CHAPTER ONE
Three Basic Questions about
Dreaming : Formation, Function,
Interpretation
I went into a bookstore, like the Cottage Bookstore on 4th Street in
San Rafael. There were two people, I think, a man and a woman.
The man, the proprietor of the place, offered me some money to kill
a man out back. I casually said sure and wrote my name down in
some sort of ledger. I went around [to the back of the store] and shot
a guy with a gun I had. I wanted $100, but the man told me that I
was going to get $25. When I signed my name, I had for some reason
given the man a check for $8. Now I started to worry, and it seemed
that the man I was dealing with was nervous too. I wanted to get
away, but my name in the ledger was evidence of my being there.
And I knew the police would question me if I didn’t do something. I
tried to think of how a purchase plus tax could equal exactly $8. I
left going up 4th Street on a bike, I think. It was dusk, and the street
was deserted—no people or cars. I was really worried now, thinking
first about all the different scenarios in which the police would catch
me and then, second, about how readily and nonchalantly I had
killed that guy. I hadn’t even thought about it before I did it, and
now I was shocked at myself.
—Edward, 19-year-old college student
Edward wakes up and says that while he was asleep in his bed he felt
like all these things were really happening to him; he felt like he was
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