I was in what appeared to be a military barracks, lying on my back on my narrow bed. It was time for everyone to turn in, and the other people in the room were getting into their beds. I was very tired because I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, and I wasn't in the mood to talk with anyone. Nevertheless, someone walked up to the side of my bed and began speaking to me.

He was a tall, gangly, black-haired fellow (about 20 years old). Although I had never spoken to him, I recognized him immediately: his name was Jacobs. I knew that I had read dreams that Jacobs posted on the Internet, and that he had written e-mails to me several times, although I had never responded to him. I had thought he would have understood by my silence that I didn't wish to communicate with him – but here he was now, looming over me.

He looked much different than I had imagined him. I recalled once when he had written me, he had complained because I had criticized fat people in my dreams. Other references which he had made to eating and obesity had led me to conclude that he himself was quite obese. Thus it was surprising for me to see how thin he was.

Hovering over me, he began asking me questions, all of which I found rather ridiculous. His questions seemed to verge on the lunatic, and they helped confirm my suspicion of his being an unstable person. I hoped my terse responses would encourage him to simply leave me alone.

He persisted with his prattle until he finally reached the point which he apparently wanted to make: he told me he was engaged in a project through which he hoped to gain an immense amount of energy. He explained the heart of the project was the making of quilts from pieces of bamboo, and he tried to describe with his hands how the bamboo was woven together to form quilts. But the idea of making quilts from bamboo, and thereby deriving some kind of energy from it, seemed so ridiculous to me, my feelings that he was somewhat demented only increased.

As Jacobs had talked, he had also moved closer and closer to the bed, until finally he had put both his knees on the bed, and was standing in the bed on his knees. He was visibly upset by my refusal to join in his project, and I began to become concerned that I was going to have some kind of problem with him. Just then a thin blonde woman about 20 years old, dressed in army fatigues, walked up. Jacobs immediately turned to her and told her I had said I didn't want to take part in the bamboo quilt project. It was immediately clear that she and Jacobs were friends and were working on the project together.

The woman, without asking, climbed into my bed and lay down on her back beside me. She began talking, obviously trying to convince me to join in the project. The bed was small and I was pushed up against the wall. The ceiling came down to just about a foot above the bed at the wall and then slanted upward. Crushed against the wall, with the slanting ceiling just over my head, I was in a very uncomfortable position. Besides that, the wall was coated with small granular, glass-like stones, and when I rubbed up against the wall, some of the stones came off and fell inside my clothes, causing me more discomfort. Finally I told the woman I was feeling claustrophobic and I asked her to let me out. She and Jacobs both climbed off the bed, allowing me egress. I stood up and walked away from them toward the other side of the room.

Now more tired than ever, I nevertheless thought I might go outside for a walk, just to get away from everyone. As I began trying to shake the pieces of glass off me, however, I noticed other people in the room standing by their beds doing the same thing. I didn't know what to make of that. I thought perhaps there had been a slight earthquake and the pieces of rock-like glass had been dislodged from the walls onto the others, just as they had been dislodged onto me.

Another thought also crossed my mind: I wished I had a computer there in the barracks so I could write my dreams. I knew I had a couple old portable computers which I might be able to bring there. I might have to get a chain and run it through the handle and attach it to the metal frame of the bed. Obviously there were people in the barracks who would steal the computer if they had a chance.

As I stood there lost in thought, a fellow walked up and handed me two small cards, similar to greeting cards. I immediately knew these particular cards would contain pithy little sayings, such as might be found in a Chinese fortune cookie. I didn't want to open them right at the moment, because I felt that I wasn't in the mood for memorizing something, and that when I read what was in the cards, I wanted to be able to concentrate on what it said so I could memorize it. But as I held the cards, I began to think I could probably memorize whatever I would find in one of them, so I opened one up. On the white inside of the card, someone had written, "Sometimes when a bird talks inside of you, an egg is about to be laid."

I committed the line to memory, and pondered its equivocal meaning. It could mean something good was going to befall me, just as an egg comes to a bird. Or it could have the meaning that I was going to fail at something, as when someone "lays an egg." I tended to think the former interpretation was more likely than the later one. However another incongruous thought came to me: it somehow seemed the meaning of the message was connected with Jacobs. I had the feeling Jacob's talking could be compared to the talking of the bird. It therefore seemed the final meaning to be drawn was that something good could come out of a bad situation.

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