What they're running from...

Sal had dreams of death. Sal dreams that before he reached heaven, or paradise, death, or the Shrouded Traveler, caught him. I feel that Sal is running away from death, that he's trying to live the moment as if there was no tomorrow, excusing his promiscuity and irresponsibility. He and his gang of 'beats' are all running away from the reality of their mortality, they act irresponsibly and think that they are invincible, that consequences are always avoidable. At this point of the book, I feel that these people are getting annoying because they are always so spontaneous and promiscuous, they cannot settle down they always have to be moving or, as the book title reads, On the Road.
Ed kept referring to his dream, that he believed to be his "ghost walking on the sidewalk" (130). His reference to death, and the spookiness of the dream reminded us of Sal's conclusion of his own dream, that it "is only death: death will overtake us before heaven." I feel that this foreshadows Sal's future in the novel, that he will never be able to reach his paradise, because death, or the lack of life, will take it away from him. This might foreshadow the possibility that Sal will never be able to find happiness because of the death of something or someone hinders him.