non-lucid

I go to bed at 10:50, intending to get up with my wife's 6:30 alarm. A few hours later I wake for some reason (no recall) and return to sleep. At 3:10 a kid makes noise and wakes me. I jot down a fragment then return to sleep. At 5:50 a kid wakes me as she uses the bathroom. She's coughing once she returns to bed, so I take her some water. I can't seem to get back to sleep, and I hear my wife's restlessness and know she can't either. At 6:15 she gets up and showers, and I fall asleep while she's in the shower.


Beer in space
I'm on a very traditional star ship (or maybe a space station?), walking through the corridors. It's a very traditional design, with identical gray corridors meeting frequently. I'm totally lost, but that's OK: I'm wandering around the place trying to get a feel for it.

Now I see the officers in the conference room, where everyone is looking out the windows. Captain Picard looks out last and gets a disgusted look on his face when he sees what the rest do: a giant brown beer bottle floating in space, spinning slowly. As the label rotates into view, everyone can see it has a goofy picture of the captain, and the name of the beer and its catch phrase are poking fun at the captain. Everyone immediately knows this was done by Q.


Scanning stations
I'm watching as defense stations around the world are doing some kind of scan. As I'm initially watching, there are 5 stations, but the number keeps growing as the dream continues. At first, I'm watching from inside some kind of control room. I'll see a quick clip from one control room, then I'll see a clip from a different control room in a different station. I can tell I'm seeing different stations because the people in the room change, but the room itself stays exactly the same. I'm surprised they'd use such an obvious trick to try to save on production costs; even the camera angle stays exactly the same! The last room I see is being run by a stocky Russian woman, and everyone is speaking in (what I identify as) Russian (though I can't understand a word of it).

Now I'm looking at a map of the earth that has all the stations marked out on it. I see red arcs appear from every station to every other station, then start to shrink. I assume that whatever is still under the arcs still needs to be scanned, and the places the arcs have shrunk away from are already scanned and determined not to have anything interesting.


At the hotel
I'm in a nicely appointed bathroom. It's long and thin; one wall has a long row of sinks followed by a long row of urinals, while the other wall has only stalls. I'm walking back from the urinals towards the sinks. Initially I think I'm alone, but then I realize there's a woman at one of the sinks closest to me. I'm very surprised to see a woman in here, but I just walk around her and go on my way. She's doing something at her sink (washing her teeth, maybe?), and there's stuff on the floor around her (towels?).

Now I'm in the (impossibly huge) foyer of a hotel, standing in the middle at what I first assume to be a concierge desk. I'm with other people I know, and someone is talking about coffee. I realize that this isn't a concierge desk but is rather a tiny Starbucks. While he's getting his coffee, a woman in my group who's standing near me tells her friend that she's never had Starbucks and wonders what it's like. I tell her that Starbucks coffee is too heavily roasted, almost burnt, for my tastes.

Now I see a couple of people with small plates of food. I look around to see where it may have come from and realize that on the other side of the Starbucks is a small table with lots of fruit on it - I specifically see strawberries and chunks of pineapple. Despite being right next to the Starbucks, I think it's actually provided by the hotel, so it's probably complementary. I think about going and getting some.


Unclear traffic signal + Flying and pumpkin hunt
I'm driving a car of some kind, maybe an SUV (I've never driven an SUV IRL). I'm stopped at the top of a hill, waiting on a ramp to join with a larger road that's down and to my left. Between the large road and my ramp is a HUGE board that reminds me of a scoreboard at an athletic event. Most of the middle of the board is taken up with rows that look like they should be holding team names and scores; around the edge of the board I see more than one set of red/yellow/green traffic lights. Initially, the board is completely blank. Nothing is on the rows, and all the lights are off. Eventually one of the greens on the left-front of the board turns on, but since it's away from me I assume it's for the other road. Other lights start cycling, though none on the right. Up to this point I've been alone at the top of the ramp, but I still start to get concerned that maybe one of those lights was supposed to be for me, and I'd hate to hold up traffic. As I'm thinking about this, I realize that a motorcyclist is going around me, tired of waiting for me to go. I check my mirror and am horrified to see a long line of cars waiting behind me. I decide to ignore whatever the strange sign is trying to tell me and just go.

Now I'm on a three-lane, one-way street. Somehow I'm aware of the driver behind me not liking the left-hand merges he has to do on this road. I think nothing of the strangeness of knowing what another driver is thinking/talking about, but I do try to figure out what he means. If you're switching left, you merge left; if you're switching right, you merge right; so what's the big deal? I can't see how this road changes anything.

I start to get a vague sense of "wrongness" and decide to do a nose-pinch RC. Initially, it only seems to deepen the sense of wrongness; something's not right, but I can't quite put my finger on it. I keep doing it, eventually realizing that, yes, I'm still breathing through my nose (left nostril only), even though it's pinched. I do it a couple more times to confirm that, yes, I'm really dreaming.

Now I'm standing in front of a house on a kind of rock path made of very coarse white gravel and small rocks. The scene is very fuzzy, and I know I need to ground myself in the dream. I start by looking at my hand, but it's badly out of proportion, and I really want something to keep me here and not convince me I shouldn't be here. I kneel down and pick up one of the larger chunks of white rock. As I feel its solidness and hard edges, look at its shape, and study the sparkly flecks in it, the dream becomes crisp. I stand up and recall my goals for this dream: the basic challenge to cut open a pumpkin and see what's inside, and my personal goal of better flight.

Nearby, I see an open door into what looks like a small shed. I look inside to see if there any pumpkins here. As it turns out, there are two: a medium-sized one on a table to my left, and a small one on a counter near the back. I don't like the look of either of them and continue on my way. I remember reading about someone finding a pumpkin patch and decide to check if there's one behind the house, but there isn't. I change my mind about the pumpkins in the shed, figuring that any pumpkin will do, even if it's sickly looking. I return to the shed and take the larger of the pumpkins, but in my hand it changes into a collection of small orangish guards connected by strings. It's useless to me now, so I leave it.

During this first part of the dream, I frequently stopped to re-ground myself. Sometimes I studied my hand (slightly different each time), and sometimes I picked some part of the scenery to look at. From this point onward, I forget all about doing any further groundings.

Somehow I end up back in the house. I'm in what's probably a living room, though since the house is completely empty it's hard to tell. I'm standing on hardwood floors, and in front of me is a wall that's mostly window. Even the doors are mostly glass. I'm getting a bit frustrated with not finding my pumpkin, so I decide to move onto flying. After all, there's no reason I can't fly and look for pumpkins at the same time. I decide to start out by jumping. Last time I tried jumping in a dream, something really strange happened, and I want to see if I can do better. I manage to jump all the way to the (fairly high) ceiling, then gently float down, That was fun, so I do it again. But, jumping isn't flying, and it's time to fly!

Now I'm outside (not sure how I got here), flying about head-level off the ground. I know I'm flying, not just gliding like I have in previous dreams, so I know I can go as high as I want. I head up to about roof height, then come back down to head-height. Now I'm flying along above a field. To my right is a high school athletic field of some kind (baseball, maybe?) with a high chain-link fence around it. I see a few small groups of people talking near the fence. I know some of the people in the groups, and in one group I see Amy. I feel sad, thinking on how we used to be good friends but that she left all her old friends (including me) behind. I decide to give her a scare, so I fly by her and somehow pick her up in my wake so that she's flying behind me. Her additional mass slows us down, but I don't mind too much. We fly down the street into another neighborhood. I see Sarah H. standing by the street, and she sees me and gets an amazed, incredulous look on her face.

Now I'm in another house, in a small hallway. The outside door (some kind of side door) is behind me, and a set of bi-fold doors is in front of me. The doors remind me of the bifold doors in my wife's parents' old house that hid the washer and drier. I decide I'm done trying to "find" a pumpkin, and I'm going to add one into the dream. I know that asking DCs for something tends to work well, so I decide that I'm going to find a DC behind these doors, and that that DC will help me get a pumpkin. I open the doors and walk through to find a mother and daughter working on laundry. The mother looks like an old-fashioned washer woman: she's wearing an off-white blouse with a darker off-white skirt and has her hair pulled back and up in a floral handkerchief. I think the daughter is wearing something similar. I see that the mother has a rather tired, hard-bitten expression on her face, but I go ahead and ask her for a pumpkin. She gives me a look that says "I don't know why you're in my house, and I don't know why I'm talking to you at all" and eventually drawls that there aren't any pumpkins around here. Behind her, I notice a small table designed like a pillar, and I see that it has a small misshapen pumpkin sitting on it.

I consider calling her on her lie but decide not to. I look over to her daughter to see if she'd be any more help, but then poof I wake up.

I go to bed at 11:30 PM, intending to get up between 6:30 and 7 AM. I read over the last couple of days in my dream journal before going to sleep (with my red filter enabled, of course). My wife's coughing wakes me at 4:30.

Visiting the B's
Mrs. B has asked my eldest daughter if she'd like to go over to their house, so she's come to ask me. I say yes, then back-pedal, saying I need to check with my wife. My wife assumes I don't approve and is surprised to hear that I'm inclined to say yes. She's not a fan of the idea, but if I *really* want my daughter to go, then she's (sigh) OK with it.


Getting a haircut
I walk into a generic cheap hair salon to get a haircut. After the lady behind the little counter takes my name, I go back outside. Right by the door is a large newspaper dispenser with a sign saying it's for people who are waiting for a haircut. I take one, then head back inside. As I'm walking past the counter to sit on a padded bench on the far wall, I see that an effeminate man (black, with a fairly light shade) is doing something behind the counter. As I'm sitting on the bench, the woman who took my name looks up at me, addresses me by name, and says they'll be with me shortly.

I consider how odd it is to be in one of these places again. My wife has cut my hair for many years now, but I'm here since she's so tired and stressed and needs a break. She'll be surprised that I was willing to spend the $13 (plus tax and tip), but she'll appreciate the gesture. I think back to the Art of Manliness video on how to talk to your barber about a haircut. I remember the need to specify sideburn length and decide on mid-ear, and I think I need to specify the length on the top of my head as an "8" tapering all the way down to nothing at the base of my neck.


Fragment: Hundreds of barrel-shaped objects are laid out in a grid on a very green field.


I decide that the hair salon would be a great place to pick up a dream, since it's a place I never go. Before returning to sleep, I visualize finding myself in the salon, realizing that I'm dreaming, and doing some goals ... but I never actually get back to sleep. Around 4:30 I take a short shower, and I feel more relaxed and sleepy, but I still don't get any more sleep before my wife's alarm goes off.

At 10PM I had a glass of milk and went to bed, setting my alarm for 5AM. I have nature noises (river water + crickets) playing through my pillow speakers. Noises wake me at 11:15PM, but I promptly fall back asleep. A bad dream wakes me at 1AM.

Snakes in the leaves
I'm writing a fiery letter regarding a pastor and church building. In it, I say that I'd love to welcome him back as a friend, but that I'll fight him tooth and nail if I have to. I'm embarrassed about using such strong language, but I feel it's what I need to do. I'll be sending the letter off to Frank to get his opinion.

Now I'm on some church property trying to clean up a huge accumulation of leaves. I'm by myself, and I take a moment to savor my picturesque surroundings, with woods all around me and the old building off in the distance. Now the thick carpet of leaves has been turned into a bunch of big piles, some of which are now in bags. As I'm working, I consider myself fortunate that I haven't seen any snakes in this mess. Immediately after thinking about it, I see a brownish snake in the bag I just stepped over. It doesn't strike, but it does seem to be waking up and shaking off a stupor. It really blends in with all the dead leaves, and I thank God that I didn't step on it. As I back away from the bag, I become aware that there are a lot of these snakes around, all waking up, all starting to head towards me. I turn and run, then trip and fall. As I'm picking myself up, I see that one is coming straight at me. I manage to grab a bag and swing and throw it as hard as I can at the snake. It doesn't impede the snake at all, and I feel panic rising in me.

I wake up, heart pounding. I jump at every little noise I hear, and it takes about an hour to fall back asleep. My alarm wakes me up at 5.


Swim goggles
I'm standing on a platform in the middle of a pool getting ready to jump in. I've got my swim goggles on, but they don't feel right. I press them to my eyes and find that they don't suck on. I wonder if they're broken, but then I realize they probably just got dried out. I take them off and dunk them in the water, then put them back on, and they stick properly.


Problems at church
I'm at Frank's church before the service starts, waiting in the bathroom for the computer to become available. A well-dressed man (black, but with relatively light skin) is using it, and the longer I wait the more I suspect he's not going to give it up any time soon. Now I'm in the service, in the middle of singing a hymn. Mom is to my right, and my son is to her right. When the hymn is done, we all sit back down. My son is talking to a girl his age sitting to his right, so Mom shushes them. He tells Mom to be quiet, then turns back to his friend and keeps talking. I get back up, tell him to follow me, and leave the service with him.


Fragment: I'm walking around outside a building under a covered walkway preparing for some kind of party.

I spent a few minutes reading over my dreams from the past week, then went to bed at 10:50. I woke at 2:30.

The parking deck
I'm on the 6th floor of the parking deck at work. Another man is with me (I don't know if I knew him or not), and there are also a lot of Google+ people around (I wrote that in the middle of the night; I have no idea what it means now). The 7th (top) floor ends abruptly right above where we're standing. With the problems they've had in the past about getting heavy machinery onto the parking deck to change the sign on the back of the building, I don't know how they managed to remove half a floor safely. Now things have shifted: we're still on the 6th floor, but now it's just the two of us; and the 7th floor still ends right above us, while in front of us the 6th floor now also ends abruptly (though it's protected by a wrought-iron fence). I decide that the fence is too "girly(Huh?)," but that it'll serve its purpose well enough. We look over at building C and decide to try to demolish it. Now we've put something disk-shaped onto the ground and turned it on. It's vibrating like crazy, and if we can get it tuned to the right frequency then it'll vibrate the whole building down. My friend is the one tweaking the frequency, and he gets close. The building starts visibly shaking. I put one foot on the gizmo, holding it down against the ground with my weight. I'm getting tired quickly, and I hope the building gives out before I do. We seem to get just the right frequency for a moment, and all the windows twist in their frames. I'm pleased that we managed to achieve that much, but I'm disappointed it was all we could do.

Now I'm inside the library, one of the rooms with windows affected by our gizmo. The windows are still messed up, but people don't seem too bothered, and things are generally going on like normal. As I'm looking at everything, it dawns on me that there may have been video cameras on the parking deck, and that if there are then everyone already has a copy of it and will be looking for me. I try to think back to where we were in the deck, and I can visualize cameras about 10 feet from where we were standing. I start to panic a bit, but I get it under control. Now I'm back in the deck walking with someone. I've been able - so far, at least - to blend in with the other students and not get picked up for my involvement with the seismic gadget.

Now I'm in a car with a few other people my age. We're trying to get to ???. I'm following the GPS directions, but they don't make a lot of sense. I make a left but then realize I probably shouldn't have. I check my phone and see it's at half battery, and I realize I don't have any charger with me. We'll be in trouble if the battery dies. Now we're further down the road. Somehow we need to turn around and go back a bit to get my GPS - it's no longer in the car. I look for an opening to get into the left lane to get ready to turn around (there's a median in the middle of the road, so I have to wait to find a gap), but then I realize that the left lanes have train tracks running on them (like trolley tracks), and I'm not willing to ride on train tracks for any length of time. Further up, we find a place to pull a U turn that doesn't require being on the tracks for long.


After journalling, I used the bathroom and returned to bed at 2:45. My wife's alarm woke me at 6:30.


Flying back to the car
I'm with my family, returning from somewhere to the house in a nearby neighborhood where we parked our car. Somehow, we're traveling over some other neighborhoods to get there. We seem to be in a ballistic trajectory, since we're not in any kind of craft and have no control over our own flight. I'm not aware of any wind, only of movement over the ground. We're moving quickly, yet the houses below us seem to pass slowly, so we must be fairly high up. As we go, I point out different roof tile colors and patterns to my kids. Most of the houses seem to have dark gray roofs, so the kids have fun pointing out other colors. Most of the rest seem to be brown roofs, though there are a few that have mixed colors; the kids are always really excited to point out one of those. I also think it's interesting to look at the colors of the houses. Most are normal colors, but I see a few blues and greens and other odd colors. The kids don't seem to care about the siding colors, only showing an interest in the roofs.

Now we've landed. We're in a carport getting into our car. I'm standing near the door to the house. I have a remote control for the car and fiddle with it for a moment, turning the car's engine and stereo on and off.


An unusual day at work
I'm at work at the start of what's going to be an all-day meeting. We're all well dressed - I'm in a black suit. Now we're taking a break, and I'm in the break room with a couple of other people. They've had the meeting catered, so I grab one of the frozen omelets out of the freezer, put it on my plate, and microwave it. I decide to heat it most of the way through, then add a couple strips of bacon for the last few seconds so the omelet and the bacon will both be hot at the same time. Given how many people there are, I'm surprised at how little food there is. Someone says that Arby's is in the process of sending over more omelets. The woman who ordered the food describes her phone conversation with the woman at McDonald's. The McDonald's rep could tell that my coworker wasn't really going to order anything, that she was just calling to get prices to help her negotiate with the restaurant she actually wanted to order from, so she was working hard to change my coworkers mind to get her to order from McDonald's instead. My coworker said the McDonald's lady actually negotiated pretty well (not that she was going to budge), right up until she said something about "And just think of how much the children love our pancakes!". My coworker explains that she has children who love those pancakes and she always has a struggle with them when she tells them she's not buying them.

Now different people are in the break room with me. Something comes up about the guy at Arby's that the food was ordered from and how he has a thick German accent. I make a joke in poor taste, something about how the language sounds so harsh that no matter what they're actually saying, it always sounds like they're threatening you. The others with me don't appreciate it, so I apologize. I'm reminded of an old Simpsons clip in which Lisa asks a couple of Russian men for directions. The captions show that they're speaking very kindly to her, but their angry, shouted words and pounded fists cause her to run screaming in terror. I decide to find that clip and show it to these guys, thinking that maybe that'll help them lighten up.

Now I'm walking along outside the fence of "my company." It seems to be a big industrial complex. A female coworker is walking with me. We come across a skinny German guy trying to slip through a gap in the fence and ask him what he's doing. I point out that the main gates are just down the road and there's no reason for him to try to sneak in this way, but then I see that the main gates are closing as we speak. My petite coworker decides slipping through the fence is an interesting challenge and manages to do it without messing up her nice clothes (I was sure she'd rip something). The German guy follows her. I see security headed for them, so I run around through the main gate (which by now has started to open again). Even though I'm not wearing my security badge where it can be seen, the guards all know me for an employee. The ones doing normal guard duty ignore me, and the ones taking away the German and my coworker stop and listen when I explain what happened. The German is tossed back out, and my coworker is given a stern scolding.

Now I see the German man in his command center van looking at printed schematics and looking things up on his computer. I know now that the German was actually a saboteur trying to plant something inside our complex that he could trigger remotely. He pulls up info on both me and my coworker, and he visibly starts when he realizes who she is. It seems he'd started to fall for her in the couple of minutes he'd been around her, but now he finds out that she's the same woman he'd been sent to kill years ago. He failed back then, but he decides that he's not going to fail this time.


Prank gone wrong
As I'm driving along a five lane road, I see a couple of people sitting on a bench with a large teddy bear and decide to prank them by hooking the bear as I drive past to make them jump and have to hang on. Unfortunately, it turns out they're waiting for the bus and are asleep, so they can't hold on I end up holding the bear in my lap. Now I feel terrible and try to figure out how to return the bear. I'm stopped at a red light and consider just getting out and running over to them, but the light turns green. I look around for a driveway to pull into, but I can't see anything that would work. As I'm considering just pulling over to the side of the road and turning on my flashers, a middle-aged female bicyclist comes up to my window and starts scolding me for what I've done. I tell her that I'm already feeling terrible for doing it, that it went much farther than I'd intended, and ask her to return the bear for me. She agrees.


Augmented reality game
I'm with a few other guys in a room as part of some kind of augmented reality game. We're all well dressed and carrying various forms of weaponry. The room we're in is grayish and almost completely bare except for an unknown object right in the middle. As we're trying to figure out what it is, I remember my "gun" has a special ability that lets me "shoot" an object to identify it. My fellow players warn me that this gun seems very finicky and doesn't usually work. I shoot the object and, sure enough, nothing happens. I decide to try charging my gun before shooting, and this time a popup appears near the ceiling telling us about the object. I try a few more times, giving the gun a charge each time, and each time I get the popup (though the popup gives me different information each time). The other players are impressed.


Senile goddess
I see a group of people milling around in a large field. In front of them is a treeline broken by a fairly small gap, wide enough for three or four people to walk abreast. Beyond the gap is a brilliant, glowing field. An old goddess lives there, but she's so old that she's gone blind and senile. Her followers in the field still revere her and are sad at her condition.


Fragment: I'm with my old boss Dave and coworker Troy near a car in a small parking lot behind a building.

I took some benadryl and went to bed at 10 and woke at 4.

Setting up at camp
I'm at the camping site with my four "big kids". I'm working on getting our tent set up, and they're just racing around chasing each other. Even though our site is within sight of the lake, I'm not worried about the kids falling in: I've used a personal family shield, so all of the kids are invulnerable for about the next hour. I can see the fields when I look at the kids, since I know what to look for, but other people probably wouldn't notice anything.

I had trouble getting back to sleep and eventually took a shower. I returned to bed at 5 and woke up around 7.


Skiing
I'm on a ski slope with a couple of other guys. I ride a ski lift, but I think it's pretty odd that this lift faces backwards instead of forwards. Now I'm at the top with my friends. We choose a trail and start to ski down it. I hear a rumble and realize that it's probably an avalanche starting. We speed up trying to get to the bottom before the avalanche catches us. To my right, at the edge of the trail, I see a roundish depression that looks like a luge path. I jump in on my stomach, head first, and try to slide down faster that way. I end up going pretty fast, but the path isn't as straight as I'd like, and it sometimes takes me around the maintain instead of down it. Sometimes I pass through some very narrow tunnels and get worried that this was a bad idea. Eventually I find myself standing by a road at the bottom of the mountain. I've escaped the avalanche, but now I'm cold, wet, and lost. I walk along the road looking for some kind of help and eventually come to what looks like a large barn. The people inside see me and come out to help me. Now I'm in the barn. My clothes have been changed and I'm warm. They lead me to a table where I have a seat and find my friends. They're overjoyed to see me, having thought me lost in the avalanche.


London
I'm in London, on a cobblestone road on a fairly steep hill. My surroundings seem to be some kind of cross between Victorian and modern times. Off one edge I can see a large bay with a boat in it. Another smaller boat goes past closer to the hill. This one is long and thin and has a guy at the back using a couple of long whips. At first I think he's whipping the animals that power the paddle wheels, but as I look more closely I realize he's whipping the boat itself. Weird. Now some strange devices past the guard rail start shooting water into the air. I'm pretty confused about this and ask someone nearby what they're doing. He doesn't answer in words but just points past the top of the hill. I look and see more water along with a large ship coming in. This one is huge, much larger than the first one I saw. I realize this is the queen's own ship, and they like to have it come in mysteriously. There's a huge bank of fog, and I realize the strange water-shooting devices must be making the fog bank. As I look more closely I realize that the huge ship has some huge wheels just barely sticking out of the fog. I realize the ship is moving much too quickly and smoothly for going through the water, so those wheels must be running on reals that are hidden beneath the fog.

I realized my mom took a position on the queen's ship, and I decide to see her. Now I'm on board the ship in a large room with a counter. I ask the person behind the counter where I can find Mom, and she directs me.

Now I'm down the hill a bit talking to some people. Somehow Ben C ends up coming up in conversation. I decide to try to find him and ask where he lives. Someone points up a road and says he lives at twenty-five M??? street. I thank him and start heading that way. Now I'm driving up the road. It's got a totally different name from what the man had said, and the numbers are much too large (I think I pass 399)- no twenties around here. I turn around and go back thinking that maybe I'd missed it. I find an auto repair place at number twenty-four and assume that Ben must live somewhere close by. I go in and ask the woman in the office where number twenty-five is. She asks why I want to know and I tell her I'm looking for Ben. She calls over a teenaged boy, then all three of us head around back. She leads us to a large telephone booth sitting in the middle of a field, then pushes a button on the back of the phone booth and causes some strange doors to open. The boy gets in and gestures for me to follow. I get in with him, the doors close, and we start to move. Space inside is rather cramped, and I end up putting my arm over his shoulders. I'm almost giddy - I can't believe I'm riding in a phone booth through a secret passage! We make small talk as it moves along. Eventually the doors open up and we get out.

Now I'm putting my pants back on - it seems my pants earlier were wet and they dried them for me. I'm in something like a breakfast nook off of a kitchen. After I get them on and buttoned, I think they feel odd and wonder if I get the wrong ones, maybe the girl's that I see nearby. I think that they can't be a girls', since the button and zipper flap are facing to the right, but when I look more closely I realize that it is in fact a denim skirt and not pants at all! She must have my pants on.

I went to bed at 10:30. I was woken at 6 by a loud noise and had no recall. I got back to sleep and was woken up by my alarm at 6:50.

Saving my place in the food court
I'm with someone walking through a mall. We end up in the food court, and it seems to go on for a long, long way. The whole area is very haphazard and just feels messy. I move a couple of chairs from one table to another, then pull out my phone, go into Waze, and hit the big P button so it'll remember this spot for me. I'll need to come back here later.

Mistborn-style magic
I'm with someone else in an older part of town. We're looking at the outside display case of a curio shop, and my friend decides he's going to try to pick the lock on the case. He's unable to do it. Now we're inside the shop. I'm asking the shopkeeper about getting the "starter pills" so I can become a magic user. (I know this is like in Mistborn, where to become a magic user you can eat something, but then you have to eat other things to actually use that magic). He tells me that they're actually pretty cheap, though he won't give me a price. He just keeps answering around my question. He gets out five different colored pills and puts them in a bottle. Now I'm outside with his assistant on a field of grass near a cliff. He throws the bottle towards the cliff side, towards lots of holes. He explains there are creatures that live in those holes, and the only way the pills will work is if they try to eat them and then give up. His throw has to be really good to get the bottle to a place where it'll interest the creatures but where they won't go into a frenzy and destroy it. Unfortunately his aim was off and he threw too far. We'll have to go back and get another batch.


School weirdness
I'm talking to Frank about his teaching at a high school. We're talking about his methodology for / how he handles gym class. He lets each kid throw a ball four times trying to get it through a net (something like basketball) before giving it to the next child. I express my surprise that he does it so many times at once - I would have thought just twice would be better, rotating through the kids faster. He says it's easier to stop this way if they get interrupted (which doesn't make any sense to me), and that he doesn't want to get into a battle with parents over the ten dollars if their child doesn't get to throw the ball. Something comes up about Aunt C, how she (or someone like her) wouldn't hesitate to get the money back through small claims court. He says he's not worried, that no one would spend $70 to go to court on a $10 claim when you'd only get back $5 if you won. Now someone else is with us, and he mentions that Frank liked to shoot his basketball at the bulldozers while the other kids were taking their turns at the hoop. I try to picture what that would look like, but it seems really odd.

Now I'm with a group of people listening to a young woman talking about travel. She's saying she likes to travel by (something), since she just hates traveling on roads.


Fragment: I've been given a paper with some kind of special permission / authorization on it. I can show it to someone if I get in trouble.

I went to bed at 10 and woke naturally at 2:15. My thoughts are very scattered with no coherent memories. My mind may not have completely shaken off the dream state: as I try to recall dreams, my thoughts turn to different people offfering to hunt dreams for me and bring them back so I can record them. Eventually I got up and used the bathroom, then returned to bed at 2:25.

I woke up a couple more times, again with no clear recall.

I woke naturally at 5:25 and had good recall of my last dreams.


Vacation travel
I'm with my family driving to our vacation spot. We've just had breakfast at a restaurant and are going across the street to top up on gas. I talk with my eldest daughter for a couple of minutes. In another conversation, I find out that Jeff and his family are vacationing up north and have decided to rent a van for the trip, believing that renting the van actually saves them money in the long run since it means they save the wear and tear to their own car.


Home and garden shopping
I'm outside "my house" working on my lawn and garden. It's a fairly small rectangular area, maybe 15' by 25', and part of that is the garden. Looking at the street, our house is to my left with the raised beds of the garden right next to it. It looks like the person mowing the grass got interrupted last time the grass was being cut, since there's about a third of the lawn (kind of an island towards one end) that's looking terrible. The rest of the lawn looks pretty good. The raised beds each have five columns and three rows, though a few of the columns haven't been planted yet. I'm spraying super-garlic mosquito barrier around the lawn using the hose attachment. I spray the well-kept part of the lawn first, then start in on the messy section, though I have my doubts since the garlic'd part will probably be cut off when it's next mown. Oh well. I also spray the garden, though I try to avoid the columns where nothing is growing. They're currently very very dry, making it easy to see at a glance where things have been planted, and I don't want to lose that distinction.

Now Leena's (our neighbor directly across the street from us) van is parked on the edge of our lawn. I moved it there so I could take pictures of it. Leena gets home, and I'm worried that she won't be happy, especially when I see her walking across to us. When she gets to me, she says not to worry about the van, but she needs a favor. Her grandmother is here and is hungry, and she needs something quick. If I give her my peanuts, she'll give my eldest daughter (something) in return. I agree and start to head for the house.

Now Leena's gone and I'm trying to cross the road to her house (without the peanuts). The little neighborhood road is incredibly jammed with cars, but only in one direction, right-to-left from my perspective. Since the cars aren't really moving, I figure I can just walk between a couple of them, but a strange long, thin, barrel-shaped car (like an old race car) cuts me off. I hang back until he's past, and the next car lets me though.

Now I'm in the passenger seat in Leena's van; she's driving. I hadn't realized we'd be going on a shopping trip; I thought it was to be a quick exchange at home. I feel a bit odd and realize I'm not wearing a shirt. I must have taken it off while working and not put it back on. I'm annoyed at both Leena and my wife (who's in the back of the van) - I really think one of them could have mentioned that I'm shirtless. Somehow I end up looking at our path on a GPS app, and I see that our path ahead makes a right triangle crossing over where we've already gone: we'll be making two greater-than-ninety-degree left turns, functionally mimicing a right turn it seems we should have taken a while back. Oh well, the routing algorithms are pretty good these days, so it's probably right even if it seems weird.

Now we're at the store. Leena's gone off to pick something up, and I'm supposed to meet her past the checkout with the peanuts. I realize I can teleport home, grab the peanuts (and a shirt), then teleport back without her knowing. I'm off in a corner of the store without other people, so I should be able to do this unnoticed by anyone. I decide it'd be best to teleport back outside the store so they don't think I'm stealing their peanuts - this place is run by the mafia and I really don't want to get shot. Promptly forgetting about the plan to teleport back outside, I spend a moment really studying my surroundings, fixing them in my mind, since that's what I'll need for the return teleport. Once I've got it, I then start thinking about my home, picturing it really clearly so I'll jump to it. In my mind, I'm looking at it from about a fourty-five degree angle, with the road to my left, as if I'm standing at the road and the right edge of my property (as seen from the road). I see my front step, the green lawn, and the bricks of the walls.

Now I'm back home. My wife's grandmother is here and she needs some stuff from the store. I decide to go shopping with a friend of mine (who seems a combination of various people I know) and split the money. Now we're at a thrift store trying out a monitor. It's got a terrible resolution, though I wonder if that's because the testing rig is bad. It's hooked up to a cheap KVM that's strung all the way across the table, and my friend thinks that's the problem. Now we're walking back to the house, bags in hand. The goods we're carrying are worth $42, so each of us gets $21. Not bad for an hour or two of work when I wouldn't have otherwise gotten anything. Of course, the amount we make could vary hugely depending on what people need, so I'm not sure that being a paid shopper is a great side job.


Fragment: I'm walking through an airport with a couple of other guys. It's night.


I finish recording the dream at 5:55 and try to get back to sleep but don't manage it, getting up at 6:30.

What is it recently with all these game dreams? I haven't watched TV or played a computer game in ages.

I went to bed at 10PM without a sleep mask and was woken up at 1:15AM.


Alien battle
I'm behind a building with some other people getting ready to play some sort of game in which we'll be fighting off an alien invasion. The building has a couple of wings - from our vantage it looks L-shaped, though I don't know how the building would have looked from the air. With one wing behind us, another wing to our left, and a treeline to our right, the field of play was bounded on three sides but stretched off into the distance. The terrain is hard-packed dirt that's not graded - parts of it are flatish, but other parts have mounds big enough to hide behind or depressions deep enough to hide in. I take take some equipment out of my pockets and get ready.

Now we're in the midst of the battle. The creatures are much larger than I anticipated, so everything is much tougher than I'd expected. We're falling back, giving ground to them, and I don't think we'll last much longer. I drop down in a depression near the building to take cover.


I went back to bed around 1:30 and was woken up at 3:10.

Mansion game
I'm standing outside "my church" helping to prepare for potluck. My father-in-law is just bringing the trash cans back from the street along the really, really long driveway. The whole place is wooded, and I can't see the road from where I'm standing. I see Michelle coming out of the church, and I know she's working on getting everything clean. I continue on a path around to the right and see my wife sitting on a bench under a small pavilion. I keep walking and see more of these little pavilions each with a couple of benches. Now I'm back immediately outside the church, still helping to set up, and the weather is turning bad. I need to grab a heated ceramic basket, bring it inside, and fill it with punch.

Now I'm inside a gloomy mansion, playing some kind of real life RPG. I'm currently working with some other people to protect a young girl. In a room nearby, one of my team members has just been surrounded by a bunch of dog-things that appeared out of nowhere. Up until this point, we've been doing such a good job protecting the girl that she doesn't think there's any danger at all and we're just messing with her, so she hares off deciding to look for the truth. Unfortunately, she stumbles into the room with all the dogs. My team member rolls a 5, but it's not enough, and the girl gets captured. Now I'm in another room talking with her, trying to figure out if we could have done something differently or if the girl getting captured is part of the story (after all, this is the very end of chapter 2). I have a flash of inspiration that maybe we misread what the die role meant and ask her to show it to me. I look at it and deflate, realizing that the 5 she rolled didn't mean what I thought, but instead meant that she could kill 5 of the dogs. Since there were far more than that, there was nothing else she could do.

Now I'm watching the game from the outside, and my character is in a different hallway of this gloomy mansion. The wizard (a good guy) is in a room nearby, but he's in some kind of trance and is currently helpless to defend himself (or us). I get a menu with at least half a dozen options, including both killing the wizard and killing myself. I know he'd prevent either if he were out of his trance, so I decide to try one of the crazy options (I can always restore back to this point later). I take the "try to kill yourself" option to see what would happen. My character ends up getting turned into a large (intelligent) dog, then gets transported to the top of a snowy mountain where he eventually starts a dog family and lives out the rest of his life (Bad Ending Number ???).


Fragment: something in a hospital room?


I was woken up a couple more times through the night and didn't recall any more dreams.

Early access game
I'm trying an early access version of a new game. I start out in a room with stairs going down. The environment is mostly painted in shades of dark gray. Proceeding down the stairs I have to battle an enemy (some kind of armored alien soldier), then find myself in a smaller room with a narrow waterway passing through it. Crates are floating along the waterway, so I jump onto one and ride it over to the next area. I pass through a fairly small room where a bunch of the crates all come together and make a nicer sort of raft for me, then move on, now on my crate raft. Now I'm in a really large, circular room. This place is still mostly dark grays, but it has a more industrial feeling with stuff hanging from girders on the ceiling and pipes running here and there. At one end are some HUGE doors - they're very wide and many times as high as they are wide. There's a walkway running around the room, much higher than I can jump. I'd been wondering when this demo would end, and I suspect this room is it, that I'm not meant to get to the walkway or open the door. I decide to see just what I can manage to do, and I decide I really want to get to that walkway. I stack a couple of crates and stand on them, but it's not nearly enough. I start looking through my weapons to see if there's one that could propel (or blast) me up to the wall, and I try a couple that look promising, but I'm still not able to do it.

Games in the basement
I'm in the a fairly large bedroom in the furnished basement of a house. In the middle of one wall is a good sized bed, probably king-sized. A twin bed is in the corner left of the king bed (if you look at them from the other side of the room). On the opposite wall is another twin bed with its long side touching the wall. My family has their stuff scattered among the beds, and a couple of them are still in here getting everything arranged just so.

Now there are a bunch of other kids in here, most of them older pre-adolescents. They've congregated on the king bed and don't look like they're going anywhere any time soon. A boy is reading his book in my spot. I can't bring myself to move them, so I start looking at the other beds, especially the one on the other side of the room. Both twins are heaped with clothes and a few stuffed animals, but I figure I can shove most of it onto the floor. I hope these beds are fairly firm and don't squeak too much - we've had a lot of trouble with beds in vacation houses in the past.

Now I'm watching Elizabeth try some clothes on her son. He's grown a lot since the last time I saw him (probably 8 or 9 in the dream; about 2 IRL), and both the shirt and pants are too short for him by a couple of inches. She tries another shirt on him, but this one is way, way too big. Somehow I end up holding the huge shirt and look for a place to put it, eventually tossing it on the pile of clothes on the twin near the king.

Now Elizabeth's son is sitting on a settee, and he's wheezing noticeably. I'm standing at the open doorway to the next room, looking to the right where my wife is sitting. I tell her that we need to tell Elizabeth that her son isn't doing well so that she can start treating him now, but my wife doesn't want to, remembering what a rough time Elizabeth has already had on this trip (one of the other guests is a doctor, and he's been nagging her the whole time) and she doesn't want to add to Elizabeth's troubles. I'm persistent, saying that we wouldn't be *causing* her trouble, we'd be helping her help her son before he gets worse, but my wife doesn't give in.

Now I'm talking to Tedd, getting ready for our game. We face each other, standing one on each side of the doorway. Between us are two pools of liquid: his is mostly clear with a touch of gray, and mine is bluish. We both squat, holding out our arms to our sides as if we were going to grapple. Our respective pools surge forward and start trying to get past each other. Tedd and I both use our hands and arms to direct our pools, which by this point are starting to break up and slip through each other (without mixing). Eventually, my pool makes it all the way past Tedd's and into his room, and Tedd's follows suit and makes it into mine. I think I won, since I think my pool got into his room first, but I'm really not sure.

Now the two of us are talking on camera. Our game was webcast to our followers, and we're doing a post-game wrap-up. As I'm talking, Tedd sidles up and gives me a "you're forgetting something" look. I remember now, but I can't remember the right words, so I have to ask him for a reminder. "Encore," he reminds e. I ask our audience if they want an encore, though from Tedd's reaction to my words we were just supposed to go ahead and do it without asking for an opinion. Looking to the side at a monitor showing our viewer reactions, I can see encore votes coming in from, especially from the ones in Japan. We get enough votes and so get ready for another match.

Vacation
I'm still on vacation, biking on a bike path under trees with some of my family behind me. Now we've stopped, and I'm trying to cut a cake. It looks like a single long strip taken from a sheet cake, except it's somehow bent into a pretzel shape. About a foot of it is still straight, and I'm working on this bit first. I'm trying to cut it into thirds, so I've already cut off about a third from the right-hand side and am now lining up to cut the left-hand piece in half. I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out exactly where the middle of the piece should be.

Now I'm at a house, trying to run wires to get the TV hooked up to something. Later, I'm talking to a neighbor about stuff. He's going into great technical detail about creating 3.5" HD disks with what we have. I thank him but tell him that I have no idea what anything he just said means.


Military experiments
I'm working with the military on an experiment dealing with time. My partner is something like a Talan Imas. I park in the middle of an entrance to a parking lot, near a large military SUV, get out, and the device gets turned on. The asphalt loses all cohesion, and I sink down into it up to my ankles. Time has stopped for everything else, so My partner and I walk around, observing all the frozen stuff. Now I'm back in my car, heading to that same place again. Someone has to move out of my spot. I get out, the device is turned on, and this time I don't sink; I realize they must have set some different settings. This time I can see things moving, sometimes looking normal, sometimes very odd. I'm narrating my observations to my partner, hoping he's recording all this. A frog moves oddly. Coming to a turn in the road we're walking, I see a jaguar looking at us. I shine my flashlight in its eyes, and it cringes and walks away. Two others approach but leave with the flashlight treatment.

Now there's something about blocking an intersection and setting up a running course around the edge of town. Someone is trying to set up some kind of obstacle on top of a tall train car, but he gets ordered to make it just a normal part of the race. He's quite disappointed.

Now something's happened and I've been turned into a girl. I need to try to serve my partner. The first thing I need to do is make orange juice from concentrate. Heading out to the kitchen areas, I pass another new girl who's struggling with some sort of cooking duty. I find my own spot and fill my blender with lots of ice, some concentrate, and a drop of dish soap. Turning the blender on, I hope he likes it this time; he seems to go back and forth about liking my orange juice, even through I try to make it the same each time. I turn off the blender and taste the foam; I think it tastes pretty good, and thankfully so does he.

Now I'm in a military transport vehicle with lots of men and two other women. I make a comment about being the only attractive woman, to which the other two take offense. I undo that dialog choice, not wanting to go down a branch where they're antagonistic to me.


Finding a bathroom
I'm in a large building, something like a mall, looking for a bathroom. I run into Mrs. B. in the book shop, but before she can point me to the restroom I see a sign for it. In the restroom I'm trying to find a free stall but they're all taken. They're scattered all over this huge restroom, so it's hard enough to find a stall, let alone an empty one.


Watching an infiltration
I'm watching something where the actress who plays Dax is in a cave with a powerful guy. She's infiltrated the top of his organization to destroy the source of his power. As he talks to her, he realizes she's not the loyal employee he thought. She cloaks, and he sprays the room with bullets and manages to hit her. As her cloak is failing and she's weakening, she sees a glowing blue ball up on a shelf and shoots it. The ball falls and shatters, and the man shouts. Now he's normal again. Now he's looking in a phone book's business pages and comes across a page for a lost and found place. They'll find anything from the easy (e.g. missing toothpaste tubes) to difficult (e.g. people).


Camping prep
I'm getting ready to go camping. I'm standing at the end of a really long table, preparing to tackle the huge pile of laundry at my end of the table. Matt and a couple of other guys are with me. Our last-minute stuff (swimming trunks, etc) is in this pile ,and we need to fish it out and pack it.


Playing Descent
I'm trying to play the latest Descent online. I'm having a lot of trouble with the online component: it takes a bunch of retries to get through, and even then it's really flaky. Even the browser-based matchmaker isn't loading. I realize it may be blocked by the terrible personal firewall we have to run, so I temporarily disable it and find that now everything works great. I manage to join a game, but it only has one other guy in it. In this game mode, we have to drop pairs of mines connected by lasers and try to force the opponents into the laser fields. My opponent is really good; he quickly sets up an impenetrable plane of lasers below me. I'm flying around dropping mines very haphazardly, and I don't always get them linked; the D key drops mines while shift-D links them, and I keep pressing D instead of shift-D when trying to link them. I spend most of my time flying from him, dodging like crazy. I actually get him to fly into one of my stray links, which amazes me, since it was really careless on his part. Now we're on a much smaller moon orbiting the main planet. He's talking with my AI about some special field designs, including one that could blow up his own ship. I stop and watch as they produce more and more intricate designs in front of their ships. I should be using this time to set up more laser fields, but I don't feel I'm in any danger any more and just want to watch what they create.

I'm on my bike waiting to turn right from the church's road onto the main road. Lots of cars are coming, and I can't find a gap. Finally, I'm able to turn. Now I'm riding along the side of the main road and cars are whizzing past me very quickly, making me very nervous. Suddenly I realize that I'm supposed to be riding against traffic, not with it, so that I can see oncoming cars! I reach a dirt road off to my right and turn onto it to get off of the main road and away from the danger. The dirt road slopes up and has a telephone pole in the middle. Some other people are here on bikes, doing tricks. I see a couple of my kids here as well.

Now I'm driving to work, somewhere around the half way mark. I realize that I'm still wearing only my undershirt and boxers and conclude that I never got dressed after I finished on the bike. I consider going home to get dressed, but I realize that would make me very late for work. I remember that I keep one of my older shirts that I don't like very much in a cabinet at work, but that doesn't help with the missing pants. Taking a quick glance into the back seat, I see a pair of khakis - perfect! That just leaves my shoes, but since I always wear both black socks and black shoes, it's unlikely anyone will notice that the shoes are missing.

I'm seeing something about men's clothing, about the importance of having and wearing a good dress jacket. I see a fairly light-skinned black man, probably late twenties, getting sized at a tailor's. I think about how expensive that is, and then I see another man, a white man of about the same age, shopping at racks in a department store knowing that he can get small adjustments made to get the jacket to fit once hue buys it, and it'll cost him a lot less than a custom tailored jacket.

Now I'm at work, in a wide hallway, near some entry doors (looks like the entry to many malls). I see both men coming, dressed in their new jackets, and they look good. I'm conscious of my being in just my undershirt, but at least now I have the pants. I need to get to my desk to find the shirt. There's a woman here, but since these two stand out so much she hasn't noticed my own lack of clothing.

Now I'm in my office checking something out on my tablet. I take a moment to make sure the wifi is on the right network after the tablet starts taking way too long to pull something up.

Something else at work, talking to people.

Tunnel trouble
I'm driving at night behind a relatively slow-moving truck. As we enter a tunnel, we're forced into the right lane due to construction in the left lane. A police officer in a light-colored wide-brimmed hat is walking on the left of the lane, next to the construction; I guess he's making sure people don't hit it. Now I'm in the middle of the tunnel. It's pitch-black, and I can't see a thing (oddly, I can't see the headlights or tail lights of any cars around me). I try all the knobs and levers around the steering wheel, but nothing helps. I'm in my wife's van, so I'm not surprised by the momentary lapse, but it still makes me very nervous: I don't want to run into the truck in front of me (I never think about the tunnel walls). I pull on the lever I know is the brights control, but still nothing happens. I see a flash of blue light in my rear-view mirror, but the curves of the tunnel quickly hid it. We finally come out and I can see again, though dimly, from headlights and brake lights of other cars. A few moments later the police car pops out of the tunnel with his lights flashing. I make one more effort to get my own lights on, but nothing works. He comes up right behind me, and I resign myself to being pulled over. I look for a good spot, but we're on a fairly narrow road with no shoulder at all, so I just slow down, put on my blinker, and hope he doesn't get mad with me.


Mom's purse
I'm at home (a childhood home) in the dining room on the top floor. I look out the sliding glass door and see my "wife's purse" on the ground below. I ask her about it, and she says it's not hers, it's my Mom's. She'd put it there so we'd remember to return it when we saw my parents earlier, but then plans changed and they didn't come over. She then asks me how flexible my schedule is today, and whether it would work to have my parents over in the middle of the day for whatever it was she had planned. I remind her of my mid-afternoon doctor's appointment, but she's not worried, saying her thing will be over before then.


Best bubble-wrap ever
I'm in a gigantic room with only a few people and some scattered sofas and large planters. It's pretty bright. In one corner is someone I need to talk to to get something. I walk over and find her standing on a rug with a couple of nice sofas making a privacy barrier towards the rest of the room. I talk to her about whatever it is. Now I'm at home opening a package. The package isn't all that large, but the sheets of bubble-wrap coming out of it are amazing. Each bubble is head-sized, and it's a whole sheet of the stuff. I proclaim that this is the best bubble-wrap ever! Unfortunately, I'm not the one opening it; and whoever is opening it (female) is using a knife to slit the bubbles instead of popping them. I'm quite disappointed.


Another convenience store
I'm with Peter at a gas station convenience store. I'm talking to somebody (on the phone?), trying to give directions. Now we're walking across the parking lot towards our car. The lot is a big one, and hardly any cars are here. Now we're driving on an off-ramp. To my right is a sheer incline that's been reinforced; at the top of it I see the gas station parking lot. The Interstate is down a slope to my left, and we're approaching a road.

Dangers of jet engines
I'm using my tablet to watch a short documentary on the dangers of jet engines. It's about three and a half minutes long. In the video, I see an airliner in a hanger with one jet engine firing. A huge orange plume is coming out the back, and (maybe due to misalignment?) it's coming into contact with the fuselage. The metal of the fuselage is turning orange and melting away, leaving a huge gaping hole. Oddly, it seems to be melting the outside of the circle first and working its way inwards. I briefly wonder what's holding up the material in the middle, but i don't give it much thought. I can see into the plane to the seats.
Now I'm sitting on my bed next to my wife, showing her the same video. Normally I wouldn't say "Here, watch this" - I'd just send her the link - but I'm sufficiently amazed by this that I feel she has to see it now.

Fragment
Something about camping.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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


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


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

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

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

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


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

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

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

I'm skydiving.

I'm talking with my pastor.

I'm in a hotel room with my wife.

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

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


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

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

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

Something about a hallway in a dorm.