non-lucid

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.

Cleaning the pantry / Heart allergies
I'm in the pantry helping the kids clean. There's a HUGE pile of stuff against the back wall (deeper than the room really is in real life). We've made a fairly significant dent in the middle of the pile, but there's still a lot left. We need to be careful figuring out what's good and what's trash; we don't want to throw away something that's useful. The kids are rather less careful than I am, and I'm concerned they might throw away something that shouldn't be thrown away. I try to keep a close eye on them, but I assume I'm probably missing some things. Now I'm in the family room, near the kitchen. My wife is in her chair near the window. The room feels crowded, though I can't remember what with. She's holding up a small black square (about a square inch) with a raised golden l on it, saying that she's got all the letters to this set, but has anyone seen the numbers? Somehow, I know that all but one of the numbers have been trashed, and I'm disappointed that my prediction came true.

Somehow, our neighbour from across the street is involved, turning the topic from the missing numbers to a girl receiving experimental treatments at the hospital. They're doing something along the lines of rebuilding pathways in her heart. I see a live 2D picture of ... I don't know, blood flow, maybe? The image is short but wide, showing what looks like a tunnel with manholes at the front and back, mostly filled with something solid at the bottom and with a lot of gelatinous material along the top. The hospital is generally having good success with her, though they're very concerned about potential allergic reactions. They're looking for volunteers to help test things before exposing the girl to them to make sure they won't hurt her. Someone is describing the test procedure to me, saying they freeze your heart (literally, not figuratively) and then expose it to the potential allergen. I ask how this is possible, how they can freeze your heart, how they can keep you alive with a frozen heart. The person explaining clarifies that they only freeze a thin layer on the outside of the heart, so it doesn't impact the functioning of the heart. In my mind's eye, I see a heart with a thin layer of frost on it. It's still kind of like open heart surgery, though, since they need to be able to have the heart fully exposed on top to do it.

Now I'm seeing in a hospital's wide corridor. A couple of guys are talking about the procedure. One says that they always do it with you in a hospital bed, just in case something goes wrong and you have to go into surgery to fix it. One of them says something about the drugs making you loopy. The other concurs, referencing a guy who almost does this as a side job, but who's known for trying to tell anyone who will listen that the sun goes down, not up.

Dreamsigns:
Context - Object place:
- Pile in pantry
Object - Form:
- Pantry is the wrong size
- Blood flow monitor
Context - Situation:
- Freezing hearts
Action - Character:
- Strange sun guy


Artful birds
I'm in a wooded area. I see an ancient stone wall with artwork at the top. The artwork is made of many many square holes through the wall. It's roughly triangular in shape, though there's quite a bit of detail in the middle and around the edges. It looks like of like a face. Somehow I know it's called the "sorcerer's skull." Behind the wall, I see a medium-sized red bird and know that this type of bird is responsible for creating all the sorcerer's skulls in the stones in this area.

Dreamsigns:
Character - action:
- Birds that peck artwork into stone


Company get-together
I'm at a restaurant having some kind of company get-together involving both current and former employees. I spend a while talking with TB and DN; I also talk with JV and a couple of other people. JV asks if I'm a grand parent yet. I lay out the timeline of how long I've been in the work force, how long I was in college, and when I started college, then tell him to "Do the math" which everyone thinks is really funny.

I'm saddened to learn that OB recently died in a military training accident. I'm seeing something about the accident that killed him. A group of soldiers were being trained on forklift usage. One of them - a man who's caused injury with a forklift in the past - somehow ends up using the forklift to throw a baseball bat at OB at high speed, killing him. The instructor is under investigation, not least for allowing a man with a history of forklift recklessness to operate one again. I see a road with military buildings around it. Up ahead, there's a gap in the road.

Now I see people with motorcycles jumping the gap. Now it's some kind of game, jumping it, doing something on the other side, then jumping back, trying to be the fastest. Now I see a woman on a wooden motorcycle (it's a pale wood, nicely varnished) doing it. She jumps the gap, hits a half-pipe at the end, does a one-eighty, flips right-side-up, and lands at full speed headed back towards the gap. Unfortunately, as she hits, a tiny clasp on the front fork of the bike snaps off and the wheel falls out. There's murmuring that maybe the current record is unbeatable, but she just jams the clasp back in and tries again. I question whether that will be effective, since the clasp is broken; but I admire her tenacity.

Dreamsigns:
Context - character role:
- OB isn't dead
Context - situation:
- JV should know I'm many years from being a grandparent
- Forklift / baseball bat injury
Object - form:
- Wooden motorcycle


Urban LARPers
I'm driving in a vaguely familiar area. I think that, if I make a left off of my current four lane road, pass two short roads on my right, then turn at the first "normal" length road (roads in this area seem to be on a very precise grid; I somehow have an aerial view), I'll reach a grocery store. Now I'm on foot, walking on one of the short roads. Now I'm watching a couple of groups of people doing what looks like tactical urban LARPing. One group is trying to go through an alley. Now I'm watching a girl give a post-mortem. I gather that each person on the team has different abilities, and everyone (even enemies) are able to see how many abilities each person has equipped. As the team's mage, she had the most abilities equipped and was the most valuable member. She knew that her team would be passing through an enemy-held choke-point, so she temporarily unequipped all her spells so it wouldn't be obvious that she was the mage. Unfortunately, she miscalculated; she forgot that everyone has at least one skill, so by turning all hers off, she still stuck out and was still targeted and eliminated by the other team.


Alien resistance
I'm watching people pilot futuristic ships above a futuristic dystopia. They're going into depressions where an alien is, stunning it, then using a long "straw" to suck out some kind of golden gel. They've done this many times before, and this run is going well. Ahead of them, the city rises on the side of a mountain. A giant monstrous one can be seen about half way up, but they're staying away from it, and for some reason it's not going after them. I see a female pilot doing the last of her run when something goes wrong with the straw. Goop starts coming back out the straw. She knows that the alien will be waking up in a few moments, and that she should leave, but she's determined to get the last of it. Now her craft has been downed; worse yet, it's near the giant one. She's running around, dodging, trying to escape and do as much damage as she can. Now she's in her ship, trying to sabotage it. Now she's back outside and blows the ship with some bipedal enemies in it. Now I'm in a basement watching all this as a movie on TV, listening through my BlueTooth headset. (This is nothing like my basement; it's finished, very clean, very white, and very empty.) My chair is in one corner of the room with the high end of the stairs to my right. The TV is in the opposite corner from me. I hear footsteps on the stairs. I try to pause the movie, but the remote isn't working. My wife comes down, sees it, gives me a disapproving glance without saying anything, and talks about whatever it is she came down for.

Dreamsigns:
Action - Object:
- The TV remote doesn't work
Context - setting place:
- The basement is nothing like my real basement

Mall changes
I'm observing in a mall. There's a long gently sloping hallway that's packed with people. No openings are visible to either side. A woman is directing some kind of contest. She's very attractive, though she's very scantily dressed, and her "clothing" seems to be painted on. Wide white bands go from her groin up over her shoulders, and a turquoise band wraps around her waist and hips. Now I see a long, LONG "water slide" in the hallway. It's about six feet wide and a foot deep. A couple of men are slowly going down it, and it seems to be turning them into clones of the painted woman. Their bodies are gradually changing, and whenever they bump against the sides it's in just the right place to add more paint.

Dreamsigns:
Context - object place:
- Malls don't have water slides
Context - situation:
- Water slides don't change people


Fragments
I'm driving around a lake on roads surrounded with trees. Everything is white (snowy?).

I'm watching kids put on "fat suits." They're so large that there's an overhead pulley system to hold up the belly.

Food!
I'm with my wife (and presumably my family, though I don't remember them) at a large grocery store. We're near the deli area, and we're hungry, so we decide to get some food. Going near the counter to look at the menu, it looks and feels like a normal fast food place. They have hamburgers, which we aren't really interested in, and pizza, which is much more interesting. They have some precooked pizzas which they sell by the slice, but they also have a slightly hidden option to get a full pizza made. We decide to go with a full pizza - we don't mind the wait too much, and it's much more economical. My wife thinks we should go with a medium pizza, but I'm pretty sure our family will need the large. Up on a shelf, propped up against the wall, I see the pizza pans (labeled) and point them out to her, and she agrees we need the large. Now the whole area is filled with little round tables with chairs. My wife and I are sitting at one of the tables, and someone else is with us. The seating area is massive.

Now I'm in a line to get some food from a small rectangular table. The line passes by one end of the table then wraps back around (a very poor way to handle it, though I don't notice at the time). There are thirty-five of us in line, and there's a marginal break between each group of five (or maybe seven). The plate color seems to follow a repeating pattern: the first person in each group has one color, the second has a different color, etc. My oldest daughter is right in front of me; she isn't happy with her place in line because it means she has the blue plate, but I tell her she just needs to accept it.

Now I'm at the table serving myself. The first platter has strips of what looks to be roasted pork; I get some. The next platter seems to have the same dish, but instead of being nicely cut, this one is just kind of pulled apart. I grab a hunk. On the other side of the table, the platters have chicken, and they weren't cut up at all; instead, they have a carving knife and big fork on each platter, ready to cut however you want it. The left-hand chicken has already had nearly all the breast meat cut off. The right-hand chicken has a little more breast meat, but not by much. Neither one has had the dark meat touched yet.

Dreamsigns:
Not much really stands out. The food counter could have been at Costco; they sell sandwiches, pizzas, salads, and other random stuff. The restaurant seating was a little larger than usual, but it's possible. The meat around the table could be at any Thanksgiving or Christmas get-together. The only individual thing that stands out is the grouped line with colored plates. Of course, put it all together with the scene changes and it becomes a lot stranger.

Fragments
It's dusk. There's a path going up-hill. A woman is in a room on the left doing something sneaky.

Sale at Home Depot
I'm shopping at Home Depot, looking at what's left of the sale items. A lot of the good sales are either over or have sod out. I overhear a nearby employee talking about the $1000 bonus that all the Home Depot employees will be receiving after their shift is over. Listening further, it turns out that this is the second half of their Christmas bonus, so they're actually all getting a total of $2000. I try not to be jealous, but I think how nice it would be to have an extra couple thousand dollars to spend. I remind myself that I got a good bonus earlier in the year, and that it was welcome, even if it did have to go to home repairs and not to anything fun.

Now I'm sitting at a table near the cash registers, talking with my in-laws. A cashier is talking about taking spicy peas (like wasabi peas, but not called that) on vacation, because when they're dropped into the water they "bloom" and make amazing, beautiful patterns, showing what the underwater currents are doing. I think this sounds neat, but unfortunately it wouldn't work at our normal vacation spot, where the water is always cloudy. The cashier says he(?) vacations in Colorado, where the water is always clear. I think the water there must also always be cold, but I don't say anything. The cashier goes on to say that something similar can be done with a certain kind of peanut, but it's hard to find. Someone at my table says that they're easy to make. Now, we have a tray filled with peanuts, ketchup, mustard, and some kind of spice powder. Something has gone wrong; the peanuts are supposed to end up dry, but this batch is completely drowned in the ketchup and mustard. It's really pretty disgusting. A couple of peanuts get knocked on the floor; as I reach over to pick them up, I hear the cashier muttering something about this not being right.

Now I'm wandering the aisles looking for something or someone. The shelving units are too high for me to see the tops. Now I'm talking with another employee, asking him about the thing I need to buy. I tell him I'm interested in a particular color; he says he's not sure where they are, but he'll go get another guy who's more familiar with this product, and they'll find some and bring them out to me so I can pick the one with the color I like. As he goes through an employees-only door, he seems to wave for me to follow. I don't want to get in trouble for going somewhere I shouldn't, but he's now rounded a corner so I can't ask if he really meant for me to follow. I poke my head through the door and look around and see that I'm very close to another customer area. I take a quick shortcut through the employees area back to the other customer area, hoping this is what he meant.


MacGyver and tribal people
I'm watching MacGyver as he sneaks around some kind of hi-tech facility. Everything is brightly lit and very white, and the hallways are lightly curved. He comes across a room with what look like odd stones (long and narrow rectangles with the corners cut off) across the threshold of the doorway. He uses a piece of some kind of card to touch the stones, shoving the card down into the stones' frame. Something shorts out, and he steps into the room, explaining that his card made out of ???? was able to short out the force field generators (the stones). A man and a woman, dressed in lab coats, are huddling in the room. They're very glad to see Mac, but they say that a third guy was recently taken to become some kind of slave. They're glad Mac has saved them from the same fate, but they'd like him to go rescue their friend. I have a vision of a man stripped to his underclothes, hands tied behind his back, kneeling in a shallow rocky creek.

Now I'm standing at the back of a large group of tribal people. We're in the middle of an open field with a light scattering of tall, skinny apple trees. Some of the taller men in the group are picking apples off of nearby trees to give to others around them. I'm tempted to ask for an apple myself, but I'm too shy to go up to them. A rather large middle-aged woman is standing near an apple tree, telling some kind of story she thinks is both highly amusing and also very informative, though to my ears it's neither. She says she was talking to someone and pointed out "There's an apple." When her companion agreed, she said it again, and again, until he was very confused as to why she was talking about it - isn't it obvious that there are apples on the tree? She goes on to explain that when she said "There's an apple," what she really meant was what an amazing process it was for an apple to fall into the ground, a new tree to grow up, and an apple to form on the new tree. I look more closely at her and realize that her clothes don't cover as much as they should. I move behind a taller man in the group to block my view, not wanting to make it obvious that I don't want to look at her.

Now I'm around a nearby bend in the terrain. I know the other group is near, but I can't see or hear them. There's another group, this one not tribal, all very well dressed and proper. I see a well-groomed, well-dressed tribal man near a young girl. He sidles up to me and whispers that she may be the apple or the tree, then returns to her side. I realize he was the third man in the room who was taken to be a slave. He seems to be her caretaker, and he seems very content in his role and very fond of her. Now I'm back with the tribal group. I pull aside a guy I know and give him the other guy's message. He looks confused, so I tell him I think it means the girl is going to turn out alright. The tribal people hate the other group, so he scoffs at the idea that any of them could ever turn out to be all right.

Now I'm back to watching MacGyver, watching the third part of a three part episode. I think it's strange that the third part is only half the length of the other two parts. I see an SUV that's fallen into a deep pool, though it hasn't yet sunk because it caught on the rocks just right. There's something about a contestant nearly dying because he tried to be flashy, attaching a distraction explosive to the car instead of doing it the simple way. I see someone attach a rounded red cylinder to the SUV's handle, shaking it, almost making it sink. Now I see something about a large alien ship. It's sending out a slowly rotating laser beam, a solid "plane" of light going out along the long axis of the ship. It makes a complete rotation around the ship every few hours, and anyone in its way has to take shelter. I realize that if I only watch the first one and a half episodes of this three parter, the laser won't have reached me, and I can do that as often as I want; but it seems a shame not to finish the story, so I may have to brave the laser.

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.

Being given a cat
I'm in my car, using my BlueTooth headset on a call with Mom and someone. I leave the car and start to walk towards the church. Now I'm in church. I realize that as I was walking in, I absentmindedly took the headset out of my ear, so there was a good minute of conversation I missed. I look at something on my tablet. There are tables scattered around the room; it looks like they're setting up for potluck. I happen to look at the plates, and see that instead of our usual divided styrofoam plates they ended up with paper plates with flower designs.

Now I'm looking at a nearby coat rack. It's low, at least as low as clothing racks in a store. Many oddly-colored suit jackets are hung on it. Now I'm standing with my friend PS in front of a large open cabinet near the coat rack. He's going to be giving me his cat along with supplies to care for it. Included in the list of supplies is a cricket box along with a few spare crickets. I've never heard of letting a cat play with a cricket in a box, but I'll be interested to see how it works out. Another item in the cabinet looks like a small fan with a plug jutting straight out of it. Somehow, it's supposed to help cats. I have a moment of confusion - how would that be useful for anything? - but then I remember that I'd seen these a while back and had really wanted one. I remember reading about someone decyphering the protocol using an HTTPS sniffer. It turns out they can scan a whole network using SNMP and report on the names and health of all the attached computers.

Now I'm near the cabinet, but we're outside looking over a railing. We seem to be on a deck raised a few feet off the ground, with a foot or two of water beneath us in some sort of ornamental pond. A dog has chased PS's cat into the water and is now holding it down. I'm concerned it's going to drown the cat, but as I'm about to jump over the railing to save the cat, the dog relents and helps the cat get to the edge of the pond.

Now I'm in a nearby room, using what looks like a tall, thin ATM; but it deals with some kind of artificial currently, not real money. As I start to use the machine, Mom goes into a nearby store, where I'll meet her after I'm done. PS has given me his card, and I use it to get money out of the machine. I don't think he has much on there, so I tell it to withdraw everything. It starts spitting a huge quantity of strange-looking coins into a hopper on the front. I realize I should have checked the balance before getting everything out. I decide to deposit most of the coins back into the machine, but I realize I don't know how. I have a second card used for deposits, but it's half the size of the normal card and has strange markings on the top. I realize a line has formed behind me, and I don't want to delay them any longer, so I dump all the coins into a Ziploc bag and go on my way. The man behind me in line thanks me for my consideration. I decide to go by my car first and leave half the coins in my backpack.

Dreamsigns:
Action: Ego
- Taking the BlueTooth headset out of my ear
Context: Object
- Wrong plates
- Strange coats and coatrack
- Cricket box
- Cat fan network sniffers
Awareness: Thought
- Confusion about using ATM


Camping weirdness
I'm at a camp site, setting up the tent. The footprint of the tent is huge - probably 50' x 50'. Somehow, it's suspended a couple of feet off the ground. I'm on my back under it, working with a very long strap and some shorter Velcro straps. Later, we're shaken because something really bad almost happened to us (no idea what). We'd been planning to pack up and drive to the next campsite, but we decide to stay an extra night here. My wife hopes she'll be able to get to sleep and won't be too bothered by whatever it was.

Now it's morning. The tent is already packed up. All over the ground, I see regular square holes - probably 4" x 4" x 6" - from where the legs of the tent depressed the ground. Now we're driving on a major road. I pull off onto the shoulder, deciding this would be a good place to set up the tent for tonight. Looking behind the car, I see the tent as a large canvas trailer behind us. Looking beyond the tent, I see a car veer off the road heading straight for us, getting back on the road only just in time to not hit us. As soon as he's back on the road, another car does the same thing. I decide this is a terrible place to camp, and we get back on the road. I take a nearby exit, hoping that being away from the road will be a safer place for us to camp. At the end of the exit ramp is a large welcome archway proclaiming that there's plenty of free land nearby. Now my awareness is split: I'm driving the car, excited about the prospect of getting a good camp site for the night; but I'm also watching myself as if in a movie while hearing an ominous voiceover saying that not everything is as it seems, that there's something unnatural about this place.

Dreamsigns:
Context: Object
- Bizarre tent
Awareness: Thought
- Decision to camp on the shoulder
Context: Situation
- Near car accidents
- Ominous narration

Dreaming kids
The kids and I are all sleeping in the same bedroom. We've woken up in the middle of the night, and I want all my kids to go back to sleep. They're anxious to try all the various lucid dreaming induction techniques, but I put my foot down and tell each child to choose one technique, try it, then sleep. I see a list of techniques, with many of them grayed out. I'm particularly worried that the younger ones will fail over and over, start talking about it, and create a big blob of failure that will affect all of us.

Dreamsigns:
Context: Situation
- All of us sleeping in the same bedroom


Strange vacation
I'm on vacation with friends. I'm looking through a magazine and run across an article on making the author's favorite beer. The ingredients are very strange, calling for the specialty grains, then lots and lots of hard liqueur. I show it to Jeff, asking what he thinks the author is trying to do and if there's any possible way this could work - wouldn't the alcohol kill off the yeast before it could make beer? Now I'm looking at the candles on the table. They all have a lot of molten wax in them with only a thin ring of solid wax around the rim. One of them finally melts through the last of the solid wax and the molten wax starts pouring out. There's a small tool that's been left with the candles, and it ends up acting as a straw, sucking molten wax from other candles into the pouring one, pouring all the molten wax from all the candles out the one "spout." I point it out to the kids and try to explain what's happening. We like the candles, and I decide that I'll make some for home. I think some homemade candles would be a good Christmas gift for my wife.

Now I'm in a small bathroom talking to a real estate agent on the phone. He's been very, very persistent. I keep trying to get rid of him; but then I realize that it's Wednesday, that my friends have already gone home, and I'll be here until Friday, so I have an entire day to kill. I briefly consider looking at houses with the agent, but I decide against it.

Dreamsigns:
Context: Character place
- Vacationing with these friends
Object: Form
- Strange beer recipe
- Wax "straw"
Action: Character
- Annoying real estate agent
Action: Ego
- Talking on the phone in the bathroom

Star Trek makeup
I'm looking at a site talking about Star Trek. It has a post describing the makeup and lighting conditions shows are filmed in, along with what they have to do to get them broadcast ready. I see a group of people in Next Generation uniforms talking and walking around. Their makeup looks terrible, especially the huge amounts of eyeliner under the eyes, and the lighting is bad, reflecting off of their foreheads and casting harsh shadows. I know this is what they have to do to make it look right on film, but it's still unpleasant to look at. A transition "wipes" across the video, comparing what it looks like in real life to what it looks like when it's actually on TV, and it's amazing to see the difference. On the left, the horrible makeup and lighting. On the right, perfect skin tone and lighting, with no sign of anything artificial.

Dreamsigns:
Star Trek


Graduation problem
I'm watching a video of a graduation. People are in a long, long line, winding through a building, waiting to get their diplomas. One guy points to a railing going up some shallow steps, pointing out a spot that's weak and giving a plan to fix it. The videographer is interested, also looking at the spot on the railing and wanting to give the plan a chance. Now I'm with Peter, moving furniture so we can get a large black leather sofa out from its nook. Once we get it out, we carry it to a bedroom so it can be used in the solution to the railing. Once we're there, I see Peter's wife and realize I don't have any pants on; I duck out of sight so as not to offend her.

Dreamsigns:
Context: Situation
- Sofas as a fix to bad railings
Form: Ego
- Missing pants


Lawn danger
I'm on my front lawn, walking up towards the street. I see what looks like a peeled carrot sticking out of the ground, moving around a little. I use a pair of tongs to try to grab it, but it's strong and manages to move away. Now there's a large hole in the ground, revealing the monster beneath. The carrot stick is meant to lure prey towards it. Uncovered, though, it's not much threat. There are other strange creatures on my lawn, including dwarves; all of them are completely harmless.

Now I'm in the front corner of my yard talking with three guys. Something comes up about betrayal. Suddenly, one of them lunges for me, trying to kill me. Neither of us has any fighting training, so we roll around for a while, occasionally delivering a blow. He gets a knife from somewhere and comes very close to slashing me. Somehow I get it away from him and drive it into his chest. I'm glad the fight is over, but I'm devastated that I had to kill someone.

Dreamsigns:
Context: Situation
- The carrot monster and other strange creatures
- The fight

Fragments
Something about a parking deck.

I'm in a house with some people.

Quantum radios
The first part of the dream involves something about a T intersecttion on impossibly long straight roads and a time machine.

Now I'm working with ??? trying to set up a quantum radio station. We have one component we need, but we can't find the transmitter. We know it looks like an orange, and we know the general area it's been hidden in, but we can't find it. Part of the problem is that it may not currently look like an orange; it could be disguised as anything. That being said, we're told it will always look out of place. ??? and I are going over and over the area where it could be, checking everything, picking up and feeling anything that gives the slightest impression of being out of place. We have a working receiver, but we can't use it to track down transmitters because each transmitter acts like four separate transmitters in different locations (because quantum). I keep coming back to one room with an open-backed bookshelf. Something about the bookshelf or the stuff on the bookshelf just seems off. I keep looking at everything, sometimes picking up everything. Another team already has their transmitter working there, so it's unlikely that my transmitter is nearby, but I keep coming back to it anyway. On the bookshelf I find things that are like my Powerball but not - they have a strange spiral/tornado thing inside which the ball moves around in. I take a couple of minutes away from looking for the transmitter to pick up and use one. The guy running the bookshelf transmitter picks up another one to demonstrate, but I already know how to use it and spin it up quickly.

My teammate reminds me that I had a "vision" of it when I looked into a mirror, that in my mind's eye I could see a pinkish/reddish ball. He assumes that's our transmitter, and we need to find that. There's another room we spend a lot of time in looking for the transmitter. It's at the end of the hall and looks like a store room. It's full of all kinds of junk, including a lot of food prep tools, also a lot of forks. While we're trying to find the transmitter, we're also getting content ready. Someone hails us as having really good, fair content.

Now we've finally got our station running, though it's not working right yet. We have to drive back and forth to the transmitter to tweak it and then check it. My wife is involved now and notices that according to the receiver, the transmitter is currently set to "liberal." She tells me I need to go fix that, NOW. I tell her that I'm sure that I left it set to conservative, that someone else must have messed with it, but I'll go take care of it.

Dreamsigns:
Form: Setting
- Impossibly long, straight roads
Form: Object
- Strange Powerball
- Vision of red transmitter
- Transmitter that looks like an orange
Context: Situation
- Time machine
- Quantum radio
- Can't find things
Context: Setting
- Junk storage room
Action: Object
- Transmitter political settings


Alien troublemakers
Dax and Bashir are eating at a table outside a restaurant. She's finishing her meal. He's still eating his hamburger when he's called away. Now I see Dax sitting by herself finishing his hamburger. She's making Mmmm Mmmm sounds like it's the best thing she's ever had. She's got two forks and is devouring everything on the plate, down to the lettuce and fried onions. Her coordination is poor and she ends up pushing things around more than she actually picks them up, but she's determined to finish it all. A couple of janitors are cleaning up near her table and she says "This is delicious! Do you want some?" The younger janitor says something like "Uhh, sure?". The older one leans forwards and quietly says "The correct answer is 'no.'" Dax is also embarrassed, since she now has no food to share.

Now two women are siting with her. A normal glass of wine is in front of Dax, and a small tumbler of wine is in front of one of the other women. While one woman (without any wine) distracts her, the other takes a tiny cup filled with something that looks like wine and puts a few drops in Dax' wine, then pours the rest into her own cup. She and Dax drink. Almost immediately, Dax notices that she's getting very tired and feeling kind of strange, but she doesn't have the presence of mind to fight it or call for help. She just makes some comment about having to go with them, but couldn't they at least change the name of the place to something less embarrassing?

Somehow related to the above, some kind of alien invasion is going on. A guy is somehow able to use his phone to jump into alternate / parallel realities to try to figure out how to fight the aliens. He's only got five jumps. The first two ended in his death. He's on his third jump now, and it looks like he's going to die here shortly.


Speed limit troubles
I'm driving around an area with lots of shops. My wife is in another car nearby. We both know the way home, so I speed up and go the flow of traffic; then I notice that I'm in a 35 doing 65. I try to slow down some, but I'm having a hard time going fast enough not to be dangerous but slow enough that I won't get a terrible ticket if I get pulled over. I keep hoping the speed limit will go up, but every sign is for 35. This is a 4/5 lane road with large shops on each side, so I don't understand why the speed limit is so low.

Dreamsigns:
Action: Ego
- Driving faster than my wife
Context: Situation
- Finding myself so far above the speed limit
- Trouble managing my speed
- Wrong speed limit


Thrifting
A small group of people is outside sitting in mismatched chairs. Our pastor is standing, talking. He's apologizing for mis-guessing how many members the church has, thinking it was just under three hundred when it's actually around two thousand. I start thinking about how to cull the membership list. At least for the email list, I can send an email with the subject prefixed with "ACTION REQUIRED" asking them to respond to me; I'll drop anyone who doesn't respond. Now I'm standing, looking around. Across the street, I see my wife's favorite thrift store.

Now we're in the thrift store. My eldest daughter ends up holding a tiny bronze bell and going off somewhere. I run into a lady from church, and she shows me what she found: some mega-packs of chap stick. She apologizes for not leaving me any, and since the store is having an "everything must go" sale, there are no more (at this point, it's no longer a thrift store, it's a Dollar Tree). Now I'm in a back area that's almost completely bare. My son and his cousin come out of the bathroom. The cousin has used a pen to draw a "tattoo" on my son's arm, which I'm not at all pleased about. I see the little bell my daughter was holding on the floor, and I'm not pleased; but then she comes by, still holding her bell, and I realize the one on the floor wasn't actually hers but is one that's exactly the same as what she has.

Dreamsigns:
Action: Character
- Pastor getting the church membership wrong
- Conversation about chapstick
- Son's tattoo
Context: Situation
- Encountering an acquaintance in a strange place
Awareness: Thoughts
- Confusion about the bell

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."

Church wierdness
I'm at home; Frank is at the computer, watching a video stream from my church. The volume is almost all the way down, but the audio is only slightly too quiet. He clicks half way up on the volume bar before I can stop him. I know that this will make it WAY too loud; it does, but it does it by raising the volume at the church. On the stream, I can clearly see everyone looking around with surprise as the speakers get so loud they distort. I quickly click it back down to where it's supposed to be.

Now I'm walking on the path that runs around the sanctuary. A group of older teen girls is waiting near one of the windows. I can hear one of the guys inside. It's a serious topic, but he's trying to ad levity to it. At the prearranged time, the girls go to the window and start making "ghost sounds." It's pretty obvious to everyone inside, and they laugh. The speaker says something about trying to fix the audio, again to much amusement. Eventually he "fixes" it and the girls stop.

Now I see a bunch of large cooking pots near the front, one of which has a burner built into its base. Something is wrong, and flames are licking around the side. Linda sees it and heads over with a giant cloth napkin. I think she's going to try to smother the fire, but instead she drapes it over the whole thing. I don't think this is going to work - the fire will eat through it in a couple of seconds - but she realizes this too. She quickly bear-hugs the whole thing and carries it over near the door.

Now there's a whole pile of large pots and pans near the door, many with fire seeping out of them in one place or another. She's trying to figure out the best way to deal with them. I'm standing nearby, trying to figure out if I can help, but not being able to bring myself to. I tell myself it's because I don't want to get in her way, but really it's because I don't want to get hurt.

Now I'm outside. My wife and I are talking to another couple. The woman is remarried after her husband divorced her. My wife makes a heated comment that she doesn't trust the woman's x-husband. I have to think for a moment to remember who it is, but when I do remember I nod my agreement.


Taking the train
I'm with my oldest daughter in the car, driving to the subway station. I have some kind of thought about rerouting the major roads to be more direct, but when I picture it on a map, I realize it won't work. We're waiting at a light inside a steel and concrete structure. The ground is a steel mesh. My daughter is excited because it looks neat, but I'm not because it's hard to drive on the stuff (you have to pay a lot of attention to make sure you keep going straight). Up ahead, the passage turns 90 degrees to the left.

Now we're on foot in a hallway, waiting for the train platform to open (a physical gate is blocking the way). There are a couple dozen people ahead of us. I'm telling her that we'll need to hurry if we want to get a good seat on the train. I realize that, since we have to wait to get onto the platform, this is clearly the beginning of the rail line, so they should park the train here for a while, meaning we should have an easier time getting good seats.

Now the gates are opening. They're sliding straight into the walls, multiple segments going different directions. It's actually a really ycool effect.

Now we're walking on the platform. I don't see a waiting train, though I do see a bunch of trains nearby at the train yard. The platform is C shaped, wrapping around two different tracks. I don't know which track we need, so I look for signs. Walking on one arm of the C, I see machines that look like coin operated newspaper dispensers, one of which has the line's name. This isn't the one we need, so we walk to the other arm of the C. The sign there shows our line.

Now the train is here, and I'm boarding; except my daughter isn't here any more, it's my coworker Scott K.

Now we're on board. I'd been planning on taking the first row, since that's what my pastor had advised; but going in, the first row doesn't look that special, and something actually turns me away from it. The last row is pretty special, though, wrapping around from one side of the car, along the back, to the other side. It even looks extra padded, in black as opposed to the gray of the rest of the seats. It's clearly popular, since a bunch of people head straight for it. A couple of people head for the first row, too, so we end up taking the fourth or fifth row. We're close to the middle of the car - there are fewer than a dozen rows.

Now we're on our way. Nearby, a group of coworkers is talking. D?? is saying something about thirteen being unlucky. I turn and say that sometimes thirteen is considered to be the luckiest number. The other guys seem a bit skeptical, but D?? laughs at the idea, saying that anyone who thinks that thirteen can ever be lucky is in for a world of hurt.


The new van
Frank is driving the rest of us somewhere. At the bottom of a hill, he has to pull off the road for some reason. The rest of us get out as well. We were in his car, an older-style red SUV. A sedan comes down the hill, slows, and continues off the road straight for us. It stops at the last moment, coming within inches of driving over my oldest daughter's foot. The driver - a woman - gets out and asks Frank for some kind of assistance. Something seems a little fishy, so Frank and I try carefully to find out more about her. In the end, we figure out the car was stolen from one of the houses on the hill. We get the owners of that house to come out and check, and the husband quickly recognizes his car. He runs a car dealership, so he knows things most people don't, and he's able to recognize his car's VIN. His wife comes up to me with tears in her eyes and gives me a big hug. I hug back, though it feels a little weird; I know she's doing it partly out of gratitude, partly out of shock from having her car stolen. Eventually, she breaks off the hug. She doesn't fully break contact, so I keep a hand on her shoulder as well.

Now I see Frank driving down the hill in a new vehicle. It's a van, courtesy of the dealership owner. It's not much to look at, being rather blocky, but it's large, so it should fit my family nicely.

Now I'm walking around inside the van. I'm amazed at how well everything is packed in here - I see a bathroom and at least four bedrooms, plus a kitchen and living area. I walk into the master suite and see that it's a number of rooms all in a row. The first room is a bathroom of sorts, with a sink, mirror, hair dryer, tiny wall-mounted coffee maker (I hope this isn't the only coffee maker in here), coat rack, and other odds and ends (but no toilet). Passing through there I come into the master bedroom proper. Past it I see a room with the toilet. I walk back out of the suite to the "hub" where all the rooms come together.

Back at the hub, I chose a different path. Now I'm in a room with two bath/shower combos side-by-side. I wish they'd put them in separate rooms with doors, but I know they were under severe space restraints, so I understand. I take a closer look at the left-hand shower. The curtain is clear, which I find odd in this kind of shared setup. Inside, it's deeper than a usual bath, going back about 5 feet. It's got some steps leading down into it. I assume there's a place inside to take off your clothes once you're in the shower (and somewhere to keep them dry), but it's not obvious from where I'm standing. There's a nice large shower-head on the wall, controlled by a normal looking shower knob. There's also a sprayer (controlled by its own knob), though it doesn't look very nice - it looks exactly like what you'd find on a kitchen sink. As I'm looking at it, I realize that water is coming out of it. It's not a torrent, but it's more than a drip. I pick it up and fiddle with it and its knob, trying to get the leak to stop, but I can't manage any improvement. I put it back down, resolving to deal with it later. I notice a funny construction on the front of the main knob and fiddle with it, causing it to shoot out a stream of soap. I'm impressed. Now I'm looking at the other shower. It's identical to the first, even including a leaking sprayer.


Arriving at the nurserey
I'm pulling into the small nursery near our house. It's not a very nice driveway - it comes off the street at an angle, going downhill, with a small parking lot to the right. I turn left off the road, swing down the driveway, then look for a parking space. The only space available is right next to the driveway, so I try to pull a tight U-turn to get into the space. I manage to avoid hitting the car next to me, but I run into a little warning flag right at the edge of the parking lot, knocking the flag off of its pole. Now I'm getting the kids out of the car. It's now a church, and some of the ladies have come out to help me. My wife wasn't able to join me today, and this is the first time I've been to this church, so I'm feeling very awkward.


Fragments
I'm sitting at a table with another man. He asks me who I work for, and I run through my usual story about where I physically work, then about how I was hired by a company that was bought out by my current company. After I finish, he starts to make me an offer. Now there's something going on in a convention center. I see some security people talking about preparations.

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

I woke up after every single sleep cycle last night. I don't think I've ever written so much in one night before

Salmon patties
I'm in the house somewhere. I ask my second daughter if she wants a salmon patty; she says she does. Belatedly, I realize I should ask the other kids if they want one too. I ask my oldest daughter, and she wants one; my youngest daughter isn't around, and I come up with an excuse not to find her and offer her one. My son doesn't cross my mind. Now I'm in the kitchen (one I'm not familiar with - I think it must be a vacation house).I'm using the portable burner + skillet (I dreamed about this a few days ago, too). The first patty has been on for a few minutes and is about ready to flip. I realize that I could have put the second patty on at the same time (the pan is big enough) and saved a few minutes. I go to grab the second patty and put it on. I'll have to pay more attention to them, but at least they'll be done faster.

When I go to add the second patty, I see that the whole burner + skillet is in a giant clear plastic bag. I hope the bag so close to the skillet that it melts; but getting closer, I see that it's touching the edge of the skillet and has melted onto it. I try to peel it away without making too much mess, but I'm finding that's not possible. Worse, I find the bag was full of packages of ground beef. Worse yet, a couple of the packages were laying between the patties and the skillet, so I was cooking the ground beef instead of my patties. I hope that, since they're in Styrofoam packaging (the usual yellow trays) they weren't cooked too much, just thawed a little. I grab all the packages (there's a bunch) and go to put them back in the freezer. There's a whole pile of plastic debris covered in raw meat juice - what a mess. I want to clean it up before my wife sees it.


Baby monitors
I'm looking at baby monitors. I'm currently looking at one that does regular checks on the baby's vitals, makes sure it's still breathing, etc. If something's wrong it doesn't wait for <something> - it notifies you right away. You can wear an earpiece that delivers all this information to you in real time, or you can use optional accessories to set off alarms in case of trouble. There's a picture of one such external alarm: on the wall, I see an hand with a mechanical thumb positioned next to a button sticking out of a bell-style alarm. When something is wrong, the thumb pushes the button and sets off the alarm. If you don't like bell alarms, they also provide electronic ones.


Electronics reality TV
I see a couple of guys driving in a car along a winding mountain road, talking about Tech. They're talking about a competition they're in, something related to electronics. The whole thing is done in superhero motifs, with the professors being the superheroes or supervillains and the students being their apprentices / minions. They spend a while describing each professor, his name, his skills, and his personality.

Now I'm in a room with one of the superheroes and his apprentices. I'm there because one of his students got sick and I'm the replacement. It seems this is some kind of reality TV show where the losing hero gets one of his students voted off each week. The hero I'm with hasn't been doing so well. It's week five, and it looks like another of his students is on the way out. Also, this is the first week that personal performance affects the voting ratios, so the voting is going to be even worse than usual. There are a bunch of papers in the student's personal area describing the process and how his own failures had contributed. A girl nearby is tearing up - she doesn't want to be voted off.

Oddly, the professor doesn't realize I'm a replacement - he thinks I'm the original. He's talking to me about how "I" have plenty of skill but don't apply myself. He's trying to get his point across clearly without seeming to be personally attacking, but he's being very roundabout. I finally tell him that I'm not his student but a stand-in. Now he's showing me some of the work done by the other student. Right now, he's showing me a thing that's supposed to dampen vibrations. It's a wooden box with an articulated lever and a switch. When he first shows it to me, I assume it's one of those silly toys that flips its switch off any time you turn it on. He turns it on and a metal paddle swings around, touches the box it's mounted in, and vibrates very weakly. It's pretty pathetic. He shows me another mode of operation in which the paddle goes between the two D-cell batteries that power it; it looks like it's trying to split the D-cells apart. This worries me - batteries aren't something to handle roughly - and I look more closely. They're not even in battery holders, just attached straight to the board - glue, maybe, or solder? I see a couple of other things attached directly to the batteries, and it looks like he may have even drilled into them. I ask the professor about it, and he tells me it's fine.


Destroying a room
Three guys are in a student's room, preparing to destroy it. One of them is crazy - he's really enjoying himself, and to motivate the others he has a bomb strapped to his own chest with a thirty-five minute countdown visible on a huge blue 7-segment counter. The others are working as fast as they can to be finished and away from the first guy. The first guy is going around the room sticking small explosives on just about everything. The second guy is following behind adding wireless blasting caps. The third guy is checking their work.

On one wall, the explosives guy has attached clear containers of glowing pink liquid. The blasting cap guy is putting a second container of the liquid above the first. This second container has a pouring spout and a heating element. One of the units near the end of the wall is having problems and is pouring early. Most of its pink liquid has poured out and into the bottom container; I wonder if this will make it explode prematurely, but the guy isn't concerned, so I assume there must be some other detonation mechanism.

Now the three guys are leaving the apartment. It was the corner apartment on a long single-story building. They're expecting the school administration to be waiting for them and are surprised when no one is there. One of the opens the door, reaches inside, and locks it. They figure locking the door will make pursuit a few minutes slower.

Now my wife and I are getting into our nearby van. It's been backed into its space, so everything feels backwards. We're getting confused about whose side is which.

Something about driving into a bank's drive-through, except it's down a ramp to an underground room.


Fukushima infiltration
I' m walking with someone in a huge plaza dominated by a huge fountain. The fountain's pool is shallow - its walls are a foot or two high - and rectangular. In the middle is a pillar with a giant ball at the top. Everything is gleaming white. Every so often, water starts shooting up out of the pillar, raising the ball even higher into the air. After a few moments, the water pressure goes down and the ball comes back down to rest on the pillar. I point out the sight to my companion, and we keep walking around the pool, on our way to somewhere. The next time it happens, we get splashed by a little of the water. I mention that it's Fukushima water that's been treated and cleaned; it's a PR stunt to show how safe everything is. My companion becomes furious - he doesn't trust them at all - and storms down some nearby steps leading into some kind of administration building. We're having trouble getting inside, because there's a whole crowd of people leaving. We have to force our way against the tide to get inside.

Now we're inside, in a small waiting area. I'm sitting in an overstuffed chair; my companion is standing at a counter, talking to someone over a phone (like in a prison visitation area). He mentions a name; immediately, an executive is walking down the hallway, yelling to the lady on the phone that the name my companion mentioned is the top name on the list of "if they ask about this, direct them to management." It seems my companion gave a different name on the form when he was filling out the reason for his visit, so his real question caught them by surprise.

Now the people are gone, and he's taking the phone apart. He thinks there's something in the phone's guts, maybe a small slip of paper containing the secret they don't want anyone to find.

Now I'm watching a group of guys going through a fridge that's full of platters of party food. A lot of it looks really good, and it's making me hungry. There isn't nearly enough to drink relative to how much food there is; that's suspicious. I get distracted by a random thought about fridge organization, about how silly it would be to organize the food by <something>. If you do it that way, then it might make it easier to add stuff to the fridge, but it would significantly increase the retrieval time, so it wouldn't be worth it. Back to the fridge hunt, the guy poking through the fridge is looking for keyholes. There's a strange sense of deja-vu, that he's done this before and found a keyhole, but he's having trouble finding one now. He finally finds a tiny one at the bottom of the door; but since he doesn't have a key, there's nothing he can do with it. He goes back to looking through the fridge for anything out of the ordinary and finally comes across a beer bottle with something in it. Triumphant, be pulls it out, thinking it's what they've been looking for; but once it's out in the light, he realizes that what he sees inside is a stick of dynamite. He quickly puts it back in the fridge, and the group heads back down the hallway.

Elsewhere in the facility, I'm holding a beer bottle with something in it. I'm in the corner of a rec room; there's a toilet here. To be less suspicious, I decide to use it. Unfortunately, there's no stall, so I pull an easy chair over in front of me to try to be a little more modest - without the big chair there, anyone in the room can look at me. Thus protected by the chair, I try to get the thing in the bottle out. I end up pouring out some of the beer into a trash can. I think about tearing the label off, but I decide that would be more suspicious than leaving it on. It's a Sierra Nevada of some sort with a diamond label on the front of the bottle.


Free produce
I'm driving, stuck in a long line of cars. I see that up ahead there's a table where people are giving out bags of fresh produce, but only to people who walk up to the table. People are pulling out of line, walking up to the table to get their bag, then getting back in their cars and getting back in line. I consider doing this myself, but I don't care that much, and I hate trying to force my car's way into a traffic jam. Now I'm past the table, walking. I see my in-laws carrying a funny plastic container into which they've transferred their produce; they seem pleased with it. I see another lady from the church with her own container; she's also pleased. I have a moment of regret that I didn't get some myself, but I still don't really care.


Biking invitation
I'm at my computer in the office. A friend IMs me an invitation to go biking with him and some friends. There's a bike path that goes along a beachfront, and it's "not too far" away. I pull it up on Google Maps. The path is unusual: there's what looks like a narrow, short river with a narrow beach on one side. The bike trail runs right next to this beach, occasionally passing through threes. The trail isn't just a straight line or a loop; it goes back and forth through the trees, often crossing itself . I'm still not sure where it is in relation to me, so I try to zoom out. Zooming out is going really really slowly, and there's no marker on the bike path to indicate where it is. I finally manage to roughly figure it out; it's on the east side of the city, 81 miles away. I have to turn him down; that's just too far to drive, since there are other nicer trails that are only 45 minutes away. This trail looks really short; we'd be going back and forth if we were there for any length of time.


Friends
I'm driving behind a house. It has a nice, green lawn surrounded by a "fence" of small pines. I turn left after passing the house. On my right, I see some friends walking up a driveway. Now I'm with them in the garage. Jeff, Seth, and Ben are there, along with a lawn mower. Ben is far too nicely dressed to be mowing lawns. Jeff is dressed in working clothes, but he needs to be leaving soon. Seth is drinking a beer. Off to the side of the room, I see a fridge with a glass door - Jeff's beer fridge. Looking inside, I'm surprised to see that it's almost empty. That's not like Jeff at all. Jeff says that something's come up and he won't have to leave as quickly as he thought he would.



Analysis
Dreamsigns:
- A room I'm not familiar with (the kitchen)
- That little gas burner
- Things going poorly and making for an awkward situation (multiple times)
- Uncomfortable driving situation
- Uncomfortable bathroom situation