Batch

01-04-2013 -- [This one contained a bit of everything, failed dream checks, eventually becoming lucid, the switch from writing my dreams on envelopes to using a fully proper dream journal again for the first time in years (bought two weeks ago), remembering several other recent dreams in the dream ... all kinds of great things.]

Out somewhere with Dale, seems to be a shopping mall. People are gathering around in the area, and taking seats in much the same area we are. It seems some sort of show or presentation is about to take place. Some people start talking to us, but whatever we're waiting for never seems to actually happen. There is one lady here who seems to be an interpreter for the deaf, who is talking in sign language, and Dale is replying the same way. Odd.

Her pants are half-undone, and her underwear is peaking out, yet oddly she seems to be wearing sweats. This is the first point where I start wondering if this might be a dream. The thing ends, and Dale disappears. I'm wondering where he might have gone to. I walk a little bit south, and end up taking a seat on a curb, waiting for Dale to turn up again. Instead, Dave D, a childhood friend, wanders up, recognizes me, and starts a conversation.

We talk for a while, and he eventually morphs into a high school friend, Chris V. I am getting kind of hungry, and want something to snack on, so I reach into my pocket and bring out a small brown sack. It turns out this contains the jawbreakers I bought a couple of days ago in this dream. They aren't very good, have kind of part dissolved, and are rather sticky. Yuck. Won't make jawbreakers there again!

Chris is drinking a beer, and I continue to talk to him. He reaches the point of having to go to the bathroom, but for some reason he doesn't want to get up, so he just kind of hauls it out and starts peeing on the ground and himself, still chatting away like nothing is happening. As it starts to spread, I grab my backpack and put it on my shoulder to keep it, and my new dream journal, dry. After he is done, he stands up and walks away without a word. Very strange.

His pool of pee is still spreading, so I step off the curb and start to walk across the street. I pass some people carrying a bag with the Carl's Jr logo on it, and wonder if I am back in California? On the other side of the street, there is a kind of courtyard, so I take a seat on a bench that is maybe 30 or 35 feet in from the street. I am far enough back that I am afraid nobody will find me.

But just a minute or two later, Dale walks right up to me, and we start walking and talking, back to the area where the dream first started. I tell him this weird situation I just ran into with Dave ... erm ... I mean Chris. Wait a minute.... As I realize Dave turned into a Chris, I really ask myself if I am dreaming, and try to push a couple of my fingers through my palm. Nothing happens. So I guess I am not dreaming.

Dale and I are in Disneyland Paris, and I ask him where we are going now. "Don't say Fantasyland, please ... from here, that's the furthest place in the whole park!" His reply is that he thinks the furthest place in the park from here is actually Splash Mountain, which is the other direction. I don't argue with him, but I know a short-cut to Splash, which begins right about where we are. But it seems we are walking to Fantasyland.

We reach the new Orleans Square type of area (which actually doesn't exist in Disneyland Paris) and find ourselves standing outside the Phantom Manor. The line is quite long, stretching outside the queue, so we probably won't go on that. Somehow we find ourselves listening to an argument involving different cast members and guests about homosexuality, and I'm not getting involved with the conversation, but can't help but think it is not something to argue about in the middle of a theme park.

Dale has disappeared again. I glance at the line, and he isn't there. I glance in the direction we were walking, and he is nowhere in front of me. I have no idea where he has gotten to. I continue walking, hoping to find him, and pull out my cell phone to give him a call, but my cell phone keeps cutting out. Just then I get a call, but it isn't from him. It is from a performer at the Adventurers Club that was trying to warn me off her in a previous dream [might have been in this dream, though I didn't remember the warning off bit when I was typing up the dream]. We're arguing about how strong a weak a person she is, but again the call keeps breaking up, so the conversation can't really get anywhere.

By this point, I am now deep into Fantasyland, near the very end of the park. There has still been no sign of Dale, but I am trying to push both my cell phone and its charger back in my pockets, when I find the wires running from my pocket to another guy's hands. He was trying to pick my pocket and got caught. He tries to act nonchalant, but really, how caught in the act can you get?

As I continue walking, a couple of other people are trying to steal things from me, and I am starting to get worried. I remember reading about how bad the pickpockets are in some tourist areas in Europe, and moment by moment I am carrying more and more stuff, which would make me easier and easier to steal from. I think I now have a video game system in my hands, as well, or maybe a microwave. Very bulky.

I've now managed to wander right out of the theme park, into a residential street, and since there were no limiting gates or turnstiles, I am hoping it is a residential area for cast members. But whatever it is, I obviously don't belong here. I turn around and start back for the archway that I just walked through to exit the park. But there are now several punks trying to steer me off the path, and away from the gate, to somewhere they can mug me for my stuff, since pickpocketing hasn't succeeded. I push past them, and force my way back into the park.

I find myself being followed by Pluto, who it turns out was one of the 'people' trying to pickpocket me (find myself thinking of one of the Capital Steps parodies, 'You're a Pest'), but now that we're back in the park, he has to behave. I need to use the restroom by this point, so I go into one, and find they have very, very large stalls, but with very low partitions, so while in them, you can see the rest of the restroom. I remember something about people reaching under stall doors to steal stuff, so I am trying to set down all my stuff far enough away from the stall door that it is safe.

Again, I have more and more stuff with me, including my backpack, my dream journal, a towel, extra clothes, more electronics. It almost seems to be multiplying. Others are now walking in, and some of them are women. I again start to wonder if I am dreaming, since this is one of my common dream situations, but I think 'I'm in Paris. They could have some unisex bathrooms. As long as there is no nudity where I can see it, this probably isn't a dream.' Then one of the ladies takes off her top, and we've got boobs!

I notice a sound, glance down, and notice I am peeing on the floor, facing away from the toilet, watching these people. I turn around and finish my business, while thinking more and more that I am dreaming. I try pushing my fingers through my palm, and again it doesn't work. Then I remember a recent dream where I proved I was dreaming by looking at my hand, where my fingers were damaged, wrinkled, bent at weird angles, or even cut off, and I bring my hand up to my face and stare at it.

It looks perfectly normal. I continue to stare, and as I do, it seems to wrinkle and whither slightly, but not enough to prove I am dreaming. Then suddenly, my fingers and thumbs start to stretch and morph, and I am suddenly turning into Edward Scissorhands, and am terrified, wondering what I am going to do ... then I start to laugh and it registers ... yup, I know I am dreaming now! Time to have some fun! And I immediately wake up.