I had a dream that I was a German boy, and when I turned 16, I was drafted into the Nazi army! I did not want to be in the Nazi army, for many reasons!

We were finally brought to the battle, to fight against some Americans. As we were waiting for the order to charge, one of my squadmates accidentally shot another one. Then everybody turned and looked like they were going to kill him. So I shot another squadmate and said to the first guy, “come on, let’s defect!”

We ran through the battle, tearing off our uniforms to lessen the chances that the Americans would shoot us as we tried to surrender. The plan was that we would surrender and then live out the rest of the war in a POW camp.

But when we got to the Americans, there was a whole bunch of confusion going on, and we just got herded onto a transport to be taken back to base, as though we were American soldiers.

At this point, I lost track of my friend. Since he took no part in my subsequent adventures, it kind of makes me wonder: Did I make up that accident, or even that entire person? Maybe I just didn’t want to think of myself as someone that would shoot someone just to get what I want, so I made up that I was rescuing someone.

Whatever happened there, I was shipped back to America. I had been to England as a kid, so I knew a little English. I figured that, if I didn’t say much, I might not be found out.

And it mostly worked.

I didn’t know what to do in America, so I went to high school (I was still 16). But soon, I was found out as being German, and people thought I was a spy and were going to arrest me, so I ran. I was living on the street, stealing things for a living. Eventually, I fell in with some kind of gang. They robbed jewellery stores.

I guess I lived with them for awhile. But at some point, they started turning to violent crimes that I didn’t want to be part of, so I ran again.

Before I woke up, what was going on was that I was going to live on a hippy commune!

I wonder how differently my life would have turned out if I had successfully become a POW. Or if I hadn’t defected at all. Maybe I could have had a legitimate life, and not had to worry about being caught all the time. I guess we’ll never know.