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Night of April 19, 2013. Friday.





This is another dream where I revisit my teenage years to take some review tests. A few friends are with me. The teacher seems nice. I am not sure of the grade; it is possibly eleventh grade (but with an intermediate association to make up incomplete work). I seem to be back in Florida. The questions are related to basic mathematics and I easily answer them, as I already had seemingly done this same work a few times before, but it is something to do with time taken over test scoring in this case.

Later, the location of the tests changes to some benches under a large shelter in a large park (but still near a school building). It may be at Lake Katherine. It seems to be at night and it is very dark out (though there is minimal lighting from the ceiling of the open shelter).

I decide to get up and walk around to get a break from the test. I am vaguely aware that I am hovering and floating in the air at times and I become semi-lucid.

In the far distance I see a high mountain to the north. (The school building and park shelter are to the east of where I am standing.) A volcano is erupting, sitting atop the highest area of a larger mountain (instead of the smaller separate volcanic mountain being at ground level) and I see larger rivers of lava flowing down from the mountain on the right side of it and a little more on the left (but not as thick and glowing as the other side). It even seems to be near a high cliff. I have a brief thought about there being no mountains like this in Florida, but I still accept the scene. I run back to my classmates shouting “Volcano, volcano!” and point to the north. There will probably be time to get away, as the volcano is very far away.

I look back and see that the scene looks completely different even though it was beautiful and perfect when I first saw it and there was no doubt that it was “real”. The “volcano” is really close now, but it is only an image on a large billboard that features a Lava Soap advertisement. It is now just across the road from where we are. Also, there is some sort of electrical problem, causing lights to go on and off. (The billboard lights also flash.) I walk around and the other students soon join me. There is something said about the school closing for the night when the teacher returns. I notice that some lights are from a large porch (which is on the other side of the billboard) that extends out over an embankment just off the road. (It seems to be a large back porch but this is not certain.)

I see that there is a very large electric rock tumbler on the porch, which is bigger and about twice as long as an oil barrel and aligned east and west. It is making a loud rumbling and crackling noise and also causing the lights to flicker on and off in the house and high-set open porch (though it seems no one is home). Red muddy waste water is flowing out from a rusty hole in the rock tumbler and it looks vaguely like lava and is flowing under the nearby billboard.

A little later, we are back in the same area. I see a large flow of water, mud, and rocks that is fairly close, and start shouting “Mudslide! Mudslide!” (Perhaps the rock tumbler broke this time.)

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I had a rock tumbler when I was much younger, but it was only about the size of a coffee can. They are used to smooth down stones, using about three or four erosive stages (each sand grain grade a size smaller), to make them more suitable for jewelry.

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Although this dream features the common porch-as-liminal-space event (waking transition segment), it is atypical, the main difference being that I am not actually on the porch at any point. Still, this is where the essence of the preconscious is visibly active, though not a threat.

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