A dream about an old wizard with a pointed hat.

When I was about 15 or 16, I had a dream where I was standing next to a building; there was a party going on at the top, and my teacher was standing in front of me—dressed in black with a pointed hat. Everything about him was elongated; everything was longer than it would be on a normal human.
He was my vampire teacher, and I was his apprentice facing a final test: to go to the party and drink blood for the first time.
I started toward the building, but he stopped me; I realized then that I simply needed to fly. I did so, and then I woke up.
In reality, I got out of bed and went to the bathroom, where I saw in the mirror that something had bitten my nipple. There were two puncture marks, spaced in such a way that they fit perfectly around the circle of the nipple.
I showed that wound to my mom; she said it was from a mosquito, but she was surprised the holes were so big.

Twelve years later, I had a dream one afternoon in which I saw a woman on a mattress. Her back was turned to me, and she had very long black hair; everything about her was elongated. I stood there observing the empty white room—containing only the mattress and the naked woman—and I experienced two conflicting feelings. One was something akin to sexual desire, though I wasn't truly attracted to her—even though part of my body was being drawn toward her. The other feeling was a sense of total alarm, telling me to flee the place immediately.

Not knowing what to do, I simply stood there, motionless. At that moment, the doorbell rang.
I woke up; since it was daytime, I went to the door, but there was no one there. Late that same night—around 11:30 PM—my mobile phone rang; it was an old colleague calling, one who hadn't yet visited my new house.
He sounded drunk on the phone, though not quite drunk—more like he was exhausted, as if half-asleep. He immediately told me that a man had been appearing in his dreams for quite some time, telling him all sorts of things. This man had said he would visit a certain friend of the colleague's to give him a specific dream; if that friend dreamed it all the way through, he would continue to dream it for the next six months. My colleague then told me that *I* was that friend and that I had only two options: either stay awake all night or go to sleep without dreaming.

I wasn't entirely convinced by what he was saying; I wanted to know more about that man from the dream. He told me the man spoke to him about mosquitoes and claimed he could now pinpoint the man's location. I was sitting in my room, staring at a Janis Joplin poster, and I said to him—skeptically—"Tell me where he is now." He started rattling off some coordinates, and just as I was thinking he’d lost his mind, he suddenly said, "I found him—I see Janis Joplin."
Whoa—I thought, *fuck*—I’m looking at a poster of her, and he doesn't even know I have one on my wall. I asked him to describe what the man from the dream looked like; he said everything about him seemed somehow longer than on other people. That’s when I remembered my dream about the woman, so I told him I was going to the kitchen to call him on the landline.
When I called him and tried to find out more about this strange man, I felt like someone was watching me from outside, through the window on my right. It was an unsettling feeling, so I asked my colleague on the phone if he could tell me where the man was now. He started rattling off coordinates again and said, "He’s right there at your window, on the right side."
"Okay," I told him, "tell that guest who visits your dreams that he stands no chance with me. I have my own helpers, and I’m going to sleep now—just like every day—and I’ll dream, because he can’t do a thing to me." I thanked him and went to sleep as if nothing had happened.


That night, I had a very vivid dream—as real as waking life, perhaps even more so. The dream took place in the house where I lived; I was walking down the stairs toward the hallway, fastening a bracelet with silver studs onto my right hand as I went. I knew that hundreds upon hundreds of vampires were waiting outside the door, just waiting to drain me dry and tear me apart. Suddenly, a comical thought crossed my mind—that silver doesn't actually work against vampires—yet something within me felt incredibly strong and ready to fight that horde. I stood before the door, ready to open it, when the doorbell rang; I wondered if it was ringing in reality or here in the dream, and whether I should open the door. I woke up knowing no one was at the door, so I turned over and went back to sleep. I didn't dream that night—or rather, I didn't remember the dream, the vampires, or anything else; I hadn't dreamt in half a year.