Glieuaeiel's DJ

Correctional Facility

[There's a bit of sort-of-lucidity right at the end of this dream, but not enough that I'm willing to call it lucid.]

One of my housemates lends me one of those red-light scanners through the bars separating our cells. I try to use it to give her ID card administrator access through the prison. From the instructions on the scanner's status display, I'm supposed to scan her card first, then scan the device that will grant her access privileges. Suddenly I notice that a guard is coming down the hall with some new prisoners. I have all sorts of illicit papers and devices spread on the floor of my cell, so I just try to lie casually on top of them as the group passes. Thankfully, the administrator doesn't notice. I scan a few more cards, but then I notice I've lost track of my friend in the confusion. I get up and walk down the center aisle of the bus, looking around at the people in the seats. Eventually, I find her [though she's a different housemate now], but the seats near her are taken, so I just grab a random empty seat a few rows farther back.

I'm nervous. This bus is taking us to a correctional facility, where we will atone for our crimes. I know it is the morally correct thing to do, but I'm worried that my time here will interfere with my studies at college.

The bus pulls to a stop in front of my old elementary school. It's almost dark out, and it's drizzling. Everyone seems to be heading around the side of the school, so I follow them. Then I realize there was a fork in the sidewalk a few steps back, and not everyone went the same way I did. But then someone shouts at those other people that they're going the wrong way. We're led into a nearby building with modern architecture (i.e. lots of windows) and up to the second floor. In the hallway up there, I see a number of doors with slots for access cards, and I'm very tempted to test my card on it to see if my earlier experiment worked. But there might be guards nearby, and I'm not sure I'd even be able to recognize one if I saw one. Maybe I'll get a chance to test my card sometime in the next few days, when I have a moment alone. But what if they chaperone bathroom trips? I might never get a chance!

I realize that I'm not carrying my backpack of stuff. What happened to it? Looking around, I notice one of the plainclothes guards is carrying a lot of luggage for the new inmates, including my backpack. I wonder if it would be polite for me to volunteer to take it back, or if he's carrying it because I'm actually not allowed to have any of my stuff right now. I decide not to ask.

After a bit more walking, I reach a big auditorium, where everyone is taking a seat. I sit towards the back. Once almost everyone is seated, the facility workers start explaining things to us. They start going through a list of attendance. One heavyset man with glasses and salt-and-pepper stubble names a person who is supposed to be here, because he was summoned no less than 351 days ago. The auditorium takes a collective gasp at that. There's no set time by which you have to answer a summons, but waiting that long is shockingly rude. Perhaps that person doesn't intend to answer for his crimes at all.

They start going down a list of attendance, but they are interrupted only five names in by one of the new inmates. "None of those people are here; we're all from Bus 84." Apparently Bus 85 got delayed somewhere. Clearly most people here know much more about this process than I do; they must have been committed here before.

Suddenly, people start pointing at the ceiling, which is made of glass. Looking up, I see some indistinct dark shapes flying overhead. Is it an air strike? Are we about to be dragged into a war? It's hard to see clearly enough to say if the shapes are dropping bombs, or indeed if they are airplanes at all. Then one of them flies almost right overhead, then dips downward and out of view under the floor. It was shaped a bit like the Millennium Falcon in miniature. No one in the auditorium is moving, but I think we're all wondering whether we should be running for cover.

The ship shoots upward again past the windows on the opposite side of the room, as if it has looped underneath us. It arches over the ceiling, then drops below view on the other side again, closer to the building than it was before. Has the pilot lost control? What's happening here? The ship shoots into view again, loops over the ceiling--and crashes straight down through the room about fifty feet from where I'm sitting.

One of the wardens shouts, "Good lord!" but they still don't seem to be moving. I guess they're just shocked. Well, damned if I'll be waiting for them. I run for the doors as the building begins to shake underneath me. Some other inmates are ahead of me, but when I reach the exit, there's no hallway: it's just a straight drop three or four stories to the ground. And the entire room is tilting, sliding, falling towards the concrete below. If this were real life, there's no way I would survive this.

I jump out of the door and land on the highway with traffic coming toward me. It's daytime now. I jump on top of the first car, then jump to the second, and continue jumping my way down the line. This is ridiculous, though, so I obtain a motorcycle from somewhere, mount it, then activate the jet engines. This is fun, but I still have to dodge traffic coming straight toward me. I bounce the motorbike into the air and activate the transformation into a sort of metal hang glider. [Interestingly, I don't think the transformation sequence had any visuals, I just sort of imagined that it was happening in an abstract sort of way.] Then the glider's jet engines kick in, and I shoot above the treetops and continue on my way.

Now that I'm out of danger, I pull out my cell phone and dial 911 to report the incident at the correctional facility. As I wait for the dispatcher to answer, I'm gliding over a grass field between two roads. There's a cute girl walking across the field. Tall, with wavy blond hair and freckles. We smile at each other. I'm about to fly onward when I remember that making out with someone is one of my dream goals! Letting go of the glider, I stumble a bit as I land on the grass behind her. This is a bit of a risk because there might not be enough action to sustain the dream--but if dream goals weren't risky, they wouldn't need to be goals.

"Hey, wait! Come back here!" I call.

She stops and watches me, looking a little defensive. I'm a bit thrown off by the fact that she's a little chubbier than she was before. It's like she's a different person, cute now in a different way. "Um, hi," she says carefully.

"I just want to make out a little." She just stares at me. "Please?"

She's still just staring at me as the dream fades to black and I begrudgingly wake up.

[IRL: Last night, I finally took out my dreaming goals sheet again to pick a few lucid dreaming goals. "Make out with a girl" was NOT one of them, though. Also, I would give a lot to know what crime I committed to be sent to that correctional facility . . . but alas, I cannot remember.]