Batch

08-22-2017 -- Unsure how this will come out, how much I'll remember, and whether it will be interesting or not, but we'll give it a try. There were earlier bits, but the first thing I can remember is riding in a sort of passenger van down a street that I've remembered from many other dreams, a slightly smaller road connecting major highways, sometimes in the RPV area, sometimes in Washington, and sometimes in England, kind of connecting Cambridge and London This time is one of the Cambridge ones, and the beautiful blonde 'guide' (for lack of a better term) is commenting how we'll soon be at our destination, and I mention it should be right over the next hill, and then make a big deal about how I remember that from my England trip in '92, even though I have not been back, since.

There is a guy driving the van, dark hair, fairly slim, but we're told to ignore him, as he 'doesn't exist.' Indication is, the blonde should be driving, and the only person here, but she prefers to have help. She's quite attractive, and a mild flirt, and I can't help but hope something eventually happens with her, but for now she is mostly involved in serving us as a sort of guide. There are several others on the van, including a family with several children, and I am trying to entertain them by picking up some candy and juggling it. There are several small chocolate balls maybe a half inch in diameter, and then I accidentally pick up something that looks much like a Cadbury egg, and hold it up next to the others and comment on "No, that's not right!" and drop it. So I have the three small balls, and I am trying to juggle them, but I can't juggle, so I end up tossing one up and down in my left hand, with two in my right, just tossing them up and catching them with the same hands. The kids know that isn't what juggling is like, so they laugh at my antics, which is what I wanted in the first place.

Somehow we've eventually arrived in France, and though I don't get the hows or whys of any of it, we all end up strolling into a classroom where the class is in session, and this annoys the professor, who is poking fun at us. The driver, who was the one who brought us here, is being forced to smoke the professor's pipe, and told he needs to cough like the professor before the professor will listen to him. Meanwhile, the professor is blowing smoke in his face. So the guy takes a puff or two on the pipe, then starts blowing odd smoke formations. Instead of 'simple' smoke rings, he is blowing a sort of smoke chain or smoke 'lattice' that kind of reminds me of making balloon chains. Very cool stuff. The Professor seems kind of offended by that, and then asks the driver if he is a secret agent. The driver says no, and the professor answers with 'Well I am, and we've been after you for a while," and arrests he and the gorgeous blonde. Myself and the other passengers are just kind of brushed aside, and left on our own. The blonde tells me not to try and find them, I think, as they are hauled off.

The family is looking to me for leadership, no idea why, but is ready to throw me off at a moment's notice, so what's the point? They are talking about where to go next, and how to get there, and we get separated for a minute, and I end up spotting the driver and the guide running toward a train station. I guess they managed to escape the folks who had them, and are making a break for it. I chase after them until I reach the ticket takers, who aren't about to let me in without a ticket, but that's ok, I just wanted to get close enough to call out a 'good luck' to the blonde, who has short three letter nickname that is masculine, while she most certainly isn't. It's as if I were calling her Bob, though that wasn't actually it. Anyway, the ticket taker/guard looks at me strangely, but I don't care.

I run into the family again, and the oldest daughter has decided she wants to go to Publix, because of how great a store it is, and I am kind of surprised to learn that the chain has spread throughout Europe. I'm trying to figure out how to find one, as the others just walk up to a mall directory, and discover a Publix in the mall (which is huge, with something like 6 or 8 'wings' of shops, and much larger than any other mall I've seen before), but of course it is on the entire other side of the mall, and I'm fat and out of shape, so my comment on the whole thing is along the lines of 'of course!' I turn around and discover the family is gone again, so I glance at the map, identify where the Publix ought to be, and try to head off in that direction.

I'm kind of walking, kind of running, but things get a little strange, as I look in the direction I want to go, and am suddenly moving much quicker, almost like I was riding a segway or something, except there is no equipment, it is just the dream helping me get around more efficiently. I must have made a wrong turn somewhere, as I find myself in a huge hotel on the outskirts of the mall, and since I still need to get to the Publix, I try to turn around to get back where I started. Suddenly I find myself in somebody else's vehicle again, and I come to realize it is Uber, but that Uber is very strange and different in other countries.

The driver is a sort of a young punk, and quickly runs his very strong car (build like a tank) into the back of a pick-up truck, which knocks it into the smaller car in front of it, which is then knocked through a barricade, as my driver laughs at them. He offers me a couple of tootsie rolls, and I am about to turn it down because I don't like tootsie rolls, when he reminds me that in other countries, Tootsie Rolls are not just the sticks of weird 'chocolate' that isn't quite chocolate, but a wide variety of different treats. I unroll the roll, to discover four pieces of candy of the See's or Russell Stover type inside. Yummy. Meanwhile, the driver has caused another crash that wrecks another car, and leaves his virtually untouched, and he continues to laugh as he explains he is taking out his competition, while refusing to pick up their passengers who are desperate for rides.

Soon I am back where I started, in the mall, and still trying to get to the Publix, but now I seem to be driving my own French Uber, problem is, I turn onto a highway I hope will take me to the Publix, only to find all the traffic heading directly at me. Forgot I was in Europe, and have to drive on the left side of the road. (Obviously my dream cannot remember that's only the UK!) So I swing off the road and quickly turn around, heading back off the freeway without causing myself or anyone else any trouble. I drive a few meters down, and find the correct entrance, heading the right way, but there is a large gang of bikers parked there. I am worried they might want to cause trouble, but signs and announcements proclaim that biker gangs often help maintain the peace and keep order. What?

Anyway, momentarily I find myself pushing my way through crowds on a train, as part of another Uber tour where I am just along for the ride, and the person who is in charge is very much like the other punk, and likes to pick up little kids who need to go pee and set them on top of tables so they pee on the tables and when the train shifts, it runs into people's laps, so he can joke about it. These folks are nothing but trouble, and I keep moving along, wanting to make it to the next car, where I find myself sharing space with the gorgeous blonde and her driver again. He's worried to see me, but she's just flirting again, and rubbing up against me, as she tries to 'explain' things without explaining anything. I ask if they heard me call out to them before, but get no answer. Just more flirting from the gorgeous blonde! All I know is I want her, and every time it seems something might happen, he just happens to pop up again, and she says I'll just have to wait and see if he ever lets anything happens! AAUUGGHH!!

07-18-2017 -- (2nd successful [to a point] use of Calea Z.) I took Calea Z last night, and it did not give me a super case of insomnia, as usual, to prevent me from being able to get any sort of sleep, and therefore prevent any sort of dreams. Instead I took it along with a dose of melatonin to encourage sleep. Slept for about four hours, woke briefly, could remember nothing, fell back asleep. Slept for about three hours, woke briefly, and could barely remember any fragments. Went back to sleep for perhaps another two hours, and woke with a fairly involved and interesting dream that included some (slightly muted) bright colors. While it was a quite cool dream that was well worth having, no idea how much of it may be attributed to the Calea Z, or whether it was random chance, and the Calea Z had no effect what-so-ever. It can be compared to my one previous successful Calea Z dream, here.

As always, starts somewhat fragmenty, with faded bits that can't be remembered. I think I am traveling somewhere, almost by accident, while trying to plan out future travels. Hints of some sort of large ghost tiger or something, but I simply can't pin down that part. There is a somewhat small, thin, waif-ish red haired girl who a lot of people are pushing around and insulting a bit. I'm trying to gently defend her a bit here and there. It feels like we're on a bit of a river boat sort of thing, and I may have won some kind of prize in a contest or something, but it is really small, and I am not worried about it.

Anyway, I think I am trying to plan a trip to England and Scotland, more than actually be on it, but somehow I am there. I am in Scotland, in line to board some kind of ride. We are boarding colorful carriages of the sort that Cinderella might take to a ball, except that these are horseless, and 12 or 14 of them are kind of linked up to form a bit of a train. We've been waiting a while, and two of these trains have loaded up and rode off, and we're likely to make it on the third, but it is taking it's time. The tracks seem to be used by multiple trains, as there are cargo trains coming the other way, and people are getting ready to ride them, but I'm pointing out those obviously are not the same trains, and are going the wrong direction, and they aren't stopping for us anyway.

The trains are taking a curve just past us, and heading into a warehouse area, but each successive train is becoming larger and taking the curve at a higher speed, while being even more off-balance (one seems to have a massive weight hanging off to one side as it makes the turn, and it feels almost inevitable that the weight is going to fly off and crash down on us). The next train has something even larger attached, but it is on a sort of boom or something, and is being spun around in circles two or three times like it is building up speed to throw it, and things just feel scary.

By this time we're standing in a sort of open air station. There is only half a metal roof, and the place is open to the elements, and suddenly we hear this loud BANG! Another half a metal roof has just been dropped on the station by the train, which seems to be half-construction-boom, and I am wondering why they think it is a good idea to do this kind of thing while people are in the station. They continue working, and there is a lot more banging, but I think somebody has got something wrong, because suddenly the back corner of the building and the new roof are collapsing. People are screaming, and potentially being crushed, and Robert Bradford (who I was standing next to, and who I was hoping wouldn't realize I was one of the ones who was screaming) is in the process of setting up a lawsuit for the victims of this tragic accident.

I am unharmed, and am kind of walking away, when I hear a sort of thrashing sound. Behind me, in an area I was just walking past, is a large something that I can't make out. Then it moves, and I can focus on it clearly. It is a large alligator or crocodile that has just crawled out of a waterway. I'm not too concerned with it, as it is several yards away, but it moves directly for me, and seems to be remarkably fast. So I keep putting things between us, but it either swats them away with its tail or its mouth, or it just crawls over the top of low things, and keeps coming after me. Soon I'm in a narrow alleyway, trying to find a way to chimney up the walls, and hoping alligators can't climb walls, calling for help and crying out "Alligator!" At least at one point, I've got my arms wrapped around its jaws, trying to keep it from being able to open or close its mouth.

Eventually some sort of animal handler comes up and starts interacting with it, and he seems to know what he's doing, and the alligator seems to be shrinking, and turning into some strange sort of alligator/dog hybrid that is now about the size of a beagle, and kind of cute, and still following me around. At this point, our 'train' has finally come, and I've climbed on one of the back cars, and the alligator/dog is on the very last car, still trying to follow me. I'm backing off, but am no longer sure I want to escape the thing. Suddenly it looks like it is trying to go to the bathroom, and it sort of poops on a pile of canned goods, but the poop starts to move. It seems like the thing just gave birth to a bunch of baby alligator/dogs that are all less than an inch long, and almost look like slimy little tadpoles.

Meanwhile, some woman is trying to get my attention. She looks like Mr. Sturgeon's secretary from the Bruno & Boots movies, and she seems to be in charge around here, and she is going on about that contest I won earlier, and how I have to take responsibility for my prize, and not just walk off like I did, earlier. It turns out I have won some land here in Scotland, and though it is only a small amount of land (I think three houses stand on it) it is enough to make me the smallest and least powerful or influential Lord in the land, which could be slightly cool.

The problem is, several of the people around us are still mumbling about the small, slightly cute, unjustly picked on red haired girl. The woman snaps out something about how we need to get over it, she's just a Jew, and those of us who were trying to help her are horrified by this, especially since the poor girl is being held in her friend's arms, dying of a combination of the abuse she has received, and a broken heart.

I am determined to do something about this, and walk away from the lady again, to lay hands on the girl's forehead. I'm not all that great of a person, but I know there have been times in the past that God has used me to heal, when it had nothing to do with me, but just a desire to help someone else. I start praying over the girl, and all her friends join me. We are pointing out how nice she is, and how sweet, and how much she spends her time helping others, and praying for God's healing and blessing over her, while the lady who'd just made the unfriendly comment is arguing that she "didn't mean it that way!"

By this point, I've kissed the girl's brow, and she seems to be regaining her strength and mass, and is doing better by the minute. She's actually kind of cute, and I'm hoping she might need a boyfriend, but it turns out the reason she was brokenhearted was because she was romantically interested in this short Hispanic kid, and her step-parents wouldn't accept it, which is why they were abusing her and allowing others to do the same. Yup, she was a literal red-headed step-child! Unfortunately, he is backing away, and wants nothing to do with her. I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, figuring he may not want her to get beaten anymore, but if that isn't his reason, I'm seriously thinking of giving him a good, solid thrashing!

About this time, I am distracted by a tanker truck flying by through the air. It has somehow been mounted on a plane or something, and it is some sort of terrorist attack. It is being flown and dropped on a half-distant air field, and we see it dropping down over the horizon, then a loud boom, billows of dust rising, and slowly a mushroom cloud forming. Wherever we are, we are very close to Cinderella's Castle, and it has been bombed as well, and towers are collapsing in flames. There are enemy planes in the sky, and more bombs being dropped.

Suddenly I find myself facing a classic cartoon-style bomb just floating in the air in front of me, a bizarre, muted ultra-violet orange and green. I'm trying to figure out if it is friend or foe, but eventually realize it is some sort of small personal fighter, waiting for its pilot. There are a lot of dead people around, so I climb on and start to try and get my balance. Steve Koffroth climbs on another next to me, and I steady it (and him) until he's got it under control, then let it go. Two young kids come flying up to under their own power (not using ships or anything) and I am kind of staring at them, until I realize. "You're dead?" I ask them. They nod. It seems they were caught in some of the first blasts. Now their spirits are volunteering to inhabit our space crafts to kind of bring them to life and help to control them, as the pilots who have been trained to fly them are not available, and they were never properly activated.

So their spirits merge with our crafts, and we grab up some of the odd green and orange machine guns, and fly off to face the enemies. The invaders turn out to be some sort of Oriental people, though I do not know which ones, and they've now got lots of troops running around with machine guns, while our flying missiles seem to have run out of energy, so we're mostly grounded. We find ourselves trapped in a large warehouse-like building with a bunch of the gun wielding enemies, and our weapons don't seem to really work ... or do they? They only seem to shoot tiny, dim beams of light. They seem to cut right through robots, destroying them easily, but seem to make almost no wounds to regular people's heads.

But slowly I'm noticing something strange. People who are screaming to kill us one second, after I shoot them in the head, are commanding that we be captured ... then released. "What? We can't do th..." BANG! "... Sir, yes sir!" We're somehow turning them to our side, while still having to hide from those who have not yet been turned, who are still shooting at us with machine guns. Again, we're running through warehouses. At one point, somebody opens up fire on me, while I hide behind boxes which are being blown apart, as I try to fly a path through the boxes to reach the next floor, while being shot as little as possible. Very interesting and fun, overall.

12-30-2013 -- On a college campus somewhere, probably Fullerton College, trying to finally finish registering for my CDL class, but every time I think I am close to finished, I find there is ever more that I have to do. So I am in the admissions office, filling out paperwork and trying to find out just how many more things I have to do, and they won't or can't tell me anything except the next one or two forms. It is maddening. I am running all around the building, being sent here and there for more forms, and finally get a little tired of it, and escape to a small office where I sit down to chat for a few minutes with Charles Purcell, one of the counselors from my high school. We're having a decent conversation, until we're interrupted by a couple of little who know him and are hugging and kissing him.

I excuse myself, and continue to wander around the school, where I find myself looking down some of the tops of some of the ladies in the office, enjoying the available view. In a small dining room, I come across several clowns and balloon artists I know from the Orlando area, and they are quietly discussing the latest news about the death of Don Caldwell, and I'm telling myself it can't be, as I try to find some paper in a nearby office, to write it down so I can do some internet research later and find out if it is true or not. I am hoping it is all a mistake, because I like Don. I am jotting down his age, which in the dream was something like 52 or 57, and a custodian walking by mistakes it for the number of a player on a sports team, and tries to strike up a conversation about it, which obviously doesn't work too well.

The dream is sort of lengthy with me continuing to wander around the office trying to get things sets up, though almost none of the details stick in my mind, and eventually I have left the building, and am heading on home to the Hickory house. I find myself on Crescent, just passing the nursery, pulling a wagon which for some reason I am calling a bus, as I draw it over the cracked and tilted sidewalk. For some reason, I start making odd wrong turns. I am directing myself with a compass, but I turn it so that north is whatever direction I say it is, rather than to actual north, as I find myself in odd areas from past dreams. I find myself in an area I remember driving another bus, which also involved goblins from the Harry Potter books, and the NCIS crew, though neither make an appearance in this dream. It is just the same area.

I soon find myself dodging around rail road crossings, and come to realize that I am somewhere in Tampa, when I find myself approaching a strange theme-park-like restaurant that seems to be a cross between Wolfgang Puck's and the Wilderness Lodge. It is either closed for the night, or perhaps has not yet opened, but if that is the case, the opening is drawing near. I head inside, anyway, though as I make it in, I find I am being chased by the guard collies that are watching the place. It is very strange being chased by about a dozen just slightly vicious, but highly gorgeous Lassie clones, but I am trying to get out of the way. I end up half swinging from the chandeliers, half swinging from vines in the trees which make up the roof of the restaurant, while workers who have spotted me come chasing after me. They are so determined to catch me that they are grabbing for anything near me, and seem to be pulling the entire place down around us. As far as I am concerned, this is not my fault!

As their net is closing in around me, I throw myself to the ground, and then slam through the kitchen doors, dodging this way and that until I make it outside and almost fly up and over a chain-link fence to safety. Problem is, while I have gotten away from the restaurant staff, I still find myself being chased by random smelly drunk people. Somehow I cause myself to throw up over this, which instantly causes them to throw up as well, distracting them so I can get away again. I am dodging around more railroad tracks, and soon find myself on a sort of roundabout, except this time I really am a train for a few minutes.

Soon I find myself on another sort of college campus (not the same one), where I seem to be trying to copy a forbidden record (possibly of Tom Lehrer songs) or perhaps trying to duplicate a very rare record so there is a back-up if anything happens to it, while getting ready to play it on the college radio station. They are trying to stop me, and recover the album, preventing any back-up copies from existing, though I manage to find a good place to hide it, nearly in plain sight. Meanwhile, I am still being chased, and dodging about here and there, while also kind of drifting in and out of sleep. Odd and entertaining.

02-19-2013 -- Find myself on the road, driving to some sort of job interview, I think. The area is one I've driven through in a dream halfway recently, though I can't specifically place it. Anyway, some black lady is trying to direct me into the parking lot of a strip mall, and for some reason I don't want to go where she points me, so I make a left turn into a different strip mall, then turn around and try to exit ... only to find myself facing the same black lady trying to direct me. I think it is President Palmer's ex-wife from 24 (which I watched 8 hours of last night.)

So I find myself facing this woman, and there is somebody else in the car as well, who is now driving, and he ignores her and drives right over to somebody else, who he knows. We're not supposed to do this, but he knows her well enough to get away with it, and it seems we are somehow here for interviews for some sort of salesman position, and I know it wouldn't be a good fit for me, so I just decide to leave.

I cross the street to the strip mall I was trying to get to in the first place, and find myself near an older couple (they kind of remind me of Bob and Virginia, friends from the Adventurers Club) who are arguing about something. Then I find myself getting some kind of injection of some sort of prescription drug or something, except things shift almost immediately to getting some sort of additive for my oil.

They are telling us we add this additive, then immediately change the oil, which seems to defeat the point of putting in an additive. Then they clarifying that it is very important that we change the oil very quickly afterward ... within no more than 300,000 miles, maximum. This seems really odd. Meanwhile, one of the other people looking for work here looks like Kensei from Heroes, and is trying to empty out some junk from his wallet into a trash can, but he also loses a few credit cards and things.

He is reaching into the trashcan to retrieve them, but he can't actually see them. But I can, so I am directing him, and I eventually let him know he got all of them, and then notice that he also threw away a bunch of my full-color business cards, which is kind of depressing.

I walk out of there to find myself out in a sort of field or plain, where people are just walking around, and some people are selling balloon figures. But they aren't twisting them to order for people, but have them already twisted, and lined up in long rows of maybe 30 or 40 figures. Caught from the right angle, where you just see the edge of one balloon after another, yet can't see the whole figure, they look very colorful, yet abstract, and I decide I have to take some pictures of them, so I pull out a camera and start snapping.

But even though I am taking wide-angle photos of the long rows of balloons, some people think I am taking pictures of them, and are objecting and making a fuss, and really kind of annoying me! Somebody gets a little more annoyed, and I find myself being shoved through a large wooden door by somebody who seems to be Nina from 24.

Everything switches completely, and the wooden door is the door leading to a train platform that I've dreamed about many times before, and after Nina has shoved against it so hard, I manage to grab it and stop it right before it slams into some sort of railroad bigwig. So we're talking to the bigwigs, while Nina is chained up, and there is some little black kid there. We're talking about how I am taking Nina in, and the train bigwigs are not very bright, so the discussion is kind of comical.

At least it is until Nina manages to somehow break her chains, and starts to flail around. I still have her wrapped in my arms, and manage to hold her for several seconds, then she manages to break free my grip, as well. She grabs the little black kid as a hostage, and dives out of the front of the train, where she falls under it, and everybody assumes she is killed.

I'm worried about the kid, but the bigwigs are asking "What kid?" They didn't see any kid. It turns out the kid was a ghost that only Nina and I could see, and her trying to take him as a hostage obviously did her no good. But unlike everybody else, I somehow know she isn't dead, but that she just grabbed on to the under-carriage of the train, and is still with us. I'll have to face her again at the end of the line ... a place where three train crossing meet, that I've dreamed of many times before, that seems to be where the train tracks crossed Beach Blvd in Buena Park.