A night full of extravagant dreaming. This is the only one I remember well:

I was walking down a rainslick highway with my sister Lyca. It wasn't cold, just very wet and the black asphalt gleamed, reflecting the lights like a magic mirror.

Everything seemed beautiful, rich in that pure, crystaline way that only occurs in dreams and perhaps a few precious waking moments of ones lifetime.

We crossed the street to a leafblown shoreline. Climbing down (a small but somewhat steep slope) amidst moss, wildly overgrown seagrass and drifts of oakleaves from the massive oaktrees that lined the highway above, we found ourselves on a rocky shoreline.

Lyca idly tossed an acorn down into the surging leafy flotsam below. A sleek head bobbed up to investigate. "An otter!" Delighted, we began to throw more acorns and soon we were playing catch with several of the mischievious creatures.

"Look!" Someone shouted. "A whale!"

I looked out over the bay. At first I saw nothing but cresting waves. Then a huge dark shape cut the water, rolling through the waves in a long long long smooth curve. It kept going for what seemed an immensely long time, curving down and down. Finally it vanished, then I saw the great tail break the waves in a magnificent glistening sweep, arc, wave, gone.

We stood dumbfounded. The humpback had been so close to us. I scrambled further down the edge despite treacherous footing on the rocky slope. The steep edge met the deep water abruptly. There was a bunch of floating objects, loosly lashed together. They looked like smooth cylindrical tanks with rounded edges. They were light grey and quite large. I wondered briefly what was in them, what they were for, before following my compulsion to follow the whale. I stepped out onto the first bobbing cylinder.

It bounced downwards and I braced myself for the shock of the cold ocean water, but it wasn't and I found I could hold my footing rather well if I moved with the surging of the waves. I reached the edge, the farthest cylinder and gasped as an impossibly gigantic blunt nose rose out of the water.

The whale, up close and personal.

It had obviously come to me just as I had come to it. I reached out and ran my hand along the top, feeling the rough barnacles and the smooth soft warm places-almost like a cows nose.

I called up to my sister joyously and I felt its warm, wet tongue lick my arm and hand in a vast wrapping squishysquoosh.

I woke to my arm cold outside the covers and the sound of rain and Daniels keyboard.