Awake or Not Awake?

I dreamt last night that I was chasing Frankie down the street.  This may sound a bit odd but not for me at all.  Frankie often shows up in my dreams.  Sometimes he is small and sometimes he is big but always he is Frankie.

Frankie isn't necessarily the focus of the dream, often he just walks through.  In a dream I will be arrange boxes while other people are moving them around and suddenly Frankie will walk by.  Frankie just appears, I see that he is there, and then he just walks out.  And the dream will go on.  These "Frankie" moments happen a lot.

I know because I remember hours and hours of my dreams.  I don't dream more often than the average person, I just have recall of more dreams than the average person.  I could write small novels about my dreams every morning if I wanted.

But this morning's dream about chasing Frankie down the street really had me puzzled.

In the dream, I couldn't tell if I was chasing Frankie because he had a big head start or was he just faster than me?  This really had me in a pickle.

Frankie and most all healthy sulcata are a lot faster than they appear.  Frankie once got stung by a bee (or something) and ran past me as fast as a kid on a tricycle peddling flat out full speed.  When Frankie is good and warm (not hot) he can walk around the block about the speed of a four year old child.  I don't walk baby steps but don't get a normal adult stride.  Frankie and I stroll.

So in the dream I am trying to catch up with Frankie concerned that he is getting away from me.  Then another pickle: is he heading somewhere or is he leading me on a merry chase?

During Frankie's wanderings around the yard and on his walks around the block, he get this totally focused, determined look as if he knows exactly where he is going. Since there is no where in the yard to go anyone would conclude that Frankie's hours of walking around aren't taking him anywhere.  Still, he acts like he's been somewhere and is heading somewhere else.

In the dream I am too far behind to see if he has that determined look or his mischievous "up to something" look. 

If I ever come across Frankie doing something like trying to push down a fence, dragging furniture around, climbing over things he could never climb over, or in the act of eating cat poop, he will look at me with this incredulous look like "what were you expecting!? I'd be out here wrapping Christmas presents?"

So I am getting a bit anxious in the dream because I just can't figure out what is going on.  I am uncomfortable and probably tossing and turning in the bed because of this.

Then it dawns on me, just as Frankie is just too far ahead down the road for me to catch up, that I am dreaming and I have the power to stop the dream.  A sense of relief overwhelms me as I can step back and see that the landscape is not completely in focus, that I look about 14 years old and that I can feel no temperature or wind of any sort.  I am dreaming. 

I then look to see the BIG Frankie walking up to me and smiling mischievously at me.  Suddenly, zoom, Frankie passes me, running up the street, away from me, egging me on to chase him.  Frankie has made his message clear:  I may be dreaming but he isn't finished with me yet. 

Shells!  Dream or no dream, that Frankie is determined to wear me out.