Thena

Briefly became lucid during a much-needed nap, but I ended up waking immediately. In hindsight, maybe I should have had lunch before taking my nap, seeing how hungry I was in the dream!

I'm in a room, watching a cabinet member talking to reporters. There's something important I need to ask her, so I hang around and try to look busy by looking at a map. When she's done, she comes over to me and asks, "Was there something that you needed?" For the life of me, I cannot remember the question I needed to ask her.

I head out of the room and down a hallway. There's a stand selling food that looks really good, but there's a long line. I'm salivating as I wait. There's a case with crab legs, and I can't wait to have one. While I'm waiting, I spot Rachel, a friend from college. We talk about making plans for dinner so I can meet her husband and she can meet my boyfriend. She suggests place near Yorktown. For some reason, the name makes me giggle. She asks if it's because my boyfriend is from Yorktown, Virginia. I say yes, but something in the back of my mind keeps nagging me, reminding me that it's not true. I can't seem to remember where my boyfriend is from.

I finally get to the head of the line. But it looks like I'm too late. There's no more crab legs left in the case, but they have raw tilapia. I pick out a filet, but the cashier tells me how expensive it is and asks if I can afford it. I hesitate, not really knowing how much money I have on hand. The cashier tells me that he has a solution to make it affordable. Then he rips off a ridge of fat, puts it on a skewer, and tells me how I'm getting such a "bargain" on this special cut. I think I've lost my taste for seafood, so I move onto another case. There's something that looks like meatloaf muffins, but I pick out something else. I take my food and the next thing I know, I'm at home. I want to sit in front of the TV and eat, but the couch is missing. I see that it's moved off to the side, so I go to drag it into the correct spot. It's much lighter than I expected. Apparently, it's because my couch has become an armchair, and it's upholstered in the same fabric as the couch I threw away years ago. Again, something about the situation is nagging me. I sit down and dig into my take-out container, which has cauliflower and potatoes cooked in some kind of spices and masala. I'm biting into a piece of cauliflower when I realize this is the same meal I had last week. It startles me enough that I immediately wake up.

I'm with a couple of investigators who are following a "suspect" as he gets on a train. They think he's skipping town. The guy passes right by me, and I notice that he looks totally non-threatening. In fact, he looks more like Santa Claus.

Haven't been sleeping well this week due to stress, so before bed, I took the time to relax and practice some visualization. The specific image I chose? A lavender field in the south of France. It carried over into my dream -- not that I recognized it at the time.

I'm attending a convention. There's a woman who hands me a folder when I sign in, and she takes time to go over the contents, which seem to be coupons. One of the coupons catches my eye. It's for a gift bag full of products from a bath store. I'm more interested in the bag than the products. The woman admires the bag that I'm carrying, which is pink with yellow ducks. (Ducks? Seriously?) I tell her it's a Vera Bradley. She's never heard of Vera Bradley, which blows my mind. I guess she really doesn't know anything about handbags. There's a vague recollection that I need to keep an eye out for some French lavender, but I dismiss it for now since I'm not going to find it at a convention.

At the convention, I'm awarded a trip to the set of "Game of Thrones." I'm immediately whisked away. I'm impressed that they've even managed to recreate the comet in the daytime sky above the set. But the set visit quickly turns into something else. There's a lake surrounded by sand dunes, and I'm dumped on the far side and told to find my way back. Every time I got close to the lake, large worms with poisonous barbs and monstrous crabs would scuttle out of the sand to chase me off. The worms also shed their barbs and leave them behind in the sand, so I have to be really careful where I step. Eventually, I team up with two others and get to a clear area of lakefront. We find a canoe made out of plywood and packing tape(?). It seats three people, and I get in front very carefully, as the canoe threatens to tip over if the weight in front and back is not carefully balanced.

Eventually, the ordeal ends although it doesn't seem clear what happens after the canoe. I get home and look out the windows into the back yard. It's snowing, and I think that's it's awful that it's snowing in June. But I brush it off. The neighbors in the house behind mine are out in their yard (with the fence mysteriously missing). There's kids playing in the yard next to theirs, and the kids have puppies. Someone tosses a puppy in the air, which seems pretty frightening, but I am distracted by a visitor who asks about my neighbors. I start telling him a story, the details of which are fuzzy to me, but my visitor clearly recognizes it. "Wait, it's that 'The Godfather?'" he asks, and I explain that they inspired the movie. I turn back to watch the neighbors through the window. There's a doorway that looks like it's been cut out a brick wall on their house. I explain to my visitor that it's a secret door that they use to sneak out.

So disappointing to miss some very obvious cues, but after such rough week, I'm glad that I'm just able to sleep.

I'm staying in a hotel. I head back to my room to change my clothes, but getting in seems confusing because I have to go through an extra door to get to the door of my room. Then I see that the connecting door to the next room is open. I don't know the people in the next room, so I go to shut that door. But that doesn't help, because now the wall between the two rooms has disappeared. It's getting confusing to figure out just how big this room is because the walls are lined ceiling-to-floor with mirrors like some kind of funhouse.

I'm in a rather shabby-looking building. It's supposed to be a chemistry lab, though the room I'm in seems to resemble an airport departure gate with a manned desk next to a door that leads to the lab. For some reason, I'm wearing a cropped shirt that gives me a bare midriff (something that would not work with my body type at all). The people at the desk won't let anyone in, but Dad manages to persuade them to let us through so I can see if they'll hire me to work at the lab. We go through the door, down a hallway, and into a room with files. I take out a file folder to look at it… And then we're back in the outer room again at the desk. This time, no matter how Dad tries, they won't let us through for security reasons. While he argues at the desk, I wander down a staircase and find myself in an apartment that resembles my basement. There's a Haitian woman there who is employed as a nanny. She has to punish one of her charges, and I watch as she calls the child's parents. She tells the father that he'll want to speak to her in person rather than hear what happened from his wife.

And then I woke up, made a bathroom run, then went back to sleep.

I'm at my old job, watching another employee trying to process an equal exchange. She can't figure it out and ends up charging the customer an extra $8. Then a customer approaches my register to do an equal exchange. She says that a salesperson named Eugenia had helped her. I'm having trouble entering this in the computer because the keyboard puzzles me. Instead of the standard keyboard, it has the letter alphabetically, but between "E" and "F" is a "Eug" key. I'm not sure if I should use "E" or "Eug" for Eugenia. The customer is getting frustrated and keeps asking why it's taking so long. I'm trying to faster, but I'm so confused. Then I find that the customer did not bring her receipt because she assumes I can easily ring an even exchange for the same item. I try to explain how our register system is complicated and I need the exact discount codes from her receipt, which frustrates her even more.

Followed by a completely separate dream:

I'm on a stakeout with Jethro Gibbs and his team. We're in an old motel room, though it seems to resemble a cabin with separate living room and bedrooms. The idea is that something is left out on a living room table for the suspect to pick up and scan while the team hides in a bedroom. Supposedly, when the bad guy scans the bar code, it will allow NCIS to track his bank account. The plan seems to work, the suspect leaves, and the team starts cleaning up. I'm busy collecting all these long tubes with bar codes. There was only supposed to be one, but they seem to be multiplying. The front door of the cabin is open with just the screen door shut. Through the screen, you can see the parking lot of the motel is starting to fill up with a mob of people carrying baseball bats and other similar objects. Tony and I look at each other and agree that something bad is about to happen. The team needs to get out of here in a hurry. I run into the bedroom to warn Gibbs, but he's in the bathroom. Despite me shouting through the door, he does not seem to realize the danger in time. In the living room, I see someone walk in carrying… a cricket bat? I go back to yell at Gibbs again that we're in trouble, but I can hear banging noises and shouts of pain coming from the bathroom. Gibbs finally comes out, his face covered with abrasions (that don't exactly look fresh, more like they have started to heal, I notice). I assume that Gibbs was probably attacked by members of the bat-wielding mob. I take him out back to a getaway car, but I spot a problem. The car seats five people, and there's already four sitting inside with only space for one more in back. But Gibbs tells me we have no time to wait for another car. He pushes me in back seat ahead of him. Surprisingly, the backseat is a lot roomier than I expected. All four of us in back are able to sit comfortably without feeling crowded. It's like sitting on a really wide bench, actually. The car takes off, and I notice that the front passenger door doesn't seem to be completely closed. As I look closer, I see pieces of the car body around the door are damaged or missing entirely. The car stops at an intersection. To the right, there's a man in a beekeeper outfit waving an object that gives off smoke. I remember how beekeepers use smoke to get bee swarms to leave. I realize those gaps around the door could be a problem if bees come this way. I shout for Ziva in the front seat to hold her door shut tightly. Before she can do anything, two really large bees, larger than a fist, slam into the windows. The driver (Abby, I think) freaks out but hits the accelerator, and the car takes off.

The next thing I know, I'm checking my email and finding a response from "Jay." (Oddly enough, Jay used to play Gibbs in a RPG.) Apparently I had emailed him with my concerns about being left out of the planning stages of a game plot. His response is pretty cold, telling me that it's my fault no one wants to consult with me, and that I'd better get with it and sign into my next activity on time if I don't want to get thrown out. I wake up in a bit of a panic over being late.

This one's actually from yesterday. Let's hope it works.

Rough night to begin with, but it ended well after all. I got up at 5 AM to do a WBTB, except I couldn't get back to sleep. After trying for a while, I got up again at 7 AM. I got something to eat, watched TV for a while, and got some business out of the way. When I started feeling drowsy, I went back to bed.

I'm sitting on my sister's bed as she talks. She's complaining about the landline not working because the company hooking up the phones has no idea what they're doing, so we have to stick around until they send someone to fix it. I randomly start telling her about the Sodastream I bought a while back. She asks if it adds sugar to drinks. I try explaining that it depends on the drink mix and they make sugar-free ones, but she repeats her question about sugar as if she doesn't hear me. I lay down on her bed and tune her out as I start doze off.

Then I feel skin brushing against mine. I opened my eyes to see that I'm naked under the sheets, and that there's someone else in bed with me. At first, it looks like my long-term boyfriend, though he seems quite a bit pudgier than usual. Oh, and he's naked, too. I scoot a little closer, but then it hits me that my sister's bedroom is really weird place for the two of us to get it on. I start thinking back to the weird conversation with my sister and realize that this has to be a dream.

I sit up, but now I'm in my parents' bed. Worse, my dad is entering the room and screaming about catching me with my boyfriend, who quickly vanishes. And I'm still naked! This seems like it's quickly turning into a nightmare, but at least I maintain lucidity instead of panicking. I remember the task of the month and spot the small mirrored detailing on the headboard. I try to push through one of the tiny mirrors and get rejected -- not that I could put more than a finger through it anyway.

I jump out of bed and run to the nearest place I can hide, which turns out to be Dad's closet. He follows me and continues to yell. I need to get out of this situation. Opposite the closet entrance is bathroom vanity with a sink. Above the sink, there's a mirror. I'm still a little cautious after my last experience with a mirror, so I want to test it. I grab a jar off the counter and throw it. I'm expecting the mirror to shatter, but instead, the jar bounces off like a rubber ball hitting concrete. I take a running leap and dive headfirst into the mirror.

Passing through the mirror is much easier than I expected. I find myself falling through blackness at first, but then there's a lot of light. I land in the waters just off the beach of a tropical island. It looks so beautiful, like it came out of a picture postcard. My sweetie appears next to me, floating on an inflatable raft with his sunglasses on and a tropical drink in his hand. He smiles at me and says that he's been waiting for me, but he knew he wouldn't have to wait long. He had faith that I'd be able to do it.

Just before bed, I had read a few articles about the problems that the Spanish royal family was going through, and it was amusing how I ended up rehashing all of that in my dream conversation.

I'm in the kitchen trying to talk to Dad while heating up dinner. I'm telling him all about the news stories about the king of Spain accidentally revealing his mistress to the public while the queen was vacationing with her family. Dad isn't really paying attention. He's heating up some naans in the microwave. I continue on, telling Dad about how the king's mistress fled to Monaco while I grab a stack of tortillas. Dad walks out of the kitchen without listening and without taking his naan out of the microwave. I take it out of the microwave, noticing that it looks almost half-eaten. But I don't pay attention to that and stick a plate with a HUGE stack of tortillas into the microwave.

I walk out of the kitchen towards the entrance to the house, but now I'm walking on a concrete pier in Monaco. Prince Albert is walking ahead of me in a pair of swim trunks. His new wife is right behind him -- I get the feeling that she's not letting her husband out of her sight while the Spanish king's mistress was around. People are fishing off of the sides of the pier or, in some spots, they're climbing down ladders into the water so they can swim. (Why didn't I hang around? I loved Monaco but my only visit there was much to brief!)

I move on to riding a motorcycle down a mountain road. There's a tunnel ahead, but it's blocked at the entrance with a detour sign pointing to the right. I watch other bikers looking around with confusion, not sure where to go. For my part, I see what looks like a dirt embankment on the side. I aim for it and find myself riding sideways along the side of the mountain. The others follow me, but we reach a dead end with nowhere else to go.

Because I hadn't been able to sleep the night before, I took 3 mg of melatonin before going to bed. Woke up at 6:15, ran to the bathroom, and then put on a sleep mask to block out the light while performing MILD. And wow, was I successful this time!

I had to run down to the basement to grab something. When I turn on the lights, I notice that all the boxes and assorted junk that had been in the basement are gone. Maybe Dad moved them? It doesn't make sense, though, because there was a lot more stuff than he would be able to move without help. I head upstairs to see that Carrie has arrived. It feels weird to see her come over by herself like she did when she was single. Lately, every time I see her, she's got her husband and kids in tow. But things start adding up. I take another look at the basement and this time I notice that the floors are tile when they should have carpet. Puzzled, I go to the front window and look outside. It's dark, but I can see that multiple cars parked on the driveway. I can remember parking my car on the street last night because the driveway was seal-coated last night.

This has to be a dream, then. I head outside and shout, "Hey, where is my Sorting Hat?" I probably would have tried summoning it, except I remembered that I hadn't gotten a wand yet. I notice a few carnival booths set up on the corner with the Circus Circus logo in bright lights. Finally, a hat appears on top of one of the cars in the driveway. It's a striped paper carnival hat, though, and definitely not a Sorting Hat. I put it on, but it doesn't do anything. I guess I'll just have to head to Hogwarts in the morning. (Looks like I forgot that I can control the dream.) I go around the corner and find an area surrounded by hay bales and bordered by a fence. It seems like as good a place as any to spend the night. Cameron walks right through the fence to join me. He gives me a look and suggests that this is like one of those times when we used to make out in the hay loft of his dad's barn. I'm so distracted by him that of course I forget my plan to go to Hogwarts.

We must have fallen asleep, but when I wake up, I'm indoors looking at someone's custom closet installation. The hangers are all out of order, something that tends to irritate me. I quickly take the hangers and organize them so the closet looks much neater. The owner of the closet (not to mention the house) appears and thanks me. She's an older women dressed in a red pantsuit. The closet seems more like a long hallway instead of a separate room, and it has windows. I notice outside of one window that there's a system of water-lined ramps and conveyors. I ask about them, and the homeowner explains that before she bought the property to convert into a home, it had been a race track. Did they race greyhounds? "Oh, no! They used to race turtles," she explains. I'm horrified at the thought of the poor turtles. It doesn't still work, does it? The homeowner smiles and winks at me. She flips a switch and the conveyors start moving, but instead of turtles, thousands of rubber ducks start floating down the ramps. I'm absolutely thrilled by the sight, and the homeowner seems pleased to see me so amused. I start to wonder if she might be interested in me. (Poor Cameron! I seem to have forgotten all about him.)

The woman starts laying out an elaborate plan to get revenge on the people who have crossed her. I don't get it, but I want to help. I head outside to see a group of men taking the roof off the house next door. It has something to do with her plan. I realize that I should do something to secure her house. Heading back inside, I notice that there are four cars parked in a garage built to hold just two. They all seem to fit without a problem, though there's a white sedan parked in a way that the back bumper would block the garage door from coming down. There was plenty of room for the sedan to pull forward another two feet. That's my plan, at least, but instead I hit the button to lower the garage door. As expected, it hits the bumper of the sedan and reverses direction. I hit the button again. This time, the door curves outward as it reaches the sedan to close around it. I'm pleased that I've been able to secure the garage, but I quickly realized that the garage door is made of glass. There's a group of kids that stop outside. One of them shouts, "Hey, that's Iron Man's car!" They start banging on the window. I fly into a rage and head out to confront them. I'm so angry that I don't pay attention to the fact that it's snowing in May. Someone, maybe the woman from earlier, pulls me back. She shuffles me a few steps away into a Cracker Barrel store. I see Ron and Hermione sitting and making goo goo eyes at each other. I roll my eyes at them, but it reminds me that I was interested in someone. I start thinking back over the last few moments, realize that I'm dreaming, but wake up.

I'm making my way through a college campus until I get to the library. For some reason, I "own" a section of a bookcase on the second floor as though it's my on-campus apartment, but I'm getting ready to lease it out to a new student. I want to meet with her ahead of time to make sure my books are going to be kept safe. When I meet this woman, I get the feeling that she isn't what she appears to be.

I offer to take her for lunch. There's several different cafeterias to pick from, but most of them are reserved for students only. We pass one labeled "Alumni" that looks more like a fancy restaurant, but it's restricted access. We settle on the general cafeteria that's open to visitors. I leave the woman at the entrance and walk over a few steps to chat with my friend, Paul McCartney. On a hunch, I took her student ID and scan it while I discuss my concerns with Paul. We manage to identify the ID as fake when it comes up as not being attached to a meal plan.

I say good-bye to Paul and head into the cafeteria, where I bump into "Jane," who I haven't seen in a long time. She tells me that her husband "Brad" is on an Air France flight to Paris and that she's waiting to see it take off. There's a long window on the other side of the cafeteria, and outside, you can see planes flying. Jane leaves once she sees the only plane with Air France colors take off.

At this point, I actually woke up because there was sunlight in my face. I checked my watch to see the time (7:30). Then I rolled over, started going over the previous dream in my mind, fell asleep and re-entered the dream.

The view outside changes from airport to ocean. I spot something in the water that looks like a killer whale's dorsal fin. I watch, expecting to see a whale surface for breath, but instead it's a Boeing 737 floating in the water. Other students rush over to the window in time to see three more planes rise to the surface before a large wave crashes over them. It's almost like the planes are surfing the waves like dolphins do. Horrified students head back to their classes or dorms as word is spread that there was no one aboard the planes. A businessman who was on the verge of losing everything sank the planes for the insurance money. Still, people are pretty rattled.

I take the elevator up to the second level, where a few students are gathered around discussing the incident. Shortly afterwards, the elevator doors open again. It's the resident assistant, a pale boy with light blonde hair. He looks even more shocked than the rest of us, and he's accompanied by an older man that looks like his father. I assume the father is there to help him because he looks so overwhelmed.

Apparently we are moving from this house, but no one seems concerned about packing. I am worriedly checking cabinets and getting distressed that there's still stuff in them. I give up on motivating everyone and just pack up my own belongings before checking into a hotel.

At the hotel, I seem to be sharing a room with three other people who are plotting something. Before leaving the room, they pull out some sort of screen to cover up what they were designing on the wall. We leave the hotel room as a group, but from there I go to some kind of auditorium. I sit backstage as a graduation ceremony takes place. I might be watching an episode of "Grey's Anatomy" because I see Chief Webber talking to Meredith and Christina.

I move on from the auditorium. I want to visit a café on a particular street, but the bus routes have changed and I end up two blocks away at a café on DEILD Street. (How could I overlook that one?!?) After spending some time at a table (but did I eat or drink anything? Why else would I I be at a café?) I leave and head down an alley. There's a couple of people playing a game where they toss chunks of veggies into a bowl, trying to get the trajectory so the veggies ricochet out. The winner is the one who gets the food to land farthest from the bowl. I decide to join, except I'm playing with peeled grapes. They don't seem to notice me at all until I make a really good shot and wind up close to the lead.

I woke up at 4 AM and couldn't initially get back to sleep. After tossing and turning for a while, I admitted defeat and figured sleep would elude me. Of course, that's when I actually dozed off...

I woke up to find that Natasha and Brad had arrived to stay for the weekend without warning. They had moved into the guest room while I was sleeping and the laundry I had left on the bed was unceremoniously dumped on the floor. Worse yet, they brought their dog, who was now running around my emptier-than-usual bedroom.

I headed into the bathroom to take a shower to find Natasha napping on the bathmat. I step over her and turn the shower on to let the water warm up. Somehow, the shower head has gone from being a fixed to a hand-held. It ends up spraying Natasha, who wakes up and gets angry at me.

Once I manage to shower and dress, Derek and I head out. We're at a Verizon store on Main Street. I see that someone has said something really nice about my on Twitter, so I show it to Derek. It realize belatedly that I've never shared my Twitter account with Derek. Instead of being proud, he gets angry and says, "So this is what you waste your time on!" He then takes to a store employee to cancel my data plan so I can't get Internet access on my phone. For what it's worth, the employee is on my side and keeps glaring at Derek.

I worry that not having data access on my phone is going to make it difficult to do my job. Sure enough, I quickly get some information that I need to respond to by email. I plead with Derek to let me use his phone to access my email. When that fails, we head to a coffee shop so I can use their wifi. The coffee shop happens to be on the riverfront. I notice there's movement in the water, so I step outside and look over the railing. At first, I wonder if it's a dolphin, but the shape is wrong. Instead, I see penguins and seals. The seals seem to be congregating on a block of Arctic ice -- in the middle of a Midwestern river.