I hate to go...

I have at least two plane crash dreams every year. They are so vivid and clear, that I can make out the passengers faces (many of whom I know, some random and once I even saw my own brother) and the airline.
Last night, while lying on a beach, I watched an American Airlines jet crash into the ocean. I could feel the extreme heat from the explosion. I saw many injured passengers swimming to safety in the shallow water. I ran out to help one person who bled profusely from the entire right side of her body. I realize that I know the woman as I help carry her to safety. She is a former classmate...I wonder why she's on the plane and in my dream. At this point I begin to realize that I'm dreaming and I do my best to wake myself up. Only a split second of lucid dreaming, but it counts.

The last plane crash dream I had was right before my brother flew home to visit. I think I even told him about my ominous nightmare...we shrugged it off. I eventually decided it was a positive dream, influencing some imminent dramatic change.

Before that, the only plane crash dream that I can fully remember was in 1988. I was seven years old, we still lived in the house on Rocky Ridge road. The night before I fell out of bed and bumped my chin on my little wooden bench, the one with "Lauren" written in cursive at the top. I still have a scar. I was sneaking in and out of the kitchen late at night to steal cookie dough from the fridge. I remember pieces of cookie dough being smeared on the bench as I reached out when I fell. The next night I dreamed of a jet crashing in Europe. There were numerous aircraft accidents that same year, but at that time I felt some strange premonition. I had only flown several times myself at that young age. Naturally dreams of this proportion were terribly frightening for a seven year old. After that I was determined never to fly again.
And I didn't.
Not until five years later when I joined my father on his annual trip to Washington, D.C. I almost broke his hand as we took off that morning, but by our return flight home I was eager to be in the air. I had conquered the old fear and found flying to be an exciting adventure.

My junior year of high school I returned to D.C. with other teens from across the nation. I was seventeen and my last plane crash dream was over ten years old by then. On our first bus ride in to the city, we crossed the 14th street bridge. Traffic was light, the sky clear and sunny. It was a warm spring day in the capitol and the bus was filled with teen-age chatter and laughter. As a jet flew low over head, our driver slowed down and stopped. He braked long enough to tell us the story of the Air Florida flight that crashed in to the same bridge and finally rested in the icy Potomac river, the morning of January 13, 1982. We were only babies the day of the accident, and he doubted any of us would remember. We drove on in silence. I looked back and watched another jet take off in the same flight path of Air Florida flight 90.

It's ten years later and I'm hoping I've met my plane crash dream quota for the year.