Malfunctioning Cell Phones, Generally Scary Happenings, and Trapped in a Dream?

[postmanmanman]

This is a dream I had yesterday. I was home sick, and slept most of the day. This dream occurred pretty early in the morning, and had be scared to go back to sleep for the rest of the day. I'd really like to know if anyone's had a similar experience, or can tell me if my dream perhaps means anything. (By the way, I originally posted this on another forum I regular, so if you Google it and find a copy elsewhere... that'd be why!) It started with me and some friends (friends that I don't know in real life) hanging out at an indoor swimming pool. After an uneventful while, we all left the building. There were probably about ten of us. We got on our bikes parked out front and started biking off. Now, this is when things get a little confusing. For some reason, we're in the desert, in a mountainous region. Furthermore, it's apparently incredibly rural, since we only passed a building every few minutes or so. Suddenly, my cell phone vibrates in my pocket. (I always keep my phone on vibrate.) I pull it out and flip it open (it's an old flip-phone), but what I see is not its regular menu, or even a call. Instead, it's four squares, each with a different symbol on them. One's an address book, one's the AIM icon, one's a camera, and the fourth is a wrench. So, pretty stereotypical icons. The top of the screen reads "Quick Menu." I have no idea what this is, since I've never seen it before, but I navigate to the address book and select it. Suddenly, the icons start cycling through a bunch of images before all settling on an image of a bullet-hole. Then, the phone emits a surprisingly loud bullet shot sound. I fall off my bike in surprise. Everyone puts down their bikes and walks over to ask what happened. I explain that my phone seems to be acting strangely. I open it up again, and try to turn it off. When I do, it spits out some message like "Shutdown Process Incomplete!", and presents me with my normal menu, except corrupted; random letters are flashing, or red, as opposed to the normal black. I show them my phone menu. Suddenly, the screen shows 25 playing cards. All of them begin cycling randomly through all the cards in a regular deck, but one by one they settle on the 10 of diamonds. I close the phone and put it in my pocket, saying that I'll try to fix it later. I ask to borrow someone else's phone, and one of the girls in the group gladly hands me hers. I walk behind a nearby tree for some privacy, deciding to call my parents. I flip it open, and notice the keypad is in an odd order; the 4 is next to the 7, the 6 is in the top row, etc. I look up to ask the girl why it's oddly arranged, and notice about half the group is gone. I ask where they went. The girl says that they went to go grab a bite to eat. Confused, I turn around and see the sign of diner sticking out over one of the dusty red hills we've been biking through. I casually accept this explanation and return to using her phone. I manage to type out my dad's number, but the phone doesn't do anything. I look up again, and the rest of the group has disappeared. I just assume they followed the rest to the diner. Finally, I see a green "Call" button, and hit it. It rings for a few moments before my father picks up. On the other end, I hear my father mumbling about something. It sounds like he's on the road, and has the phone on speakerphone. I try to talk to him, but he doesn't respond. After a few seconds of fruitlessly trying to get his attention, I hear a sudden screeching of the car's breaks. Now, the other end is dead silent. I ask what's happened. Now this is when things get even more... odd. There's a shrieking from the other end. It sounds almost inhuman, but it's definitely something alive and in pain. I try to say something, but I'm frozen by fear. Suddenly, the other end hangs up. I immediately decide to call my mom and see if she knows what may have happened. When she picks up, I don't hear anything. I ask if she's there. I hear someone chuckling on the other end. Just chuckling, and not in her voice. Again petrified, I hang up. I walk back to where my friends left the bikes and notice something odd. Even though they've all apparently gone to the diner on the other side of the hill, there are no footprints leading in that direction. We were biking in sandy soil, and there were plenty of wheel marks and footprints in the sand around the area, but none leaving it. I run over the hill to the diner. Now I realize there's no way they could have gone to the diner. It's run-down, decrepit, and it looks like it's been deserted for years, possibly decades. The windows are boarded up, and the sign is missing letters so that it just reads "DIN--". I stand still, staring at it for a while. At this point, I actually realized I was in a dream. I knew there was no way any of this could actually happen. I begin thinking about my bedroom, trying to wake up and leave. But I don't wake up. For some reason, I seem trapped in my dream. I now grow aware of some presence watching me. It feels like I'm being stalked. I whip around, trying to locate my observer's location, but in all directions, I see only tall, sandy, red hills. I crouch to the ground in the fetal position and immediately begin trying to escape my dream again, imagining my room. I leave the sandy red hills, but I end up in another dream, rather than waking up. --- Now, following that dream, I had another nightmare. Unfortunate, no? It started with me moving from those red hills to a laboratory. The lighting was minimal, and I woke up in a doorway. The door behind me was big and steel, and seemed locked tight. The laboratory was really more like a long hallway, with large green tubes (about the size of a coffin) lining each side. I was still aware that I was dreaming at this point, but I ceased attempting to escape, purely out of curiosity. In retrospect, the laboratory was incredibly similar to something you'd see out of a videogame. Maybe DOOM or something! Anyways, I walked down the long hallway, and gave myself a flashlight. It was completely silent except for the occasional hiss or mechanical clunk. I just continued down this hall until I happened upon another door. This door opened automatically as I approached it. I now found myself in a room shaped like an octagon, again surrounded by those green tubes. On the other end was a platform leading into pure darkness. For some reason, my flashlight was incapable of lighting the way. Now, I heard a chuckling. In retrospect I realize that it was similar to the chuckling I heard when I tried to call my mom in the previous dream, but I can't remember if it was exactly the same. I shined my flashlight all over, searching for its source. Suddenly, the tube nearest to me emitted a loud hissing sound and spat out green smoke. It began opening -- or rather, splitting in two, down the middle. I instinctively armed myself. The weapon I chose was a whip, of all things. (This is probably because I had watched someone using a whip at a talent show the day before.) A bubbling, peach-colored mass started to rise out of the tube and form itself into the shape of a man. Calling it a man would be inaccurate, however, as it was missing any details. It had no genitals, no navel, its toes were stuck together, as were its fingers, etc. Most disturbing, however, was its face: it had no mouth, no nose, and no eyeballs, only sockets where the eyes ought to be. I didn't even hesitate to lash out with my whip. I cut straight through it. It didn't even respond, so I swung again. Again, a straight cut through the torso. No response. I now tried to hack off its limbs. Straight cuts through -- but the limbs didn't even fall off. This is what I remember most vividly. After being cut several times, it started making a sound. I suppose it was a bit like a groan. The sound grew louder and louder. Its chin moved down and actually tore a mouth from the face. Now the groan was deafening. The sound was then suddenly stifled as something worked its way out of the thing's newly-formed mouth. It looked black and inky, more like a shadow than a being. The shadow-creature slunk into the ventilation immediately, and the thing turned into a blob of mush, no longer recognizable as bipedal. I stepped away. I heard the chuckling again now, louder and closer. I turned to the hallway that my flashlight had failed to light. A man -- a real man, not a blob-creature -- stepped out. He was old, balding, and wore a long green cloak with no hood. He sort of grinned at me, and produced a small, tube-shaped device from the folds of his cloak with a button on the end. He pressed it with his bony thumb. A great din of hissing now arose all around me, and I realized, to my utter horror, that the other green tubes were opening up. Still aware I was dreaming, I now began thinking of my room again. Thankfully, this time it actually worked and I bolted upright, in my real bed. I didn't want to go back to sleep, but my tiredness got the better of me, and I fell asleep for another few hours. The rest of my dreams were mundane, though. So, has anyone else every been trapped in a dream before? Is that even possible? I'd hate not being able to escape some of my dreams, such as these. I don't often have nightmares (maybe four or five times a year at most), but when I do, they're very memorable... this one especially, since it's the first that I've actually been aware I was dreaming during.

[rkenning]

too long