12-28-2016 -- Am out doing gas station mystery shops in an area down near Miami that doesn't correspond to any real locations, but that I have dreamt about several other times, in the last few years. This is a sort of blend of the four stations behind each other, and a more spread out area of shops that I have dreamed about. Anyway, I have reached the station (the first of this trip), and am considering what order to do the shop in. For some reason, I am considering doing some of the picture taking before doing the actual mystery shop portion, but I have to remind myself that would be bad. So I am in the outside portion where they always have tons of signs around, and I am amazed to see that this time they don't have a lot of signs, and I am thinking maybe they will get a good score, this time. But then I notice all the litter on the ground, and am thinking, maybe not. The manager comes around, sweeping things up and glaring at me, and I move inside. The counter is very long, and has an L-bend to it, so that it takes up half the store, and the employee makes a suggestion of a possible purchase, and I say no thanks, which causes the manager to start yelling at me that if the CSR suggests a purchase, I am supposed to accept it, when there is no such requirement. I move back outside, and am trying to line up my pictures, showing the limited signage and the lots of litter, when I see someone walking out of a tube station, and I glance at them unbelievingly for a minute, then realize I recognize them. The actual image that I am looking at is David Tennant, but who it is supposed to be is Brandon Sanderson. I'm talking to him for a few seconds, and try to let him know how much I continue to enjoy his books, and he is asking what I am doing, so I briefly explain the mystery shopping thing, then he wanders off to whatever it is he is here to do. I go back to trying to take pictures, but the manager is making an ever larger fuss, and there are a couple of punks hanging around who seem to be trying to steal my equipment. I've had enough of this shop, and am trying to pack my stuff (seemingly several still and video cameras) into my backpack, but in the process I leave my printer sitting there for a few extra seconds, and they try to run off with it, so I have to argue and wrestle a little bit to get it back. I am just zipping it into my backpack, and planning how to avoid having anything more to do with the punks, when I spot Tennant/Sanderson walking away, and chase after him, down into a bit of a subway station, just to try and talk a little more. I am asking if I am correct in thinking this is a regular area for him, and mentioning that I thought I'd seen him here three months ago when doing the shop, but couldn't believe it. I also mention having read the three books kind of offered on his web site, but not (at the time) published.
12-28-2013 -- I am Harry Potter, and while doing a Runescape herb run, I have discovered that I have the ability to bring chalk drawings to life, like in Brandon Sanderson's teen book The Rithmatists. I have been working on it for a while, and am finally starting to get it all working, and decide I am ready to start teaching it to my friends. Hermione is getting nowhere, because she is just simply incapable of believing that chalk drawings can come to life ... it doesn't fit her view of the world, even if she can see the proof of it in my own attempts. Ron is getting slightly further, managing to make his small drawing of a butterfly float a little unsteadily by somehow crossing his drawing with wingardium leviosa, but it is a very limited success. Neville is turning out to be the expert of the group, quickly surpassing even me, as he manages to bring his chalk plant drawings to life. He is really something. Flash forward in time a little bit, and we are running around, fighting off Death Eaters in a setting that seems very reminiscent of the Chinese Bakery dream I had which either never got entered, or perhaps was only a fragment. The location and feel seems to combine the Death Eater fight with more hints of Runescape, and just a bit of the whole spy thing from Covert Affairs (a show I just started watching today). I am doing an herb run while under heavy fire from the Death Eaters, next to a large building. I suddenly see a large chalk-drawing pumpkin-like vine sneaking up on one of the Death Eaters from behind the building. Rather than come directly at him, it has grown to circle the entire building in just a few seconds, and pounces on him from behind, wrapping him in vines and somehow not just capturing him, but starting to take him over. The scene is shifting to become more sort of the Calico Square in Knott's Berry Farm, as Neville's chalkling has kind of taken on a complete life of its own, and is grabbing real life plants, animals, and even people, and mutating them into a half-whatever, half-chalkling creature, creating a new species. Thankfully it seems to have a sort of a sense of morals. While it takes over any plants it wants to, the animals it takes over seem to be damaged or abused, so that it's new species may give them a better life, and it is leaving us alone, but only taking over, mutating, and controlling evil humans like the Death Eaters. We're still a little nervous about what Neville has done here.
[Old dream from somewhere in October or early November, for some reason forgotten when it was dreamed, and remembered in fair detail a month or two later.] I find myself driving around a very new gated community, have no idea how I have gotten here for the moment, but I can remember working security here a few months (or perhaps couple of years) previous, controlling access in and out while the various construction trucks were building the place. Now I am back, and I seem to be driving around in a car that is kind of turning into a golf cart (and eventually into a go kart) as I putter around the area, admiring how nice the grounds and things have been landscaped since I was last here. Unfortunately I eventually run into the security guard who now is monitoring the area, and he doesn't know how I have gotten in, but is very mad at me, and has no interest in extending any professional courtesy, or cutting me any slack because I used to work in his position. In fact, he seems to be afraid of me, or jealous of me, and he decides to hassle me and start chasing me around. Since he refuses to open up the gate and let me out, I end up driving my golf cart over a small landscaped berm (think of the planter Greg Jones drove his car over at the Buena Park Little Caesar's many years ago) to escape the complex. It feels like I am somewhere up around Lake Mary, perhaps in or right by the Heathrow development, and I end up driving south, heading down toward Orlando on my golf cart, but unfortunately the security guard has decided to challenge me, and is now racing me in his own golf cart, but since he has the finances of the entire development company behind him, he has a faster, newer, more built up kart, and also has people driving diesel trucks and trying to run me off the road to ensure he wins. On the other hand, I am a better driver, and know the area better, so I am holding my own as we race back to Orlando. --- 11-19-2013 -- I am at a house which is a cross between the Pageant house and Rosemary's place, and there have been some issues with having rent. Oddly, however, I seem to be the person who collects rent from everybody in the house and pays it to Rosemary, and since I haven't been here in a while, everybody is behind, and trying to collect it all means that my not having my part is somewhat hidden, and doesn't seem to be all that big of a deal. Somehow Keith and Melody are here, and they are chatting with me, and the place also feels like the three story apartment complex that I frequently have visited in my dreams. We are chatting away, and one of them mentions something that makes me flash back to a visit to Walt Disney World last week where I ran into Graham Murphy doing some streetmosphere, and somehow I find myself sitting in my car on my cell phone, having called him up to tell him how good the schtick that he'd been doing was. Problem is, I had only been passing by, and he didn't even know I was there, and now calling him to mention it, he is afraid I am stalking him or something, so it just feels weird, and I regret making the phone call. But I find myself missing Disney, and thinking how long it has been since I've been there (never mind that I was there just last week), and I end up hinting at Melody and Keith that if they need a good idea for Christmas gifts, tickets or an annual pass to Disney would be a great idea! Soon the dream shifts, and I find myself walking into a bookstore that is half Waldenbooks, and half the bookstore from the 10 cent sale dream that was posted here. It is pitch black, and late in the evening, but as I walk in the light comes on like I triggered a motion sensor. There are two or three employees at the register area, and I kind of say hello as I start to wander to the places in the store where I found the new 3 Investigator books and was looking for the comic strip books. As I approach the back of the store (where in the other dream the store grew into several different buildings) things shift to where I am in a library with Giles, finding myself one aisle over from where I want to be, while talking with Giles about a fantasy novel for Buffy or Willow, like out of another recent dream. Soon things shift again, and I find I am in the middle of a security shift at a cross between the House of Imports and Orlando Paving. Oddly, I have been here since 9 pm and it is now 3 am, and the staff has only just left. I am hungry, and plan to run down the block to 7-Eleven to get some food, but first figure I ought to make a call-in to the office. Problem is, the line that would usually be a machine, where I leave a message that all is well, is answered by a person who instantly assumes I am calling to say I am done with the shift, and is marking me off, when that is not what I am doing! --- 11-22-2013 -- In a strange, kind of dark feeling house, walking around with my laptop computer. Several people are here, and they are doing Rithmatist-like drawings that they bring to life ala Sanderson's books, and they can use a kind of code to set commands for the chalklings. I have a sort of breakthrough, and have chalked out a few simple commands that are so powerful that I don't have to actually draw out detailed chalklings, I just kind of stutter my chalk on the ground ......... and I have created 10 or 20 chalk bullets that fire off at all of my opponents. They can't defend against them or oppose them, it is just too quick and too powerful. Since I've just reached the point of being able to do this, and I have no desire to kill people or anything, I just keep firing off 'bullets' long enough to tear through their chalklings and tear down their shields and expose them, then I stop so that they lose, but are unharmed. Though I can't point to anything in particular, there is a sort of an English feel to the whole thing, though whether in location or accents or what, I can't say. Anyway, as this is going on, I am in my underwear, and am walking around trying to find my clothes. I step into the bathroom long enough to get dressed, but am really trying to hurry because I need to get out of the bathroom so that my mentor can use it. --- 11-23-2013 -- [Very short, but quite clear and detailed scene, which made it kind of interesting to dream, even if not exciting.] I am walking through the Buena Park Mall parking lot, right by the auto repair place. I am kind of in a group of a bunch of people, and we are all getting ready to jaywalk across Dale, but many of them are in a hurry, and just run into the road while there is all kinds of traffic, causing people to slam on brakes and swerve and stuff like that, while I wait, walking along the street until all the current cars have passed, and there is a significant gap in the traffic, then I jog across in complete safety. Once I have crossed the street, I continue walking down Dale to Greenleaf, then cut across to Hickory, heading home. There is a lot of water in the gutter, and yet you can only see it from certain angles, and I detour a couple of extra feet into the street so that I can splash through water that is only about a half an inch deep, rather than having to get soaked in the stuff that is three or four inches deep, then I make my way onto the sidewalk, and continue walking home. I give a wave to a couple of neighbors, including Marie, and perhaps the house next to Ted, walking down the block. When I reach the Goodwins, they don't seem to have anything to say to me, but I think they may be gossiping about me, so I may have ticked them off somehow. When I reach the Hickory house and step inside, I find several people there, including a bunch of people from two or three television shows, though I can't now remember all of them. The only male (beside me) is Angel, and there are two others from Buffy, perhaps Cordy and Willow, and several attractive women from other shows, though not any of the Charmed ones. Somehow a coffee machine has been possessed, and has started sliding around the table, and then slowly other inanimate things start sliding around as well, and it is kind of spooky. Angel is revealing that it is probably because of him, he thinks he is losing control of his vampire nature, and is really, really down about it, and the others are starting to get mad at him. I remind them that if he is starting to lose control, then he hasn't lost control yet, and there is no reason to be mad at him yet, though we should be watching him to make sure we can keep people safe if he does lose control. --- 11-24-2013 -- Can't remember almost anything of details, and only remembered even that the dream happened right before I went to sleep, but suddenly recalled a dream where I was back at the Golden Horseshoe Revue, performing again. Got the job performing there here. Can't remember any details, but was wandering around on stage or in the audience, singing and dancing, while making my way around the servers. Though there are no details, I still enjoyed the return to the dream. --- 11-25-2013 -- Somehow Dave D. and I are sitting somewhere listening to BC, who is going on and on to a girlfriend of hers about how Keith T. was a dirty old man going through a mid-life crisis and trying to hit on her, but she wanted nothing to do with him because he was so ridiculously old, and we are cringing each time she says this, as all four of us (Dave, myself, BC, and KT) are just about the same age, but she is making us feel old and worthless. Anyway, BC is turning into my sister, Melody, for some reason, and is driving me around. Not quite sure why, but she eventually decides it is time to stop. We are parked across the street from a hotel that is several stories tall, and that I have dreamed about before. For some reason we are going into this hotel and getting a meal at a restaurant inside. I start to cross the street to reach the hotel, but Melody just turns around and walks into a hotel across the street. I am confused, until I look up. They seem to be sister hotels, and every three or four floors, they have bridges running between the two hotels, so you can go up in either hotel and cross to the other. The bridges seem to cross at a bit of an angle, though, connecting floor four of one to five of the other. Eight on one to nine on the other, and then another connecting maybe floor 14 to 15. I get into one of the elevators, which is huge (like the elevators in the Haunted Mansion, except they actually move, instead of just the ceiling stretching.) Eventually I am getting to the place that I want (I think floor 17), but oddly enough, the floors skip a bunch, and it is like floor 18 is the only upper floor the elevator goes to, and I want floor 17. It's doubly weird, because there literally aren't any floors between about 9 and 17, and it is just a really strange pair of buildings. I get out of the elevator, and make my way to the restaurant, and Melody isn't here yet. I wander around looking for her, and catch no sign of her, but I do find a lot of people who work in the restaurant, and who are just standing around gossiping with each other. Then I turn a corner, and my eyes pass over a redhead before snapping back. Wait a minute, I know her. It is the female cop from Kindergarten Cop who is supposed to be the teacher until she gets sick, and Arnold S. has to take over as the teacher. I have dreamed of her in this hotel before (though whether I really have or not I can't really say, it might just be within this dream) and we seem to have hit it off and been on the edge of a relationship, until my vacation ended. So I casually walk up to her (knowing she could be on a stakeout and not wanting to give her away) and say I just got back in town and thought I would say hello. Before she can reply, I wake up again. --- 11-25-2013 -- I am in a police station, reporting that I had a car stolen (instead of it breaking down) about 15 months ago, and how I have been unemployed since then, because nobody was willing to hire me. I am almost ready to start my CDL class, except I need to have records showing how the car was stolen, keeping me from working for over a year, and I am having to explain how I have a vehicle to drive, but it isn't in good enough shape to use for mystery shopping or courier work, and the cops seem to be accusing me of things until I can explain enough of what happened that they decide to believe me, and to start looking for my stolen car, though after this much time they will almost certainly never find it. [Very close to real life, except in real life it broke down, and there were never any police involved. But my cars are always being stolen in my dreams.] --- 11-25-2013 -- [A bad night for sleeping. Waking constantly, and my dreams are short and disjointed, and I think I am only talking in my sleep, not even realizing I was dreaming until I wake again and realize I can't do that stuff in my bed. Very disjointed, and not worth much as dreams. A whole night of almost nothing but fragments.] I am working a mystery shop at one of the Chevrons hidden behind another gas station or two, a place I have often dreamed of before. This time through, it is a family owned place, kept clean and managed well, and everybody recognizes me and knows I am there to mystery shop them. They are asking me how everything is, and if everything is OK, and I am saying it all looks great, before remembering this is one of the places that always has more than four signs in the windows. I glance at the windows, and neon signs galore. I start to backpeddle, commenting on the signs, "but you don't care about that, do you?" knowing I will have to report it as I do every time I do this location, but nobody seems to let it worry them. I spot them unwrapping several brand new pumps, and though they are not ready to actually put them out and hook them up, I have to ask them to roll one of them out by the others and set it next to one of the old ones so I can get a required picture to send back to the company. Nice people, they don't have any problems with this.
05-27-2013 -- I'm in a room somewhere with a guy who is asking me to make him some floaty fliers, a balloon design I sort of adapted from somebody else's design. At first I think the guy wants me to teach him how to make the (extremely simple) design, but no, he wants me to make him a bunch of them. For free. I try to ask him why he doesn't just want to learn to make it, and he explains that he is out of black balloons. And there is now a shortage on them, so they cost too much. So he wants me to use mine, instead. Problem is, I have no balloons with me. But I point out we are in a big room with lots of bags of balloons, including several black bags. But he says they all belong to someone rich, who would charge him for them. I'm starting to get very mad at the guy, but suddenly find myself wondering if the big professionals feel the same way about me, and my limitations of money and skill .... Anyway, the place seems to be slowly turning into a convention hotel or something, and it is starting to feel like I am at Twist and Shout, though it almost feels like it expanded out of a basic alley meeting. Another guy walks in, and starts to twist something, trying to demonstrate a technique or something, in almost a jam room sort of setting, but there is a young lady there who is being really obnoxious about it not being in the program, and there not being any announcement about it, and how was she supposed to know about it. She doesn't seem to understand it is not a class or something, but just a quick spur-of-the-moment thing. Andrew McDonald shows up and starts doing something, then I think Greg Schuerman is there, as well. Soon Laura Caldwell shows up, and more and more people are gathering, even though it is still two hours before the official class is supposed to take place. Soon a grumpy security guard walks in, and everybody fears he is going to tell us to get out until time for the class, but he tells us the group has rented the room for the entire week, and we can use it whenever we want to. So somebody decides they might as well set up a bounce house there. I think Mark Byrne is also setting up for a show or presentation or something. Time seems to jump, and it is now two hours later, and they are starting up a business meeting or something, but I am trying to do some writing, putting this dream into my notebook as it is happening (yet not managing to go lucid, even though I obviously know I am dreaming in at least one sense) and the meeting is kind of distracting me, so I walk outside. But it turns out to be even more noisy and distracting there, because Don Caldwell and Billy Damon are putting on some sort of show. They explain they are sort of ADD, and don't do all that well with the business meeting portion of the convention, so they are waiting until that finishes, and things get a little more interesting, before they go in. That ought to be about ... say ... now. So they head back inside, and I decide to follow. As I walk in, Don (or possibly Mark) is giving some sort of demonstration where he is pretending to be a plane, and several members from the audience are supposed to be his landing strip, unfortunately, they keep running away when he flies at them! It's a very strange thing. Meanwhile, I have this strange feeling of anticipation, and somehow know something I have no way of knowing. Deep underground, far beneath us, is the inescapable prison of Hathor, which recently had it's first ever breakout. The long-trapped hero has been slowly making his way toward the Panarch's Palace, and will be joining us shortly ... then things will really start to happen. Somehow this balloon convention is turning into some sort of Brandon Sanderson novel. --- 05-27-2013 -- Hints of some kind of office work, maybe at Hewitt, or maybe at a new, slightly twisted version of the Hornet newspaper. First bit is, as usual, not all there and rather limited. Anyway, we seem to be moving desks and computers and things to a new room, and we're pushing desks and computer parts and things together in some weird angles, joining them all together, but we really don;t know if they are likely to work like that. Somehow I manage to knock over a glass of orange juice that is sitting there, but manage to grab it so fast that only a couple of drops manage to spill. We are so busy with moving everything that there is no time to clean everything up properly, but we just drop an old newspaper on the tiny bit of spilled juice, and hope it will absorb it. The computers are now all hooked up, and two lovely women are working with me here. One, I think, is Chloe from Smallville. The other might be a slightly younger version of BC. Somehow though it mostly seems to be the Hornet at the moment, there is also a hint of the 3M Dental warehouse. For some reason there is a tub in the middle of the office, and I am kind of embarrassed about stripping down and climbing in, but a few seconds later I am trying to coax either or both of the lovely women into the tub with me. No luck at the moment, because they both have work to get done, but indications are good for both of them at some later time, so I am still fairly happy. Problem is, as I move around in the tub, which I seem to have over-filled, water is splashing over the side, and I am hoping it doesn't do any damage. Luckily, it seems to room was designed for it, so it all seems to be good. [At this point, things shift slightly, and this may be a different dream, but it seems to fit, so I am not sure.] I step out of the shower, instead of a bath, and find myself in mom's bathroom in the Hickory house. I am thinking about using the toilet, but these days it is always broken, damaged, and jammed up in my dreams, so I am worried to do so. The good news is mom knows this, too, and has bought some gadget to attach to the toilet that is supposed to keep it working better. The bad news is, it doesn't seem to be up to the job, and is bubbling wildly like it is about to explode. So I just exit the bathroom wrapped in a towel, into mom and dad's bedroom. Dad is laying there asleep, but mom is not there. It is late at night, and mom has been really unstable recently (all the dreams of her beating up on me) so I am afraid she is going to yell at me for taking a shower so late, and I just want to get out of there. I sneak out of their room, but am horrified to see mom is sitting in my room. Thankfully she has fallen asleep, so I quietly sneak down the hall and into the living room, where I find the couch is still warm, and I realize Melody must have just left again, after napping there. I realize mom was in my room hoping to catch Melody when she came in so late, but she fell asleep, and never heard Melody, since she decided to just nap on the sofa. I curl up in the warm spot she left and drift off to sleep, myself.
08-25-2012 -- I'm walking into an Adventurers Club that seems to have a police presence tonight. As I walk in a police man (who seems to be played by Richard Biggs, Doctor Franklin in Babylon 5) is talking about how some short little gal committed murder, then hid out in the Club. They're all here looking for a Sharon Hegedus. But all they can find of her is her leather jacket, so she seems to have escaped. She's now a wanted criminal, though. I head downstairs to the main salon, and am following everybody else into the library, where Graham is announcing the next show. Just as I am walking in, I come face to face with Sharon, herself. She didn't escape, they just couldn't see her because she is so small. She's just chatting away with people in the main salon, and I comment snidely on the murder charges. She and Joe retort angrily, and because we seem to be causing a scene, they suggest taking this upstairs to the Zebra Mezzanine, where we can talk with a little more privacy. I'm surprised they are going to talk to me at all ... for years we haven't gotten along well. Anyway, I am just asking for a slight bit of reassurance: "Tell me whoever you killed at least deserved it." Whatever the exact circumstances, it is obvious she is not too nervous about it, because they have brought a bunch of the regulars with them, and even a couple of the actors are hanging around. I know I spot Jennifer and Joy. They keep trying to tell me what's going on, but people keep reminding them of various microphones around the place, and they don't want to chance anything incriminating being recorded, so we keep moving to different places around the mezzanine. Meanwhile, more and more people are gathering around the performers, and it seems to be turning into some sort of actors' studio, as Graham is standing there in green, describing exactly how he developed and portrays his suave and slightly smarmy Hathaway. [This meeting also figures into my next dream, The Substitutes.] Finally we decide there's no way we're going to be able to talk here. We walk outside the Club and find ourselves in a shopping mall. Some guy is fumbling with a video camera, and I help him for a few seconds. I don't recognize him until later, but it turns out to be Brandon Sanderson. Somebody is sent off for pizza, and we're finally ready to hear the story ... except somehow Sharon is now gone. The only thing that is left is a fairly small white box, like the kind a shirt might be wrapped in at Christmas. I pick the box up, and look around a few more minutes for Sharon or any of the others, but I can't find any of them, and I am starting to get tired, so decide maybe I'll just go home. I don't really need to know why Sharon killed somebody, anyway. I'm walking through some kind of small back corridor (like the utility corridors at the Buena Park Mall) and it seems I sat the box down somewhere and forgot about it. Mattie, Bonnie Moran's old housekeeper, is here, and while in the dream she seems a little crazy, she insists she'll go grab the box for me. I really don't care about it, though, and when she takes a while, I decide to just take the elevator down to the exit, get my car, and drive home. When I try, though, there are a couple of cops who stop me. They tell me I can't get away that easily. They found the evidence I dropped (turned out the box was full of money ... it was one of two Sharon had been carrying) and my fingerprints were all over it. They've now decided the person who robbed the gas station and killed the clerk wasn't Sharon, it was me! They force me back into the mall, and seat me at a table. The lead person who is presenting the evidence introduces herself as somebody high up in the Disney organization, and it seems to be Lilith from Fraiser. I spot Brandon Sanderson nearby, still with his camera, and wave him over for a little support. I realize that Sharon has very nicely set me up and framed me, and they really don't want to listen to me as I try and explain our history, and how we don't get along. In the dream I can't even remember anything of why, and it makes convincing them very difficult. I apologize to them in advance if I end up sounding like I've been watching too many courtroom dramas, and then Brandon starts to go into a very intricate explanation of how this could all tie in to a vast new magical system he is developing, before they wave him to silence. He blushes and holds his tongue. I feel like I am getting nowhere in convincing them, and am really beginning to get worried, when suddenly something begins to ring false. I am really starting to question the entire situation. Brandon seems to catch on as well, and suddenly asks the woman "What department did you say you work in?" She had never actually mentioned a department, previously, but she smirks as she says "Entertainment." I've been had! She starts to call people over and play audio recordings of me that have been tampered with to say things I have never said (and a very bad and obvious job of it, like the interview from the Homer Badman episode of the Simpsons), and are beginning to introduce the TV show that this has all been set up for. I feel like an absolute fool, completely mortified, and just walk off, while everybody else laughs. [In the dream, it was mortifying. In real life I woke up and couldn't think anything except, wow! What a cool dream!]
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