Batch

07-28-2012 -- I am driving down a road, in Omaha, I think. It is late at night and I am hungry. I am hoping to find something to eat, and as I drive along, I find a New York-style pizza parlor. The name is something like Giovanni's or the like. I stop and enter, and find the place does seem to be open, but shelves and cupboards and displays are almost empty. I realize the place has either just opened, or is in the middle of selling everything and shutting down. They only have something like three choices of topping, cheese, pepperoni, or sausage. I really push it and ask for all three on my pizza. The guy is making me a very large pizza (at least 18", maybe even larger) but doesn't seem to know what to charge me. I offer him $15, but keep wondering to myself if I might have offered too much or too little.

As I am waiting outside the apartment-like parlor, there seems to be somebody hunting me. I spot a figure in a nice suit who seems to be following me, but is trying to stay out of sight. He keeps dashing around corners or hiding behind walls. He is trying to shoot me with bullets or poison darts, and soon seems to be trying to build some sort of explosive mine or something, but it falls apart. I gather up as many pieces as I can to try and keep them away from him, then run off.

A couple of miles away I come to a warehouse on the NE corner of an intersection. I glance inside and find it is my warehouse, and there are three small box trucks that I know are filled with explosives or something. There are some incompetent thugs that have been sent to hunt me down that are driving down the street in two larger trucks filled with some kind of ordinance to use against me, but they are stupid, and they really aren't at all sure what they are supposed to be doing.

I convince them that I am not me, but am actually one of their bosses, and I order them to start moving all the stuff in their trucks into my trucks of explosives. Since they are carrying things like detonators, I know this can be a dangerous combination. I wait until they are both out of site in a couple of the trucks, and then go running to the south while they cannot see me. As long as they don't actually see me running off, they won't be worried, and will keep doing as I told them.

I know that when the explosion happens, it is going to be very powerful, and most likely nuclear, so I really want to get at least a mile away, so I can be safe. I keep running south in Omaha, and get a couple miles down to a major street. I knew what the street was in the dream, but cannot remember it now. Dale is now with me, and we are both running. We get to this major street, and find a bus just pulling up. We both board it, and I have .75 for the bus fare, but when I try and put it in a slot, the driver starts screaming at me that it is the wrong place, and he orders me to put the money in a different slot.

He is very rude and obnoxious, and I really find I don't like him. He keeps screaming abuse at me, and I am considering really telling him off, but instead decide to take a seat. As I get a little further back in the bus, he orders me to choose a locker and take the key. Amazingly there is a row of lockers. I tell the driver I don't need a locker, and he just gets more abusive. Rather than fight about it, I pull out a key that turns into a lock in my hands.

Dale and I sit down, nervous, and quietly discuss the upcoming explosion. We keep our voices down because we don't want the other passengers to hear us and report us. Soon the bus has turned into some sort of stadium, and we are in the stands, surrounded by ladders made up of a kind of horizontal window blinds. To get higher up and move to the next level, we have to climb these rickety blinds, but as we get a little way up, they all fall apart and collapse, leaving us to fall on our backsides.

I get to an area with some nice sofa-like benches that seem to be a little higher up, so I hope to have a shorter way to climb, as the blinds-ladders start to reappear. By this time it is feeling very much like some sort of video game, though we're in it, instead of just playing it. I look around and find Dale is gone, so I realize he must have solved the puzzle, and moved on to the next level. I still don't know how to do it, so I pull out my cell phone and call him. There is a lot of interference, and I can barely hear him, but he says something about the lock before the call drops. I start to realize the bus driver may have been an idiot, but there was a reason he ordered us to take the locks.

I wait a few seconds for the blinds to reset again, then start to climb. I go up about twenty rungs, and can just feel the tension as the thing is about to fall apart and drop me. At that point the dream kind of turns into a good news/bad news story. It's good that the driver insisted I take the lock. It's bad that right as I need it, I drop it. It's good that I happen to have a combo lock of my own in my backpack. It's bad that I can't remember the combination. It's good that the combination is printed on the back of the lock. It's bad that the combination is wrong. It's good that the thing opens up, anyway. It's bad that as it opens up, it starts to fall apart. It's good that as it starts to fall apart, it has turned into a lock mechanism like "The Club", the thing they used to sell to kind of lock steering wheels.

The bar that I end up holding is exactly what I need, and I slip it over some sort of stud on both ends of the blinds, right before they start to fall apart. Everything beneath me collapses, but I am able to continue climbing up to the next level. By this point, the dream is feeling like some sort of a competition, as well as a sort of video game. I find myself in a strange, colorful landscape that very much reminds me of the new Runespan in Runescape, but the place is very weird.

People are running around, throwing bowling balls, base balls, basket balls and other objects around, but the rules of physics don't seem to fully apply. Balls swirl down odd gravity wells, or break holes in the walls, and people follow them to try and find paths to the next level. I throw a couple of bowling balls, and they work all right, but when I try and throw the smaller balls, I can't throw worth beans, and always let go of the ball way too late, so it slams into the ground a foot or two in front of me, rather than flying through the air and triggering anything. Somehow I manage to make it at least a half a level further, however.

Now I am grabbing guns and things, and shooting at weird aliens and targets that seem more like a Buzz Lightyear-type of shooting gallery ride at a theme park. I'm doing a lot better with this than with the throwing balls thing. I shoot my way through several targets and barriers, and kind of fly into the next area.

I suddenly find myself in a swim suit in what seems to be a very colorful water park. I am on a large field with circles of colors with numbers in them, looks like some sort of giant Twister game. I see some odd footwear that is kind of a cross between flippers, snow shoes and skis. I try and get one on one of my feet, but don't have a chance to get one on the other. I have to start trying to run through the fields as different numbers are being called.

If I land on one of the circles before another number is called, jets of water help propel me in the right direction. If I hit the wrong circles, the water is pushing me in the wrong directions, and is liable to knock me over. Soon I have shot into the wrong direction one time too many, and find myself in a red sort of structure seconds before water is going to come at me from every direction and fully soak me. I'm horrible at this part of the competition, but I am also really having fun, and I am just starting to laugh about the soaking as I wake up.