Why am I up at 3:18 a.m.?

Because I just woke up from one of those heart-pounding, teeth-clenching, so-real-I'm-afraid-to-open-my-eyes b/c-there-might-be-a-psycho-five-inches-from-my-face nightmares.  My jaw aches and I'm stiff all over from the dreamland tension manifesting itself in my body.  I can only remember snippets at this point but there was a serial killer hanging people off cliffs (such an abundance of those -- cliffs and serial killers -- around here, right?) and leaving them there to drop to their deaths.  I was a detective in a treehouse village (kind of like where the Ewoks lived) who was on the case.  Yeah, it's so likely that I'm going to chase a madman around in the dark from up high.  Maybe I should permanently take up residence in dreamland since my irrationals phobias concerning heights, darkness and psychos don't exist there.  Anyway, after I did my Sherlock Holmes thing, the action moved to my childhood bedroom where a meeting of local serial killers was taking place.  One of them was Jonathan in black pleather and chains; another was Angelina Jolie looking like her WANTED character.  (???) That scene morphed from my old room to the back of a VW Eurovan where I ended up shooting everyone except Jon b/c I thought he was redeemable.  

Okay, seriously.  What.  The.  FUCK???  I woke up and after screwing up the courage to open my eyes and make sure there wasn't someone waiting to kill me, I leapt out of bed to grab my laptop.  (I'm sitting on the toilet lid with the door shut so as not to wake a sleeping Tommy Boy.)  I'm now online at this completely uncivilized hour not b/c I had to share this dream with you but b/c the dream left me with the urge to password-protect my blog so that perverts can't kill me and sell my babies into white slavery.  The feeling is passing but maybe I should figure out how to do that anyway.  It's not like I give out our addy but can tech-savvy folks pervs figure that shit out for themselves?

Man, what in the fizzle inspired this dream???  Was it something in my tofu burrito?  Pierce Brosnan's gag-inducing chest hair?  Remembering that "The Red Dragon" otherwise known as "The Book That Scarred Me for Life 17 Years Ago and Inspired My Irrational Fear of My Family Being Murdered in Their Beds" is this month's book club selection?  (Seriously, I have a security system and it's pretty much because of that book.)  I don't know what got the beasties in my psyche going but I wish they'd go back to sleep so that I could.  Now I just have to screw up my courage so I can turn out the light and sprint safely back to bed before my fear of the dark overwhelms me.  Better think about where I left the laundry basket so I don't end up in a dazed heap on the floor.  Hot mess, yep, that's me.