dream fragment

Fragments:
I've finally finished laying out the tiles in my shower, and I'm smearing grout in the gaps between the tiles.

I grab my portable USB powerpack.

A bunch of short dreams
My son wants me to read him the next chapter in a book. He says that my wife told him that he could only read the first twelve pages. I realize I must have heard him wrong and that my wife (who's currently downstairs) wants to hear me read too. Now I'm downstairs, and I see her taking out her knitting needles.

I'm walking around in an airport. Off to my right, I see a guard in the process of closing a HUGE door. It's about five feet wide, but it's probably fifty feet tall. He gets it closed and I see that it looks like a bank vault door, with lots of stainless steel pistons and wheels. I don't understand why such a door would be in an airport, but whatever. As I think more about it, I realize that the airport must be on lockdown and I won't be able to leave. I hope it doesn't last long; I just want to get home. Now I'm walking around in the parking deck.

I'm in a room with my son. Both of us are getting dressed to go to the beach. Now we're ready and with some other people, and I see that we have a bag of stuff that needs to go with us. Someone suggests putting the straps of the bag through my swim shorts' belt loops, but that sounds like a really bad idea: I'm not wearing a belt, and I don't want the weight of the bag pulling my shorts down.

I'm at my computer looking at the current Steam sale. I'm amused that there's another one, since the Christmas sale only just ended. I'd been hoping that some of my friends would pick up a copy of Portal for their family, but they missed out. I search for Portal, to see if it's back down to Christmas-sale levels, and am surprised that the search comes back with no hits. That's really weird. I try searching for Trine, and this time I get only a single hit on some Trine-related DLC but not on any of the Trines themselves. Weird ... Anyway, the DLC is cheap, so I decide to get it. Looking over its reviews, people are doing the usual rant about how much they hate paid DLC. I hesitate, hoping that I'm not wasting my money getting DLC for a game I don't actually own.


Fragments:
I recommend that someone use the IBM Single-Sign-On ID everywhere he can so that it's easier for him to download things and to "muddle his profile"?

My wife asks me for advice for something about which I know nothing.

Bed @ 2125
Woke @ 0155

On an alien spaceship
I'm watching a movie in which a general is addressing his men. The general and his men are all aliens which just look like men who have been painted with a mix of silver and gold metallic paint. I recognize that the general is a famous actor, but I can't remember who he is or what else he's been in. For a famous actor, I'm surprised at how "ordinary" he looks - he's got a rather blocky face and some pretty bad buck teeth. In a way, I'm kind of glad - Hollywood tends to put forward people who are "too perfect." The general is telling his troops that he's been working on making a movie, and that it's almost done, but that higher-ups in his command have demanded that he add a new character, "Hiss," before the film ships. He lets people know that they're going to have a rare chance to watch filming happen and possibly even be involved in the process.

Now I'm looking at a screen of some sort. The general starts distinguishing between groups of reptilian soldiers based on whether or not they're married and whether or not they've helped a female bear eggs. The screen is split into columns, and a pattern of tiny lizard footprints appears in the relevant column as he speaks of each group and their eggs. * Now I'm walking through the spaceship. I pause and look into an open doorway on my right and see a small, poorly lit room. Now I have the feeling that the general has his eye on me and is toying with me. I'm walking down a very bare hallway, and I feel that something is wrong. I turn around and find a closed door right behind me where a moment ago there was only empty hallway. I turn back around to find that the end of the hallway is now just a few feet away. I look at the wall to my right and find that, while it was bare a moment ago, it now has an unmarked door. I decide to try using diffuse vision (from the dream yoga class) to watch both ends of the hallway at the same time. I look straight at the wall and let my vision unfocus slightly, and I find I'm able to watch the wall, the door, and the end of the hallway. After a few moments, I can see the hallway actually redrawing itself. When it's done, the single door has been replaced by a pair of doors for men's and women's bathrooms. I briefly consider going into the women's but decide to go into the men's instead.

Now I'm in the men's bathroom. A white tiled hallway extends away in front of me, eventually opening out into the bathroom proper. Halfway down the hallway I see a very petite woman standing across from a large wall-mounted mirror. She greets me and lets me know that, by entering this room, I've lost. She asks me to look at the floor, at the pattern of white and grey tiles, and notes that every single white tile is a bad end. I realize that I'm dreaming. I say something about her dog, and it lies down and rolls onto its side. I don't like her, so I tell her to turn around and put her hands on the wall. To my surprise, she immediately complies.* Now I'm talking to the guy who's responsible for building traps on the ship.


Fragment: I've got an overhead view of small pools of water connected by narrow streams of water, laid out in a kind of grid.


BTB @ 0215
Woke @ 0700 /w no recall

Nap: 1445-1615

Playing on a trampoline
I'm on a large rectangular-ish trampoline with my eldest son and eldest daughter. At first, I jump near them; but when my daughter tries to hold me down, I scold her, saying it's dangerous to do that, then start jumping away from them, trying to keep them from getting me. There's enough space on this trampoline that I bet I can do it indefinitely, so I'll need to be careful to give them enough success that they don't get frustrated.


Japanese infiltration
I'm in Japan, getting ready to board a bus. It's large and black, and it has white writing on the side. The driver is standing to the left of the steps, greeting passengers as they get on. I have an armful of stuff, and I've got some kind of identity/payment card in my right hand. As it comes to my turn to board, I remember my card and free my hand a bit from my bundle, kind of waving the card at the driver; then I realize it might not actually be what I need, so I try to ask him how I'm supposed to pay for the trip. He doesn't understand my question and answers something completely different. I try asking my question another way, and he says that the steps will turn into a slippery ramp if someone tries to board who shouldn't be there. I'm starting to get a bit flustered, and I ask him how the bus knows if someone belongs or not. At this point, a woman who's standing nearby starts laughing and tells the driver I must be a tourist who doesn't know that this is a reserved bus. I'm annoyed and embarrassed, but I go over to talk to her since she seems to know knows what's going on and is fluent in English.

Now I've been talking with her for a while, but we're now standing on some kind of steps in the corner of a huge room. I thank her for her help and her advice and apologize for having to excuse myself. I'm doing some kind of infiltration, and she's gotten me inside, but there s more to do. Now I'm flying out of a huge indoor tunnel, and pursuit is close behind. Now I'm struggling along a walkway running on the outside of a large missile that's in flight.


Fragments:
I'm in a cozy room filled with small rectangular tables. Something about Emily and her family.

I'm outside on a grassy field - something is worrying me.

Bed @ 2210 /w green Sleepytime tea
Woke @ 0200

Fragment: Something about a bunch of pigs

Moses in the wilderness
I'm watching (and also somehow reading) about Moses as he guides the Israelites through the wilderness. Something important has just happened, and I've reached a chapter break. It's actually more than a chapter break - there's a notation in bold that I need to go to page five hundred something. I've not seen any thing like that before and wonder at it, but I can only assume it's setting up for something even more important..


BTB @ 0220 /w SSILD
Woke @ 0350

Visiting the G's
I'm running and jumping very long distances (I must have been playing too much Chameleon Run ...). If I miss my target platform, I have to start over - which happens a lot. Each time, I make it further in the course. Now I'm leaping around a lake that stretches as far as I can see. The water is perfectly smooth and mirror-like - it's beautiful. The only places for me to land are small metal "walkways" (which look like they belong in a factory) which have been placed for the purpose. Now I'm trying to land on one, turn ninety degrees, and jump again, but I'm having real trouble getting everything coordinated, and I keep messing it up.

Now I've landed on the water again; but this time my speed is enough that I'm staying on the surface instead of sinking. I try to keep it up, but I can feel myself slowing down; then I'm amazed as I find that I'm still not sinking. Now I'm merely walking quickly. I've reached the side of the lake, and a large bed is floating just beyond the reeds. I head for it. Now I'm climbing onto the bed - which is completely dry - and trying to keep my shoes from dripping onto it.

Now I'm still on the bed, but it's inside a cottage. Looking around, I can see that there's an inch or so of water on the floor. Now my wife is walking around unpacking a few things. I can see that the water has receded, and she's walking around on carpet that's only slightly squishy with water. Now I get out of bed and am surprised to find that the carpet is completely dry. I take a closer look at it and see that it's some kind of outdoor carpet that's designed to get wet without damage. It's got an odd texture and is an ugly shade of orange. Near my side of the bed is a cooler. I open it up to find a selection of good beer, and I take a bottle.

Now I realize that we still haven't announced our arrival to the Gs, the family who owns the cottage, but I see from a clock that it's 10:40 PM. I look over towards their house and see that many windows are still lit, so at least one person is still awake; but I don't want to keep us, or them, from bed. If we go over to say 'hi' we'll end up talking for hours, so we'll just greet them in the morning. Now Joel is coming towards us - he must have seen the lights on in the cottage. My wife comments that he'll miss the beer I've taken, but I'm not too worried about that - the cooler must be here for guests to use. For a moment, I worry that he'll be mad with us for not announcing ourselves, or worse yet think that we're intruders, but I realize that's silly - I'm sure they've been expecting us. I had nothing to worry about, since greets us warmly as he comes inside. He launches into what a crazy day he had, listing his family's whole itinerary, starting with going to bed at 6AM (which confuses me). After he finishes the itinerary, he says that <the second item on the list> was completed at noon, and it takes me a minute to remember that means it took hours longer than it should have. Now we're in their house. I'm pulling a tea bag out of a mug of tea that's steeped for too long. One of their girls comes over to see what I'm doing.


BTB @ 0405
Woke @ 0530

Translation documentary
I'm watching a documentary about the translation of a document. The man in charge walks into a hall with a couple of other men, and he's trailed by some children. There are boys everywhere - war orphans? He walks to a table covered with notes and has one of the boys read him something. As the boy is reading, the man is reading along on the translation making pleased "mmmm-hmmm" noises. I rewind the video and mute some of the audio trcaks to more clearly hear what's going on. This time , I can clearly hear the boy and the professor and nothing else. I rewind and tweak even more, trying to make the sounds even more distinct, but this time the scene plays out slightly differently, more heavily involving another man. I don't understand why it would have changed like that, but whatever.

BTB @ 0540
Woke around 0700

Fragment: A woman is being reprogrammed by aliens.

Fragment: I'm using a mobile device to look at a web page that's covered in iframes, sometimes even in nested iframes. Trying to scroll is an absolute nightmare.

Fragment
Lots of small groups in a field, each trying to assemble something. I guide my group in assembling it in a different order than everyone else, and it seems to work well.

Malicious entity
I'm driving along a curvy road. To my left I see a couple of churches, then a large grassy field with a small playground: something to climb in with slides, and a few swings. Now I'm walking along a wooded path into a grassy clearing. To my left, I see another entrance to the clearing. A group of men is standing near that entrance, talking. They're all in dark suits, and I recognize my own pastor as well as another pastor from our denomination. A nearby man whom I don't know offers to watch the kids on the playground so they can play without the rest of the adults having to go over to it.

Now it's third person; I'm looking at an early teens girl. There's some kind of malicious entity that's following her around, always changing whatever clothes she puts on to be much too revealing. She puts on an over-sized denim jacket, but the thing morphs it into a tight vest. The entity itself becomes a picture of a rose on the back of the jacket. She hopes that no one notices it, thinking that as far as these things go, this isn't too bad. The rose continues to change as I watch, becoming larger and redder, then growing a stem which eventually sprouts large sharp thorns. A phrase eventually appears right below the flower, something about her being "hot" or "bad." She starts talking to Pastor M, keeping her back away from the group so they can't see the rose and text; but somehow the entity manages to get to Pastor M and he starts behaving very strangely.

Now I'm hunting the entity through my house. Right now it's hiding in a pile of stuff (clothes, toys, etc). I'm going around the pile, trying to make a band of clear floor to make it harder for the entity to get away from me. Always keeping an eye on the pile, I pick up each loose thing from the floor, look at it closely (to make sure the entity isn't hiding on it), then toss it away. Once I finish the perimeter, I intend to continue moving around the edge, whittling the pile down until I find it or it runs. I hope my perimeter is big enough that I'll be able to catch it before it finds new cover. Unfortunately, my daughter doesn't realize what I'm doing and starts to play nearby, making a mess. I try to explain what I'm doing and why she needs not to do what she's doing, but the thing uses the opportunity to make a run for it. I try to move to get it, but it's too fast and it makes to a nearby bed. I start to strip the sheets off, hoping to catch it in them, but it's too quick, continually eluding me.

I hear a knock on the door and go to answer it. As I'm approaching the door, I look through the window and see it's a delivery man with a hand truck piled with small packages. It takes me a moment to open the door, and when I get it open I find he's not there any more. I step onto the patio and see him walking up the driveway to his truck, and I call out to him that I'm here. I see it's actually two men, one with the hand truck and the other carrying a single package. They come back down the driveway. The man with the single package gives it to me, and the other starts unloading his packages.

Now I'm looking at a girl playing on the patio. She's wearing a nice new dress, and I know it came from one of the packages (in-dream I think it was the top package on the hand truck). Another girl comes up to her, also wearing a nice new dress, and they run off together.

Now I'm on the driveway, back to hunting the entity. Somehow it's made it into the van. I cautiously get into the van and start poking around. Now we're driving; my whole family is in the car, my wife at the wheel. To our left is a row of buildings, one of which is our destination. To our right is a large Interstate interchange that's still under construction. I know the entity is still in the van, but I can't find it.

My wife turns the car and heads towards the nearby on-ramp. I ask what she's doing, and she says that since we can't find the entity that we'll need to go to the gardens that are further away. She's already printed out directions. We'll need to take highway 107 for 107 miles. The speed limit is 107 MPH, so it'll take an hour to get there. I ask her about the speed limit - I think it's strange - but she says it's the speed limit here. I ask her if she's considered the other stuff we'll need (water bottles, lunch, etc), and she sounds mock offended as she says that of course she has. I point out that I hadn't intended to go anywhere yet, so I don't even have my shoes; but she replies that she got my shoes and everything else we'd need. She even got a USB key with an audio book on it for us to listen to. Unfortunately, it turns out we've reached the end of this set of files, and the next set isn't present, so we don't get to listen to it after all.

I turn around in my seat and keep scanning the car for the entity. I move some books in the carseat behind me (I don't realize my daughter isn't in her seat) and find a little brown fuzzy blob. I realize this is it, and that it's making a cocoon and so is vulnerable. I look around for something to smash it with and see only a handful of small paperback books. I grab two in each had for added weight (they all seem to be Narnia books) and try to bring them together on the thing, which is growing larger and larger by the second. I don't manage to crush it between the two small piles, instead just knocking it with one, and it wakes up. I grab it before it can get away. It now looks like a bat, and I manage to get my hand around its neck. It's not a great position, and I don't even know if it can be killed this way, but I'm going to do my best. Its neck is in my right hand and I squeeze as hard as I can. I use my left to grab its body and try to wring the life out of it. I'm so into it that I wake up, my right hand clenched. It takes me a few moments to realize I'm awake; I'm convinced that if I release my grip it'll escape yet again.


At the airport
I'm by my self, walking through an airport pulling luggage behind me. The hallway in front of me is temporarily closed, but there's a detour going up the escalators to my right. Everyone around me is going up the escalators, but after taking a couple of steps toward them I realize I can't because of my luggage. They're fairly short as escalators go, and I try to think if I can manage to get the rolling luggage up, but I decide it would be a very bad idea. I think I saw an elevator nearby, so I go to hunt for it.

Now I'm standing on a small raised circular platform to the right of the escalators. I realize it's the "control room" for them. A woman is here, dressed in uniform, and there are two PBX phones on the desk. I know that the phones are what control the escalators. She's moving back and forth between them, quite busy with her job. I go to position myself by the right-hand phone to take some of the load off of her. I have to reach over the desk, bending at the waist, to reach it, which surprises me - I badly misjudged the distance to the phone. She thanks me.

I'm upstairs now, and I'm a middle-aged woman. I'm in the woman's restroom along with another woman, and we're trying to find a place that we won't be found. The bathroom is long and narrow, like a hallway, with the door right in the middle of one of the long sides. Right across from the door is a large shower stall; another is at the end of the "hallway" to the right. I consider hiding us in the right-hand shower, but somehow it's too open. The middle shower has a heavy floor-to-ceiling curtain and, though it's narrow, it goes back quite a way. We go in, close the curtain, and stand near the back. A few moments later, someone comes into the bathroom and starts looking around, standing right by the curtain, and I realize what a terrible place for concealment this is.


Lane change
I'm driving on the interstate in the left lane when we come across a left-lane accident. I have to get a few lanes to the right to get off. I check my right-hand side mirror to make sure I have enough room to get over, and I see a light-blue car quite a long way back. I change lanes, then check my rear-view mirror, and I'm surprised to see a different car, an old brown SUV, right behind me. I decide I must just have missed it seeing it in the side mirror, but I'm glad there was space for me to come over without getting in a wreck. Now we're home. I'm tired and thinking of taking a nap, but my wife is planning to go out shopping.


Pets
I'm in "our" family room. My wife is on the couch, reading, and our dog and white cat are both here. I'm not sure how the cat got here, but I'm very thankful she and the dog are getting along so well. She starts to climb the bookcase and I put my hand under her, just in case (It's a tall bookshelf without any handholds other than the shelves). She does actually slip and I have to catch her. She tries again. I look away for a moment at something, and when I look back I can't see the cat. After a moment of searching, I see her in a tiny space behind some books, looking very comfortable.


Beach vacation
I'm driving with my family . Now we're at the coast, going to a beach house. Now we're in a house with a bunch of families from the church, talking to Jeff C. It's more of a lodge than a house, with many tables in a large room. Everything is wood. Now, most of the people have left, but Johnny Depp and two of his friends have arrived. I end up talking with him, and he's very, very strange. At one point he lets out a strange yell (war cry?), yelling words I can't understand. By this time it's evening.

Now it's the next day and I'm walking on a path around large sand dunes, talking to someone. He mentions Depp and asks if he did his trademark yell. I confirm that he did and ask what it was, if it was supposed to mean anything, and we talk about it for a few minutes. Now I'm standing on the house's back porch, talking to Depp again, and he's acting much less crazy than the previous night. Now I'm on another part of the porch (it's a long wrap-around thing). The beach shower is on, and I wash my feet. Now I'm inside in the bathroom getting ready to take a real shower.

Now I'm talking with my pastor's wife, and she's telling me about a more secluded beach spot they like to go to, up a mountain on the edge of a small lake. I wonder how the water temperature would be, but it does sound nice. Now I'm on the little beach she was talking about. It's a really small beach, no more than a hundred feet long. In front of me stretches a lake that looks like a crater in the top of a mountain. It's very pretty. I notice a train track across the lake nearby and see that a train is coming towards us. For some reason it stops briefly in the middle of the lake, then continues on. I see that it seems to have left a few cars behind, and I'm concerned that they became unhooked when it stopped; then I realize the front car is actually a locomotive pulling the other two, and it just took longer to start than the locomotive at the front of the first section. Somehow I know they did it that way because a single train would be too heavy, so they had to split it in two.

Now the middle car of the shorter train has tipped over at a 45 degree angle, and people are in the water. Since the train is to my left, and it tipped left, I cant see what's going on. I run across the track to see if anyone needs help. They're fairly close to shore, and no one has any trouble, but they thank me for my concern. The family I end up talking to is a large family with nine children. Later, I notice them in a crowd with a giant stroller. At first I think it's a nine-wide stroller; then I realize it's a four-wide strollers, a normal stroller, and another four-wide stroller all held together with a long belt. My wife and I are impressed.


Fragments
I'm filling out a survey about the most recent dream I had. There's a long list of checkboxes asking what was in the dream. The bolded lines are more generic, and the nonbolded ones are more specific to the kind of dream I had.

Something about getting on the interstate to go home. Another large interchange.

I'm trying to figure out what day it is.

I'm skydiving.

I'm talking with my pastor.

I'm in a hotel room with my wife.

Fragments from the middle of the night
A teenaged boy, a non-Rithmatist, is somehow maintaining a woman made out of a translucent blue liquid. Her shape is very well defined. They're both in a classroom; she's sitting at a student's desk, and he's standing. I wonder how a non-Rithmatist is able to do something like this.

Something about driving past houses near the beach.

Another dream kept nagging at me, though I have no idea what it was.


Fragments from the morning
Vague impressions about something I'm forgetting.

More about Rithmatics.

At the zoo
I arrive at the zoo with my kids and some of their friends. I see a sign on the wall talking about a new acquisition, a tiger of some sort, and how important it is to maintain eye contact with the tiger so that it stays interested in you and doesn't retreat to the back of its habitat. I start to read it to the kids, but they're all excited and not paying any attention to me. I turn to them, calling for their attention and explaining that this is important, then turn back to read the sign. I look to where the sign was, but it's not there any more. I'm really confused. Looking around and back, the wall has somehow flipped around to expose the sign, and I realize it must have flipped back before. The wall plank looks very irregular as if it wasn't designed to be pulled out and flipped around. I read the sign to the kids.

Now we're walking through a very open area. It's arranged kind of like an amphitheater, concentric half-rings descending to a central point, except that it's very, very shallow. The whole area is decorated in a very eastern style, and people with flowing colorful clothes are walking around. It's a bright, beautiful day. As we're walking down the giant steps I end up giving my eldest daughter a hug and holding her close for a moment. In the dream, she's fully grown, a young adult; but I tell her I'm glad she's smaller than me and will always be my little girl.


Old presents
I'm in a fairly small room. Somehow this is game related, but I'm present in the room. There's a counter with some kind of person (an elf, maybe?) handing out things that need to be delivered. We talk about some kind of special. Now we're talking about the special, but it seems time has passed and it's no longer valid; it was some sort of seasonal thing and it's expired. On the wall, I see a list of expired seasonal specials. I notice the table in front of him has some kind of cloth over a pile of stuff. The table is shaped like a fish tank: it's long and thin and doesn't have a lid. Pulling the cloth aside, I see wrapped presents underneath, and I know they're for members of my family. It's way past Christmas now, so I feel bad they'll be getting them so late, but I know they always love to open presents. I pull them out (somehow having to reach around or under things) and look at each one. They're all between four to six inches on a side.

Now I'm at home, giving the presents to my kids; except now the presents are from our pastor. My oldest daughter gets a coconut. It looks pretty, but upon opening it we find it's aged poorly, with dry brown stuff (like the gills of a mushroom) inside. My son got a pumpkin, but the top near the stem looks gooey. My second daughter got some trinkets that are just fine. We're standing around a tall flight of stairs as we're looking at them.

Fragments
As much as ???? likes the NFL, he doesn't like how they have a history of not following their own rules.

Something about a hallway in a dorm.

Taking the bus
I'm walking towards a bus. It's the first time I've used it, and I'm somewhat anxious about it. I have a brick red RFID fare card still in a plastic baggy. A conductor is walking around outside the bus directing people. I see RFID readers in a number of places; I wave my card nearby one of them and it beeps. I board the bus.

Now I'm inside. The bus has a long gentle curve. I'm standing in the middle of the curve, and I can't see the front or back of the bus. Seats along the outside of the bus are facing inwards; most of the bus is empty space. Everything is very sleek and shiny, looking very "futuristic."

Now I'm at work. It's the end of the day, and I'm talking on the phone with my wife arranging how I'm to be picked up. We hadn't considered that the bus wouldn't actually drop me off at the house but rather at a nearby bus stop. She'll have to load the kids into the car to come get me from there.


Revolving doors
I'm spending time with my friend Peter. He's showing off his college project, an improved automatic revolving door. It's got hand rails on the revolving part that people can "click;" once the bar has been clicked, the floor will vibrate to let people know it's time to leave the revolving door and walk into the building proper. It's also got a new "smart" floor that automatically adjusts itself so that it always works well, even when it's on a boat. I ask him about whether he'll be able to sell the design, since he did it as a school project; he replies that some companies he's worked with in the past have volunteered to help build the prototype, and that he may or may not sell the design later. I notice he seems a bit cagey about the topic. While we've been talking, we've been walking around and around and around.


The buffet
I'm going through a buffet line behind my parents and my wife. Somehow I've arrived late; they're already nearly done, and the conference will be starting again soon (though no one is quite sure when). I hope they give us sufficient warning. My wife advises me to get a bunch of food in my bowl and take it to the conference hall now, since I probably won't have time to finish out here. I put some Chicken Tagine on one side of my bowl and some desert on the other side. I'm not happy about their mixing, but there aren't any plates available and I don't want to try to carry two bowls. Mom points to the tagine and asks what it is; I tell her the main ingredients, though I tell her she'll have to ask my wife about what's in the sauce.


Fragments
I'm leaving a parking deck.

I'm wandering around a grocery store.

Fliers
I'm in my office. I notice a stack of fliers on my desk and start to look through them. They're all for women's products, and many of them have pictures of women dressed in rather revealing clothes. I put them down, preferring to avoid such things. My wife walks into the room and asks if I saw the fliers, saying that my 3rd daughter wanted me to have them. I say I looked at a couple then put them down, and she says that they had to go through the postal service, so they can't be TOO bad.

Outside my window a group of men is working on the lawn. I think something about how they won't move on until their boss, a woman I know, tells them to.


Light demo
I'm using some sort of interactive demo produced by a team as a project. The viewpoint moves along on rails, and if you click in the right places, you get to see more stuff. A message at the beginning says to click on the light. Every so often, there's an opening to the side, a room or a hallway, and each one has a part of the wall or floor that's extra bright; but when I click on them the program looks like it's going to go down them, but then keeps going straight. I restart and try again and the same thing happens. On the third try I figure out the correct hot spot to click; it's rather non-intuitive. The camera viewpoint goes into one of the lit hallways.

Now I'm physically present in that hallway. In front of me are some steps going down, and there are a handful of people already sitting on them. In front of us and to the left is a stage with closed curtains and some kind of project in front of the curtains. My third daughter goes up and looks at it, then comes back. My step-father is there and asks us what we'd like to sing.


House politics
I'm in a bedroom talking with someone about home defense. He says he'd love to have a good BB gun in his bedroom; I reply that a shotgun is much better for home defense. There's a half-made bed on the floor in one corner of the room.
Outside in the hallway I see ??? trying to set up a prank for when ??? comes along; he's hiding under a trap door on the stairs landing. He drops something and opens the trap door to find it. Now there's something about the household inheriting from two ancient houses (i.e. ancestories), and that the prank has given the patriarch the idea to combine the houses, something that's not normally done. He's reticent to do it, since the house name that'll be going away is more his heritage, but he's willing to do it since it makes so much more sense than keeping both houses around. Now I see a bunch of (physical) houses in a row, five or so small ones and one large one, and I see the five small houses get smashed into the large one, leaving a lot of cleared ground behind.


Train troubles
I'm riding on a train, talking with people in one of the cars. I have some concerns about something. At some point, the train stops. We get off, look around, and get back on. Now I'm in the locomotive, somehow in charge of the train. I really don't want this and I'm trying to think how to get rid of the responsibility. I'm also concerned about whether we have enough fuel to keep going. Now we're stopped again, and I'm standing on the ground by the locomotive. Another train comes by, a big one, and sideswipes my train. As if in slow motion, the train starts to tip, then falls off the tracks towards us. We're able to get out of the way, and no one is hurt. With the train on its side, I can see a compartment in the top of the locomotive. It seems to be the coal hopper, but it's just got a handful of what look like large dusty Hershy's Kisses. I make a comment about just wanting to put one in my mouth, to which the engineer just smiles. I say it's a good thing that we didn't go on since there's not even enough coal in here for another day of travel, but the engineer disagrees, saying this is really good stuff and a little goes a long way.

Along with the coal, the compartment also has a bunch of kids' books. I poke through them to see what's there, and a number of Mandy books stand out. Somehow I know the train's owner's daughter is grown up now and has no need of these books, so I think that my own daughter may enjoy them.


Car troubles
I'm on the hill near my house stuck in a long line of traffic. I come close to running into the car in front of me, and I hope that no one runs into me. Now I'm on foot standing in front of my car. I move off to the side just in time, and a car behind mine pushes it forward, smashing it into the car in front. Now I'm walking through the intersection at the top of the hill. I see a police car and a regular car off to the side, with the police officer lecturing the driver about weapons.


Fragment
We're in a vehicle along with at least one child, being driven by a chauffeur. We pull up outside a house, and he announces that we've arrived.

Imager rescue
I'm watching a group of Imagers descend into a strange place, some sort of alternate dimension. It's a "utopia," as clearly evidenced by the people all wearing the same identical flowing clothes and everything being spotlessly clean. The Imagers are here because they received a report that some of their members had been captured. Sure enough, in the main square they find a slaver selling four of their friends. The lead Imager pulls aside one of the junior members and instructs him to prepare a handful of poisoned coins (large silvery things), something that will take effect later in the day after they're long gone. He then starts to talk to the slaver to set the release conditions for the four. I start to talk to the captured Imagers to find out what happened. A young woman in the group tells me they were in the square and realized the best position had been taken, but no one was in it. Going over to investigate, someone had thrown bags over their heads, stopping them from fighting back, and here they are.


Curving fire
I'm standing outside with my wife and with Emily and her family on the grass near the end of "our" driveway. We're all admiring the neighbor's boat and jet ski. Emily's husband say that a jet ski is something they'd love to buy but they haven't been able to yet.

Now I'm setting up some kind of long rack with gas burners built into it. Now I'm carrying something that looks like a big scoop. It's the same width as the rack, two or maybe three feet. As I approach one end of the rack, the flames suddenly curve towards and into the scoop, even from the far end of the rack. It's quite a sight, and Emily is very impressed.


Side scroller
I'm playing a side scroller. I have to throw bombs to open new passages, but I have to be careful not to get caught in the explosions. Now My character is in a large room with some blocks in the middle and at the bottom. The next thing I need to do is to break through the blocks at the bottom and get into a water area. There's an enemy in the room with me, and I need to deal with him before I can continue. He's small and good at hiding, only coming out to strike when I'm not paying attention, so this is taking a while.

There's something about legal torrents of old games ranging from five hundred to two thousand megabytes. Many of the "old games" are actually new efforts designed to look like old games. I think about how pixel art is popular with indie devs, and how much I can't stand it.

Now I'm at the far left end of the room. There are more blocks here, and they seem to be switching every few seconds. Some of them show a powerup icon for a few seconds, then fade as other blocks start to show powerup icons. I try to break the powerups open, but I have to get moving at a good clip to do so, and that means being off screen to get enough speed, and that means I can't see which blocks currently hove powerups. As I move off screen I realize there's a hidden key showing me the blocks and powerups, and I'm able to use it to aim my character to get the powerups. After I've gotten a bunch, a gate comes down blocking my access, and a giant spiky rod starts to come down from the ceiling. I don't move quickly enough and take some damage before I'm able to get to the main part of the room, but then I'm able to use my new powerups, especially some kind of melee weapon that looks like a long rod, to make short work of it.


Bathing man
I'm in a yellowish room watching a very large man get painted all over with oriental style patterns and figures, designed to scare off evil spirits. He then proceeds to lie in a "bath" with water just a few inches deep. I guess the designs were to scare off water spirits? But if he's bathing, shouldn't the paint wash off? Or if it doesn't, then how will he get it off later, and what's the point of bathing now?

Later, I'm talking with him and find out his name is Sm, pronounced Sem. I think that name is familiar and realize it's from one of the Final Fantasies - thirteen, I think. I ask him if he's familiar with those games, and he says he isn't. I consider explaining about them to him, but I decide that's more trouble than it's worth.


Messed up lights
I'm in my bedroom trying to turn on the lights, but something very strange is going on. We have a dual slider fan/light switch near the door, and I'm sure I'm using the light slider, but as I slide it up and down other lights in the room are turning on and off, leaving the fan's light off the whole time. I look more closely and am even more surprised to see that there are two sliders on the same track. I start moving them slowly up and down, trying to figure out the pattern. The first notch turns on my wife's bedstand light; the second notch turns on a light in the middle of the wall and turns her lamp to dim. Other positions do other things. Now someone else is in the room. He's familiar to me (though I don't know who he was). He says he saw something about this in the manual when he got one recently, and he'd be happy to let me borrow it. I thank him but say it probably wouldn't do much good, since each room is wired differently; but he politely disagrees, saying this is exactly what the manual talked about. I tell him I'd love to see it.


Fragments
Something about "medieval court posturing"

I look between two nice buildings to see a house behind them. It's rather run down, but there's a light on upstairs and it looks much more homely than the austere newer buildings.

I'm in a dimly lit hallway.

Research driving
I'm walking across a grassy field towards a building (either work or college, I'm not sure). I see an odd-looking car with two guys in the back seat. Somehow, I can see that one of them is Mike R whom I've worked with a number of times but never met. I walk up to the car and introduce myself. Somehow I end up inside talking with them. Eventually a driver comes and starts to take us somewhere. I'm somewhat anxious since I'm not supposed to be there and this is some sort of research expedition. I debate about whether to ask the driver to stop, and the further we go the more anxious I get since asking him to stop after all this time would be silly. Eventually I decide just to stay and see what happens.

Now we're driving by a huge monstrosity of a building. The front is incredibly wide and tall and seems to be one huge screen with hundreds of different video windows all playing at once. This is the new USPS building where they're trying to be modern and relevant. It's one of the ugliest things I've ever seen. I say that they're the "Facebook of ???." Now we're driving through another area. Somehow we transition to something my mind flags as "Jurassic Park," except it's a mad doctor who enjoys making body-part-shaped food that may or may not be actual body parts. I'm disgusted by it.

Now I'm driving through town on my own. I'm having some sort of difficulty - the roads are slick, and I keep having to go up and down steps in the car. I turn to go down some steps, and even though I'm going very slowly (walking pace), I manage to knock over a girl. I jump out of the car and help her to her feet, asking if she's OK. She says she's fine and continues on her way.


Unfinished ceiling
I'm at "our house" working on the hole in the kids' bedroom, trying to fish out the stuff my daughter dropped into the wall. I manage to get a vantage point that reveals that the stuff may have dropped into the room below. Now I'm in the dining room, looking up. I'm amazed to see that the ceiling is incomplete, that I can see the floor joists of the room above, and I find that I can look up in the gap between the walls separating rooms, including the wall with the hole. Looking around I find the missing tights as well as a whole table cloth. I wonder how she was able to stuff that down the small hole. I continue looking at the ceiling, wondering why it's like this. The ceiling is already low, particularly with a fan, and I don't think there's any way to finish the ceiling and have it be high enough to easily walk under it.


Vacation craziness
We're arriving at a vacation house along with at least one other family. As we're unloading the car, my wife notices that my right wrist has a silver ring going all the way around it flush with my skin. She asks about it, and I offhandedly tell her that the doctor decided my arm needed to be replaced, so I have an artificial arm and hand now. She's appalled, wanting to know the details of why such a drastic thing was needed. I'm really not sure; I just accepted the doctor's word. She asks details about how to care for it, and I confess it's something I haven't really thought about. She finds a paper labelled something like "READ THIS FIRST: How to care for your new arm" and starts looking over it. We realize it needs to be charged periodically, and I have no idea where the charger is. I hope it's a standard plug, and I assume I can just go by Radio Shack and get a universal adapter that will serve until we can find the original adapter.

Now we're all at the beach. There's some kind of kids' area nearby, so I go to check it out. Now I'm swimming in the kids' area. It seems to be a more sheltered cove, though the waves are still occasionally big. In fact, there are a few that pass over my head (my bouyancy is wrong, since I should be floating with them, not passing under them). I'm surprised that my eyes aren't stinging and assume that I'm closing my eyes just right to seal out the salt water. I'm also surprised that I have to deal with a few waves coming in the wrong direction (i.e. from the direction of the beach); I assume the big ones are hitting the shore and bouncing back, traveling back out to sea as smaller waves. I realize that, once again, I forgot to buy goggles and intend to make a note to do so.

Now I'm talking with somebody in charge of the kids' cove. He asks if I'd like a bucket ride. When he sees my quizzical look, he points to where people in large floating buckets are lining up behind some kind of water vehicle, forming a long "train" to get pulled around. The buckets look too small for a full sized adult, so I decline. He starts talking about the challenges of running such a thing safely, especially when it's raining. I see a list of things they're working on, including the problem of rain adding to the weight in the buckets. It seems they track the weight so they know if a kid falls out or a bucket becomes detached, and when the buckets fill with water it messes up the "fallen kid" detector.

Now we're walking along near the beach. I look up and see a drone flying past. I point it out, and my wife is amazed that I hadn't noticed more of them flying around. Now we're walking along a high pathway overlooking the city; it's quite a sight. Behind us, we see a large floating robot coming towards us, and we all take off at a run knowing this can't be good. It catches up to us and we recognize it from earlier. It ends up disobeying its orders, grabbing us, and helping us escape. Eventually it puts us down, then flies off and jams itself somewhere to block anything else that's chasing us. I'd liked it earlier, and I like it even more now, so I'm sad to see it sacrifice itself for us.


Fragments
I'm on top of the car as we're driving somewhere. It's a Sunday evening, but it's also the start to some festival. Suddenly all the normal lights go off and strands of Christmas lights come on. I get as low down to the car as possible; I don't want one of the strands to catch me and pull me off the roof.

I'm walking around the basement spraying something everywhere. Tiny puddles are all over the place, and I wonder how they got there. I'm thankful that I won't have to track mud into the house from the basement much longer, and a middle-aged man agrees, saying he's sure the police chief will also be very relieved, since he often has to visit the person whose office is down here.

Side-note | Lucid

Jeff's troubles
I'm in a room with my family, Jeff C, and maybe other people. Jeff is talking about a meeting he had with his company (Verizon) that was very difficult. It seems they're trying to bring him up on false disciplinary charges and he's having to fight back really hard. They're using all kinds of dirty tricks; this last meeting wasn't even held at the time they'd originally scheduled it for. Someone comments that Jeff's superior died recently and asks if it was because of this kind of thing, but Jeff replies that it wasn't quite the same, that he actually died of an equipment failure. I realize that my second daughter is playing with Jeff's boots, that she's got some kind of tool and is pulling plugs of leather and elastic out of the heel of the boots. Jeff is displeased, making a passive aggressive comment along the lines of "I really need those," and I take a more direct tone with her.


Strange construction
I'm walking along a road in a neighborhood. It's a cul-de-sac, so I know it'll be ending, but I'm surprised to see that it ends a lot sooner than I think it should, with a large box of a building built right on the road. Now I'm in the building talking with one of my friends. It seems he'd managed to acquire the rights to build on top of the road, but that another guy we know heard about it and managed to acquire rights for the adjacent block. The two of them are good friends; the second man did it partly to help his friend, but also partly out of a friendly rivalry. The two are building the building jointly, though they're each staying completely to their own section and not building on the other's section at all. For such a strange joint effort, I'm impressed with how it all looks; then I notice that there's a spot where the floors come together that's really messed up and not smooth like the rest of the concrete floor. The building itself is pretty complete. It's just a huge open space, very wide, very tall, and very deep. There are some small windows, though the place seems mostly lit by artificial lighting (I don't see it, but it feels like it).

Now the building is a church. The whole place is filled with chairs. Attendance is way down, since it's summer and most of the people who live here are students who have gone home fur the break. There's some kind of discussion about recording the sermon. A woman on the other side makes a comment about knowing all about big projects since she works for (my company). I hadn't realized we both worked for the same company, so I decide to introduce myself after the service is over.

Now I have some kind of internal monologue about my eldest daughter learning to play Ultimate Frisbee. I see a large crowd of teenage players on a field, including my daughter (who's not yet a teen IRL). She throws the frisbee almost casually, yet it streaks straight to its intended target, another player. Oddly, none of the other players are moving, and I realize this is a game following some unusual rules. Her throw is perfect; yet it turns out she threw to the wrong target, so she (or her team) actually loses points on the throw. I'm disappointed for her.


Little people in the kitchen
I'm observing in a kitchen. A young man just a few inches tall is trying to move around the edge of the kitchen island. His goal is a drawer on the other side of the island where a steak knife rests. Something goes wrong and he's not able to make it. This seems to be a family of tiny people who live in the house with the normal-sized people completely unawares. The father of the little people decides the son needs to try again. For some reason, he's full-sized, so it's easy for him to re-open the drawer (I don't know how it got closed) and flip the knife on its back so the sharp side is up (just like in the original task). The son starts to get ready got climb back up, but his brother (who's terrible at this sort of thing) decides to join him. The first brother is surprised, but the second explains that he'll need to get good at this sooner or later, and the first agrees. They approach the island, except now they're at least as tall as it is. They put their backs to it and do some kind of weird backflip to get up onto it.


Kitchen conversation
I'm sitting with a family around a table, talking about jams and juices. I'm trying to explain to the wife that there are different kinds of juices, mostly made from fruits. This comes as a surprise to her; she thought juice always came from ???. My wife explains that most jellies and jams are made from fruit juice, not ??? juice. I'm eating something smeared with a nice berry jam of some sort. I'm still a little hungry, so I go to the fridge and get out the milk, intending to have a glass to top off. When I look at it, I realize it's separated, with white at the bottom and a milky watery layer at the top half. I realize it's just skim milk, and it would be fine if I shook it, but I put it back as I've always despised skim.


Sharing a dream
I debated about whether to consider this lucid or not. I decided I should, since know I'm dreaming, and I manipulate it; yet my awareness was so low that I didn't recognize my wife as a DC.

I'm walking with my wife through a wide, featureless, gray hallway. I know I'm dreaming and that I just came out of another dream; yet I also believe that I'm sharing a dream with my wife a la Inception, that she's truly here with me. We discuss the previous dream, then dreaming in general. She says she doesn't think she can control the dream, so that makes me want to try. I hold out my hand, palm up, and manage to summon something small into it. I'm really pleased, as that's the first time I've been able to summon something. She tries and also summons something small into her hand; we're both really excited.

Later, we're still walking in the gray hallway, talking about dreaming. I haven't ever managed to get more than a foot or two off the ground trying to fly, so I decide to try again. After a moment, I start slowly to rise from the ground. It looks like I'm slowly falling upwards, and I think I'm going to land on the ceiling. I don't want that, and I manage to stabilize myself so I'm floating along suspended between the floor and ceiling. My wife tries it and manages to do something similar. Again, we're both excited.

At some point we talk about it being a bad idea to use the dream sharing device to share non-lucid dreams, since who knows what you'd see in the other person's subconscious that you'd rather not see (or they'd prefer you not to see).

Now we're both walking again. She asks what else can be done in dreams. I remind her of summoning things, and I'm surprised when she shows hesitation, even though we did it not too long ago. I try again, but this time I fail. She doesn't try it, instead deciding that she's going to change her hair color from dark brown to blond. I watch her trying for a moment, then decide to help her out to give her more confidence. I start concentrating too, trying to change her hair color, but nothing happens. I close my eyes so I can picture the change more clearly; unfortunately when I open my eyes I can't see anything and I know the dream is fading. After a few moments, I wake up. I try to chain a DEILD but fail.


Hunting for tools
It's night. I'm by myself at "home," in an upstairs bathroom, thinking back on my childhood. Now I'm in a bedroom, trying to figure out how to get into a rotten tree in the back yard; I know there's some kind of treasure hidden in the trunk. I know I'm dreaming, but I don't think much of it. I have a huge bag of tools that I think will help me, and I decide to use an explosive to open it. The bag is on the top bunk of one of my kids' beds. I don't remember setting the charge, but it has something to do with fiddling with the lights in the bathroom across the hall. I head one room down the hallway, cover my ears, and wait. I hear words, and I'm pretty sure they're announcements of how long until the blast, but I'm not willing to uncover my ears to hear more clearly. I do move so I can stick my head into the hallway so I can try to hear more clearly. The announcement seems to be in my own voice, but I still can't make out the words. Eventually, I hear a muffled boom. All the lights in the house start slowly blinking on and off, but out of sync with each other. I go into the bathroom to turn off / undo whatever I did in there, then I go into the bedroom to find what tools I have available. Looking on the top bunk, I start sorting through the stuff. I turns out to be all stuffed animals without a single tool in sight.

As I leave the bedroom, I realize that I never took the time to ground myself in the dream. I stop and slowly look around myself, trying to take everything in. I touch one wall and feel the slightly rough texture - it looks and feels like sandpaper. I touch another nearby wall which looks like it has stones embedded in it. I'm surprised by how smooth it is until I notice the thin layer of glass covering it. I kneel down and run my fingers through the carpet, feeling its texture. I'm near the end of the upstairs hallway where I see a water fountain. A little doubt crosses my mind - is a water fountain normally found in a house? - but I shrug it off and decide to get a drink. I approach the water fountain, turn the handle, and get a drink. I take note of how cold and wet it feels, and I find it very pleasant.

Now that I've grounded myself in the dream, I decide to go down to the garage to get the tool I need. Now I'm in the kitchen. My mind wanders some, thinking of Robert G. He was in the military, did well for a while (though his father was terrified he'd be killed), but eventually lost his leg and had to come home. I fondly recall him, and think that for the first few years of my life I was a G before becoming part of another family.

Now I'm going down a second flight of steps towards the garage. As I'm going down the steps I consider throwing myself down them and trying to fly, but I can't bring myself to do it. At the bottom of the stairs, I see the door into the garage is already ajar. I try to open it by thought, but nothing happens. I push it open and go through.

In the garage, I'm surprised to see that the left-hand garage door is open and that Mike D is parked outside, tools out, working on a car that's half pulled into the garage. I ignore him at first, walking to the other side of the garage and digging through my pile of tools. I find something that looks kind of twisted and not really useful, but it's a big hunk of metal if nothing else and should be able to knock the rotten wood away from the tree. I grab it and head out the garage through the open garage door. I look through Mike's pile of tools and grab something else. , My wife's alarm wakes me up.


The synthesizer
I'm in the audience at a concert. I really don't like the music much. Now the concert seems to be over, but the two musicians are still there, playing for a handful of people in the front row. I walk down to take a closer look. The main musician is playing what appears to be an electric banjo. As I watch, he stops plucking at it and pulls out a bow to use on it; I'm impressed and look forward to hearing what sound that makes. The bow is actually fairly nice on it. As I look more closely, I see that it's not a banjo at all, but rather a large box with belts running side-to-side in it. The bow is moving the belts side-to-side and up and down, and sensors on the ends of the belt read his motions and produce sound. As he's playing, he frequently reconfigures the belts to produce different types of sounds. He sees me watching and says "It's a synthesizer" as if that explains completely what he's doing.


Fragment
I'm driving on a long road. It's perfectly straight without a single turn, but it goes up and down some fairly hilly terrain. I know I'll be turning right into a large church.

People at work
I'm at work, sitting in my cube. My old cube is behind me, directly across the hallway. My current cube doesn't have too much stuff in it, but the old one seems to be where I store old equipment; it's filled with old computers, monitors, and stuff. I'm sitting at my computer watching the intro to some movie over and over. There's a short moment when an actor comes into the frame, and I'm trying to figure out who he is. Peter something, though I'm not sure if it's the actor's name or the character's name. I remember it's some kind of in-joke. I'm having trouble with the movie player; it's not doing what I want, skipping around, and I keep missing the spot I want.

Now a compliance woman is in my old cube marking things as needing upgrades. She's almost done - she didn't realize I was in my new cube - and I make sure to point out everything old I have assigned to me, letting her know how old it is, and she says that nearly everything I point out can be upgraded: three old towers, two ViewSonic CRTs, even an old UPS, even though Brad P (takes be a while to remember his last name) has half of it (the UPS is actually split down the middle). She points out some older servers that I got when I was first hired in 2004 and says that because they run Windows XP they'll need to be destroyed, but I tell her that they run Windows now, so they're compliant, and she agrees. She asks me if I'm running a media server, and she can tell by the look on my face that I do (I don't IRL). She gives me a friendly warning that they're going to start cracking down on people running them if they hear music blaring out of cubes and advises me to use headphones, and that it can be hard to find a pair that doesn't hurt the ears. I tell her that I've had a pair I've used for a long time, and she looks pleased.

Now Mike, an old work acquaintance, is in my new cube. I call across to him to find out what he's doing, then notice a bunch of other guys looking in through my cube windows (I was surprised to see how transparent they were). Mike seems to be hiding from them, and no one else is willing to go into my cube (no idea why). I call to him again and he comes over into my old cube with us. As he does so he bumps me and the nose pieces of my glasses scratch my nose. I remember the pain of the scratch. He apologizes. When I try to put the glasses back on, I see the pads are messed up. I go to fix them, but he takes them, fiddles, and gives them back before running off. I try again and find they're even worse. I fiddle with them for a moment and get them right.

Now I'm in a back room with a compliance guy. We're cooking something in a strange toaster oven - it's shaped like a toaster but has a "tunnel" running through it to put stuff in, with the element running across the top. I use a tiny pizza peel to pull out a bagel sandwich I'm toasting, hoping it won't burn being so close to the element.


Motel Questions
My wife and I walk into a building so I can ask some people some questions. To our left is an auditorium with the door left open; looking through, I see a guy talking and only one guy in the audience. To our right is a smaller room with three women sitting behind school desks, ready to answer questions. I get really anxious, wondering if this is only for attendees of the conference, but I try to be strong and push through and hope they don't question me too much if I act like I belong. They clearly know I don't and ask if I filled out a sheet (they give it a name) showing my current knowledge. I didn't, so they give one to me to fill out. It feels like a dismissal, that I should leave and come back with it filled out another day, but I decide to stay and fill it out right there. I look around for a pen and a flat surface to write on. One of the women says something else.

Now I'm in a back room, which appears to be a motel room. It's hard to move around as there are extension cords - both standard three-outlet two-prong cords as well as orange three-prong cords - running everywhere. Along the floor, along the ceiling, through mid-air. I recommend moving one of the smaller cords, as it would meet their needs and get rid of the mid-air cords, but a woman says they can't do that since some of the cords are plugged into something to monitor energy usage and I was suggesting moving the cord from a non-monitored circuit to a monitored circuit. I keep looking for a good solution and see one involving some splitters plugged in somewhere, but as I'm about to suggest it she does first. I lamely say that I was about to suggest the same thing.


Potluck
I'm at a large church potluck. As I'm going through the line, I happen to go through with RP who thanks me for the kindness we've shown J, says they'll pay to make sure everything is fixed properly, but says that he'll be ending the lease soon. I finish getting food from the first table and move onto the second, but there's a lot less here than I expected. I do see some deserts, including a random assortment that includes a chocolate-covered Oreo. I grab what may be the last one as I'd like to try it. Now I'm seated at a table right in front of some crackers and cheeses/spreads. I have no idea what the different crackers are, so I choose one at random. It's a rhomboid, and I notice many S's printed into it. I notice a legend on the package; at first I think it says S means "spicy," but looking again I realize S means "not spicy." I think that's confusing. I use a pinkish spread on it.


Fragments
Something about a hotel room, parkour, and questions about something.

I'm sitting at a table with my family. My son asks what my dreams were, nd I tell him about my near miss from a couple of days ago. A nearby family overhears me and is interested, so I explain more about lucid dreaming.

Cooking
I'm in a large kitchen area, wearing my blue bath robe. The counter wraps around three sides, and there's an island in the middle. Behind the kitchen is the living room. I'm at the table doing something. I realize that my wife was cooking something but got a phone call and had to step away, so I should deal with the food until she comes back. I go over to the stove and see she's got chunks of potato, kielbasa, tomato, and mushroom sautéing. I wonder what it's for, since she doesn't like mushrooms. I grab the spatula and start folding it every so often. While I'm standing there, I decide to do the nose-pinch test. I get my right nostril to seal properly, but I can't seem to get the left one. It doesn't feel like a dream, but I decide to do a backup test just in case. My wife is still around, so I don't want to do anything too crazy. I cast around in my mind for another RC, and the only one I can remember is jumping and coming down slowly. I give a small hop and come right down, so I decide I'm not dreaming and get back to cooking the food.

Now I'm at the island. I've got a bowl out and I'm moving the food from the skillet into the bowl. My wife is finally off of her call and comes over as I'm nearly done. I ask who it's for, and she says it's for her.

Fragment
A mashup of Words of Radiance and Imager, including Kaladin.