Monday is Tarot Day: it's interesting what a little stress will produce.

It's rare that I have a dream that actually shakes me up and wakes me up and rattles me, making me wonder, "Whoa. Did this just happen for REAL?"

Last night I had one of those dreams.

Now, it could've stemmed from partaking in the sampler appetizer basket and a Guinness during a St. Pat's celebration with buddies last night. My constitution is not entirely accepting of deep-fried cheese balls and teensy fried flautas filled with a spicy, meat-like substance. But methinks my nocturnal frightfest had more to do with stress, with me worrying about a show I auditioned for. Naughty me; you'd think after all these years I'd let these things just roll off my back, but when it has to do with your most favorite role in your most favorite show, and hoping you're going to work with those you love, well, the stress and worry has a way of seeping into the crevices of your brain and voila! out pops a nightmare.

I don't recall the entire dream, but I do remember this much: I'm in Vegas, it's for a tarot conference, and there's a new casino going up across the street from where I'm standing. It's got Italian theming (perhaps an add-on to the already-built Venetian?) and they've constructed a Vegas-sized Leaning Tower of Pisa. Right next to it, they're in the throes of erecting yet another tower, but this one is leaning toward the Little Pisa. Men are still at work on the structure, scaffolding holding up the highest point of it like a floating top hat. It's at this moment I realize it bears a striking resemblance to the Tower card from the tarot's Major Arcana.


And all at once, the card comes to life. A loud, metallic pop thwacks through the usual Vegas strip busyness, followed by a succession of gut-curdling wooden cracks. The scaffolding gives way around the tower-in-progress, tossing construction workers to their unfortunate doom. Screams riddle the air, smoke and debris rise up from the collapsed tower, now laid low, resembling a pile of ragged, scattered pick-up sticks.

The Tower card is not one I usually take lightly in a reading. I always give credence to the other cards surrounding the Tower; they'll shine a light on the card's meaning, hopefully adding a more positive influence. The Tower, all by itself, is a card of cataclysm, and a quick, often nasty one at that.

I'm in no way saying this dream was prophetic. But I am saying that my mind is under a larger amount of stress than it usually is. And the Tower popped up in my dream to help me release a little of that pressure.  It's all about psychology sometimes.