I had this recurring dream when I was a kid. In the dream, I'm an astronaut. I'm outside the shuttle performing some kind of routine maintenance work. All of a sudden the line that tethers me to the shuttle comes undone, and I start drifting away into space. I flail and flounder desperately in an attempt to grab onto something, but alas-- apparently I've been working on a very flat part of the shuttle and there is nothing to grab onto. I float very quickly into the unimaginably vast universe and I know that if I scream, no one will hear me, and I know that it will take a long time for the oxygen in the tanks to run out.

I'd wake up from this dream in a sweat, grabbing onto the mattress and sheets.

I'm scaring myself.