusement park of a dream.