I jerked awake, startled by some now fading thought. To my surprise, I wasn't in my bed at home. Instead, I was in the museum, where my mom had taken me when I was small, as a Flower Scout.
To make things even more bizarre, I was a child again. I looked down at my little hands in wonder, curious about what strange sorcery this was. A sound made me jump, and I turned to see what it was.
People. All around me were sleeping people, some adults, some kids. The dinosaur fossils above them kept watch.
With a smile, I recalled where I was. A sleepover at the local museum in Wichita had been arranged for the Flower Scouts, to help us get one of their badges. I had gone on the trip with my mom. I remembered being scared of the dinosaurs, so my mom switched sleeping places with me.

Then, between one blink and the next, the whole world shifted. Now it was fall, and I was outside my home in Wichita with my sisters. We made a leaf pile together, then tried to tunnel through it like we had seen in movies.
When that didn't work, we raked all the leaves in a huge pile, and took turns jumping in, yelling random phrases as we went.
Then, Beth picked Dawn up, and heaved her into the pile, where she landed on some rocks, according to her. I started forward at her yell, my short legs unable to reach her before the scene shifted again.

Now it was winter. I was 9, maybe 10 years old. My sister's and I gathered snow to make snow cakes, a special treat our mom would make us on snowy days. We paused sometimes to throw small snowballs at each other.

The scene shifted again, but this time, it was different.
I wasn't with anyone else, and I was 16 again. I saw, as if from above, myself lying on my bed, trying to read but unable to concentrate. For a moment, I couldn't figure out why, but then I remember.
That was the day I made my first friend since 7th grade. I recalled the joy it had given me, the happiness I had felt at having someone who understood me for me.

And so it continued. I watched short clips from my life, the scenes continuing to shift from one to another.
I didn't understand why it was happening, but I wasn't going to question it.

I was too entranced to care why or where I seemed to be trapped.

Seeing my past made me feel like a child again.