Bad Dreams

I stayed up late reading Incubus Dreams last night, and I'm still only about 200 pages in. This is the first time a book has played havok on my subconcious in quite a long time. I didn't realize that the characters' nightmares and bad memories were having such an adverse affect on me. Maybe I'm not using the vocab. in quite the right way but I'm tired and want this down while it's fresh on my memory.
In the book, Micah talking about what happened to him made me very sad, but it was Nathaniel and Damian's nightmares that I think must have done this.
I was back at the Y daycamp. Gods that Was almost ten years ago. It looked slightly different, with different people, but it was still us being in charge of a bunch of kids and their safety. Safety which had taken a vacation in this dream apparently. We were under those covered picnic table areas that you see in parks and zoos. And, part of it was in what looked like the basement of my old church. Some bad guy or evil thing had already come along and taken one of the kids. Everyone was frantic. Police with helicopters and such trying to track the kid down,but I have a feeling for that kid at least, it was too late.
In the middle of all that, there was some crazy virus being spread. Handiwork of another, or the same, really bad evil thing. In the end, no one would get close to each other or touch anyone they cared about, for fear of transmitting whatever it was. No, that's not right. Not fear of transmitting it to others, fear of getting it themselves. And there was my Grandma Dorothy, someone who is dead now but was alive in the dream. Someone who I'd love to have back, for just a moment, for a big bear hug and to tell her how much I love her. But in the dream, I couldn't hug her, just kiss the air around her and feel really sad. I'm pretty sure the not being able to touch the people you love is something to do with the Anita book too. Not that they were stuck in any similar situation. Just, for Anita it may all be sexual but it's still all about touching loved ones, or not touching them because you love them, or other issues therein.
That's the point at which the cats woke me up. Was it because they could sense my distress? Or because they were hungry? Or because it was ten minutes before I had to get up anyway, and they like to do that?
I can't remember the last time I had such a vivid dream, or one so negative. And I don't think I've ever had a book influence my dreams so much.
Now, if the Anita book was going to come calling on my subconcious, why couldn't I have had NICE dreams with Jason or Nathaniel or Damian? Ok maybe skip those last two because they're too prone to the bad memories.
I'll probably delete this later, but this format was fastest, and easier to access this moring than my private journal. So if anyone out there is reading this, try not to delve too deeply into my subconcious and/or analyze my dreams.