The New York Times has spoken with a friend of alleged Gabrielle Giffords shooter Jared Loughner and discovered some warning signs others should have picked up on. Like: It turns out the suspected would-be assassin... kept a dream journal!

Yes, that's right! The Times identifies "the earliest signs of behavior that may have ultimately led to the attacks started several years ago," and they include "Keeping a dream journal." But it's not just that! Loughner was "a nihilist" (who also, apparently, had "a philosophy of anarchy") who read Nietzsche:

He talked about reading Friedrich Nietzsche's book "The Will To Power" and embraced ideas about the corrosive, destructive effects of nihilism—a belief in nothing. And every day, his friend said, Mr. Loughner would get up and write in his dream journal, recording the world he experienced in sleep and its possible meanings.

A pot-smoking loner, reading Nietzsche and calling himself a nihilist? And keeping a dream journal? Alarm bells, anyone? Next thing, you'll be telling me he thought the world was fake and superficial!

Loughner "used the word hollow to describe how fake the real world was to him."

Spooky! Yes, it seems so clear in retrospect—what kind of 20-something college student would be interested in Nietzsche, nihilism, dream journals and "a philosophy of anarchy" besides a psychotic one? Thanks for identifying those early signs, Times!

Oh, and he also accused his friends of stalking him and plotting to kill him and steal his car. But, come on. A dream journal! We should have known right there that he was planning a killing spree.

[NYT]