The Lab Notebook

[This is a catch-up post. These dreams are from the night of July 24-25, 2011.]

Awake, Non-lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

I'm driving my mom's red Honda Fit out past Katella Avenue to spend a weekend away. The rest of my family is already at my destination for the weekend.

I arrive at basic training camp for the Navy National Guard, into which I have just been drafted. I enter the barracks along with several of my real-life friends from college. The bunks are stacked three high and are concealed behind cupboard doors. In between the bunks are shelves with metal label-holders intended to hold labels showing the names of the occupants of the bunks. These shelves are meant to be used to hold boxes of the occupants' stuff. I start settling in. Evidently, I've packed wisely for this experience, because the boxes I brought don't take up all the space that was allotted to me. I change into my new uniform. One of the items I brought was a small pair of scissors with blue handles [that I have in real life]. I realize that it was stupid of me to bring them, because they would get me in trouble if I were caught with them. So, I just fold up the labels with my name on them and slide them into the label-holders.

Later, we're all sitting in a restaurant-style booth, choosing nicknames from a printed list. Mine is “Spider.” The nicknames for the officers are printed in a substitution cypher. I have absolutely no clue what tasks and training activities I'll be doing here, or what position I'll be assigned to. I hope I'll be able to handle it, especially swimming. [I think this may be the first time one of my dreams has accurately reflected the fact that I don't know how to swim very well in real life. I've had tons of dreams where I could swim expertly.]

Basic training is beginning. Everyone is outside, standing at attention in a block, wearing their uniforms. I ask one of my friends to let me out of the booth so that I can run to the bathroom before going outside and joining the block. There is a girl with short, blond hair directly ahead of me in the line for the bathrooms. I think to myself that I ought to be thinking of it as 'the head' rather than 'the bathroom,' because I'm in the Navy, not the Marines. [Which is stupid, because as far as I know, the Marines say that, too.] Then I woke up, because I actually did need to go to the bathroom. [This dream was much longer, more elaborate, more vivid, and more detailed than these notes reflect. What I get for putting off typing this up for so long.]