The idea to get out of having bad dreams seemed to stick with David and the thought occupied his mind for the entire walk home, his evening meal, and all of his activities gearing up for bedtime.

As he laid down for bed, he pulled his night journal out of his nightstand for his daily review. Writing out his thoughts was a good way to unwind from the day and David had picked up this practice after reading that it can help with sleep. Putting pen to paper, he began to write his thoughts on the day.

In the process of reviewing his day, he kept coming back to the idea he had on his walk home. Perhaps out of desperation from his lifetime of sleepless nights, he had managed to draw some odd conclusions based on the random occurances from the day.He had further developed the idea on the walk home. His coworker's story, the magician on TV and the alarm company's phone call. All of them had a 'magic' word that resolved the threat in the situuatuon. What if he created a special word to help him get out of his bad dreams before they go bad and wake him up. It would so nice if he could just continue sleeping after a dream instead of waking up.

Laughing at himself, he finally realized how desperate he had become to get a good night's sleep. David had been tormented for years by these nightmares and they continued to get worse. If he didn't have to worry about being tired all day, then he could only imagine the amount of work he could get done. He would be an all-star employee and really make it big time.

"Why the hell not?", David said to himself while closing up his journal and tucking it into his nightstand. Then, he was left with his next thought, "How will it work?"

After that he spent the next thirty minutes thinking over the idea. He kind of felt a little childish for actually acting on the weird idea, but he managed to start forming a plan for tonight's sleep.

If a nightmare would come, he would say his 'magic' word to get out of the dream before the nightmare forces him to wake up and ruin his sleep.

Now he just needed to pick a word.

Something memorable and simple, but not something that he would use frequently. This decision ended up being pretty difficult for something that seemed trivial. After about twenty more minutes of thinking, he decide that that when a dream went sour then he would face the situation head-on and simply say "terminate" to end the dream. Why terminate? The word sounded cool, means to stop and isn't a word that he says on a regular basis. He actually chuckled at himself for such a stupid choice.

In order to implement his plan, he focused on the idea of having a word to end dreams as he laid down for bed. In the past, he had tried this strategy of focusing on a particular thought before going to sleep in an effort to direct his dreams with some limited success. Most of the time, the focus would just slightly change a dream or add a different element but it wouldn't change the nightmares much at all. Sometimes, trying to focus his thoughts would even make the nightmares worse. After that happened a few times, he had stopped trying.

All he needed to do tonight was change the dream by a word, so it seemed reasonable that it would work. He countinued focusing on the thought while mentally thinking the word terminate over and over again. Surprisingly, it didn't take him long before he started to dozed off to sleep and into a dream.

After he dozed off, David found himself back on his grandma's lawn playing and having a good time. This time he seemed to realize he was in a dream a bit more than usual. He had always found that this weird feeling seemed to be due to having the same dream two nights in a row. It didn't happen often. The odd feeling that awareness in a dream provided was different. The feeling made his whole body slightly tingly in sensation. Honestly, it felt like he appeared in a movie scene that he had watched before and was living the life of one of the characters.

David was semi-aware that this was a dream but the feeling was foggy. The semi-aware feeling was similar to being really drunk. He was not totally in control of even his own movements. The details in the dream were still as real as the last time if not a bit more.

Knowing what was going to happen, David looked down the block to see the large beast standing in the neighbor's yard. As usual, the panic and fear hit him as the doglike beast started to move his way. In the mist of the fear, he had this nagging sensation that he needed to do something. The same as list time, he first ran to his grandma's front door only to find it locked. With the door locked, all he could do for protection was try to hide in his Mom's car. He sprinted through the grass to the car.

Glancing sideways, he saw that the beast was only 20 feet away. He knew that he wasn't going to make and the urge to take action was getting stronger. Almost not really understanding why, he stopped in his tracks, stared the beast in the face and managed to quietly say, "Terminate."

David immediately sat up in bed very disappointed that the plan didn't work and he had woken up. Although the plan didn't work, the intense pain of the dog beast attack didn't seem to happen like every other night. He also felt much better than when he is usually awoken by a nightmare. Then, the odd sensation of being semi-conscience hit him again.

"Damn, it feels like I am still in a dream," he managed to string together in a thought, "Holy shit, the magic word must have worked."

After a few seconds thought, he felt the urge to go to the bathroom. "Oh, this is the ghosts in the bathroom dream," he thought feeling a chill run through his body.

David seemed to feel much more aware in this dream than the previous one. He was slightly more in control of his actions than the last dream. Since he knew how this dream went, he immediately turned in all the lights in the apartment.

"How can ghosts get you if the whole apartment is lit up like a spotlight? You never see ghosts during a sunny day", David had thought to himself.

The dream had always been so dark and spooky. With all the lights blazing, it just didn't seem that bad. The dream always went downhill once he went into the bathroom and closed the door.

For some reason, he seemed to be fully aware in this dream. It was really weird. Like his normal thought processes were accessible. Usually in a dream, he has little to no control.

Since he had some freedom, David made the decision to go about doing things in his dream apartment instead of entering the bathroom. Those bastard ghosts could get him if he never went in the bathroom.

Having an dream with some control was pretty awesome. David walked around his apartment for awhile. Sometimes, he felt a hundred percent aware while sometime he was semi-aware and had to fight the urge to go in the bathroom to pee.

While he was aware, details of his apartment were clear. He could read his work notes at the kitchen table. He could empty the dishwasher. It was like he had free range of this dreamworld.

The experience was amazing; however, good things don't last forever. Eventually, the urge to enter the bathroom became overwhelming. Off the success of the previous dream, he decided to go into the bathroom to see what would happen.

Entering the bathroom, he couldn't help but be slightly nervous. This part of the nightmare was always one of his worse dreams. The ghosts would come out of the walls and scrape and peel at his skin off of his body until he awoke.

He walked into the bathroom. Setting the goal of excaping this dream too, he reached for the doornob. As the bathroom door closed, the lights started flickering on and off. Aberrations started to appear around him. Then the ghosts started to come out. Just as the first wraith dove for him out of the corner of the room, he ducked down to the ground and shouted, "Terminate."

He awoke in his bed with splitting pain in his head. The pain was so intense that it made tears build up in his eyes. This headache had to be the worst he ever experienced. He trashed around his bed for about a minute while holding his head.

"What the hell?", he thought as the pain started to reduce. He felt nauseous.

As soon as the pain settled down,he was asssulted with the intense urge to go to the bathroom. Worried that he was going to puke and piss himself before he made it the ten steps to the toilet, David quickly got up from bed. The urge had hit him so hard that he hadn't had a chance to figure out what that crazy headache was all about.

After flipping up the toilet seat, he immediately started to take a piss feeling a overwhelming sense of release. He really had to piss. After a second of peeing, he was blindsided by an obnoxious stench coming from the toilet. Looking down, he couldn't help but shiver as he looked at the dark brown urine coming out of his body.

"What the hell?", he repeated to himself, "Guess I held my piss in too long by staying away from the bathroom in that dream. I hope I didn't mess up my bladder."

He finished up going to the bathroom and flushed the obnoxious mess down into the sewer. He walked back into his bedroom and picked up his phone.

"7:30 in the morning," he read in elation.

Then the realization hit him. David had managed to have the first good night sleep that he could remember.

"Hell ya, the crazy idea worked and I managed to get a wonderful nights rest for the work today. I'm gonna have to do this every night," he thought as he started his morning routine of getting ready for work.