Into the Whirlpool

I'm in the world of Stephen King's Dark Tower series. Specifically, I'm in Calla Bryn Sturgis with Eddie and either Susannah or Jake, plus a townperson I can't remember. Someone (one of us? who?) is being taught how to "throw the dish." We're standing next to a porch of a wooden country house in a field of beautiful, wavy green grass.

[I wake up from this scene and am convinced something is crawling on my leg. I leap out of bed and try to get it off. I have an idea that it's something from the Dark Tower world that will kill me if I let it bite me, which will only happen if I stay still, so I pace around my room for about 20 seconds until reality sets in.]

---

I'm in the upstairs bathroom of the house in Bolton (pre-renovation). Heidi is with me, standing just outside in the hallway. In the bathtub there's a little dish set into the wall with a small white plastic octopus/squid? on it. I touch it and for some reason have the idea that its name is Loly. I turn to Heidi and say jokingly, "Run Loly Run." She looks blank. "You know, like Run Lola Run? The movie?" I find it strange that she doesn't know what I'm talking about. Then for some reason I start trying to describe what an underwater reenactment of Run Lola Run, starring the octopus instead of Franka Potente, would look like. I forget most of this explanation (it obviously is pretty nonsensical) but at one point there is a giant hand that reaches down from the sky and into the water. At some point during my explanation I realize I am not talking to Heidi, but to a little kid that I identify as Ronan, even though he's too old to actually be my brother.

I'm in a submarine with several others, and we become aware that the ship is about to lose its balance/twist at a crazy angle underwater, such that the inside of the ship will be subject to massive pressure changes. (We'll probably all survive, though, for some reason.) I have this vision of a row of rivets that pop loose with a loud metallic clang one after the other.

Later in the dream I'm walking around a mall with Heidi. I could have been attending Mike and Andrea's wedding during this time, but instead I'm here pretending to be Heidi's husband while she has a lesbian wedding ceremony. Not that the ceremony is actually taking place or anything; we just seem to be wandering around the mall aimlessly. I get bored and start looking up information on Natalie Merchant. I learn that in her early career she and her husband had separate musical acts; she headed a group called Natalie and the Merchants. I wonder whether I'll find any information on her fake British accent, but I don't come across anything.

At some point I meet Mike and Andrea and we exchange photos on our phones. Apparently their wedding consisted of them and some friends hanging out in an apartment while everyone dressed up in some sort of marching band uniform. The whole thing had the atmosphere of a college party rather than a wedding.

I'm with a couple of friends; we're making our way through a protracted commute via public transit to a train station/airport. As we get closer to our destination our surroundings gradually get flashier, with neon lights that give the area something of a futuristic look. We climb up the stairs to the boarding platform. I'm dimly aware that my friends are both carrying bags--and at that moment it hits me; I have nothing with me except my coat (which I'm wearing). Oh, damn, I forgot my bag. Again. (I have a sense that this is not unusual for me.)

I turn to my friends and realize one of them is Brian from high school; I recognize the other person but can't put a name to the face. "Guys, I just realized I forgot my bag," I say with an apologetic grimace. They sigh. We're going to have to go back to get it... well, no, why should they have to go back? "Go ahead without me," I say. "I'll meet you at J___ ______." (quick image of a map with place name overlaid and a blue "person" icon where our destination is) Brian starts to protest, but it's clearly just a courtesy, because when I repeat myself he immediately switches to a nod of assent. They leave. I don't know how I'll meet up with them since I won't be able to take the same means of transportation, but I guess I'll figure something out.

I slowly retrace my route. I dislike the fact that I'm going backward, out of the clean neon surroundings and gradually getting cheaper, more rural. It feels wrong, like I wasn't meant to travel in this direction. The details are fuzzy, but I end up at a mostly deserted train station which runs in both inbound and outbound directions. I start to think of how I can take the train and make a loop back to where I just was, nearly forgetting that I still have to go home and get my stuff first.

+fragments:
- possibly related to above dream, I am again at a train station but am a different person: a late-teens/early-20s African American girl. My dad is with me, except he's in some kind of small protective bubble and is dying. His last gift to me is a train ticket to my destination, meaning I don't have to pay for my fare. This is extremely touching (not because of what the gift is, but because I can feel his love for me so strongly) and I start to cry.
- something about a fight with Justin Bieber? (damn, I wish I remembered this one :p)
- other stuff I would have remembered had I not waited 12 hours to write this entry