dream fragment

Wallet problems
I'm at Home Depot, carrying a few items. At the check out, I can't find my Home Depot card. The cashier thinks I'm goofing off and reminds me that it's time to pay. I apologize to the female cashier, explaining it's a great wallet, so thin and easy to carry, but sometimes it makes it harder to find cards. I go through my wallet pulling out all sorts of other cards and even old receipts. A customer is now in line behind me, and I apologize to him. I end up dumping out the entire wallet, but still no Home Depot card.

Now I'm sitting in a cab, in the front passenger seat, except the driver is to my right. The cashier is the driver. I'm still looking for the card. She's driving all over, and I'm searching deep in my wallet. It's hard to keep everything organized on my seat. Eventually I give up and she stops. I ask her what I owe and try to think how big a tip to give her. I know I saw a $20 bill in my wallet, and that I saw at least one other bill. Twenty is too much, but maybe a ten? She suggests that as her tip I could get her some of her favorite music. She really likes a style called ???, and she's missing ??? and ???. I go to write down those names, though she changes the second one to Ogre ???.

Now I'm walking around in a crowded downtown area. At an intersection ahead of me, a man stands in the middle holding a flashing red pole about his height. A fire truck edges through the intersection turning right (my left). As I think on this, I notice a couple of foreign men walking ahead of me, and I decide to follow them through the crowd. I just want to leave, and it looks like they're on their way out. Sure enough, they lead me back to the parking area. As I part ways with them, one of the guys notices a set of signatures on a column. They're all very nicely caligraphed and I suspect they're from the city founders. He figures it's some kind of guest registry, so he grabs a pen and adds his own name. I don't say anything, just keep walking, snickering to myself.

Now I'm getting out of a cab. I see a minivan next to us with a small girl getting into the van in a strange way, somehow sliding down the front passenger seat. The cab driver comments that she did that as a kid.

Fragments
I'm flying around a construction site collecting bonuses.

I'm push-starting some medium-sized chunky toy cars.

I'm gracefully moving around on winding foot bridges over water.

Side-note Lucid


Time snapshots
I'm driving in my car to go to my chiropractor. I realize it's still morning, and I don't have my appointment until early afternoon, but for some reason I don't turn around. I realize it's about ten thirty, and I know I have a conference call at eleven, so I just need to be sure not to miss it. I go through a light in the right lane which turns into a right-hand-only turn lane. I somehow end up letting the car coast to a stop. I'm really confused about what's going on. Two large trucks are to my left, also stopped. I remember there's an app on my phone that saves snapshots in time and lets me go back to them. I quickly pull it up and hit the Back button. With a sound like a timebug in World of Goo, I'm back at the last light, going through it. I know this is too late - I'm about to get stuck on the turn lane - so I hit the button again. Now I'm at the previous light, and I have time to switch lanes before I get stuck.

I'm really excited about this. If I can rewind time yet still remember everything that happened, the possibilities are endless! I can read all the books I want, then rewind time so that the reading took no time at all! I can spend a long time solving a difficult problem, then rewind time and remember the solution. I try to think if there's a way to bring something back with me, a completed piece of work, but I don't know how that could be done. Maybe there's a way to time-proof a USB stick? I start to think about sleep - surely being awake for a long time would take its toll? - but then I reason I can sleep whenever and then rewind time to before I slept.

I'm still driving. It's almost time for my appointment, so I can't turn around, but I'm still going to be pretty early. I'm on a two-lane road with lots of trees. Someone is trying to come out of a driveway on my left but waits for me to pass first. Now I'm walking into a strange structure. I'm in a short stairwell that's C shaped. The lighting is pretty dim. I start to walk up, then realize I'm still too early. I hear someone coming down and hurry out; I feel like I'd be embarrassed if I met them. Now I'm back outside walking down some steps. I pass a maintenance worker going the other way. I realize I'm wearing only my V-neck undershirt. He comments "nice neck." I'm a little embarrassed but I don't worry about it too much.

Now I realize that I can undo this whole trip if I have a snapshot from before I left. I go to pull up the time snapshot app, but I find that I have a bunch installed and it takes a moment to figure out which is the one I'd been using earlier. I'm disappointed to see that it only has three snapshots. The main listing only shows the time the snapshot was taken and not the date; I have to click the triple-dot icon to get a details page. One seems to be some kind of default snapshot - the date is 1-1-00 - and I'm not going to touch that. The next has a very strange label that I don't understand. In trying to get details about it I somehow put it into Sharing mode. I have no idea what it means to share a time snapshot, but I wish I hadn't done it.

Now I'm walking down a hallway in a building similar to the one I work in. Windows are floor to ceiling to my left, though there are occasional pillars and lots of moving boxes piled around. A wall is to my right, occasionally opening out into an office or other open area. I realize I'm now completely naked and don't have the phone any more. Oddly, I'm not embarrassed at all, more annoyed at myself. I have the feeling the phone is on my jeans on one of the piles of boxes further back in the hallway, but I'm not positive. I realize I have to get the phone: if I do, I can undo all of this. I turn around and start heading the other way. A couple of women come out of an office in front of me. I sidestep behind a pillar and use a hand to cover myself, nodding respectfully to them as they pass. Neither one takes any notice of me.

After the women pass without comment, I realize this is a dream. I do a nose-pinch RC to further convince myself, and I'm not surprised to feel air moving through my closed nostrils. I immediately try to remember my current goals. I know that number one on the list is to look at and count my fingers. I hold up my right hand and look at it. I have five fingers, but when I hold them stretched out, my middle and ring fingers are at a very obtuse angle - a little further and they'd be pointed directly away from each other. I keep looking and my hand kind of blurs; now it looks almost as if my left and right hands are superimposed on top of each other. I can see a thumb and pointer sticking out of each side, and there's a jumble of fingers in the middle. When I bend my pointer, I see it moving on both sides of my hand. I wiggle another finger and see both copies wiggling. I had been hoping I'd get an extra finger that I'd have conscious control over. Oh well, maybe another time.

I remember the next thing on the list was to try to become extra aware of my environment. To my left is what looks like a small section from a dollar store. Shelving units are filled with all kinds of junk. I decide to reapply the nose pinch (using my left hand) to help keep me focused, then start to look at the items on the shelves. The shelf nearest me has what look like baby bath toys. As I'm trying to slowly move my attention from one to another, I realize that I'm now holding my upper lip instead of my nose, so I readjust my fingers to once again hold my nose. I notice a couple of stacks of items on the shelf, and I realize they're shaking. I identify this as the dream not being as stable as it should be. I try to stare at them, willing them to stop shaking, but it doesn't work (in hindsight, focusing on them gave the vibrations more power; I should have just ignored them). I give up on it and keep walking along the corridor, coming out into a larger room. I get stuck with my eyes closed and I try to focus on breathing through my closed nose. After a few moments, the feeling of breathing through my nose changes subtly - more like my nose is stuffed - and I "realize" I've woken up so I can't breath through a pinched nose any more. I wake up for real moments later.


Fragment:
I'm trying to do something for a group of women. Nothing I do makes them happy, and I'm starting to feel really frustrated.

Side-note Lucid

A strange test
I'm flying in a large military plane - an old bomber? - to meet with some of my work team. I'm a passenger. First we fly to Aaron's house. He's on a cul-de-sac, near the end. We fly a circle around his house and try to figure out if we can land on the road. His house has a lot of antennas. The pilot is talking to Aaron's team lead on the phone, figuring out when we can meet. Aaron's currently really busy, but since we're here in a cool plane, he should be able to make time.

Now I'm in a car with someone driving back. They think I lost one of my shoes, so I'm a security risk; but I still have both my shoes on. Someone got confused. Now I'm back. The final test in some kind of competition is going on, and I've missed one of three hours. I think I still have time to do it all, but I'll need to hurry. I try to calm my nerves. Now I'm in what looks like a living room. Behind me a door leads back into the school. Somehow I accidentally stumbled across a kind of apartment while looking for the school's bathroom. I apologize to the occupants and leave.

Now I'm taking some kind of math test. Now I'm printing some kind of recommendation form sent by AW. Now I've finished everything and I'm looking over it. I read the recommendation letter and am horrified by all the typos. I decide I have time to pull it up and fix it. Something very strange happens with the text editor; it's not cooperating at all. I think I finally manage to get it working. Now I'm editing stuff by playing some kind of game. Things are going well, but then an internal timer reaches six hours and the game becomes much, much harder. Enemies who were previously easy now become strong enough easily to kill me. I'm having real trouble, and I don't have much time left to fix the document before the contest is over. I try to figure out if I can reset the timer to make things easier again.

Two contestants before me sing their final thing. They do a lovely duet in harmony with accompaniment. I congratulate them, and they say that others won't be able to do it since you need accompaniment to sing in harmony. I disagree, but I don't say anything. One of them - Mom? - wants to know if I'm interested in her final score. I say I am, but she doesn't hear me and walks off.



Walking at the park
I'm walking on a path entering a fairly crowded park. I see my pastor talking to a group. This park allows most activities, but if you're going to run, you have to do barefoot running. I don't know if he knows this or if he knows what that means, so I intend to pull him aside later and demonstrate. On my left is a building with an open door. One woman leads a dog out; shortly after, another leads a dog in. I realize the owner of the house must do dog-sitting. I overhear the new lady say something about keeping the dog for an extra half-day this time, and the owner of the business says how much it'll be. Now I'm still walking on the path, but I've got a dog walking with me. It's a Scottish Terrier, very like my step-aunt's old dog Brandy. We're in a park that allows pretty much any activity, except that if you run, you have to do barefoot running. I'm walking him along a path that runs next to a wide stream that leads into a lake. At one point, I realize I've lost him; looking ahead, I see him up ahead, just sniffing a HUGE black dog (I know he's 500 pounds). Both dogs are acting very friendly to each other. I catch up and apologize, and the lady walking the other dog says it's no trouble. Later, we're trying to cross a narrower part of the sidewalk. A lady is three with her slightly disabled adult daughter. They're letting people coming towards us get off the bridge, trying to empty it of people so the daughter will have an easier time getting across. I don't want to wait behind them so I just go around a different way.

Now I'm in a bathroom. I go to use the urinal on the far end (on the left) but realize it has no bottom. I quickly shift one over. Now I'm washing my hands. I'm in the same place as before, but the urinals are gone and sinks are in their place (I don't realize this at the time). I look over at the leftmost sink and get a little confused when I see it has a proper bottom. I notice some buttons along the side - three, with the middle button already pushed in. I press the bottom button and a kind of waterfall out the front of the sink starts, running right onto the floor. I notice a label by the button asking not to use that for too long or it'll flood the bathroom. I press the top button and get a blast of hot air - a hand dryer. An "awooga" alarm also starts up to remind the user to turn it off. I wonder why they didn't have that with the waterfall feature, since that seems much more dangerous. JG is there; we say something brief.

Now I'm leaving the bathroom. As I turn the corner, I realize I lost the dog again. I see some straps and I decide the easiest way to get him back is to hold one of the straps and really believe that it's a leash and he's on the other end (at this point I know I'm dreaming but there's no real awareness). Before I try it, I remember that I wanted to try lots of RCs next time I'm dreaming. Now I'm in an area with some giant windows to my right; the bathroom is to my left. I realize I'm getting that slightly "tipsy" feeling that indicates the dream isn't as stable as I'd like, but I remember that RCs help stabilize, so I start off with the traditional nose-pinch. The feeling of air passing through a pinched nose is one of the most amazing feelings! Next, I remember someone (Sivason?) talking about the importance of remembering the reality of the dreaming body without dwelling on any of its senses. I take a moment to think about that, to remember that this body isn't real, that I've got a real body back in my bed. I move onto the RCs I haven't done before. First, I try to push my left pointer through my right palm. I have a great sense of expectation; I know it'll work and I want to see what happens. There's some resistance, but I can see the back of my right hand bulge some, then my finger pops through. The hole my finger goes through isn't smooth; it's uneven, looking like it really did punch through.

Now I'm trying to remember other RC techs, but I'm having trouble. Finally, I remember the jump test. I jump, expecting to float down; instead, I find myself hanging in mid-air as if caught by the waist, head towards the floor, legs out behind me. I decide I should easily be able to transition to flying. so I stretch out horizontally and fly towards the window. Somehow I get it open. Beyond the window I see a fly screen, but I figure I can punch straight through it, so I fly at it, expecting to go through. Instead, it catches me and starts to stretch and stretch. Somehow I end up going down. I was many stories up, and now I'm going down towards the ground caught in the ever stretching net of the fly screen. Finally, a couple of stories up, the fly screen won't stretch any more and I'm just stuck hanging there. I try to think if I can get back up to the window to knock the flyscreen frame off. I get stuck with my eyes closed and start to panic a bit, but I calm down and start pinching my nose to keep myself grounded. After a few seconds I'm able to open my eyes again. The flyscreen is gone.

Now I'm on something floating, some kind of one-person soft raft. Hundreds of people around me are on similar things, and we're all floating along. I still know this is a dream, but all awareness is gone. I manage to do something impossible to jump up onto a wall running next to the water. Now I'm downstream. I jump from the wall onto people's rafts and use them to cross to the other side, onto some kind of small pier.


Fragment:
Vertical slits have been cut in the side of the microwave cabinet and knives are stuck through them like a strange knife block. The largest knife is just touching the side of the microwave.

Side-note | Lucid

[LUCID] Grocery store task
Before bed, I was running over my known dreamsigns, telling myself that "If I see X, I'll know I'm dreaming" I don't remember how this one started, but I think there's a good chance it was the "huge room" dreamsign. After waking up, I couldn't remember anything for a few moments. Just as I thought all was lost, I got a flash of this one. I'm sure I forgot parts (like how I got lucid in the first place).

I'm in a grocery store. Some kind of event is going on at one end. I'm at the other end, getting snacks. Lots of junk food is hanging in front of me; nothing is too my back. A friend is with me, but I knew that as a DC he can't be as fast as me, because he's bound by the rules of the dream. I'm still waiting for him at the snacks, and I know that once he arrives and gets his own snacks it'll still take him a while to get back to the event. I start thinking about how I can help him. I decide that adding moving walkways to the store would be a good start, but I don't actually try it.

Now, I'm looking at the store's safe. I pick up something that would let me open it (maybe the key? I don't know), but then I decide, that I'm in a dream, so I should use my mind! I stare at the door, trying to picture the gears inside it spinning, unlocking, and opening the door. Nothing happens.

Now I'm with my family in a kind of hallway next to the windows. It's wide enough for a line of cafe tables and enough room to walk. We're sitting on the floor, looking out the window. A couple of bulky men are standing outside the window. Beyond them is the parking lot and road, and beyond the road is a steep embankment going up. My wife and I are sitting right next to each other, my right arm pressed against her left. I remember the task to close my eyes for ten seconds. I get an odd feeling of excitement, that I'll be doing something I know I shouldn't be doing, but I KNOW it'll go well. I close my eyes and start counting. I focus on the feeling of my wife against my side and on the memory of what I saw. I almost see a kind of "after image". The men's shirts particularly stand out as blobs of color. I reach 10 and open my eyes. As far as I can tell, nothing has changed. I consider trying it again, except visualizing a different scene with my eyes closed; but I don't do it.

Now I'm looking at the embankment. People are climbing up ladders to the top, but something is going wrong. They're complaining loudly about it, even though it's their own fault. (I don't know how I know they're complaining; they're across the street where I can't hear them). Eventually, some other activity has to stop because their complaining is just too much of a pain.

Now I'm walking with my third daughter on the road, just like everyone else. We're still following the rules of the road and get into the left turn lane behind a line of people.


New directions
I'm walking through a grassy field (some kind of park, I think) sending a text message to Jakkarth, telling him that I've moved to a new place. I try to give a thumbnail sketch of where it is, but I'm still not familiar with the area and I can't provide real directions. I tell him that I'll send proper directions once I get back to the house. Now I've just come down from being on a play fort. I realize that my phone isn't in my pocket and look around for it. I see it on the ground under the fort, and I realize that it fell out of my pocket somehow as I was coming down.


Lost ties
I'm walking around outside church Side-note(which looks nothing like the real one)[/COLOR] when I see JB, one of our deacons, holding a wad of ties in one hand and his cell phone in the other. He's using the cell phone to talk through the PA system, announcing that he's found some ties and that they'll be going in the trash unless they're claimed soon. He shows them to me and asks if they're mine; I take a quick look and tell him they aren't. He gives one final warning over the PA, then starts to throw them away, but I stop him. I tell him that it always annoys me that the policy is always "Claim your stuff or it goes to Good Will." I wish there were a short period during which the stuff stayed on display but where anyone who wanted it could take it. He thinks about it, then agrees with me and hands me the ties to look through again, to see if I want to keep any of them. He warns me that there's trash in the middle of the wad of ties. I see that he's been going around the property, picking up trash and wadding it all together. On closer inspection, I really don't like any of the ties and start looking for a place to throw them away.


Parking deck excitement
I'm in the passenger seat of a van driven by people I'm staying with. I don't know them very well. The father Side-note(who looks like Iron Man 3's Killian - something had reminded me of Extremis the night before)[/COLOR] is driving, and his kids are in the back. We're in a parking deck, trying to get out. The main exit is backed up, so he decides to take a "short cut". He drives over a curb, knocking over some glass jars that had been placed along it. Following this path around the deck, we reach what should have been an exit, except that it's been mostly walled off. There are still gaps around and under it where we can catch glimpses of the outside. I see tires under it and hope it's not a police car, and that if it is they won't realize what we've done. He backs up back over the curb. I see that the unblocked exit is right next to this one, and that it's currently clear. I don't think he should take it yet - if it really was a police car out side, we don't want to tip its occupants off that we were the ones who jumped the curb - but he just takes the exit. Sure enough, it was a police car, and they start following us, though their lights aren't yet on. The father starts slowly accelerating. I ask incredulously if he's planning on getting into a chase with the police, but he denies it. By this time, he's going recklessly fast around the parking lot, trying to lose the police before they actually turn their lights on. I consider bailing out of the car, but decide that would be just as dangerous as staying in.


Fragments
It's night. I see something about a ghostly apparition - some kind of advanced technology - that jumped on / through a helicopter and brought it down. An investigation is ongoing into what it was. I see a pool of some kind in front of me. An artificial animal - a cow? - is helping fill it. Suddenly, I realize that the plot to bring down the helicopter was from the artificial animals, and that it lets them fill these pools over and over, becoming rich and taking all the power as they do so.

Something in a house.

Heart attack patient
I'm in a hospital room with another guy and a doctor. They're both strangers. I found the guy somewhere having what seemed to be a heart attack and rushed him to the hospital. Now he's lying on the hospital bed motionless. The doctor is getting ready to use defibrillator paddles. I don't remember the whine, and I remember in-dream that I was surprised he didn't say "clear!" The guy sits up, flails, then falls back down, motionless. The doctor starts pushing rapidly on the guy's chest with the paddles, which I also find curious. After pushing a few times, he issues another shock. This time, after sitting up and flailing, the patient starts coughing and taking deep breaths.

Now I'm in a different room talking with someone about payment. It's going to be about six thousand dollars. I'm trying to get them to charge the guy's insurance, but they want me to pay out of pocket. For a moment I get distracted, wondering if my own insurance will handle it; then I realize again that it wasn't me they treated, it was the guy, so I just get up and leave.

Now It's the next day. I'm arriving under a drive-through awning in the van with my family. There are large glass doors leading into a large, well lit room. The guy from the day before is there, and it's a happy gathering. I don't remember why we're there, though.


Zombie combat
I'm in a large room; it looks like a disused storage room. I feel like we're underground; the floor and walls seem to be stone. Around the edges are shelving units filled with random junk. The ceiling is fairly low, with visible pipes running here and there. Pillars are scattered through the room, supporting the ceiling. The light is on the dim side. In the room with me are two guys - zombies, maybe, except they look normal - who have a grudge against me for capturing them years ago. Thanks to whatever they are, they have a supernatural speed and are trying to attack me. I'm not as fast as they are, but I'm skilled, and I have a slight advantage: I have a long pipe which I'm wielding with some skill, and any time it touches them, there's a sizzling sound and they recoil in obvious pain. I'm also wearing a watch that gives a similar effect, though if they're close enough for me to touch them with the watch, they're WAY too close. I manage to get a few hits with the pipe, but thanks to their agility they're able to dodge it most of the time. They never actually get close enough to hurt me (or for me to use the watch). Eventually, they call a truce, and we talk for a few minutes.

Now I'm in the van with my family, driving somewhere. I'm in the front passenger seat, and my wife is driving. There's something about the watch, a huge bag of nickels, and a small bag of quarters. The watch is made out of a cheap light blue plastic. Something is wrong with the wrist strap; I think one side popped out of the watch. I don't like it, and I certainly don't wear it on a regular basis, but I always keep it nearby just in case I need it. Now we've arrived somewhere. I'm getting quarters out of the bag. I need three, but I'm very tempted to get four - after all, what's one more? - but I refrain, knowing that that kind of "just a little more won't hurt" mindset is how people run out of money quickly.

Now I'm somewhere else in the same complex. It seems to have been cut out of a hard stone. The rooms are low, and this time they aren't very large. A man is showing weapons to a group of people, letting them fire them. He's explaining the differences between Hollywood weapons and real weapons. Finally, he pulls out a small axe, designed for throwing, and describes it as being very effective, which explains the warning label. I see the label now; something about staying away from kings' wars. At the end of the shooting range I see a mural depicting a battle with a lot of axe fighting going on. There are some captions bubbles spread through the mural.

Now I'm talking with someone about arcades and arcade machines. I explain that when they were popular, they were the only way to play video games. With the introduction of home gaming consoles, people no longer needed to go to arcades to play games, and with the introduction of the internet people could play games with other people from their own homes. I tell him about the arcade machine we had in the house where I lived during college, that the panel at the bottom was left unlocked so that, though you had to put a quarter into it to get the game to start, you could immediately get it back.


Fragments
I'm in a kitchen area, thinking about Indiana Jones and how old he was in the most recent movie.

Side-note Lucid

Talking about lucid dreams
I'm standing on my driveway talking with my pastor and MB. The kids are sitting in camping chairs on my side of the garage; my car is nowhere to be seen. All of us are talking about lucid dreaming. I say something about WILDing and I'm surprised when my pastor knows what it is, saying that he'd once done it himself many years ago. I mention that one of my long-term goals is to learn to have WILDs quickly, on demand. My pastor asks how long it usually takes to get into a WILD. I explain that a skilled WILDer can do it in under twenty minutes, but that newbies can often take more than an hour. I confess that I haven't managed it at all, yet, but that I'm determined to succeed. The conversation continues for a little while longer.

Now I'm in one of the kids' bedrooms doing something. Now I'm downstairs. Bethany is unhappy with the kids - she'd told them they could be outside barefooted or in shoes but not just in socks, since the socks would get dirty. All of the kids wore just socks while outside, so now they're covered in leaves (from the driveway) and oil (from the garage floor). Even though I was wearing both socks and shoes, I check my socks anyway. They're damp from being sweaty but are otherwise fine. I take my socks off and put them in a nearby cabinet which seems to be a make-shift clothes hamper, as it has a small (but growing) pile of colored laundry. My wife tells me that if my socks are dirty like the kids are then I need to put them in the separate "dirty sock pile," but I tell her they're just sweaty.


Gift of a hymnal
After a failed WILD, I'm trying to sleep. I'm laying in bed and remember that I just had a conversation with friends (JB and BJ) in my kitchen. I realize that that can't have happened, that I must have dreamed it. Something feels off, and I do a nose pinch RC. I can easily breath through my pinched nose, so I know I'm dreaming, experiencing a false awakening (my first!). It's pitch black. I decide to try voice commands and try to command LIGHT, but my voice is hoarse and I can barely hear myself. I try again with STABILITY, but again, it barely comes out. I realize that, even though I'm convinced this is a dream, I'm still hesitant to shout in case I'm wrong and I woke up my wife. I decide that this really is a dream, so it doesn't matter, and even if it's not a dream we'll just laugh about it and go back to sleep. I really don't want to lose the dream, so I keep my nose pinched and keep focused on the strange feeling of breathing through it. I keep trying my voice commands, and eventually the light in the room (especially near the door) "dims" up. It's dim, but it's enough to see by. I shout STABILITY and LIGHTS again for good measure, and I find that I can actually shout now.

I'd just been listening to the podcast where they were talking about extending the dream, and CanisLucidus talked about just looking at all the detail the mind comes up with. I look around my bedroom, trying to take it all in. I notice that it's larger than life, but it's decorated pretty much how my real room is. The doors, windows, bed, and dresser are all in the right place, and I think the walls and floor looked right, though I'm not positive. I notice a small shelf on one wall that's not there IWL, with some very small framed pictures of people. I walk over, pick one up, and look at it. It shows couple of people, including a woman in a purple dress. I don't recognize them, and I realize the danger of putting too much attention into the picture, so I put it down. For some reason, it ends up on face down on the shelf. I kneel down and run my hands through the carpet - it looks and feels exactly like my real carpet. I think about what to do and realize that one of my simple goals was to try the "internal nose pinch" and see if it was reliable. I tried it, and alas, I couldn't breathe while doing it. So much for that RC. I consider phasing through the wall and flying off, but I decide that that's a little too advanced for right now: I want something I know I can accomplish so that I can boost my confidence.

I remember I want to do the basic TOTM be given a gift by a DC, so I walk towards the hallway. The stairs are in the right place, though the hallway layout is odd. I remember that, to get something to appear, I need to not just casually think "It'll be there" but to really strongly picture it, almost as if I can already see it. I start trying to imagine in detail that my wife is around the corner in the hallway; but as I'm doing it, she comes up the stairs. She says something and goes back down; I follow her.

Now I'm near the bottom of the stairs. I feel like I'm in a mansion. Downstairs is a huge area, well furnished, with a very high ceiling. I'm on a grand staircase, at least 10 feet wide, flaring at the bottom, going straight up behind me to the second story. My wife is a couple of steps below me. I ask my wife if she has anything for me. She says she does, but she wants a quick kiss first. I kiss her, and she walks off towards the kitchen to get whatever it is. I realize that I shouldn't let her out of my sight, since she might disappear if I do. I go after her, following her into the kitchen (which is outfitted with lots of shiny black appliances). I don't see her in the kitchen, and I get worried. I shout a dream command WIFE, but nothing happens. I walk through the kitchen, though the dining room, and back into the living area. I pass an older, well-dressed man carrying a Psalter; I completely ignored him, but I think he was the butler. As I'm walking into the living area, my wife comes out of the kitchen carrying one of our old hymnals. She gives it to me, saying it'll go well with the hamburger.

Often, when I wake out of a dream, I'm aware of it fading first. Not this time. Poof I was awake. I tried to DEILD, but nothing happened; I was probably hampered by a strong desire not to lose the dream memory.


Fragments
I'm looking at pictures of different people. I have a program(?) that lets me alter reality by altering pictures of the reality. I'm trying to copy an aspect of a person from one picture and paste it onto a different person in a different picture, but it's not going well. The perspectives of the pictures are different, and the pasted image isn't lining up right.

I'm outside, in a park-like setting, watching people. There are nine people who have successfully done ... something ... but they need ten to fully win. They're pleased at having come in first again, yet disappointed that, once again, they failed to get the full ten.

I'm looking at Gunnerkrigg Court. Annie is watching two forest dwellers talking to / examining a boy from the Court. He's strong and somewhat puffed up, and the forest dwellers (a youth and an old man) are pondering over him. His muscles should only be about half the size they are, and they want to know how he made himself strong, if he used some kind of magic or trickery or what. The old man especially is throwing out more and more strange theories about the boy's strength. I (or Annie?) starts to wonder if there's something to it, and if this is how Eglamore gets some of his abilities.

I'm driving on a 4 lane road in the right lane. A tan van is to my left and starts to come into my lane. I stand my ground, but she keeps coming, eventually scraping against me. Now I'm in the left lane and she's in the right, ahead of me. I can see a silver line running along her driver's side where she scraped me. Somehow I see the driver's side of my car, and I see a long scuff mark but no scraped paint. I'd been trying to decide if I should chase her down and get her insurance information, but since my car isn't actually damaged I decide just to let her go.

MacGyver and the atomic bomb
I'm watching MacGyver. He and the guy he's helping have been brought into the villain's inner sanctum. The villain, a Russian, says he knows that MacGyver came to find out what he has, but he'll never reveal the secret. Mac tells his companion that in exchange for a couple thousand dollars he can get whatever it is. The villain then reveals that it's an atomic bomb. Mac starts to repeat his line about getting it for a couple thousand, but is stopped when one of the henchmen intentionally starts the detonation sequence. I see it from the perspective of a camera inside the bomb (which is itself mounted into the wall, like a safe), pointing out into the room. There's a bunch of loops of thin glass pipes inside the bomb along with a small hammer. The pipes are nested: very thin pipes running inside wider pipes with a small gap between the pipe walls. When a man dressed in a white bunny suit (no helmet) runs a paint roller down the glass face of the bomb, it seems to remove a protective coating, and his face melts off (picture the last scene of Lost Ark). Mac and his companion each jump to the side to avoid the lethal radiation spewing out of the bomb. The bomb detects the intrusion attempt and automatically causes the hammer to fall, shattering the glass tubes carrying the radioactive gasses.

Now I'm seeing a documentary about the construction of the bomb, talking about the pipes. Graphics are showing the multiple sections of inner pipe (given a fancy name), surrounded by the outer containment pipe. The inner pipe is specially designed to vanish if many standard techniques are used to get into it. The video shows a man passing <something> near the pipes; as he does so, the inner pipes just seem to phase out of existence. The graphic now show the outer containment pipe. The voice-over says that a series of detectors can tell exactly where a breach in the <inner> pipe occurs, and that if there's an inner breach, then the hammer falls to shatter the whole thing.

The documentary now moves on to discuss the effects of having the gas released. The camera's viewpoint is moving quickly through the underground hallways, coming to rest in a room with a security arch and conveyor belt (like at an airport). The video shows the gas entering the security hardware and ... something.


Fragments
I had a dream involving the security arch and conveyor belt earlier in the night, but I don't remember it.

Hotel adventure
It's late at night. I've arrived at a hotel, and I need a room. I don't see any lights on in the lobby, but I try the doors anyway, and I find that they're open. Going inside is a little creepy. Once inside, I see a dim light ahead, up a series of wide, very shallow steps. Reaching the top, I find the counter divided into many "privacy booths". One of them is lit, and I walk towards it. Someone had advised me which room to ask for, saying it was the best in the hotel, but given the late hour, I'm not very hopeful that I'll be able to get it.

Now I'm in a small bare room. I "see" a chart showing some different progressions of magic with different effects, benefits, and problems. One of them causes you first to become invisible, then to release a flash of light. The flash "powers" the next part of the magic, making you visible, a nice benefit (I forget what), but leaving you gasping. I saw some other progressions on the chart, but I don't remember the others.

I know that "they" will be coming for me soon, so I try to get ready. I realize my belt is out of its belt loops and start to rethread it. As I'm nearly done, I hear "them" approaching. I realize I should have put the rings on before worrying about the belt. "They" burst into the room and I realize with relief that I'm already wearing the rings. I launch myself at the leader, sailing through the air to hit him in the chest, knocking him backwards. It's not really flight - more like ignoring most of gravity - but it's effective. Unfortunately, he can do something similar, and we end up in a chase through the hotel. At one point, we're both shooting down a tall spiral stairwell, one where you can see all the way to the bottom through the center of the spiral. At the bottom, we're back in the room with the shallow steps. He launches himself out over the room, and I follow. Unfortunately, he's faster than I am, and I'm losing him.


Game developers visit a college
I'm in a college cafeteria. A group of guys is talking to a couple of new recruits, describing the guts of their game world. They're very proud of how non-deterministic it is, using all sorts of inputs - weather, etc - to change the game world in subtle ways. I ask about what a nightmare it must be to debug, and they agree to a point. One describes how to enable a mode that disables the external inputs. Another starts to show the class hierarchy for creating a new module inside the game. Someone is trying to find a good time and place for a technical demo. He's disappointed that the only thing that will work is once again the cafeteria. He hopes that we'll be able to get a quiet area. John is there fiddling with his phone. He hasn't been able to get Bluetooth working right, and I tease him for it.


Rotting bridge
I'm with a group of people walking on an ancient wooden bridge. I have a tiny gun which I take and throw far out into the water. One of my companions asks me why I did that. I explain that I know how these stories go: the hero gives his gun to one of his companions, asking him to watch his back. Next thing you know, that companion turns out to be a traitor and uses the hero's own gun against the hero. Now we've come to the end of the bridge. It used to go on further, but it's completely fallen apart after this point. We pick our way down the remnants of the bridge and wade in the water. As we continue on, I see our destination in the distance.


Lucid in the hotel - I did SSILD before this
I'm back in the hotel, in the stairwell. The wallpaper is old and brownish, with some kind of little squares with designs. I know I'm dreaming, and I want to fly like I did earlier. I try to will myself into the air, but nothing happens. I jump and flap my arms, and I shoot about ten feet into the air, then drift slowly downwards. Now I'm in a room. It's incredibly messy. I really want a DC to show up. I try various tricks: turning around, expecting the DC to walk in the door, etc, but no DC shows up.


Bruce Willis
I'm walking along the ring road outside a parking lot and meet Bruce Willis talking to another guy. No one else is around, there are no cars anywhere, and the guys ignore me completely, so I just stand back and listen. Bruce is pitching a new Die Hard to the other guy; the idea is received with some amusement, an air that he's just humoring Bruce. He tells Bruce that if he does this movie, then Bruce will be five, reminding him of a comment he made that Bruce gets fifteen years younger every time he does a movie. He's "Twenty" now, so he'll be five after another Die Hard. Alternatively, the timeline works out nicely if you start it from 2008, also putting us at his being five years old.

Bruce has released a new movie he wrote himself. It deconstructs many of the common action movie tropes, and is supposed to be funny, but most people agree it just doesn't have much personality. They also complain that the way he handled the depiction of the city's recession is poorly handled. Now I'm in my kitchen, telling my wife about meeting him. We get to talking about his Star Trek career, and I say that he was closely involved with Brannon Braga. I have to explain that he was one of the Star Trek writers who wrote many of the stranger scripts.

While they're talking, a guy I met the other day comes up to me and gives me a stack of books. I'd completely forgotten about him. I'd gotten one book from him at the time and asked for more. He makes a comment about "you probably won't even thank me," then leaves. I look through the books. They're on Bruce's military career. They're all fairly short books, but they sound like heavy reading. At least one has a picture of him in full military outfit on the front cover. One of the books is unrelated to the rest. I'm surprised to see that it's written by a friend of mine. The cover is bright and cartoony, and the grammar is pretty bad. Near the copyright notice, there's a comment saying the book should take less than 21 minutes to read - but again, the comment is so poorly written I have to stare at it for a minute before it makes sense.


Shoes for a competition
I'm in the mall, in a shoe store. I sign up my third daughter for some kind of competition. The man in the store thinks she's a little on the young side, but signs her up since she's technically eligible. He says she'll need new shoes to compete and starts to measure her, but we don't have time for it. I tell him we'll be back later to finish the measurements. Now we're back. The man is gone, and a woman is taking measurements for shoes. I explain why we're here. She asks me what size shoes my daughter wears, and I say that I don't know. She looks at her's current shoes and gets the size, but I point out that there's a big gap in front of her toes, and for this competition the shoes will need to fit really well. She asks me to come upstairs with her to get proper measurements.

Now we're in some kind of dormitory room. At least four beds are arranged in here. It's a fairly long room, but it's not very wide, only slightly wider than the beds are long. We're at the end of the room. Another lady has joined the first, and they're trying to make room for my daughter to lie down on the floor. There are two suitcases in the way, and they're trying to figure out what to do with them. I suggest putting them under the bed, and they think that's a good idea. I lift the mattress and the women put the suitcases under it. Instead of laying them on the floor under the mattress, they lay them so they're on the rails that hold the mattress in place. It's OK, since there's some kind of riser on the rails designed to hold the mattress up above stuff. I put the mattress back down on the risers, but it looks like it's hitting the suitcases too. This won't be a long term solution, but it should be enough to get my daughter measured.


Fragments
Something about the kids, a park, and a fire engine.

I'm talking to someone who asks me if I was ever in the navy. I explain that I went straight from school to college to work. He asks me to recommend someone for ???, and I recommend Steve S, describing him as having "salt and pepper hair, saltier than yours."

Chinese restaurant
My parents are eating at a fairly nice Chinese restaurant. I tell them about my family's experience there. We went, but thing didn't go well with the kids. We were disappointed, since it was supposed to be a treat dor them. I realize that there's no way we would have bought them all dinner, since that would be a great deal of money, so we must have fed them at home, then brought them and gotten them an appetizer (probably some egg rolls). Later, we're driving by the restaurant where my parents are and see a sign that the main parking lot is full and pointing to the backup lot. I wonder if they're still in there. We're taking a short-cut through the parking lot, about to make a left turn at the end, crosssing the street into what looks like a neighborhood entrance.

Now I'm walking through the restaurant. There's one long table running the length with people sitting all along its length. As I'm walking along it, I reach my parents. Mom is working on a plate of egg roll cut into tiny pieces, with a dipping sauce on the side.


An unusual purchase
I'm surreptitiously trying to get twenty dollars to get ???. I manage to get my father-in-law to transfer the money to one of my online accounts. Now I'm on a commuter rail, coming up to my stop. If anyone has a stop, he has to push a button so the train will stop; otherwise it'll go straight past. I see the buttons for the stop before mine pop up; it has 2 arrows on it, pointing left and right. Someone else pushes it elsewhere in the car, and the train slows down for his stop. Now the info for my stop is up, but there's only one button. I wonder if maybe it's only on one side of the car, then I realize that the car has doors front and back and the front-most door isn't going to be available for use. I grab my stuff and head back to the rear door just as we get to the platform. The rear door opens, though the train isn't actually stopped, only slowed down. I jump out before the doors have a chance to close on me. I'm not actually positive I got the right stop, but I look across the platform and see another train with the name of the station printed on it (Tell? Tenn??). I got the right station.

Now I'm in a small kitchen area trying to pay for what I came to get. There's a price sheet on the counter; the stuff is in containers in the dish washer. I see coin slots cut into cheap plastic containers on the counter, each for a different item; but the one I need doesn't have a container. Some other people are making jests at my expense. Eventually I figure out / am told that, for the item I want, the guy sitting in the dining room needs to have the payment electronically transferred to him. I pull up the appropriate app on my phone, but I've never used it before and have no idea what to do. I try to catch his attention, but he's on a call. Eventually he's done and I talk to him before he can get back into his activity. He's amused by my ignorance and starts to work me through it. I ask if he has an account with ??? and he confirms that he does - that makes things easier on me, since I have an account there too. Now I'm typing in his name (oddly, there's a note that user names on this service must start with a vowel, which his does: E). Each of his products is sixteen (sixteen what? I don't know), and I need two, so I'm sending him thirty-two.

Now I'm sitting on an enclosed porch with my in-laws and wife. My father-in-law is saying that since I still have a dollar left I should ???. I don't know where he got that impression, since I planned beforehand how much I would need and used it all. The topic of conversation changes; now I'm looking at a plate with 2 fried eggs, one of which isn't fully cooked. I try to use my fork to scrape off the partially cooked white to the side of the plate.



Mosquito tent
I'm on a parking lot in a "camping area." Nearby, a company is setting up a gigantic mosquito free tent. Now I'm in the tent. A "hallway" runs along one edge of the tent to doors at each end. A door in the middle of this hallway leads into a perpendicular hallway that leads further into the tent. Immediately to the left of that hallway is a large sitting room. My wife is in there, working on her knitting. Further on in that hallway, and to the right in other rooms, they're spraying a very fine mist of mosquito repellent. My wife reminds me that I'm holding some papers (a notebook?) and that if I go into those rooms, the papers will get wet. I wonder about that - are they spraying that much of the mist? - but I try to think of somewhere I can leave the papers. Eventually I realize I can leave them in the sitting room that doesn't have the spray.

Now I'm ready to go further into the tent. My father-in-law is with me, and he says that he can't go any further because he has a very bad reaction to the chemical they're spraying. A guy walks past us wearing a "bunny suit" and I realize my FIL could wear one of those to protect him. Now we're walking around the inner areas of the tent. He's wearing a bunny suit, though he's not wearing the hood. We round a corner and see a room filled with people working at computer stations (also in bunny suits), and I realize we're looking at the tent's control room. I'd love to get a closer look, but I know we shouldn't be here, so we turn around and head the other way.

Now I'm in another corner of the tent with Peter. This area is some kind of shop. Another couple of people I don't know come in and get something; I look at what they get. My friend opens a box and pulls out some brightly colored chalky cubes; we realize too late they're not meant to be handled without protection, and that they can cause skin irritation. He puts them back, then wipes his fingers across the countertop, leaving behind yellow streaks. I spot a sink in the back corner of the room, and I advise him to wash his hands, but he isn't too bothered by the chalky stuff. He finds some kind of electronic component and we both look at it.

Now we want to leave. We're trying to figure out where we are in the tent and how to get back out. I have a general sense of where we walked, but no certain idea.


Fragments
I'm in the basement doing something; someone is with me. People come in upstairs and take control of some of the rooms. I debate about whether to grab a hammer and go up to try to help, but the other person in the basement with me convinces me not to. I really need to use the bathroom, but the bathroom down here is still only stubbed out. Everything is very white.


I'm in a gym area. Doug is trying to teach the little kids soccer, but it's not going well since getting set up takes almost the entire scheduled time. Even now, there are still kids without shoes on. Somehow in the same context, a woman is running a discussion forum of some sort. There's some dissatisfaction with the forum - she has a fairly tight rein on it, and she's slow to moderate - and another woman is looking to set up a clone forum, pledging to be better about things.


Something about an annoying girl with magical powers, and also about dragons. When a review gives a dragon a bad mark, the dragon tries to eat the reviewer. Even if the review is providing detail, say in clearing up confusion, the dragons don't like it. I post a review and manage to word it in a way the dragons don't mind.

Garage fire
My wife just left the house, taking her car. I become aware the garage door opener is still running, so I look out into the garage. I see that it's struggling, trying to get the door down, but the door isn't moving, only shaking a little. Sparks are flying, and I see smoke and flame. Across the street, I see a group of people talking, but they're completely oblivious to what's going on. I hit the button to stop the garage door opener, run into the kitchen, grab the fire extinguisher, and run back outside. Now I'm in the garage, firing the extinguisher at the visible flames. Thankfully, they're still small. I realize that I need to be able to shoot at the base, and I can't do it from this angle. I hadn't realized it earlier, but the flames are coming from the light on the outside of the garage. Now I'm standing on the front porch, looking into the junction box of the porch light. There are still some small flames in there, and I'm spraying the extinguisher into the junction box, trying to fill it, hoping it runs down inside the walls. I think I've got it all, but I know I need to call the fire dept and have them check it out. I'll also need to call an electrician and have them check the wiring, since this was an electrical fire. Since it's in the wall, and the wall is brick, I'm not looking forward to seeing that bill.


Fragments
I'm inside a large indoor complex. The hallways are very wide. I'm in one of the rooms.


I'm in a church or some other kind of large gathering place with some other people. We're getting ready to leave to drive somewhere else, getting directions for the next place (sounds like Mandy's wedding).

PS4 graphics
Dean from Real Life Comics is reviewing the Playstation 4. He's playing a game with zombies riding bicycles, commenting on the amazing graphics, that no other previous system could render such realistic bikes.

Now there's something about a woman sitting at a cafe, trying to fake out people who want to capture her.


Fragments
Something about SQL schemas

Something about feeling sorry for a large bomb

Side-note
Third-person
Dreamsign
Missed opportunity

Meeting Kiin
I'm somewhere with a woman. We see a tall, wide man - somehow I know his name is written Caya?e, or somesuch. I think nothing of him. The woman runs up to him and hugs him and calls him Hunky Kay which is straight from Elantris, though I didn't realize it at the time. I realize his name is actually Kiin (pronounced Kai-ai-an), and I'm confused about the spelling I saw earlier, since it started with the Kai-ai sound, but it didn't end in an N.

Somehow I end up getting a bearhug from Kiin too; my face ends up somewhere in the middle of his chest. While I'm caught in the bearhug, I'm trying to unlock my tablet. Somehow I'm typing behind his back, but the password is coming up cleartext. I quickly erase it so he can't see it.


Clothes shopping
I'm in a department store, shopping for shoes. A sales lady is trying to sell me a "whole new look," but I'm not interested. I'm still trying to look at the shoes, but I don't like any of them. She finally agrees to show me some that are more like the sneakers I'm wearing, but what she comes out with is very strange - like a sneaker with the laces and tongue removed. Since the shoes she was trying to sell me earlier went well with the "new look," I finally agree to try on the clothes and shoes together. They're dressier than what I usually wear (she's given me slacks and a long-sleeved, colored button-down shirt), but they look good on me. She also hands me a color-coordinated pocket protector. I realize that with clothes like these, I need something less like sneakers and more like dress shoes.

I'm aware of something happening nearby at a black ops lab; it has something to do with a melt-down, a plumber, and a locksmith.

Now I'm comforting the saleslady, telling her it'll be OK.


Tower defense
[COLOR="#FF8C00"]I'm playing a tower defense game. I've just discovered wizard units that automatically cast freeze on anything that comes in range, and I decide these are my new favorite units. I do well for a while, but eventually I start to get overrun. I'm trying to pinch to zoom out, but it's responding really, really slowly - a single pinch barely changes the screen, and I have to do it over and over.


Impersonating the Dalai Lama
I'm traveling with some guy. For some reason, he's dressed me up as the Dalai Lama. We get out of a taxi near our hotel, and I see I have a couple of large suit cases that I really don't feel like lugging with me. My companion says "Oh, if ONLY there were SOMEONE to help the DALAI LAMA with his LUGGAGE," and suddenly we're swarmed by helpful people who would love to carry the luggage.


China's coastline
I'm on a boat, traveling along the coast of China. It only takes a few minutes to travel from one end to the other. At each end, I can clearly see the countries it borders, since each country is a different solid color (just like on a map).


Making pizza
I'm at my pastor's house, making pizza for him. It's time to take the pizza out of the oven, but I can only find one pot holder. I see that one of his daughters has the other one. I wait for her to finish using it, then take it and use the pair to get the pizza out. For some reason, I'm having a lot of trouble dealing with the pizza pan, and I'm really concerned I'm going to burn myself.


Fragment
I'm calling my credit card company to dispute a charge.

Dreamsign Missed opportunity

Clark's advice
I'm walking around in a bare house listening to Clark Howard on the radio. A man has called in complaining about discrimination against him at work. He says that for years, he's had ??? on his computer, but recently they decided that wasn't appropriate. The guy rambles, never really getting to the point, and Clark is getting annoyed with him. When he finally does get to the point, Clark is quiet for a while, and the guy says something like "Are you still there?" which annoys Clark even more. As Clark keeps asking him questions, the story changes. It's no longer ???, but now it's games the guys plays on his computer. He still doesn't see it as a problem. Now it seems that Clark has managed to remote into the guy's computer and is poking around. He doesn't find the ??? or the games - instead, he finds porn, and he tells the guy that he could be fired for that.

Graduation + bad driver
I'm at the Christ College graduation. I'm hearing (maybe giving?) a commentary on what's going on and what I'm seeing. My viewpoint is drifting slowly over a path as it winds back and forth across a small stream, past flowers, and eventually reaches a single banquet table. At the table are the president of the school, my father, and four young men who are graduating. I know one of them, and I'm acquainted with one of his friends. The banquet table is sitting out on the grass. It's a beautiful day.

Now I'm walking down the street after leaving the graduation, and I see the two graduates I know. I go up to them and comment that I'm amazed they've left already, and that at Tech the graduation would be going on for hours yet. I had to interrupt their conversation to say it, and it took some effort to get their attention. Both of them are dressed in black suites with a splash of red - maybe a flower?

Now I'm in a parking lot with my wife and kids. A guy in a small red SUV comes in too fast near us and does a terrible parking job. He's just letting his family out, so he doesn't care. He's entered his spot at a fourty-five degree angle, and the side of his car is a fraction of an inch from the bumper of car in the next spot over. My family was nearby, and I'm amazed he didn't hit them.

Now it turns out that he was so close to them that they got pushed inside his car, and we're all in his rear cargo area. Now the car is driving back out of the parking lot. I try to get the guy's attention and ask him to stop the car so we can get out. He sort of acknowledges me, but he keeps driving. I don't know what to say. My wife says he lives on the island, as if that somehow explains it. I think that maybe he's taking us to a better place to drop us off, but then I realize we'll have to walk back to the car. I have a moment of confusion as I can't remember where the car is. I remember that it's where I was talking to the graduates, but I also remember that it's in the parking lot we just left.

For some reason, I don't want to speak my thoughts aloud to my wife. I consider writing them on the tablet, but that's too slow. I'm reminded of the trouble Robert had in Rainbow's End when he first started wearing and was using the eye-board.
Now we're at an intersection. It's just a 2-lane road either direction. As we're waiting to go, I notice he's listening to the radio.

Pizza and a baby
I'm taking my baby and another of my children into a pizza place to pick up our pizza. I'm not sure how I'm going to hold the baby and the box of pizza at the same time.

Side-note Third-person Dreamsign

The shark
I'm in a small boat with two other guys. A larger boat is nearby. A shadow in the water is circling us, nudging us away from the big boat, I don't see a fin, but I know it's a shark.

Research station
I'm at a tropical research station. It's a picturesque place, with trees all around, a river to my left, and a row of low off-white buildings. Due to the government shutdown, many of the experiments running here have been ruined and will take months or years to redo. They can't even afford their normal buildings, so they're renting out a motel to have space for the few of them who are left to work in.

Now, I'm driving, making a tight corner near the research base and driving up a mountain road.

Messed up clocks
I finally give up on my WILD attempt and try to check the time. First, I look at my phone, but it's showing something crazy. It looks like a clock, but the characters are thin and purple and show an impossible time. I'm concerned that something's crashed or gone haywire, but then I realize I was in the media player and this is showing the play time.

I look at the clock on my nightstand and see that it's just short of eight o'clock, and I'm horrified: I overslept by nearly 2 hours, and I'm late for work by one hour. I check the alarm settings on my phone to see what happened. As far as I can tell, I set the alarm properly, but it never went off. This is the second time this has happened; I'm seriously concerned about the reliability of this phone now.

I really had been trying to WILD; I must have fallen asleep during the attempt.

City transit
I'm in a city, driving, pulling out of a parking lot. A shuttle bus gives me room to pull out of the parking lot I'm in, which I'm grateful for - traffic is heavy. I get in the right-most lane, then move over another lane. This is a big road with at least 4 lanes in each direction.

Now I turn onto a road, then realize it's the wrong one. It's fairly narrow and has no markings. Up ahead, I see a spot that looks like a good turnaround; when I get to it, it turns out to be a small parking lot with slots on either side of the road, so it's perfect. I swing right, then all the way around to the left. As I start to head back down the road, I see giant white arrows painted on it pointing the direction I was originally heading, against how I'm traveling now. Whoops: it's a one-way street. I'm not too far from the entrance, and no cars are coming, so I go ahead and drive back down it anyway.

Now I'm on the sidewalk with my bike, walking beside it. I think about getting on it properly, but then I see another guy also walking with his bike - running, in fact, to get to a* traffic light and across the crossing before it changes. I follow his example.

Now that I'm across the street, I think again about mounting the bike, but I can't figure out how. The handlebars are a kind of oval shape, so I try sitting on it, but that doesn't work at all. I'm coming up on a really crowded part of the sidewalk, so I fold up my bike a little, but not very well. Troy's road bike folds much more easily, and I consider again whether it was a mistake to get a mountain bike.

Now the sidewalk across the street in front of me is completely blocked - it looks like people are getting ready to view a parade. I'm forced to turn right; I'm going to have to figure out how to get back where I need to be.

Now I'm in hallways underground. Near the stairs out, I come across a troubled youth. He's black, with short frizzy hair, and he's mumbling something I can't really make out. My first reaction is just to avoid him and keep moving, but then I have compassion on him. I realize he probably doesn't get much love, and I determine to show him some. I rest my hands on his head, and he seems to calm down some. He's still mumbling something - I think it's about nuns or the Roman Catholic church - and I try to think how to tell him about the saving work of Christ. I happen to look down and realize that his right foot is about the size of my young daughter's, though his left foot is normal. A male teacher walks by and makes a brief comment about him.

Attack animals
Someone has engineered a bunch of little animals designed to take down a huge animal. I see them swarming the huge animal's feet, generally getting crushed underfoot. They're calling strategy to each other.

Stuck
Underground, I see a huge door. It's been damaged at the bottom, and there's a chipmunk boy scout stuck under it (he's wearing a red-and-green uniform). A nearby adult mole (also in uniform) is trying to figure out how to free the scout. Suddenly, flame erupts from the top of the door right above the scout and starts to drip down. The mole panics and flees, ashamed that he couldn't save the scout; but the flames actually end up burning away the part of the door trapping the scout, freeing him.

October 12, 2013

A third-person memory
A dreamsign
Missed opportunity

At the beach
I'm standing by the road near a beach. From where I'm standing, there's a steep, rocky incline to get down to it. Along the beach to my right is an impassable wall of rock; to the left, the beach goes on forever. Now I'm down on the beach. I've come here to feed the birds, but there aren't as many birds around as I'd expected. I remember there's supposed to be somewhere nearby where there's a cabin in the water that the birds like to flock to.

Now I'm inside somewhere, sitting at a table with some other people. We're trying to figure out where the cabin-in-the-water is. Someone finally figures it out: it's a nearby Crab Shack. I can see it now: it's a small building, made out of wide, dark boards, covered in strings of big Christmas lights, sitting out in the water and accessible by a 20 foot long pier.

We have no desire to go there, but thinking about a restaurant has made us hungry. We try to figure out where to go. Now we're at a restaurant, looking at the menu board. We're disappointed: all the options are either incredibly cheap ($7 for the whole family, which seems questionable) or very expensive ($40+ for one plate).

Now I'm sitting at a small table, looking at a "magazine." Across the pages I'm looking at are thumbnails of the other pages in the magazine. I somehow choose one of the thumbnails; now I'm looking at the full-sized page. It's a super-hero comic book / graphical novel of some sort. I'd been interested in this for a while, and I was excited to find a copy; but now that I'm looking at it, it's very revealing. I have no desire to look at this kind of material, so I close it and put it back on the table.


Working for Maudia
I'm at a large house meeting with a woman named Maudia. She's interested in having me do some work for her around the house. Now we're in a large tool shed, and she's showing me a drill bit that's about an inch wide and about 3 feet long. It comes with a special tool that hooks onto the drill that pushes it forwards as it drills. I ask her what she could possibly need such a large drill bit for. She explains that they needed it when they were working on some pipes. From the end with the faucet, the pipe went back into the wall for a couple of feet, then hit a 90 degree angle and went down. They needed this drill bit to go along from the faucet end and put a hole in the back of the angle piece. With the hole in place, they were able to stick a feathery something in that hung out the faucet end. It all sounded pretty strange, but it was somehow involved in a publicity stunt, so it was supposed to be strange.

This is actually the second time I've met with Maudia. I first met with her a couple of months ago, and she went over her list of tasks with me then. I apologize for not getting back to her sooner, and she accepts my apology on the condition that I don't do it again.

Now I'm filling a collander with water. Even though it has lots of holes, it's holding the water easily. Now the son is in the same room as I am; he just ignores me. Now Maudia's husband is talking to me about a project he wants me to work on with him. It's something to monitor the house while they're gone, and it'll involve both hands-on electronics work as well as a fair amount of programming. I ask him what kinds of alerts he wants available, and he starts out with both phone and email alerts. I explain that email is easy, but that phone alerts would have a number of additional challenges. As an alternative, I suggest both SNMP and RSS, and he approves. He also wants a nice web page to go with it. I explain that I'm a backend guy, and while I can build a web page, it'll be functional yet ugly, and that a modern second grader could probably make a better looking web page than I can. I'll design the site to be very modular so that someone else with more design skills can come along later and reskin the site without having to touch any of the logic.

Now it's night, and I'm with him in the car. He's driving, I'm in the front passenger seat, and his daughter is in the back seat. She keeps tapping me on the shoulder, trying to get my attention. When I finally acknowledge her, she says she found stuff in the back seat that belongs to me, and she's been waiting to give it to me. She gives me a handful of coins and a key. I'd been given the key so I could get into the house, but then I promptly lost it.

Now we're at his office building. We walk into his office, which is a large room with a single fairly large cube in the middle. He gets something - a key - from his cube, then walks over to the corner of the room. He sticks the key into a crack in the wall and pushes, revealing a secret door. I ask him about it; all he'll say is that it's a "red room," which means it's not on the blueprints. I follow him in, then close the door behind me. I become self-conscious and ask if I did the right thing, but he shushes me. He walks over to a pair of laptops on a shelf on the other side of the room. He logs into the first laptop by speaking: it recognizes his voice. He then logs into the second laptop by doing a perfect impression of his coworker's voice. Some kind of video conference is started between the two laptops.

Now the room is changing around me - I think it's using holograms to appear different. It's also projecting many people - the place looks like a dinner party with people mingling and talking. No one seems to notice me. I see a few famous people walking around, including Patrick Stewart, who walks right past me.

Now my host is lying on the ground, dead. Someone says that he knew that next time he threw up, he'd die, and it'd finally happened. He must have known it was coming on; that explains why he was moving so quickly tonight. Someone finds a blanket and wraps him up with finality.

Now I'm back home, walking up a long driveway to a house in the woods. To the right of the entry stairs is a large hanging garden. I walk up to it and insert the key into one of the beams.


Sidewalk work
I'm in the office with two of my daughters. I hear some odd noises from the outside and go to the window to look. A construction crew is doing something in my front yard. Now I'm downstairs looking out the front window at what the crew is doing. I'd forgotten that, as part of the work they'd be doing, they'd have to rip up and re-pour the sidewalk leading up to the house. They're ripping up the sidewalk now and are nearly done. I'm momentarily confused when I notice that the sections they've already pulled up are already overgrown with grass, as if there had never been a sidewalk there; but I don't give it any furthe thought. To remove the old sidewalk, they first use a hammer-like tool to knock holes in the concrete, then they use a narrow white tube (looks like a piece of paper, rolled up) to deliver a blasting charge into the hole. Once they've prepared an entire segment of the sidewalk in this way, they blow it up. I realize my son would like to see this.

Now I'm upstairs in his room. His bed has some kind of lid to it, and it's currently down, closing him in. I know he closed the lid because he likes to sleep where it's really dark. I open the lid and tell him he needs to come quickly if he wants to see something neat; but since he's still really groggy, I pick him up and carry him. As I pass the office, I tell the girls to come too.

Now I'm back downstairs. I'm disappointed that the workers aren't outside any more. A worker lounging in one of my chairs inside says they finished a long time ago. I take my son over to the window and start to point out what they were doing so that my getting him up wasn't a complete waste. As I'm pointing things out to him, I see a fish tank near the street. Inside the tank is a doll in the act of throwing a basketball into a doll-sized basketball hoop. I remember the workers told me the kids could practice throwing a basketball if they wanted to, and I realize they meant they could use this piece of junk. I'm glad I turned the workers down and didn't get my kids' hopes up for nothing.


Women at the airport
At an airport, my viewpoint is following a young man who's up to no good. He goes up to a ticket booth and starts talking to a young woman inside, who is very taken with him. An older woman in the ticket booth scolds the younger woman for being too easy. She explains that any time her thoughts stop syncing properly, that she gets very excited; and that once her thoughts get back in sync, she doesn't remember any of the out-of-sync period. The older woman doesn't accept this explanation and keeps scolding her.


Fragment
I'm trying to find something, and I finally remember that it's in my wife's purse.