nightmare

At 10PM I had a glass of milk and went to bed, setting my alarm for 5AM. I have nature noises (river water + crickets) playing through my pillow speakers. Noises wake me at 11:15PM, but I promptly fall back asleep. A bad dream wakes me at 1AM.

Snakes in the leaves
I'm writing a fiery letter regarding a pastor and church building. In it, I say that I'd love to welcome him back as a friend, but that I'll fight him tooth and nail if I have to. I'm embarrassed about using such strong language, but I feel it's what I need to do. I'll be sending the letter off to Frank to get his opinion.

Now I'm on some church property trying to clean up a huge accumulation of leaves. I'm by myself, and I take a moment to savor my picturesque surroundings, with woods all around me and the old building off in the distance. Now the thick carpet of leaves has been turned into a bunch of big piles, some of which are now in bags. As I'm working, I consider myself fortunate that I haven't seen any snakes in this mess. Immediately after thinking about it, I see a brownish snake in the bag I just stepped over. It doesn't strike, but it does seem to be waking up and shaking off a stupor. It really blends in with all the dead leaves, and I thank God that I didn't step on it. As I back away from the bag, I become aware that there are a lot of these snakes around, all waking up, all starting to head towards me. I turn and run, then trip and fall. As I'm picking myself up, I see that one is coming straight at me. I manage to grab a bag and swing and throw it as hard as I can at the snake. It doesn't impede the snake at all, and I feel panic rising in me.

I wake up, heart pounding. I jump at every little noise I hear, and it takes about an hour to fall back asleep. My alarm wakes me up at 5.


Swim goggles
I'm standing on a platform in the middle of a pool getting ready to jump in. I've got my swim goggles on, but they don't feel right. I press them to my eyes and find that they don't suck on. I wonder if they're broken, but then I realize they probably just got dried out. I take them off and dunk them in the water, then put them back on, and they stick properly.


Problems at church
I'm at Frank's church before the service starts, waiting in the bathroom for the computer to become available. A well-dressed man (black, but with relatively light skin) is using it, and the longer I wait the more I suspect he's not going to give it up any time soon. Now I'm in the service, in the middle of singing a hymn. Mom is to my right, and my son is to her right. When the hymn is done, we all sit back down. My son is talking to a girl his age sitting to his right, so Mom shushes them. He tells Mom to be quiet, then turns back to his friend and keeps talking. I get back up, tell him to follow me, and leave the service with him.


Fragment: I'm walking around outside a building under a covered walkway preparing for some kind of party.

No shoes, no service
I'm taking my kids to a shop on a strip mall. As we walk up to the entrance I see a "No shoes, no service" sign and realize that my feet are bare. We all go back to the van so I can get some shoes on.

Demon dog at the police station
I'm in some kind of private eye, film noir dream. I enter a police station via a lose second story window and find myself on a small landing. I go downstairs, but return upstairs to close and latch the window. Back downstairs, a huge black dog with glowing red eyes starts to chase me and my dog. With my dog, I run to the front door and open it just wide enough to get out through. I try to get my own dog out without letting the demon dog out, but he's somehow stuck. I wake up.

Game in a warehouse
I'm in some kind of puzzle game. I'm with a group of people in a gigantic warehouse. We're all riding along a huge conveyor belt that takes us from puzzle to puzzle.
Eventually, we reach the end of the conveyor belt. Something up in the air drops three big boxes down in front of us. Somehow, they're shooting at us. I know that this is really easy to solve if you just know the trick.
Now I'm looking at the summary screen for the last puzzle. I'm frustrated because even though I believe we solved it perfectly, we still lost points, and I have no idea why.

Bus to New York
I'm out somewhere doing some activity. Soon it's over, so Ron and I board a bus to go home. We're on the bus a long time - I wonder if we're going to the right place. I know Ron hates buses, so I look back at him and see that he's sleeping. The bus has a few rows of front-facing seats that recline slightly. Behind them are 5 seats on each side facing towards the middle of the bus. Ron is on those seats, laying down on his back. He doesn't quite fit. It looks like the seats at the end of the line can actually spread apart a bit more, but he hasn't done that. Behind those seats are a couple more rows of normal seats, then the back of the bus. I'm sitting a few rows back from the front. The row directly in front of me just has a couple of pairs of shoes on the floor. An older couple is sitting on the row in front of the shoes. I'm not all that happy with my seat, so I move and end up on the front row. The doors are immediately to my right.

I see indications that we're entering New York, and I'm worried. We pass through a toll plaza with "Welcome to New York" across the roof above the tool booths. For a while, we drive through a bunch of tall buildings; eventually, the view on our right opens up to a shipyard. The shipyard is large and is full of huge ships. One ship in particular stands out: a huge ship, carrying a cruise liner with plenty of room to spare, is being lowered into the water by a crane. Finally, we arrive at the La Guardia airport and the bus lets us off. The airport is a huge blue building with "La Guardia" written in white on the side. I'm discouraged that I'm probably just going to have to get on a return bus and spend the day on that to get home. I know I could fly home, but there's no way I can afford the ticket, especially trying to buy a ticket the day of the flight. I know I'll be missed at work today, but there's no helping it. I'll just try to be back by tomorrow.

Inside the airport, I get a call asking where I am. I explain that somehow we boarded the wrong bus. I'm worried that my phone is probably ready to die since it wasn't charged over night. I look around; I'm in a HUGE open room. It's almost completely empty, though there's a gift shop over in one corner.

I'm in a smaller hallway now. I've run into my in-laws. My mother-in-law is flying off on a missions trip and he's here to see her off. I think how nice it would be to fly home with him, but I know I can't.

The shapeshifters
I'm moving through a cave system trying to get away from something. I find some primitive bedding, and the thing taunts me. I move out of there and find myself in what seems to be a run-down cathedral. There are lots of tall, thin windows, but they're very dirty. The walls seem to be made out of stone.

Now he's there with me, but he's turned into a young man. He's some kind of shape shifter. I ask how that works, if he can change shape whenever he wants, and he explains. When he eats certain things, he changes; different things change different things about him. Where he comes from, there are lots of vendors who sell different items to cause different changes. You have to be careful only to use stuff that's compatible with you, or you could cause yourself problems.

Now I'm with him at an outdoor market. Booths all around are selling little squares with a color and letter; the color and the letter designates what they change.

Now I'm in a room somewhere. I have a bowl of colorful cereal. In the bowl, in among the cereal, is a yellow square with an H printed on it. I know it's not for me, but I accidentally start to eat it. I get it out of my mouth before I chew it too much. I know it's for a girl nearby. To hide the fact that I started to eat it, I wad it up into a ball. Somehow, even though the cube was fairly small, the ball ends up the size of a tennis ball, and I wonder where the extra size came from. I don't notice at the time, but the color has also changed from yellow to blue. I give the ball to the girl, and she eats it. No one is sure yet whether she can shapeshift, so this will tell. After chewing it, she bends over in pain - that means the change has started, that she is a shape shifter, and everyone is excited.