non-lucid

"Tonight, I will remember my dreams. Tonight, I will know that I'm dreaming."
Overnight: Ninja's subliminal lucid
Bed @ 2305
Woke @ 0240 (~3:30 asleep)

Making Legos
I've got a new mold-your-own-bricks kit from Lego. I've broken up some old PVC pipe from basement scrap and I'm feeding it into a hole in a table along with some colored stuff from the Lego kit. I can see it start to melt and become soft even as it disappears from sight. I know that soon I'll have the equivalent of a big boxes' worth of Lego bricks, and it only cost me $40. The kids keep coming up to ask me what I'm doing, but all I'll tell them is "something" and "wait and see." Now I'm looking at a flier that came with the kit reminding me that it entitles me to three free instruction manuals and to redeem the offer at my local Lego store.

Extinction event
I'm walking along a wooded path with my wife thinking about extinction events. I'm getting worried because some of my off-world feeds have gone dead recently. I start talking about some of my worries obliquely, as most people - including my wife - don't realize there's anything special about these feeds. She finds the conversation strange enough that eventually I have to explain more, and I get an are-you-puling-my-leg look from her. I keep on anyway, explaining that I'm concerned that there's a hostile intelligence moving through the galaxy wiping out life and that it's headed for Earth.

Now we're looking down an incline and can view a neighborhood street that's full of strange creatures. They're furry (grayish/brownish fur) and about 8 or 10 feet tall, and they have a spherical "head" with four very square legs. When they're standing still, the legs blend into each other and they end up looking like a sphere on a square pole. Most are moving around, and a green gas is oozing out from the bottoms of their legs. There's no doubt in my mind that the gas is deadly. We start hurrying along the path hoping to get away from them, but we soon encounter a group. I tell my wife to hold her breath while I pull the emergency respirator out from her backpack. I'll need one too, but one of my special abilities will let me hold my breath much longer than she can. However, as I work at her backpack (which is resisting my attempts to unzip it), holding my breath is much harder than it should be, and I'm already feeling a desperate desire to breathe.

I can only assume that story-line came from the current Schlock Mercenary strips.


Fragment: I'm in church on a sunday morning.

BTB @ ???
Woke @ 0705

Running for office
Somehow I get convinced to run for political office. I'm not too happy about the idea, but I can't do any worse than most of the people in office, so I agree to do it. I see a picture of myself and am not very happy with it - I look like a kid. I think I need to wear a suit and a bold tie to look more dignified.

Now I'm watching a TV and hear the Iowa results: Cruz came in dead last, and <someone not Trump> won. I'm very disappointed about Cruz, but at least Trump didn't get the nomination.


Running errands
My wife and I are both out running errands. I'm looking at a map showing where both of us have gone, and we haven't overlapped at all yet, but it looks like we're about to soon. I hope that doesn't mean we're duplicating our efforts.

Now I'm pulling the big white van into a small parking lot. I already don't like to drive this car, and I really don't like places it'll be hard to turn around in, but this is even worse because it's already almost completely full. To make matters even worse, a few more cars pull in behind me, so I'm afraid I'm completely stuck. Somehow I manage to turn around and get pointed back towards the driveway without actually running into any other cars.


Temporary insanity
I'm thinking about a book I'm reading in which, under certain circumstances, a kind and loving king goes completely insane. He's talking with his two daughters about the problem, how to avoid that situation, and how to deal with this problem long-term, completely solving it if possible.


DIY Plumbing
I'm in a small room doing some kind of home maintenance. First, there's a broken pipe and water to clean up. I end up using my shop vac to suck it all up and then dump it out the outside door near me. Now I continue using the shop vac to suck up some building debris - bits of wood, screws, etc.

Overnight audio: Ninja's subliminal recall
Mantra: "Tonight I will remember my dreams."
Bed @ 2220
Woke @ 0125


Parliamentary address
I see a movie poster depicting an average guy who's suddenly put in charge of a huge casino after returning from overseas. The casino is depicted as a set of three giant steel-and-glass buildings. The guy in the billboard looks completely bewildered. Now I see a guy in rich attire sitting in a chair while reading. His hands are cuffed together in front of him, but he doesn't seem to notice or care. I gather that he's the real owner of the casino.

Now I'm sitting in a HUGE auditorium. At the very front, a woman is standing behind a VERY large podium giving a very zealous speech about this man and how terrible he is. In my mind, we're in England in some kind of government building / halls of Parliament / etc. The "podium" is a giant wooden structure that's probably thirty feet high and is as wide as the hall, though it's only a few feet deep. Somehow, even though she's a long way from me, I see her as if I'm just a few feet away. After a short time, she suddenly interrupts her speech to call for attendants to check everyone's tickets.

Now my perspective is from my seat way back in the hall. Officials have started moving around looking at people's tickets, and I'm worried because I don't have one. I look to my left at Mom, who's sitting one row up against the wall, to see if she has any. She nods to say that everything is OK. I get up and start to head towards her. A lady checking tickets is heading my way, and I try to walk as if I'm completely confident. I hope I don't lose my seat, but I'm more concerned about not being thrown out by the officials.

Now Mom has joined me and we're headed across the hall to where my step-father is - it seems he's got the tickets. Now we're in the little store where he is. He pulls four passports out from a bag and hands them to me. I'm surprised that our passports are our tickets: I thought they were going to be actual specific tickets, not just IDs. I'm a bit surprised that there are four, but I reason that one of them must be my baby son's. Now my daughters and a couple of their friends are writing down numbers from inside the four passports. I open them wide and try to hold them so everyone can see, but eventually I put a couple of them on the floor so the girls can see all four at once.


Looking for secret passages
I have a top-down view of a maze-like series of hallways. Everything is grayscale; there's no color. Using a limited number of moves, I'm moving my character through them looking for something. I do something to trigger a popup question, and my answer seems to be wrong. Now it's someone else's turn. He does something similar, though he changes a few things, and he discovers a secret passage. It's still not the one we'd actually been hunting for, but it's still exciting. Now the view changes. It looks like his character has dropped through a hole and is standing on a walkway around a large round object. He's got a pop-up asking whether to release the cursed ball. He picks "No" and is informed that the puzzle will be reset. We're both rather put out at this news. Sure, we don't want to have to carry around a cursed item, but it looks like that's what's necessary to proceed, and now it'll be a while before we can get back there again.

BTB @ 0205 (after fixing beeping freezer)
Woke @ 0610


Bombing Stark HQ
I'm driving along an interstate and look left out my window. Other than trees and gently rolling ground, the only thing I see is a sky scraper. I know that it's scheduled for demolition today. As I watch, a plane flies by and drops a bomb. I expect that the bomb is going to hit the building and explode, but it actually hits the ground, "skids" towards the building, and explodes once it's inside. The explosion is a brilliant orange cone, laced with lines of yellow, that shoots out of the top of the building. It's surprisingly narrow - it's clearly a very finely shaped charge. It's an amazing sight, and I wish I'd been able to capture it. Now I'm out of my car fiddling with my phone, trying to open up the camera app before the next bomb hits. I realize it's not working because the battery is low, so I hurriedly plug in my portable USB batter. I manage to get some footage, though it's pretty poor.

Now I'm standing next to a parking deck, very close to the unharmed building. Up close, the building is very attractive and also much shorter than it was earlier. It's kind of egg shaped and made out of a laticework of greenish glass. The Stark Arc Reactor is visible inside. I know the first plane is about to come by to drop its bomb. I hold the phone up to take video, but I realize that I'm really close to the building - this may not be a good idea. The bomb slides across the parking lot, goes into the building, and boom - but this time the explosion is far smaller. Is that because I'm standing here?

Now I'm showing my wife the photos and footage of the destruction that I got. The first shot shows Stark HQ unharmed. The second picture is after the first bomb fell; you can see damage, but it's not too bad. The next shot is after the second bomb, and it looks much, much worse: it's lost much of its color, pipes are sticking out at strange angles, and it's smoking some.


Fragment: I'm driving along a wooded road and come to a very round building with a flat top. Now I'm inside. The people there are all friendly but are all giving off a "why are you here" vibe.

Bed @ 2320
Listening to Ninja's Subliminal Recall overnight
Woke @ 0400

Walking downtown
I'm downtown somewhere waiting to cross a side street. The main street is in front of me; two or three story buildings are on each side of the side street. Now the light has changed and stairs have come up out of the street. I'm a few steps up but see that my daughter (#2) is still looking at something on the sidewalk. I call to her to hurry since we need to climb the stairs before the light changes again.

Now we're walking along a wide (~10') balcony. The street is down to our right and residences are to our left. We pass a doorway to a private balcony that's covered with only a sheet. Now we're looking at something on the private balcony: a commemorative plaque which is dedicated to the resident's mother, who died during childbirth, and to her father, who died 12 minutes later.

Now I'm in a largish room somewhere, and my kids are asking about what the plaque means. I don't want to give them too much info in case they start talking randomly about it and the woman realizes we got onto her balcony; but I also don't want to leave them in complete ignorance so I decide to tell them just enough to satisfy their curiosity.
I tell them there's a disease called <something> that, once detected, needs to be dealt with really quickly, but that most hospitals aren't equipped to deal with it and that patients with it need to be transferred to <place>, which takes about 15 minutes. For adults, that's OK, but sometimes it's too long for babies. (Somehow I think that answers the question about the mother). But, I have no idea why the father died 12 minutes later.

My recall has been terrible recently, but tonight was actually pretty good.

Bed @ 2205
Listening to Cloudsurfer
Woke @ 0455

Hair cutting kit
I'm walking through a grocery store and see a barber giving a demonstration of a hair cutting kit on a guy in the barber chair. The barber is demonstrating different tools and things that the kit can do, which means the volunteer's hair is looking stranger by the minute. He's not happy about it, but there's not much he can do - he doesn't want to stand up with sharp things close to his face.

Now I'm telling my friends that I've already ordered one of these kits and that it came this morning. I'm excited about it because, unlike the demo models, it has all functionality enabled, including the time control. I think how strange it would be to be thirty forever, but one of my friends cautions against it, wondering what the side-effects are. I wonder if you'd lose your memory back to the point you revert to, and that gives me pause.


The mall / the diner
I'm walking with a group of people through a mall. Peter and my wife are both with us. Peter and I are wearing long-sleeved button-down dress shirts and talking about how great they are. We swap notes on where we got our shirts and how much they cost. They're both a light pastel color - a blue or a green.

Now we're walked outside. We're still standing under the mall's giant overhang. Some people have set up tables out here, and Peter talks to the people running them - he clearly knows them well, but it's been a long time since he's been here, and they're glad to see him. I consider going to the car to get something, but I realize I forgot my shoes and it's been raining, and I don't want to get my socks soaked. I realize we'll all be going in a minute anyway and decide I'll have to do my best to walk on my toes to avoid getting the rest of my feet wet.

Now we're running up a grassy incline towards a diner. We used to go here, and this climb always winded me, but I'm doing great today. Now we're near the top, and I'm finally struggling. I'm disappointed - I thought I'd be able to make it all the way without slowing down too much.

Now we're near the top. Someone is fighting off some bees. I step back, not wanting to be stung, but he does OK.

Now we're in the diner. I've got a card game in my back pocket that I carry around because it's simple and fun. I want to show it to Peter, but I can't find a good moment. I fiddle with the rubber bands I brought to keep the deck together.

Now I'm sitting at a table looking at a diagram of a new shopping center someone wants to build. I notice a square right in the middle of other buildings and I ask about it, since no one would be able to get to it. The answer I receive is a non-answer, and I'm not satisfied with it. Someone else says that the most important thing in the new shopping center is a diner: without it, people won't have reason to come. A store is a store, but if there's a diner, people will come to eat and then stay to shop.


In-law suite
I'm "at home" talking to my wife about how to care for her parents when they get old. She's talked before about building out some kind of apartment for them to live with us. I wonder how that would work, where we'd put it (back yard, maybe?), then remember we have an unfinished basement. It wouldn't be cheap to finish it, but I bet John and I could frame it out fairly cheaply; those studs were only a couple of dollars each. We'd still need to have someone do the drywall, but we'd still save a lot of money. I think about what part of the basement to finish and what to leave unfinished - I still need my workshop.


Old planes
I'm driving on multilane road. I look to my right and see a plane driving next to us with a woman in the cockpit. The propeller is huge, and I hope it doesn't clip us. I wonder if she's going to keep "driving" or if she'll finally take off, and how fast she'll need to be to get off the ground. We're already going highway speeds, and her plane is shaking as if she's right at the line between driving and flying.

Now I'm walking with a couple of other guys by some old, retired planes. We start by talking about how much air gets pushed through each engine, that it's a surprisingly small amount, but then we get to talking about the majesty of these planes, which are all very large cargo or bombers. A Korean one in particular looks amazing. We round some of the planes and come across a guy wearing a mascot suite. One of the guys I'm with greets him.

Now we're inside a large building. Mascot guy is out of his suit, and we're all getting ready to work on a weird project, getting some old piece of equipment functioning again. Mascot guy is put in charge as the <something> sergeant.


Mansion RPG
I'm playing a game, a top-down RPG. My character is running north in a mansion corridor being chased by something. I think I'm going to make it, but then I hit a shadowed section that I can't pass and get caught. Turn-based battle starts. I tell all my party to attack, and I'm surprised they're all area attacks. There's only one enemy, so I'd have preferred directed attacks. To my surprise, the enemy is killed before he gets a turn. Now I'm back in the corridor and the dark patch is gone. I understand now: each patch is created by an enemy, and the enemy has to be killed to remove the patch.

Now I'm in another hallway. I see something on a counter but end up in a battle. This time, I grab the desert before the enemies can, crack it open, and scoop out the passion fruit. There are three enemies, and I hope to pacify them all b y giving them some. I give some to the first two enemies, and they're happy; but then I can't find any for the third one. I'm hunting through the ruined desert, trying to find even one seed, and he's getting impatient. I stall him while trying to figure out what to do.

Bed @ 2300
Woke at 0335 (slept for ~4.5 hours)

Celebrity reorganization
I'm trying to reorganize the white van so that a celebrity can sit in it more comfortably. I'm having trouble, though -- there are so many seats, it's overwhelming.

Music / Naturopath's shop
I'm at the end of a pier trying to do something while I listen to music. The nearby radio is playing techno, which is fun, since I listen to it so rarely these days. Unfortunately, it's really staticy, so I walk over to it to see if I can fine-tune the dial. I decide to use my phone's FM transceiver to locally broadcast something like Pandora, but I'm surprised to see it's already on. At first I think it may be interfering with the techno station and making the music staticy, but then I realize the radio is already tuned to my phone's "station" and the problem is that the radio is one band off from where the phone is broadcasting. I put the radio on the correct frequency and get some nice clear music.

I'm being driven around town by someone I know. We're in his sedan, and the music from earlier is playing.

Now he's dropped me off at the door to a naturopath's shop. As I reach for the handle, I see a sign hanging on the door. At first i think it's a 'Closed' sign, but then I actually read it and realize it's not. I go in, and the owner greets me warmly. He asks how I've been doing; I tell him I'm generally better, though I still feel fuzzy more often than I'd like. He apologizes that he can't talk any longer with me right now, saying that he needs to get back to the woman he's in the middle of helping, and that he'll talk with me after he's done with her. While I wait, I wander a bit. As I pass near the register, I notice a large pile of baseballs behind it. As I look more closely, I see that they're oblong, not round, and that they're fabric toys, not real baseballs. One of them has something written on it.

Now I've wandered into a large group of teens / early twenties people in the middle of organizing a dance. They invite me along, and I accept. I push my way through to the far edge of the crowd then sit and listen to them.

Now I see a group of teens near a coastline, and I somehow know that they're running away from home because they've contracted a disease that badly disfigures them. I can't understand why they're running - after all, sooner or later everyone is going to get it and look equally horrible.


BTB @ 0350
Woke @ 0715 (~3.5 hours)

Mario's powerups
I'm playing Mario. I head to the left and see a platform with two flowers on it which oddly aren't in pipes. I kill them and they leave behind fire flowers, but I'm not interested in them. I jump to the left to another platform and kill an enemy, hoping it'll drop a sparkly mushroom, but it doesn't. I far enough to the right to get both platforms off the screen, then head left again. I kill the flowers (getting fire flowers again) then the other enemy, and this time I get the sparkly mushroom I want. Unfortunately, as I head to the left, a normal mushroom comes out of nowhere and turns Mario back into the basic Big Mario.

Again I head right and then left, and this time I get an upgrade that I call the Cherub (though in hindsight it looked a lot more like a Moogle). Since it has wings, I assume I can fly as long as I want. I hold the jump button expecting to fly up, but I fall right back down. I rapidly push the jump button and fly up into an area with lots of platforms - cool, a secret area! Unfortunately, as I'm passing a platform I suddenly lose the Cherub suit. Somehow, I know it was due to bad timing on my part.

Now I'm back at the two platforms on the left. Again I get the sparkly mushroom. Now I'm back at the high platforms. Even though I can't fly any more, I'm able to jump from platform to platform to get higher and higher. I look forward to seeing where the platforms take me.

Bed @ 2245
Woke @ 0525 (slept for 6:40)

Hanging a poster
I'm at Jeff's house, about to hang a large sheet of paper (a poster or some-such) on the back of a door. As I look more closely at the door, I realize it's actually got a smaller, much fancier door somehow attached to the side facing me. I also realize the whole thing is very nicely finished (a dark stain) without a blemish anywhere. I realize there's no way I can use push-pins to hang up my paper. Jeff says it's OK, though his manner says it really isn't. I tell him I'll use some masking tape or painter's tape if he has some, but he says he's not sure. I look around and see a roll of something, but it's not blue tape. I realize the door isn't actually attached to anything, but is rather propped up against the wall behind it, and I look behind it to find a whole pile of rolls of tap, including a few rolls of blue tape. I grab one and start to pull a strip off, but then I realize it's not painter's tape but is actually drywall mesh. When I look back down at it it's not even blue. Why did I think it was blue? I reroll the mesh and look at the pile again, but the whole thing is drywall mesh.

Now I'm in a storage room looking for painter's tape. Once again, I find plenty of drywall mesh - including some blue stuff - but no painter's tape. Now I run across a strange box advertising something about gender equality with lots of pictures of lightning bolts. Now I'm watching a promo video for it. It looks like bot both the husband and wife need to wear a wire garment, and when the wife doesn't like what her husband is doing she can zap him, but she gets zapped too (hence the equality bit).


Lab investigation
A woman is investigating a lab. Before she can react, the place fills up with a translucent green goo which sweeps her down a tunnel. As she's carried through the tunnel a strange worm suit ends up getting built around her, and when she comes out the other end she's a giant flying worm. Scientists start attacking her, but she manages to flee. Now she's back to human, though still a little red/chafed from her adventure. She's outside the lab, at night, talking to a guy - tall, wide, with a big beard - who ends up being a traitor. Something happens with lasers. He takes a shot at another guy, but he's got a gizmo that turns any incoming shot into a giant cucumber and shoots it back, so the traitor is killed by a giant cucumber through the head. Now there's something about Stargate's later seasons.

Fragment: I'm in church, after Sunday School, talking to Sam about fixing the door frames in our house that don't work quite right any more because of house sagging.


BTB @ 0545
Woke @ 0730 (slept ~1.5 hours)

Plane watching
I'm watching planes taxi down a road. It's really congested and looks like a big traffic jam. Some of the planes are taking an "exit" off to the right.

Now I'm standing on a runway talking to a guy who I know to be a drone pilot. He's holding what looks like a generic take-out box with some numbers written on top, but somehow I know it's his drone remote. Another guy is standing nearby holding two of them; he's clearly more experienced, while I believe this is this guy's first drone flight.

Now I'm seeing the road again. The newer pilot explains that all planes have to take roads AM3 through AM9 from the hangars to their assigned runways. There's a building off to the left, and he calls it the AM building.

Now I'm seeing one of the drones - basically a full-sized airplane with no cockpit - taking off. I wonder why the drone company doesn't have its own runways since that would clearly save so much time.

Bed @ 2330 after a long day at the museum and on the road
Woke @ 0400 by dog. Back to sleep around 0500.
Woke @ 0600, immediately back to sleep. Woke @ 0715.

Foreign food
I'm with a guy I know in a foreign restaurant. They don't speak any English, and we don't speak whatever language they speak (something African, maybe), but the guy I'm with knows the words to order what he's been told is a really good dish, so he orders for us.

Now I'm with some people walking through a city. They want to try out this dish too, since it was good. Ahead, the part of the city where the restaurant is comes into view. In fact, it's hard to miss the transition, going from normal buildings to what looks to be half-finished chaos (boards and girders sticking out of buildings at all angles). Now we're loading up inside a huge elevator. I'd been worried there wouldn't be room for our group, but there's plenty. Unfortunately, we got a bit strung out, so we're waiting for the guys in the rear to catch up. Bob keeps having to hit the door open button, and I feel bad for people on other floors who need the elevator. I notice a large monitor above the control panel but have no idea what it's for. Eventually, the elevator starts beeping at us and won't respond to the door open button any more. Our pastor's son and another guy still haven't made it; they'll just have to take the next elevator. Now we're going up, and I realize that this elevator has no inner door and we can see the building whooshing by, and that if anyone stuck had through the opening he'd probably lose it.

Now we're walking through some kind of fancy restaurant. I'm self-conscious in my shirt and jeans, and some of the diners are giving us nasty looks, but the place is mostly empty so it's not too bad, and it doesn't really matter since we're just walking through on our way to our destination.

Now Alex is riding on some electric vehicle around a large empty room adjacent to the large restaurant room.


Fragment: I'm at a gas station pumping gas into my car. I notice that, in contrast to the station I was at earlier in the day, this one doesn't have the big "It is illegal to walk away from the pump while it's running" sign.

Bed @ 2230
Woke @ 0220

Cave level
I'm playing a 3rd person game of some kind. I'm in a mine level, in the main shaft. Large caves open to the sides. Everything is brown and gray, and the level geometry is very bumpy. I'm at the bottom of the level, and I know the whole level slopes up. As I'm exploring a large side room, a green liquid starts to come in from the lower end. The first time it touches my character, there's a kind of sizzle. The next time, he dies. Now I've restarted in the main shaft. This time I know what's coming, so I don't wait but start running up the tunnel. Eventually the acid catches me, but I make it a lot further. I do it a few more times and get further each time. Somehow I know that this is a bonus level and that my character's level determines how long it is until the acid starts to arrive - the higher my level, the greater the delay.

Now people are LARPing the game. Someone tries an attack class, then someone else tries another class. Each class has a differently colored robe. Now Adam and Jamie are trying it together. Jamie is dressed in a brown robe, while Adam is standing off to the side. For some reason, they're doing it such that Adam is telling Jamie exactly what to do, including where to go, when to jump, etc. Unsurprisingly, things go hilariously badly.

Now it's my turn. I choose the Hammer class, though I'm dressed in my normal street clothes. I pick up a pepper grinder with a large handle, walk over to Jamie, and pantomime whacking him on the head with my pepper grinder hammer. I tell people that, because I used a hammer (improvised or not) I get a hit bonus. The bonus is 50%, so my attack goes from 100HP up to 150HP. I'm disappointed - that's not powerful enough to kill even the weakest creature in a single hit. I'd hoped that I'd be able to deal with the first few low-level creatures easily before reaching enemies that took more than one hit. I ask someone where Ben and Mandy are, since I thought they'd be here, but he says they went to bed at 10.

Bed @ 2330
Woke @ 0330

Fragment: I'm at home, thinking about Apollo 13 and Mission Control


Woke @ 0645

Driver on the lawn
I look out one of the front windows of my house and see a guy in a pickup truck (white, with a blue logo on the side) drive from right to left across my yard leaving tire tracks in the grass. Part of me is annoyed, while part is curious: how did he get through the bushes on the right side of the property? And just what does he think he's doing? Now it's another day. I look up and see the same guy in the same truck drive across the lawn in the same way, now leaving a second set of tire tracks. Incensed, I get up to run outside to try to get more info about who he is and try to figure out how to stop him.

Now I'm outside. There's no sign of the truck, but there is some heavy stuff around the yard that hadn't been there before, including a few traffic barrels and some kind of heavy concrete thing with chain coming out of it. I decide to use these things to block off one side of my lawn so he can't drive through it again.


Armed intruders
I'm in my garage at night working on some kind of project. An unexpected movement, seen out of the corner of my eye, makes me instinctively grab a piece of nearby scrap wood and whirl to face it. The movement turns out to have been some kind of small animal that snuck in, so I relax. As I turn back around to whatever I was doing, I see a young woman coming towards me. I brandish the scrap wood in a defensive posture. I realize the wood is much lighter than I'd expected, and it won't actually make for a great weapon, but she won't know that. Unfortunately, she pulls out a small handgun, and I doubt my ability to rush and club her. I duck behind a pillar, but not before I see two men, also with guns out, starting to flank me. I know there's no way I can keep the pillar between myself and all three of them, so I get as low as I can, put down the wood, and put my hands behind my head - partly as protection, partly as a sign of surrender. The woman reaches me first and points her gun at my head. I offer a quick prayer to commit my soul to God and stare at her, waiting for her to pull the trigger but hoping she won't.

Now I'm alone, and I have the gun from one of the guys. At first glance it looks to be a small revolver. When I open the cylinder, I see that it has more than one ring of bullets; wow. As I look more at them, I realize the bullets are a variety of shapes, sizes and lengths. Further examination shows that, instead of being arranged in multiple rings, the bullets are actually arranged in triangular groups of three, so each third round is closer to the center than the others. I wonder how the guy could keep track of which bullet is where. When I close the cylinder again, I see that he'd put pieces of masking tape on the outside with labels showing which bullet was in which spot.


Discount pizza
I'm going through my mail and run across yet another flier from my <company>. I'm a little annoyed: they've been sending these things out for days now. The strangest thing about it is that each flier is addressed to a different person. Yesterday it came to my wife, and today it came to Robert, a guy at church I've said 'hi' to once or twice. As I look over it, I see a note saying that this is the last flier, and tomorrow they'll get back to their regular business of <something>. I'm relieved. As I go to throw away the flier, I see a bunch of tiny coupons along the bottom. One catches my eyes: $78 off an order from a local pizza place I've never heard of. I show it to my wife, who's in the process of putting some random leftovers into the oven, and suggest that we could do pizza for dinner tonight. I know we've had pizza recently, but we're running really low on leftovers, and it's hard to turn away free pizza. She agrees.

Now I'm at my computer pulling up their website. I wonder if I'll have to create an account, and I wonder if it'll be a problem that the flier was sent to Robert and not to me. When the site comes up, it says "Hello Nazrax" in the corner, and I'm surprised - I don't remember coming here before. Oh well. I look around for a place to put a coupon code but I can't find one. I look back at the flier and see it says to call them up, talk to Rebecca, and ask her to associate coupon code 147xx with my forum account. On the web page, I notice that my name is a link, and I click it to see if it goes to a forum profile.

Now I'm eating a really good sandwich I'd ordered from them while I was trying to figure out how to get the discount. My hands are a bit greasy, so I ask my wife to make the call.


Alien transformation
A woman is investigating something on another planet. Now she's been captured and is in an enemy spacecraft. She sees another woman trapped in a strange field, being raised up into something, and dashes over to her, jumping into the field herself, trying to save her. Now they're in it together, rising up into a hole in the ceiling. A strange glowy black sphere comes down to them. I have the feeling they're going to become psychically conjoined.

Now she's somewhere else, being examined by her own people. Sure enough, she's now aware of the other woman's thoughts; but she's also been turned into a cat woman with yellowish fur. She's very unhappy about everything, including her new instincts, but someone points out that <important person>'s main bodyguard is a cat woman.

Bed @ 2230
Woke @ 0220

After the cataclysm
I'm looking at a globe. Now, I'm looking at a globe online, after some kind of cataclysm has hit, looking at an area high up in the northern hemisphere. There's a large unlabeled landmass, and around it are fairly small islands, each marked with a country name. I see the US, the UK, France, and many others. I'm glad all the countries survived, though I'm saddened to see how small everything is now.

Now I'm outside, at night, in an impromptu campground filled with people who survived the cataclysm and no longer have a home. We're pretty comfortable here, as we made good preparations before the event, but there are many people with nothing at all. I look past a fence to the ocean and remember that we won't be staying here for much longer, as this area will soon be underwater.

Now I'm walking along a road looking at GPS on a small display on my phone's portable charger. I hadn't realized it, but it seems the charger can act as a second display to the phone. I'm using it now since this display draws less power than the phone's built-in display, and who knows when I'll be able to plug either device again. I get some kind of weird popup asking whether the charger or the phone should be considered the GPS source; I'm confused for a moment, then realize what it means and pick the correct answer.

Now I know that, if I follow this road for a while, I'll hit a certain intersection. I'll need to turn right along <some road> and keep going, and eventually I'll reach where we need to be.

Now it's day. I'm standing outside my car, in a deserted shopping center parking lot. I'm annoyed both at the car and at myself since it broke down half way to where I was going. Now I'm doing something - some kind of maintenance - that's gotten my hands really nasty and greasy. I see my wife drive by and I want to call her, to tell her she passed me, but I don't want to get my phone dirty. I'm working with another guy, and his hands are clean, so I move my arm to shift my jacket so he can see the phone and ask him to grab it, hit home, and tap the icon showing my wife's picture.

Now I'm at a run-down home. There's a screen door that's not working right - something's wrong with the pneumatic cylinder. Now there's a guy with me oiling it using some crazy contraption he built himself that has four cans of oil arranged in a circle tat he can pull the piston through to oil every surface at once. I'm impressed, and he tells me something of the device's origin.


Woke @ 0700 (alarm)

Talking about marriage
I'm on a conference call with Kaleb and Chad (I'm either driving or at a coffee shop, not sure which). Kaleb asks Chad if the "Not a constructor" error has been fixed. Chad says it isn't, and Kaleb asks what it even is, so Kaleb starts a screen share so Chad can guide him to see what's going on. When the share first comes up, Jira is on the screen, and Sara says "Now THAT'S a kanban board!"

Now we're talking about the woman Kaleb wants to marry which is strange, considering he's been married for years. I ask him if he's given her the ring yet, and he hems and haws, explaining he really wanted to do twelve/twelve, ten/ten, eight/eight, etc (something to do with liking even months?), though he likes ten best. I thought he'd been aiming for an April wedding, so I'm pleased that I may yet beat him which is also strange, since I've been married longer than he has.


A tight tunnel
I'm seeing a view through a tight tunnel. It's constructed on both sides and above and has packed dirt below. A pipe is running along the ceiling. I'm very thankful I don't have to crawl through there - it looks really claustrophobic, and there's no way to turn around. Now my view has shifted to a 90 degree corner that looks difficult (but not impossible) to get around. Now my view has shifted to the next corner. This time, there are two pipes - one coming from each direction - and they make the clearance low enough that it won't be possible to get through. I consider that, since the bottom is dirt, it may be possible to dig down a little to have enough clearance, but it'll be tiring and tough, and there may not be enough area to spread out the dirt.

Now I'm beyond the tunnel's exit, hiding behind a beat-up car in some kind of war zone. The combatants haven't yet seen me, and I'm examining the area to decide what to do next.

Monthly Humble Bundle
I'm looking at the Humble Bundle's site and see a game that both looks interesting and is available for Linux. I'm immediately interested and look to see which bundle I'm looking at and how much it costs. After a moment, I realize this is one of the games in the current monthly bundle. I can't remember if it's too late to take advantage of now, but I don't think it is. I finally find a price: $35. I'm surprised (and disappointed) it's that high - no way am I paying that.

Snack around 2200
Quick shower
Bed @ 2235


Waiting for the Sparkfun tour
I'm in a large room waiting for a Sparkfun tour to start. The room has some kind of partition going most of the way down the middle, and there are a pair of counters and a door on the other side of the partition from me. A line has formed at one of the desks and at the door; I'm leaning against the wall near some other people waiting for the line to get shorter. I'm being careful not to wait too long; I don't want to lose my change for the tour.

Now I'm standing at the counter further from the door checking out with some electronics. The first thing I hand over to the cashier is a box with a multimeter, though I tell her to put it to the side, since I'm not sure if I'll actually be buying it. I see that it's $35 and am surprised; I thought it was $25. I'll only need it if I can't borrow a battery tester from someone else. I need to test the batteries of something my daughter has, but this is Sparkfun; I expect you can't go more than a few feet without tripping over someone's multimeter.

I look over to see how my wife is doing; she's still feeding the baby, and it looks like she'll be a few minutes. Hopefully the tour won't have gotten far before she's able to catch up.

Now I'm in the parking lot outside Sparkfun. A few cars are scattered around. The building itself is a huge off-white cube which isn't remotely attractive.

Bug book
I'm looking through book of common garden insects. Most of the pages look like they're coloring pages, with simple, bold line drawings of each insert accompanied by a short paragraph describing it. Some of the pages have odd white-on-black icons in one corner. I'm currently looking at the page for ladybugs. The text mentions that there are actually two main families. The icon in the corner of this page seems to be indicating that they're a hazard to humans and animals, but that can't be right; there's no way a ladybug could hurt anything. I must be interpreting it wrong (but someone really needs to come up with some better icons).

Now I'm looking at the last page, on water snakes, and it's done in a totally different style: it's a huge block of text along with a smaller grayscale photo. Now I'm watching video of them. First, I see a clip taken from a reedy bank into a body of water. The snake swims by, and it looks nothing like what I expected. It's about 6" wide, at least 10 feet long, and has a ridge running along its back. It's kind of a muddy green color, and it's got a very smooth, dull skin. Now I'm seeing large rocks jutting out of the water just beyond a sheer cliff, and I know I'm seeing footage from Hawaii. This must be the snake's native habitat. Now something is describing the snake's attack: it likes to bite a leg and hold on for about 20 seconds before actually injecting the poison, since this increases the heart rate and helps the poison spread through the body faster. Once it lets go, it waits for the victim to instinctively slap a hand down on the wound before going after the hand for a second bite. The information continues, saying that even with quick medical care it's rare for victims not to start to show symptoms of paralysis. Normally, people can keep their arms synchronized to within a third of a second (that seems way too long), but that'll quickly deteriorate to seconds between movements; they'll start drooling; and typically one side of the body will be affected more than the other.

Dangerous race
I'm in a strange car race. We're all going down a gentle incline on a straight street, driving normal cars - except that every car has a large, heavy-looking blade mounted to the roof spinning dangerously. Now I'm quickly pulling left into the small parking lot of an anonymous business to avoid an oncoming bigrig.

Packing up after vacation
I'm in the kitchen (lots of white) of a vacation house, packing up to leave. The owner (a blonde woman in a red sweater) comes in an outside door, thanks us for being such good renters, and offers us a larger place next time if we want it; but she's got the next set of renters with her so we need to vacate quickly.

Now I'm in the garage loading the gray van. There are riding toys everywhere (scattered among other things), and I'm having trouble sorting through them to figure out which belong with the house and which are mine. I keep seeing toys that I think are ours out of the corner of my eye, but when I turn to look straight at them they're not what I thought they were. Now I'm in the gray van pulling the seats up into their normal positions. Now I'm watching my wife pull down the driveway with a fully-loaded gray van when I notice the tailgate isn't properly latched. I know she's going to wait in the street for the rest of us, so I'm not in too great a hurry, but I jog down behind her and, once she stops, fix the tailgate.


Party infiltration
I'm doing some kind of spy thing. I'm very well dressed, wandering through an upper-crust social event in a huge mansion. All the colors are very rich. At one point, I'm on a walkway above some kind of ballroom. At another point, I'm coming down a wide spiral staircase into a small sitting room. I see my wife, wearing an evening gown, sitting catty-corner to a guy, talking him up. She looks a bit tipsy, but he's much more so, and I can tell she's getting the information we were sent to retrieve.

Now John and I are dressed in street clothes, and we're getting onto some kind of train car. As the doors start to close, a guy jumps in. Out of his line of sight, but within mine, you pull a very large weapon from somewhere and hold it in readiness. After a moment, we both recognize the guy and we relax, you putting the weapon back in a duffel bag. He explains why he was rushing, and everything's OK.

Now I'm in a different car along with this guy and his family. I'm working with them to set up a whole bunch of Pack 'n Plays, but I'm having trouble keeping things straight. I'm having trouble keeping track of which kid is which age and size, and what their preferences are. Some of the Pack 'n Plays need a "strengthener rod" placed under the mattress layer, but there are different strengths depending on how firm the child would like it; and one child (who, based on size I think is the oldest, but it turns out he's 4) doesn't want a rod at all, but just wants 2 small pillows.


Fragment: Something about being in a doctor's office.

Bed @ 2230
Woke @ 0540

Leaky ceiling
I'm in my master bathroom relieving myself. As I start, I notice that there's a drop of water on the ceiling. This concerns me, but I figure that maybe there's an explanation that's not terrible, though I'm not hopeful. My first guess as to a cause is that something is wrong with the weather sealing around the window. I'm surprised by how full my bladder is, and as I keep going, I notice more and more wet drops hanging on the ceiling. They seem to be popping up constantly. By the time I'm finished, the entire ceiling is covered with large droplets of water. I'm saying something like "no no no no no" and call out to my wife "Honey, we've got a problem!!!" As I continue trying to find out what's going on, I notice a place where the ceiling changes levels. Inside, I see some small pipes and immediately jump to the conclusion that they're the source of the problem.

Missed meeting
I'm sitting at my computer in my office. I realize it's eleven thirty and that I didn't dial into the daily meeting earlier; but then I look at my daily calendar and see that it's been moved to five PM. I hate it when my team lead does that; the new time is after I'm done for the day! Now I'm on the phone with someone. Now I'm closing browser tabs, trying to get things organized again. I'm really confused by the contents of the tabs - there's lots of gaming stuff. I keep closing them and finally notice a stylized blue E at the corner of the window. Oh, of course, I'm in Windows, which I only boot up for gaming. When did I boot Windows?

Contaminated food
I'm at a party with some people I know. Everyone else has food, but I don't. Now I'm in the kitchen to see what's available, but all I see is a half a rolled-up something on a cutting board near the sink. I try to nonchalantly look around to see if there's a plate I can grab to get some, but I don't see anything. Suddenly, weird stuff starts happening. Little statuettes start exploding and everyone starts behaving very very oddly. I realize their behavior has something to do with the food and am thankful I didn't have any. Somehow I manage to talk to some of them and snap them out of it. Now I'm listening to a group of them talk afterwards (mostly older women I don't know, though Jen is also in the group). Someone is saying that the stuff in the food is pretty nasty, that even touching it will let it enter your DNA and make changes to your aging process, and that it affects women more than it does men.


Lucid in the lab
I'm watching the opening credits for a TV show which takes place in some kind of laboratory. In the footage, a lot of shining stainless steel and a variety of fancy-looking instruments are pretty constantly in the frame. Now the credits are showing a character who's young, strong, and not quite all there. He's used for simple manual labor, moving stuff from one place to another; but really he's used for comedy relief, always banging into things and messing up the other characters. Sure enough, he comes through a door pulling a giant metal cylinder that's much bigger than he is, acting as if it's nothing, but as he makes the turn he swivels it into another character who gets stuck between it and the wall. I recognize this guy from something he did much later - I hadn't realized this is where he got his start. Now I see another guy in what looks like a glass elevator, but he's rotating slowly around. When his capsule lines up with the door he has a brief moment to connect something, but he keeps missing his opportunity and having to wait until it spins around again.

Now I'm walking along a hallway in the building. Strangely, many pieces of equipment have handwritten signs on them with very strange, humorous (to someone) instructions written on them.

Now I'm walking down another hallway with a group of people. Over the PA, someone announces that they're going to drop meat on our heads. What kind of lab is this? What kind of experiment is this? The ceiling starts to open up, and something starts to fall out. People start screaming and running for the far end of the hall, but balloons are already falling out of the ceiling. Balloons? Strangely, they pop the moment they touch anything. At first, I'm relieved they weren't really dropping meat on us, but then I look behind me and see that the balloons did actually have stuff in them, and that the floor is now littered with unidentifiable bits of red chunks and red stringy stuff. Ewww.

Now we've entered an area with some other people. A woman dressed only in white bra and panties starts swaying her way towards my group. I don't make eye contact and try not to stand out, hoping she'll ignore me. She ends up fixating on the guy right in front of me and starts making out with him. Somehow she ends up sitting on my chest (she's very soft) while she's kissing him. I'm repulsed and try to think of a way out of this when I realize I'm dreaming. I shout out "This is a dream!" and wonder if any of the DCs will try to argue with me, but they just ignore me.

Now I'm standing again, and I'm by myself. The dream is rather dull, and I know I need more vividness. First, I look at my hand. It's got four fingers and a thumb, but all my fingers are too long, and the thumb is pointing almost straight downwards. Colors are better now. Now I start to go through my memorized list. First, to help activate the logical side of my brain, I calculate the first few numbers of the Fibonacci sequence. Getting to 13 is easy, but the jump to 21 takes some effort, and I stop there, not wanting to focus too much and lose the dream. Next up, I try to activate my creative side by singing Mary Had A Little Lamb. I manage to sing one verse, though it somehow gets muddled together with B.I.N.G.O. I know it's wrong, but I don't care - I sang something and that's good enough. Now, onto the real tasks. I know I need DCs for both basic tasks, but I haven't seen anyone since right after getting lucid, so I'm a bit worried that I won't be able to find anyone. I turn around (I'd been facing the hallway) and find that I'm now in some kind of cafeteria area. Tables are scattered around haphazardly along with large ornate pillars, and lots of people are milling around.

The closest person to me is a really cute, impeccably dressed (sweater vest, long sleeved shirt, slacks) little black kid. I ask him what a good task of the month would be. He very clearly enunciates something, but it's not a task. I go to a nearby woman and ask her, and she also says something that's not a task. I round one of the pillars and talk to an older man, and he says something that, again, is not a task. Oh well.

I move onto the second basic task: I throw back my head and do my best mad scientist laugh (Mwa ha ha ha ha ha). The guy looks at me like, did I really just do that? But off in another part of the cafeteria I hear an answering high pitched cackle (Eeeee hee hee hee hee hee). Score!

Onto intermediate one. I pull out my phone and will that Frank will call. Nothing happens. I decide that I'm going to count down from five and that it'll ring when I reach zero. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Zero. The moment I count "zero," the phone starts buzzing (it's quite a strong sensation in my hand) and the notification light starts blinking white, but the screen doesn't come on. I press the power button and it turns on to reveal an RPG. In the dream, I recognize that it's a smashed-up mess of at least two different games, and the city names shown on the map clue me in on what they are though I can't remember them now. Flush with excitement over successfully completing both a basic and an intermediate task in one dream, I wake up.


Fragment: I'm walking through what I know to be a college campus. My wife is with me, and she mentions going to visit a place on campus "now that she can put the baby in the Ergo." I don't understand what that has to do with anything, but whatever.

Purple dinosaurs
I'm sitting at my desk in the office. I'm scrolling through a web page full of pictures of a purple dinosaur-like creature laying eggs. I'm confused by the order of the pictures. *

Side-scroller novice
I'm watching the screen of someone playing a side-scrolling video game. Now the player's character has dropped into a new area (falling through some kind of portal) and has become a small frog. As it hops along to the right it runs into a number of flies, which it eats, then it runs into something larger which eats it. Whoever is playing is younger and rather inexperienced with gaming, so I give some tips on how to survive longer.

In System Shock
I'm physically present in a first person video game. I'm standing in a white hallway which extends off into the distance to my right and to a dead-end about 10 feet to my left. In front of me is another hallway, but this one is filled with some kind of laser traps and has a platform at the end which moves up and down. I think it's going to be tricky to time things right to get to the platform and ride it up without being touched by a laser. To the left and right of the hallway are large floor buttons. I step on one, expecting some lasers to turn on, but nothing happens. I reason that nothing will happen unless both buttons are pushed at the same time.

Now I'm watching a woman under the platform. The platform is moving down towards her, and I look away, not wanting to watch her get squished.

Now I'm in the next hallway, except it's totally different. There are shelves full of junk everywhere. I'm looking through the stuff on the shelves looking for anything useful, and I'm especially keeping my eye out for cyber modules. I know John and the woman have already looked through here, but I'm pretty confident they missed something. I'm trying to move quickly, because I feel bad holding them up - I should have gone through here with them instead of behind them. I hear the woman I'm playing with speak over the in-game voice chat saying how glad she is that she spent the $20 on System Shock 2, that she never would have thought she'd enjoy it as much as she is.