In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree..

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I was walking down the street, and then I was inside a house. The house was on a lake, kind of-modern, with big curving windows that overlooked an expanse of grass that went down to the water. Very light and very expansive. I knew the place perfectly, I'd been there a million times.

Over to one side, well, wait, I'm not sure exactly where it was.. Oh, I know, you had to go up some stairs, and on each stair riser, there were painted flowers. Up the flowered stairs, a bedroom, my bedroom, very familiar. A closet door. And when I opened the closet door, there was another door. How did I forget that door? I opened the door, and inside was another closet. A big, expansive (yes, I know I said that before, but it was ) closet, with a shelves, no, drawers, like map drawers. Those narrow flat map drawers. The light was golden, and it smelled of...well, nice.

Whoa, I thought. Wonder what I put in those drawers? And I opened each one, and they were full of paisley shawls, and silk scarves, and ah...golden things.

Why didn't I remember I had this stuff?

Yes, fine, fine, of course it was a dream. And I've had it so many times! Why?

I've had it so many times, in fact, that when I'm in it now, I say, oh, it's the closet dream. I love this one. And I try to stay in it, but when I say that to myself, it's over.

I used to have a dream about being in a play but not knowing the songs or the dance. I had that all the time.Then one night, I thought to myself, don't worry, this is a dream. And I remember thinking, even if it wasn't a dream, I knew the songs and the dance, no problem. I haven't had the dream since.

Lately, I've had several big, apocalyptic, end-of-the-world dreams. And they were NOT scary.

I do not, sadly, dream of mystery plots. I do not, sadly, solve my problems in my dreams. And I know they're just snippets of our days, reformed by our brains into little movies. But I can't help but think they mean..something.

Do you have recurring dreams? What are they? And what do you think about that?

JAN BROGAN: I, too, fail to get miracle advice or plot solutions in my dreams. But I've come to believe that all those crazy, bad-ass dreams with time jumps and scenes ripped from whatever TV show I was watching the night before, may help clear all the CRAP out of my head, so I actually can come up with real solutions during my waking hours.

HALLIE EPHRON: I still, after all these years, have teaching anxiety dreams. Only now the 'kids' are adults and they're still as intractable. Talking to each other. Leaving the room and not coming back. Would love that lucid it's-all-a-dream moment because I'd just levitate me or them out of there.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I had recurring nightmares as a child--two of them. I still remember them vividly. And then, when I was older and not doing well in school, I had anxiety dreams--papers not written, tests not prepared for, etc. Now I just have dreams about missing deadlines . . .

I did, however, dream the WIP. It's the first time that has ever happened to me. I woke about four a.m. one morning and had the whole book in my head; setting, plot, characters, scenes, dialog. I got up and scribbled like mad for hours, getting as much down as I could. After that, I thought it would be easy to write the book, but it hasn't turned out that way. There's still all the nit-picky plotting and research and timelines . . . all the drudge work that goes into every book. Only time and a finished manuscript will tell whether the dream was a good thing.

HANK: Debs! That's amazing. Really? Something you hadn't thought of AT ALL during the day??

ROSEMARY HARRIS: Okay maybe my giant pontine cells...are asleep. If I do dream, I just don't remember. There was one lovely dream I used to have over and over again - and haven't for a few years. Maybe I can program myself to have it again - I'm alone in a one story building, almost like the images I've seen of cattle stations in Australia. Everything is some shade of brown or gold. There are lots of doors in the building, some of them screen doors that bounce and slap shut. I see the first lion after a few minutes, and then half a dozen more and we do this slow dance of my walking in and out of the doors - not wanting to run - and the lions following me, stalking but not ready to pounce. I'm more exhilarated than nervous and they always go away.

Other than that there's the one with Russell Crowe and the gladiator outfit.

DEBS: I want Rosemary's dream:-) Hank, I had some very general ideas about the book but hadn't even begun to try to put them together. The really weird thing about that was I had no recollection of dreaming. I just woke up, wondered what time it was, thought about going back to sleep, and suddenly realized the whole book was THERE. So bizarre. Something similar happened to my friend Kate Charles when she was recovering from open heart surgery. She was working on a series novel, and suddenly, inexplicably, had an entire but completely different book in her head. She put aside the series novel and wrote the standalone.

HANK: Whoa. Lions. And instant books. Doesn't it show you how our brains are capable of things we simply don't understand?

RHYS BOWEN: I took a fabulous class on dream psychology when I was in college. One thing they taught was that dreaming about a house is a symbol for how we see ourselves. So, dear Hank, you are in good shape--great, expansive house with lots of storage. It's light so you have no dark, scary places in your psyche.

HANK: Oh, what a nice thought! Or, maybe it shows I have no idea where anything is. Ill take your version..

RHYS: I too have had the play/opera performing dream when I'm about to go on and can't remember my first line. And the school about to take a test and don't know the subject dream.
My most interesting recurring dream was as a child I'd dream I was standing on train tracks in the dark. I could hear a train coming but couldn't see it and didn't know which set of tracks--as there was no space between them. I jumped from one to another in panic.

When I took dream pyschology I analyzed this, and was told that in dreams we sometimes rhyme our fears. Then I realized--I was a baby in World War II. I was too young to know that planes were flying over and they were scary, but my subconscious retained that fear. So they were planes not trains coming unseen in the dark. Once I figured that out, I never dreamed it again.

HANK: Oh, Rhys. Fascinating.

LUCY BURDETTE: (ROBERTA ISLEIB should really answer this one!) Of course in my previous life I dealt with a lot of dreams. We were taught to help the dreamer explore all her associations to the dream and gradually the meaning would emerge.

The recurring dream I have most often is that a ton of company is coming and I'm scrambling madly to figure out where they can all sleep. Geez, I came from a bit family and all, but we certainly all had beds! I'd much much rather wake up with a whole book in my head. that's something to yearn for!

HANK: Yes, indeed...in fact, it makes me want to take a nap! So, Lucy, what rhymes with family? And Reds, what are your recurring dreams? And what do you think they mean? (And can you help us with any of ours?)

And coming up: Great guests every day this week, gang! And a book giveaway every day to a lucky commenter! Today one lucky commenter gets Joe Finder's BURIED SECRETS! (Because that's what's in our dreams, right?)