non-lucid

8-13-2012 -- Very fragmentory. There was a lot more to this, but all I can pull out of my memory is bits. A few of those bits were interesting enough to make it worth posting, however. (Same thing all night long. Three dreams, but only parts, and all over the place.)

I think there was something about a wrestling company, and somebody complaining about how they were being held back, and threatening the bosses, until they remind him that's just his character, and he's actually too nice a guy to follow through on something like that. Also some hint about vampires, but can't remember anything more than that.

Soon I seem to be kind of working in a hotel, sort of, and being sent all over the place. Somebody has asked if I can make a Chinese omelet, and I have no idea how, but I say I'll figure it out, and will ask one of the two friends online who have been helping me with stuff. I see a French guy wandering by, and he somehow sounds slightly familiar, so I ask him if he is Pierre, and explain I think he is a friend of mine from on-line. He tells me he doesn't know me, never heard of me, and please get away from him.

One of my bosses seems to be Umbridge, and she is yelling at me, and trying to trap me and/or a dog in a sort of tall crate, but I move too quickly, and have somehow locked her in, instead. Think there was more to this, but it is gone now.

Something about trying to hook up, or rehook some computers together for a possible girl friend, and then I suddenly find myself in the Buena Park Mall, somewhere near Waldenbooks, and am helping an attractive blonde with something. We're heading toward either May Co or the exit on La Palma near it, but she says she wants an Orange Julius, and I point out that shop is in the other direction. She decides it isn't important.

Soon we're being chased by something up and down narrow stairways, but we don't really know what it is that is chasing us. Some guy hands me a high-pressure spray paint can that can shoot 20 or 30 feet, and I start spraying it around to prove there isn't anything there, and instead I find I am highlighting some sort of hell horse or evil centaur that was invisible, and now I can actually see it to try and get away from it.

Was a cool dream, wish I could remember it better.

08-07-12 -- I'm outside some sort of diner somewhere, no idea where, and I'm just about to climb into my car, but I'm having to deal with a bunch of young punks in the area, trying to stir up trouble. Just as I am about to drive away, the worst of the local punks pulls up in a fancy extended bed pick-up truck. The kid is either the obnoxious Kobra Kai from Karate Kid or the punk from Heavenly Kid, slim blond haired punk. Anyway, he drives into the parking garage outside the diner and starts shooting things up. I pull out my digital camera, and start snapping a few pictures of him and the damage he is doing.

Still trying to leave, but now some of the other punks are trying to blame the damage he did on me, and I'm afraid if I just drive off, I'll make myself look guilty. Soon I am in a friend's car, instead, but he is a horrible driver, and quickly runs into something. We pull the car free, and he backs up, but is then driving on the wrong side of the road, and wherever we move to, he is in the wrong place to pick us up.

Soon we're kind of being chased by a cop, and we're trying to stay out of his way and out of sight. Instead, we're soon eating lunch with him, and he is the parent of one of my friends. (And actually he's Captain Stacy from the new Spider-Man movie.) He doesn't like me, because he kind of believes what the punks have told him, blaming me for the damage at the diner.

After we finish eating, the punk in the truck is back. He is trying to threaten me, but I try to make a deal with him. I show him the photographic proof of him shooting up the diner. He says he'll beat me up and steal the camera, but I tell him he doesn't have the negatives. He tells me he does too have negatives, and pulls some out to show me, but I tell him he doesn't have the negatives of my photos showing his guilt. I tell him I have them hidden away, but if he'll make a deal with me, I won't turn them in to the cops.

He asks what the deal is. I tell him he can't pick on us anymore, he has to tell his friends that we're 'all right.' and he has to help us with a few very minor favors in the future. He counters with the first two parts, but only one future favor, and I agree. He drives off and leaves us alone. Now Captain Stacy is mad at me, saying I perverted the course of justice. I pointed out that even when I explained who did do the damage, he was trying to pin it on me, so I don't really care about his opinion.

About this time, I find myself standing next to a vending machine and starting to hit the coin return to see if it will give me any change. Somehow instead of change, dollars start coming out, and I'm sticking my hand further and further in the slot pulling out more and more bills until soon I'm pulling hundreds and hundreds of bills out of an ATM machine and sticking huge wads of cash in my pockets. Nice!

By this point, it is 20 pound notes I am pulling from the machine, and I am in England. The cop is still chasing me, and there are hints of past dreams I've dreamed, including the NCIS/goblin dream. There is also something about some lady who I somehow changed a bit (like Arthur Stuart in the Alvin Maker books which I've just been listening to), and because of this, they are accusing me of killing her.

I'm still running from the cop, and start looking for a bus, hoping I can jump on it and get away. I am looking for signs for the bus going to Cambridge, but I think to myself that might take too long, and start heading for the train station, instead.

07-23-2012 -- I'm just hanging around the Hickory house when I realize it is the end of the world. People are running around, freaking out, yelling, screaming, and trying to connect with people for the last few days of existence, kind of making me think of Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, which I have never seen, but only heard of. That's just the kind of vibe this had.

Soon I find myself at a shopping mall somewhere, probably in Santa Ana or Westminster, or somewhere fairly far from Buena Park. The world is still ending, and everybody is freaking, and I can't leave the place until I can catch the 42 bus. (Really a route I used to ride in the area.) Unfortunately, while dozens of buses come by, none are the 42.

I'm getting more and more annoyed, and there is a cop that is starting to hassle me for some reason. Meanwhile, Wolverine is running down the street jumping from car roof to car roof and damaging them in the process, and I can't help but wonder why the cop doesn't go hassle him, or maybe the Incredible Hulk, who is also rampaging through the area. But no, the guy keeps hassling me. Reminds me of Captain Stacy from the new Spider-Man movie, which makes sense, considering.

Stacy has decided to arrest me and take me in (no idea what for), and he is opening some strange, round vault-like equipment locker that seems to be in a tree or something, and as he is looking for equipment, I spot my web shooters inside it, and grab them. I quickly start to strap them to my wrists, and realize now that I have my web shooters, I no longer need to wait for the 42 route.

Captain Stacy is trying to grab me, and for some reason my web shooters are kind of mis-timing their firing, so I can't web sling nearly as smoothly as I would like. Seems like half the time I try to shoot off a line and nothing happens, so I try again, and both lines fire at the same time, tangling with each other. From the same kind of mishap, I can barely get more than a few feet off the ground for a bit, which makes it a really rather poor escape ... but it works. Kind of.

Soon I have things straightened out a bit more, and am actually swinging around the buildings downtown. (No idea downtown where.) Soon there is a flying saucer chasing me, big enough to be a threat, small enough to be maneuverable, and looking like a classic flying saucer, perhaps like from My Favorite Martian. I'm dodging this way and that, but can't lose them at first. Then I sling myself through a gap in a very large skyscraper, and the aliens decide they will just pick me up on the other side of the building.

But I don't fly through. Instead, I swing toward the full-sized baseball stadium located inside this huge building, and decide to take in the game. I spot a nice, cool pool located right behind home plate with some attractive ladies sunbathing in it, and I launch myself in the air above it. While in freefall I strip off my costume, except for my mask, and plunge into the water. I get a slight bit of a feel of a blonde in a really tiny bikini, then pick up the blonde in the nice charcoal business suit sitting in the pool next to me (yes, full business suit in the pool) and pull her into my lap. If it's the end of the world, forget fighting idiot aliens, I seem to have decided to have some fun!

02-26-2011 -- That was kind of grim. Started out kind of light, turned into one of my darkest, grimmest dreams ever. This one may not be pleasant. Almost all sweetness and light, but the last few parts are ultra-violent.

I'm driving down the road, trying to go to Disneyland, and it is late a night. I'm pretty much driving all right until I make a wrong turn and almost get my car trapped, so I get out of the car and start walking. I am near Harbor, and I should only have to walk a block or two to reach Harbor Blvd and be able to turn toward Disney.

I find myself visiting with a marmalade cat that is mine, and talking with it and visiting with it. I pass a young woman who is moaning about how she has no money and and no food, and will probably die in the cold of the night, and I walk past her, but then start to feel bad for her and come back and give her a little money to help her out. Then I hug her close to show her people still care, and move on.

I'm walking through a sort of crowd, and there are also dozens of cats around, and all are walking the opposite direction I am, except my cat, which is walking along side of me, not going with the crowd.

Soon I somehow find myself working a late night shift at a gas station / convenience store. [A type of work I have never done.] A couple of customers come in and make cash purchases, and I handle their transactions easily. Then one guy comes in with his rich family, and he wants gas on two pumps. He asks for $90 on one pump, and $100 on the other. He hands me a credit card, and it is the first credit card I have been given for payment.

I run it through the machine, and it is very hard to slide, and very tight. A counter next to the machine lights up and shows a map of the internet signal as it is routed to the credit card approval place. A couple of times it goes down a bad path where the signal is lost, and I can see it start a new route from where things went bad, until it manages to connect. Very interesting to watch.

The card comes back declined, and as I look at it, I spot that it is actually broken, and has a corner of the card taped in place. It was the tape that caused the thing to stick, and I know it isn't going to work. I explain to the customer that his card is broken, but notice that in the stuff he gave me, there is another card, so ask him if he wants me to use that one. He says he does.

I don't know what is with this card, but it has no number, no bar code, no magnetic stripe, and I can find no way to run it through the machine. I tell the guy I can't use this card, either, and he becomes very insulting. I try to explain that one of the cards he handed me is physically broken, and the other has no data allowing it to be processed, but he starts telling me that I am an idiot and a jerk, and he is going to get me fired over this.

While his family started out as a small family of four, it has now grown to be something like 20 people, including a bunch of kids. The kids are starting to steal candy and things, and as I confront them and try to make them stop, one of the adults attacks me with a large knife. I take the knife away from him, and go back to speaking with the kids, but an adult near the register opens it, steals the money from inside, and starts to hand it out to all the kids.

I run back toward the register, and they all begin to run out into the parking lot, which is now packed with tons of people. I follow them to a large bus, and the driver shuts the door in my face, and starts to pull out. I have had it, and I snap. I leap five or six feet into the air and grab the door handle and open the door back up, then let myself into the bus. I pull out the large knife I took from the guy who tried to use it on me, and it slowly stretches into a sword as I walk through the bus and kill every man, woman and child with a few strokes, usually putting one or two deep slices in each one, though one guy I aim just right, and take his entire head off.

I'm thinking about going through their pockets and getting my money back, but I don't see myself actually doing it in the dream. I get off the bus and head back to the gas station, while the guy who started the whole mess climbs on the bus and starts screaming as he finds what I have done. I approach the gas station, where I find the next shift has come in. I ask him how the balance was, and he tells me I was about $50 off, which is a lot less than expected, so I guess I did take the money back, and somehow put it back, even though I only just walked back in.

I decide it is time for me to go, and I can see the trouble-maker and a few of his friends in front of the building, so I choose to exit through a window leading onto the hill behind the station. The trouble-makers come running around screaming for my blood, but I fly into the air to avoid them. They are trying to fly as well, and are soon getting it. They are getting closer and closer, and the dream in quickly changing into one of those nightmare chase dreams where you have powers, but so do the enemies.

I can see this going on and on, and don't want to deal with such a long, miserable process, and decide I have to end things decisively. I think up a nuclear bomb and cause it to appear in my hands, then throw it on the ground. For about two seconds, nothing happens, then there is a flash of light, the hint of a sound, and a wave of heat, and then everything goes gray. I can feel it as just this odd, painless feeling as my body is dissolved into its component atoms, and they go drifting apart. Then I wake up.

[I'm sorry, I have no idea where this came from. All I can say is I am reasonably certain I am not anywhere near being ready to hack up a bus full of people in real life, or blow up myself and others with a nuke. But it was a pretty grizzly dream.]

8-7-12 -- I think this one actually takes place in my current house, instead of unreal houses or houses from 20 years ago. Though all the details aren't perfect, it does seem like Rosemary's house. Anyway, I walk from my bedroom to the bathroom, planning to take a shower. For some reason, Veronica and one of her friends are in the bathroom using the mirror, but I stroll through to the shower, anyway.

Since they are there, I undress in the shower, and I end up leaving my underwear on. I do a little bit of showering, then I sit down in the bathtub and pull the curtain back a bit and are talking to the others. They are making faces in the mirror, and taking pictures to post on Facebook, then for some reason Veronica is deciding she feels a need to help me wash my hair.

I'm a bit uncertain about this, but she insists. So I'm sitting in the bathtub in my underwear, and somehow I have pulled a couple of pillows in with me to somewhat hide under and keep myself more covered, while Veronica is getting some shampoo and trying to lather up my hair. Somehow she spills the bottle or something, and is backing off to look for some more.

Meanwhile Cheryl is also just casually wandering in the bathroom, asking how the shampooing is going, and some of her kids also come wandering in. They've got some of their friends with them, and are bringing in a video camera because they think this would make a weird, funny video to post on Facebook, and I'm starting to wonder what I've gotten myself into, here.

I'm trying to flip onto my stomach to make it easier to reach my hair, and trying to get the water running again because it is hard to shampoo when all my hair is almost dry, and Veronica has come back with some more shampoo, but is warning me she also spilled some nail polish in my hair, which may explain why my hair feels kind of ... crunchy. At this point, I just want to get this finished, but from now on I am going to make sure I have the bathroom all to myself before starting a shower!

8-7-12 -- Find myself at mom's new apartment, though I have no idea how I got there. Have let myself in with my key and am looking around downstairs, but no sign of mom. I do hear her calling out to somebody about needing lunch or something, and suddenly find a computer that still has something on the screen ordering delivery from Checkers.

I see a staircase and start to head upstairs. It has extra braces and such, and seems to be reinforced, but it is still kind of unstable. I climb most of the way up, and come to a place where there is a beam running across the entire width of the stairs right at hand rail height, and I am trying to figure out if you are supposed to climb over it or under it. I glance to where the stairway connects to the second floor, and there is a wall there with a gap of maybe 10 inches. I might be able to squeeze through this, but mom never could! I am trying to figure out what is going on here.

That's when mom calls to me from the first floor, and explains to me that I am on the wrong staircase. They had to put a new one in for her to make use of, and it blocked off the old one. So I am going to have to climb back down this rickety staircase which is turning into more of a ladder as I start to turn around. The supports are starting to pull out of the wall, and the entire thing is about to collapse when I kind of half step, half drop off it and onto the ground in the kitchen.

Mom leads me around to the other staircase and upstairs. The 'staircase' is made of overlapping metal bits, and it moves. It doesn't form stairs like an escalator, but instead looks like one of the luggage carousels at the airport, except it leads upstairs. I guess I caught mom in the shower, because she is wearing a towel. Because of this, I can tell she has lost a lot of weight. She is still fat, but probably no more than 200 pounds, as opposed to the 400 pounds that she used to weigh.

Now we're upstairs, and she tells me she may have forgotten to let me know, but she has now gotten a roommate, Donna Peeler's daughter, and she is teaching another young woman (who looks kind of like Torri) to become a clown. [This is kind of odd, since my mom died before I ever got into the whole clown thing.] As I step into the room I am practically accosted by the first of perhaps a dozen cats who wants to be petted.

I keep coming across more and more cats, all in good health and well-groomed, each with beautiful coats, and all with different colors and probably at least three or four different breeds of cats. Gorgeous animals, and all very friendly and wanting attention.

Mom is complaining that she can't get anybody to come around and do any gardening work, even for pay, and I am asking if she misses the guy who came by and did the lawns on Hickory. I can't remember his name, but I am trying Fowler and Fletcher. Fletcher sounds right. [In truth, I can't even remember the name in real life anymore. Been too many years.] Anyway, mom keeps teaching clown make-up to the one gal, and Peeler's daughter is walking around half-dressed, and I can't help but notice she's kind of cute.

08-02-2012 -- Its late at night, and I am in a room on the third floor of a beat-up, worn house. There may have been lots of interesting things getting me here, and involving people and chases and stuff ... I have the barest hints of such in my mind. Unfortunately, if there are, I can't remember them, though details are pretty good from this point on. I'm kind of tired, and am thinking of sleeping, perhaps after just a tiny bit of 'private time' to aid in sleeping. Unfortunately the door to the room won't lock, or even properly latch. There are some guys out in the halls who seem to be playing football or something, and they keep bumping the door and knocking it open.

I go out and try to talk to them about it, and one of them (who makes me think of Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds) points out there is a note from the landlord on the door saying it is never to be completely shut because it would be a fire hazard. By this time the door has vanished, and it is now a bit of a mattress that has been leaned against the door, instead. I am trying to find a way to position it so it will leave a gap of several inches at the very top, where it will still allow some privacy, rather than at the side. Just can't get it to stay that way.

Suddenly my third floor room is very rickety, and the only access is an unstable staircase which seems to be turning into an even more unstable ladder. As the football players wander a few feet, a blonde who I think is Billie Piper has come over to speak to me for a few minutes, then wants to get back to the ground floor. She is afraid to try the ladder, however, so has put on a climbing harness is is going to kind of scale her way down, except I have to use a rope/bungie sort of contraption to lower her down, as well. She's scared, and things aren't working too well at first, but I release some of the tension, and soon have her at a point where she only has to drop about a foot to the ground on the outside of the house. This has also lowered me to the ground on the inside of the house.

I head out a door where the football players are, and I find myself in a mall. It is still the middle of the night, mall has long been closed, and we are the mall security. [Possibly inspired by a conversation with somebody working mall security on here last night before I went to bed.] There are several people wandering around when they shouldn't be, and we start to try and run them out. I take a minute to walk in a restroom, turn on a light, and relieve myself. For some reason I am about a foot long. I'm thinking that is kind of cool, but as I fasten my pants I am now perhaps four feet long, the end of myself trailing out my trousers on the ground, and with a faucet on the end of it. It is some sort of joke item, and as I come out of the restroom like that, and we're walking back toward the house, the football players are joking about it.

As we walk along, the site has kind of turned to Indiana Wesleyan University, where the FCM convention is going on. This is a magic convention I have attended a few times in the past, and I believe it is going on this week in real life. Anyway, as I am walking along, one of the other guys has picked up my egg vase and is looking at it, and discovers the secret to it and is waving it around. I grab it from him and am trying to get him to stop ... does my act no good at all! Strange little dream.

07-24-2012 -- I'm in my room in a house where I am renting a room, and it seems like Randy (one of the roommates where I currently live) and I are sharing a room. There is very thick dust everywhere, and it is obvious nothing has been dusted in years. There is a third roommate here, as well, and he has a slim black girlfriend. I'm thinking about asking the others for some help in maybe dusting a little, but figure I am not going to ask until the girl friend leaves. But Randy already has a can of Pledge, and is starting to work.

He's dusting a table, and to help him out, I start picking up the stuff sitting on the table. He asks me where I am going to put it, and I admit, right back where I picked it up from, but in the meantime, he'll be able to dust more of the table. Mom is there, as well, though she doesn't seem to actually do anything.

Soon things shift, and I am driving in the city centre of either Cambridge or London, and am thinking about the recent visit I made to the museum in another dream. Strangely, though I could have sworn I posted that dream, I cannot currently find it. In the car with me are mom, Randy, and the black girl friend. I'm turning a corner, and suddenly the brakes don't work, and I find myself jumping a curb onto a lawn, and hit a couple of wooden posts that help me to stop.

I'm right next to a broken down car, and suddenly a police car pulls up next to both of us. I'm worried the cop is going to give me a ticket, but he seems to be ignoring me. I can't go forward, and I have cars to the left and the right, so all I can do is start to slowly back out, but the brakes are still not working, and I am worried about them. I'm being very slow and careful, but as I approach the curb, I am afraid I'll shoot right back out into the intersection, so I open the door and stick out my foot, using it to brake.

I'm still on the grass, right at the edge of the curb, and now the cop is watching me, so I want to be very sure I keep control of the car. I decide I better carry it to the street. But when I turn around, it suddenly isn't there. So I bend over and pick up a large nothing, and very carefully set it down in the street. I'm still worried about the brakes in my, now non-existent, car, but the black girlfriend tells me to just add some brake fluid and I ought to be fine. I seem to remember an Auto Zone about a half-mile down the road, so I figure I can get some fluid there.

The car still isn't there, so I very carefully climb into nothing and mime taking a seat. None of the passengers have any problem doing the same thing. As we're just sitting there in thin air and about to start driving, a young kid comes up to us and fastens a Pleasure Island wrist band around my wrist. He starts nattering on about saving seats for me and collectibles and stuff. As he runs off, I tell the others he is a great kid, but I don't know why he is saving seats for me at a Disneyland stage show when I am currently closest to Euro Disneyland.

We start driving, and I realize I am on the wrong side of the road, but so are most of the other cars. In my dreams, most people in England seem to be tourists who can't remember which side of the road to drive on. We keep kind of drifting from one side of the road to the other. Meanwhile, this road in England seems to be Euclid Avenue, and the shop I seem to remember is just a couple of doors down from Euclid and Malvern / Chapman in Fullerton. But it is in England.

I'm nearly to the building I am looking for, but it is no longer an Auto Zone, but a photography store being run from an old house. We step inside, and I really need to buy some of the flat round batteries for my camera, but I don't have any money. But I remember that I don't have a car, either, and that hasn't stopped me, so I just reach into my pocket and pull out nothing, which I figure I'll use to pay for the batteries. That was I don't have to borrow money from mom.

All the people who work in the shop are females, and somehow I know they are all werewolves and vampires, though it doesn't seem to be affecting them right now. I've been here before, and the woman who owns the place remembers me, even though it has been 15 or 20 years. Somehow zombies are mentioned, and one of the women snaps out "We aren't dead, yet!" I see Amy Pond walk down a hall, but only half-register it in my mind. The whole thing is very surreal. A few moments later, she wanders back through and starts up the staircase. I turn to Chris Hires next to me, and in tandem we both shout "We've got Amy Pond" kind of like the Weasley Twins shouted out "We got Potter!" at the Hogwarts sorting.

07-28-2012 -- I am driving down a road, in Omaha, I think. It is late at night and I am hungry. I am hoping to find something to eat, and as I drive along, I find a New York-style pizza parlor. The name is something like Giovanni's or the like. I stop and enter, and find the place does seem to be open, but shelves and cupboards and displays are almost empty. I realize the place has either just opened, or is in the middle of selling everything and shutting down. They only have something like three choices of topping, cheese, pepperoni, or sausage. I really push it and ask for all three on my pizza. The guy is making me a very large pizza (at least 18", maybe even larger) but doesn't seem to know what to charge me. I offer him $15, but keep wondering to myself if I might have offered too much or too little.

As I am waiting outside the apartment-like parlor, there seems to be somebody hunting me. I spot a figure in a nice suit who seems to be following me, but is trying to stay out of sight. He keeps dashing around corners or hiding behind walls. He is trying to shoot me with bullets or poison darts, and soon seems to be trying to build some sort of explosive mine or something, but it falls apart. I gather up as many pieces as I can to try and keep them away from him, then run off.

A couple of miles away I come to a warehouse on the NE corner of an intersection. I glance inside and find it is my warehouse, and there are three small box trucks that I know are filled with explosives or something. There are some incompetent thugs that have been sent to hunt me down that are driving down the street in two larger trucks filled with some kind of ordinance to use against me, but they are stupid, and they really aren't at all sure what they are supposed to be doing.

I convince them that I am not me, but am actually one of their bosses, and I order them to start moving all the stuff in their trucks into my trucks of explosives. Since they are carrying things like detonators, I know this can be a dangerous combination. I wait until they are both out of site in a couple of the trucks, and then go running to the south while they cannot see me. As long as they don't actually see me running off, they won't be worried, and will keep doing as I told them.

I know that when the explosion happens, it is going to be very powerful, and most likely nuclear, so I really want to get at least a mile away, so I can be safe. I keep running south in Omaha, and get a couple miles down to a major street. I knew what the street was in the dream, but cannot remember it now. Dale is now with me, and we are both running. We get to this major street, and find a bus just pulling up. We both board it, and I have .75 for the bus fare, but when I try and put it in a slot, the driver starts screaming at me that it is the wrong place, and he orders me to put the money in a different slot.

He is very rude and obnoxious, and I really find I don't like him. He keeps screaming abuse at me, and I am considering really telling him off, but instead decide to take a seat. As I get a little further back in the bus, he orders me to choose a locker and take the key. Amazingly there is a row of lockers. I tell the driver I don't need a locker, and he just gets more abusive. Rather than fight about it, I pull out a key that turns into a lock in my hands.

Dale and I sit down, nervous, and quietly discuss the upcoming explosion. We keep our voices down because we don't want the other passengers to hear us and report us. Soon the bus has turned into some sort of stadium, and we are in the stands, surrounded by ladders made up of a kind of horizontal window blinds. To get higher up and move to the next level, we have to climb these rickety blinds, but as we get a little way up, they all fall apart and collapse, leaving us to fall on our backsides.

I get to an area with some nice sofa-like benches that seem to be a little higher up, so I hope to have a shorter way to climb, as the blinds-ladders start to reappear. By this time it is feeling very much like some sort of video game, though we're in it, instead of just playing it. I look around and find Dale is gone, so I realize he must have solved the puzzle, and moved on to the next level. I still don't know how to do it, so I pull out my cell phone and call him. There is a lot of interference, and I can barely hear him, but he says something about the lock before the call drops. I start to realize the bus driver may have been an idiot, but there was a reason he ordered us to take the locks.

I wait a few seconds for the blinds to reset again, then start to climb. I go up about twenty rungs, and can just feel the tension as the thing is about to fall apart and drop me. At that point the dream kind of turns into a good news/bad news story. It's good that the driver insisted I take the lock. It's bad that right as I need it, I drop it. It's good that I happen to have a combo lock of my own in my backpack. It's bad that I can't remember the combination. It's good that the combination is printed on the back of the lock. It's bad that the combination is wrong. It's good that the thing opens up, anyway. It's bad that as it opens up, it starts to fall apart. It's good that as it starts to fall apart, it has turned into a lock mechanism like "The Club", the thing they used to sell to kind of lock steering wheels.

The bar that I end up holding is exactly what I need, and I slip it over some sort of stud on both ends of the blinds, right before they start to fall apart. Everything beneath me collapses, but I am able to continue climbing up to the next level. By this point, the dream is feeling like some sort of a competition, as well as a sort of video game. I find myself in a strange, colorful landscape that very much reminds me of the new Runespan in Runescape, but the place is very weird.

People are running around, throwing bowling balls, base balls, basket balls and other objects around, but the rules of physics don't seem to fully apply. Balls swirl down odd gravity wells, or break holes in the walls, and people follow them to try and find paths to the next level. I throw a couple of bowling balls, and they work all right, but when I try and throw the smaller balls, I can't throw worth beans, and always let go of the ball way too late, so it slams into the ground a foot or two in front of me, rather than flying through the air and triggering anything. Somehow I manage to make it at least a half a level further, however.

Now I am grabbing guns and things, and shooting at weird aliens and targets that seem more like a Buzz Lightyear-type of shooting gallery ride at a theme park. I'm doing a lot better with this than with the throwing balls thing. I shoot my way through several targets and barriers, and kind of fly into the next area.

I suddenly find myself in a swim suit in what seems to be a very colorful water park. I am on a large field with circles of colors with numbers in them, looks like some sort of giant Twister game. I see some odd footwear that is kind of a cross between flippers, snow shoes and skis. I try and get one on one of my feet, but don't have a chance to get one on the other. I have to start trying to run through the fields as different numbers are being called.

If I land on one of the circles before another number is called, jets of water help propel me in the right direction. If I hit the wrong circles, the water is pushing me in the wrong directions, and is liable to knock me over. Soon I have shot into the wrong direction one time too many, and find myself in a red sort of structure seconds before water is going to come at me from every direction and fully soak me. I'm horrible at this part of the competition, but I am also really having fun, and I am just starting to laugh about the soaking as I wake up.