The Lab Notebook

Non-lucid dream, [Commentary made while awake]

I'm at Disneyland, being trained as a Cast Member. I'm with a large group of other trainees, all of whom are wearing costumes and name tags. [The name tags are blue, not white, for some inexplicable reason.] A trainer is taking us through how to operate King Arthur's Carrousel. For training purposes, all the pieces of the carrousel have been taken apart and removed, so there's just a big, wide, brilliant blue, rotating disc built into the ground. It has smaller discs built into it, just like the setup for the Mad Tea Party. We walk across the disc, led by our trainer, who is explaining how everything works. We gather on the north edge of it in a crowd and listen to him talk.

The whole carrousel is back in place, and I think, This is a fifty-year-old attraction, so it deserves respect. It's amazing how well it's working after all this time. There must be just one guy left who is the only one who knows how it all works well enough to repair it.

As part of my training, I go through the queue for the carrousel, which is enclosed, elaborate, and tells a story that appears to be part of, or at least inspired by, Disney's Sleeping Beauty. As I go through, performing my job duties, I find myself on stage as part of a mini-stage show. I'm sitting down, looking out through a window, and when a particular piece of music starts playing, I suddenly realize: You're Belle! Don't forget to sparkle! The song is “Belle,” the opening song from Beauty and the Beast, and I join in the singing. I get all the way through the first verse, and when I get to the end of it, Mulan, who is standing in the audience right next to where I'm sitting at the edge of the stage, says the next line: “Good morning, Belle!” I answer, “Good morning, madame!” ...and then I realize I can't remember what comes next, so I just sort of stop.

[Dreamskip.] I'm walking away from the carrousel, saying to myself: “I didn't sign up to be a princess! I signed up to be in Operations! I don't want to be a princess! I'm no good at it, and I look more like post-haircut Rapunzel than anyone else!” [I do have short hair in real life, but it's lighter than her hair is when it's cut short.]

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Side Notes:
I've always had a lot of bizarre dreams about Disneyland, but more so when I was a kid than now. This is the first time I've ever had a dream in which I was a Cast Member.
I know why I had a dream about a carrousel. I had read this article shortly before going to bed. It uses a carrousel as an analogy for the orbit of the sun around the center of the galaxy. Also, the whole “being a princess” theme comes from a fanfic that I have in the works, and the whole “Don't forget to sparkle!” thing is a reference to a thread I've been following on a different discussion forum.