Dream Journal #21

This isn't even all of it. Slightly disturbing details ahead (as if anyone who reads my stories needs to be warned of such things).

10 Aug—11 Aug

My mother was working in an office, a small but spacious room well-lit by the sunlight. She was upset with me because I hadn't removed a certain live cat—a rather large one the colour of sand—from the room. So I grabbed and picked the cat up by its oddly large scruff. Leaving with it, I walked past several buildings before entering a management building.

The man behind the counter was occupied with someone else, so I waited a bit before he invited me to speak. With the intention of putting the cat there, I asked him where my mother's work office was, but he told me there really wasn't one. Since she was working at home, I couldn't use her old office.

I then continued to carry the cat by its scruff to my university. I entered the main sort of welcome building, which was huge, spacious, and only intermittently lit by large windows. A hallway went around the edge with large doors on one side and occasional benches and houseplants on the other. I followed it, past several corners and various stairways covered in red-and-gold argyle carpet. A few normal-sized doors were open to narrow halls of teachers' offices; one of these was at the halfway point up a flight of stairs. At the top of these stairs, I finally decided to rid myself of the cat here by pinning him to a small, black plastic bag on the floor via some sort of arrow or dart through its ear.

From there, I went out the door to a beach area. Some distance away, in the water, stood an obstacle-course-like structure. It was a series of small, round, clear platforms suspended over the water. A popular challenge, it had quite a few students try to step all the way across it without falling off. I watched for a while, as it was exciting and intense rooting them on. The farthest someone had gotten: an Asian girl made it to the second-to-last platform before falling into the water. When I decided to try it myself, I got to the first step not connected to the others by a glass wall before falling.

At this point, I decided to go back and check on the cat, but I entered the wrong door. I was now inside a kids' area that was better-lit than the main building. Several children were seated in a cafeteria-like area, and a few saw me enter. I walked to the edge of the room and tried to squeeze past a frosted glass barrier that led to a small shop, but a clear panel of glass blocked the last bit of space between them. I failed to get past the other side of the room for the same reason.

Then I was escorted on a tour of the building. One sturdy-looking boy blocked an exit door that we passed. To the side of one hallway was an arcade area partitioned off by dark curtains on curtain rods. I tried to push a little bit up to peek at the games, but the entire half of the curtains angled up to the dismay of the children.

I finally made it outside to a kids' water park. Frustrated, I wandered around out there for a while before noticing that several of the buildings I could see in the area were those across the street from my university. I concluded that I must have been across the street, although I was baffled that I had managed to do that.

I made it to the side of the road with several other students around my age. We stood tensely, waiting for some cars to stop before we sprinted for the university entrance with its brick name sign and shrubbery. As I made it to the other side, I turned back to see one of the students with some sort of handicap still in the middle of the last lane. Another student scooped him up and rushed him to the grass as if we were all in great danger.

Alone again, I went through the gates and ended up on a crowded, unmarked street with vendor carts and vandalised buildings scattered along its sides. I wasn't able to stroll ahead for long before two of the teenagers there started to chase me. Poor, one of them demanded I give him everything black that I was wearing; the other wanted all of my clothes. Terrified, I kept running until I found a door at the end of the street and successfully shut out what I recognised as the impoverished part of campus.

I was now in a sort of backstage area that went around the entire edge of the university. Keeping quiet, I passed through several of the same nondescript red panel doors before I ran into a performer. He was around a corner towards the inside of the area, so I couldn't see him, but I asked where the Honors House was. He pointed me to the left.

I continued through the same area until I emerged into the main building again. I found the right staircase and went to check on the cat. By the time I got there, it was already being skinned and its parts harvested. It wasn't what I was hoping to find, but I left the workers to their job without any objections.

Later, I was at a table chatting with a group of students. A man with glasses and frizzy blonde hair admitted that he wouldn't have made it here without medical intervention. I saw where this was going immediately.

There was a flashback to the man waiting just outside a phone booth. Inside it was a woman with short hair dyed greens and blues who slammed the doors outward without looking. The man was struck in the forehead hard enough to knock him to the ground. A huge lump was forming on his skin before long. He was only able to be saved with a cat blood transfusion.

Dream Journal #20

Also, a brief notice that there won't be any posts next week.

12 June—13 June

I was at school, wearing nice clothes, as I left the gym area along with several classmates. While we were taking a shortcut through a grassy, hilly area, an alarm started to blare. I wasn't quite sure what the plain, on-off rhythm was meant to warn us of, so I just followed the others as they fled. One of them told me the sound was a fire alarm, and, when I looked back, I could finally see smoke nearby. Braden* came after it with an extinguisher. The smoke went down briefly before the fire flared up again, and it took a few cycles of this before the fire was finally put out. My classmates and I congratulated him and returned to our business.

I walked on and entered my dorm room, a den-like area with a short step down stretching across the middle. My roommate was a plump Asian girl who stayed at the lower side of the steps. I sat at the middle, my feet on her side, as I took off my black church shoes. Then I removed the hose-like socks just beneath them; then the thin, white socks beneath that. I briefly thought it might b e rude to put my shoes on her side of the room, but I went off looking for lunch, anyway.

The normal place was not offering lunch at the time, so, rather upset, I started toward the alternate eating place. One the way there, I had to get through some sort of lounge room where several adults sat on a couch watching television. A fluffy, bright blue rug stretched over the only area I could walk across, but a dull, green liquid was pooled all across it. I tried to step onto it regardless—and managed to put my toes somewhere they didn't get wet—but Becky** was on her knees trying to clean the thing, and I gave up.

Frustrated, I went back to my room and decided I would just go to the sandwich store at the edge of campus because it would be easier. I sat on the little step in the room and put on my shoes. My roommate was on the couch on her side watching a cartoon I didn't recognise. She had the English subtitles on since it was in Chinese, and I wondered if she was trying to learn Chinese.

I left my room into the larger building surrounding it and tried to figure out how to get out. There was a door to the outside in a sunlit storeroom, but it was blocked by a man calling his mother on the telephone there. My roommate told me this happened a lot. I didn't acknowledge her as I kept trying to find an exit, and it took me a minute to realise that that might have been rude.

Finally I came up to a door-like area with four stacked, horizontal metal sheets; each was a series of joints so that it could curve whatever way it was pushed. I squeezed through one of the panels into a garage area and found a second set of the things inside. I pushed one partway open to check, and it did, in fact, lead outside. I shut the flap and prepared to go through before I paused and took another look out. As I had suspected, the truck outside, its headlights on, was drawing closer. I let the flap go and hurried back through the first set of flaps to hide.

Then I was in some kind of classroom. The subject we were learning there was never made clear, but Hemingway and certain other assignments mentioned made me think it was a creative writing class. We were getting our final assignment before the class was to be dismissed when the teacher called two of my friends and me the top three in the class.

*A sort of exaggerated figure with whom I took some Japanese classes.

**A family/church friend and my oldest friend's mother.

Dream Journal #19

More like a nightmare, but not so much terrifying as saddening.

10 May—11 May

Larry had been given the death sentence. I was on my 2DS, playing the scenario like a normal Ace Attorney game as a male character (presumably Phoenix). The male character came to visit Larry not long before the sentence was to be carried out. Larry was doing his best to put on a strong face, although he was still crying a little bit. As he was dragged to the room, he commented that he would rather join the army than die or go on being a loser artist. The executioner dragging him was some sort of active army man, but he gave Larry a look akin to "nice try, buddy" and took him.

I myself was crying as the man strapped Larry down. Larry craned his neck up and told the two friends (one of them being the character I was playing) that it was okay if we didn't want to watch. The other man and my character silently put on the thick, metal masks we were given to protect ourselves and stayed. The general, wearing his own mask, held up something like a short curtain rod and began the execution. Although very little could be seen naturally, through the bluish lenses of our masks we were able to see the electricity arcing out from the rod and going over Larry. After a minute of this, he was dead. I, however, clung to the dim hope that the man hadn't actually gone through with it because of the army comment and Larry only appeared to be dead.

Suddenly the situation had changed and the dead character was Sokka. Aang had a plan to get him back and slung his body over his shoulder to get him out of there.

Then I was back in a carpeted room of my apparent house. Annie* had to be put down, so we made her eat a little poison. She was rather normal at first, going around wearing her navy sweater with light blue stripes. My parents, aunt and uncle, and I played with her for a while before she threw up a little, getting dark brown on her whiskers. We didn't think much of it until the vet in the room informed us that schnauzers didn't throw up that way. Realising it was an effect of the poison, we fell silent and watched her solemnly. She kept trying to walk around to all of us, but her limbs were slowly stiffening, and she could only progress in jerks. It was such a heartbreaking sight that I tried to stop her from moving by hugging her, but she kept going.

*Annie is my aunt's miniature schnauzer. She's a sweetheart.

Dream Journal #18

Been a while, eh?

14 Feb—15 Feb

I had driven myself out to a shopping centre type of building. First I went to dinner at an excessively British restaurant with waiters that would hover over me and even sit at the empty chair across from me. They had some sort of fried cheese curd appetiser that I ordered and, after finding nothing satisfactory on the menu, I ordered fish and chips. I ended up eating the appetiser with the nosy waiter, who vehemently corrected me when I tried to refer to it as anything other than "curds of cheese."

After that, I went next door to a nail salon. The lobby was a wide open space with a large, three-sided counter behind which the receptionists stood. No nail stations were in sight, but there were a few chairs for waiting in the lobby, and two female, Asian employees were talking to me. I was in a bit of a rush so I wouldn't have to drive back in the dark, but whatever we were doing took an extremely long time. At one point, one of the girls held up a very shiny, large, golden key that was attached via a sparkling rope to something that looked like a square pocket. She said it brought up memories and guessed which movie it was in (a movie in which both I and the other worker had starred), but in fact it was from a different movie with us in it.

When I was finally finished, it was 10:00 at night, and I was extremely distressed about this. But when I stepped outside, it was still bright as day. I was extremely confused. Getting in my car, I backed up into another parking spot (I had been in one at the curb).

I came back to the parking lot a bit later to find some adults leading quite a few costumed children through the parking lot. I hurried to a large, black pickup with heavily tinted windows that was apparently my car and got inside. In my haste, I had entered the left backseat, and Emily*, who was in the passenger seat waiting, gave me a look. We watched the children as they made their way across the concrete and laughed at some of the clumsy ones.

At that moment, Kasey** was in the driver's seat, and she rolled down her window to holler at the kids. She joked about running them down and got enough of a response to decide to go through with it. Everyone in the car was laughing as the children continued to run, making it to the edge of the concrete, where grass curved up in a bit of a hill. Worried, I yelled at Kasey to not crest the hill, and, once we had made it almost to the top, she let the pickup start sliding back down the hill.

Then I was driving, and suddenly we were on a dirt road. On either side of us were rows of deep green crops in dark soil. We were utterly lost. I came to the abrupt ending of the dirt road before asking the others if they had any idea what direction we were going. I then looked up at my car's compass, which was indeed that of my real car, to find that it read "Y." Knowing that this somehow meant "west" and we wanted to go east, I turned around and drove for a minute before we were back to the car park, at one of the small street-like exits to the main street.

At this point we were clearly no longer in a car, although we still behaved as if we were. As we came up to the intersection with the larger road, I quickly asked the others in the "car" if we were supposed to turn right or not, and I was told that we were. I stopped just before turning and looked over the main road, which was covered in a layer of slush. Just ahead of us were two very tiny traffic cones and a crumpled water bottle in the near lane. A small white electric car drove on by before it got to the spot just ahead of us, at which point the car promptly flipped onto its left side and skidded to the next-nearest lane, where it stayed. Katya***, one of the two girls with me at that point, told me that this was because the stuff in the road was hazardous. Another car crashed in the same spot in a similar fashion before I checked the oncoming traffic and quickly swung my foot out ahead. I kicked the bottle and a good scoop of slush out onto the grass. After quite a few more cars passed, we finally turned right and headed home.

*My roommate. I drive her to church, so it's not unheard of for her to be in my passenger seat.

**An old friend from church and the neighbourhood.

***One of the girls who went to Japan and China with me last summer.

Dream Journal #17

Ah, it's been too long since I had a good, long dream.

24 Nov—25 Nov

Two ambiguous female friends and I were in casual Hetalia cosplays when we boarded a plane. We crowded into the same row, which spanned at least seven seats, and prepared to sit down, but in the row in front of us was America himself. We got his attention and asked him if he could figure out our cosplays. He managed to figure out my friends', but when it came to me, he didn't know I was supposed to be Belgium, even when I secretly slipped on a black headband.

I was lounging sideways in my seat and the one next to it, with my arm over the seat in front of me. I nearly tumbled to the back of the plane upon takeoff, but I managed to stay in place. There was something wrong, though—the pilot would at one point cite stormy skies that I could not detect—and we came back down to land. All of us got out of the plane to find we had landed next to a swath of grass interrupted by two adjacent hay-filled pens. A farmer lady resided over the cows of many ages that roamed the small area. Some of the other flyers gave her a hand, but I was a little scared to help.

We got back in the plane and taxied to the original takeoff location, where we tried again. We landed again. We took off again. We landed again and went back to the cow pens. This time, I decided to be brave and help birth a calf. The farmer gave me one of the soup cans she had. It was a large but inconspicuous size and filled with chicken, rice, and carrot pieces, and its top was a pull-tab type. I had already known from my first time there that the baby cow was inside.

Still not sure what to do, I tried to recall what I had seen the first time we came to the pens. There were some wooden turntables on the ground, nearly obscured by the hay, so I tried to start by setting the can on one of them. The farmer lady told me to open the can, so I did. The little calf inside was black, with tiny ears, and very soft and cute. I was ready to take him out, but the farmer told me I had to pray for the calf first. I did so and started to decant the chicken and rice from the can so the calf could get out. The next time I looked at him, he was a full-size calf.

Since the cow pen was actually right across the street from a house that I knew to be mine, I decided to go over and clean myself up, but I didn't want my parents to realise that I was there and not on the plane. Hurrying up the outside stairs, which were white metal steps in concrete, I caught a glimpse of my mother through a window on the first floor. She was smoking a cigarette, which shocked me.

I went inside and hurried to my personal powder room, which was separated from my room by a wall with a doorless gap. The lighting was rather dark, but the powder room was a sort of balcony overlooking a narrow atrium area on the floor below, which was mostly empty save for a few pieces of furniture and some large windows. I went to the sink, which was designed to spray over and across the table on which it resided without getting any of the things on it wet. Once my hands touched the water, though, some of the spray got onto a magazine I had set on the table. I washed my hands and armpits and looked out to the atrium again. I couldn't see the plane through the windows; there was only street where it must have been parked previously.

Hurrying to the hallway, I found that my two friends had come into the house with me—I didn't see them, but they had quite obviously used two of the large, black showers lining the other side of the hall, considering they had hung loofahs, washrags, and the capes of their cosplays all over the black tile.

I made it downstairs, still inside the house, and found my friends. The pilot was also there, on his phone, and he informed us that he had called to get the plane back over here and there was no reason to worry. A butler was also there, and he informed us that the plane ride, which was for a school lab, was going to take six hours and thirty minutes. I balked—it was getting late by now—and then he asked my friends and I if we wanted him to go ahead and start our baths for when we got back.

Dream Journal #16

There was actually a large chunk of dream time before these sequences, but I remember little aside from being distressed and working for someone who claimed to be my grandmother.

24 Sept—25 Sept

I was with an ambiguous female friend, going to eat dinner. At the restaurant, which was a pirate-themed bar and grille currently having a Halloween special, the lights hung over each table dimly, the booths were black, the tables were plain, lacquered wood, and the menus were made to look like treasure maps. I had made acquaintances with the bartender, a rather heavyset but muscular white man with a trimmed, black beard. When I passed by, he had just finished arguing with a pair of people who walked out. Complaining to me about the heathens with the nerve to insult his chosen major, he cleaned off the bar top with a rag.

On another level of the same area, I was sitting with others in some folding chairs outdoors. Just a bit in front of us was a small, bright stream, and on the other shore a choir was walking in in no particular order and sitting in its own chairs, which faced us. I was very surprised to see Weiss and Sara*, who was wearing very thick, red, cat-eye glasses, and I started freaking out about it to the ambiguous female friend sitting next to me.

Some time earlier, there had been church services in this same location, and I presently recalled how I had given pieces of jewellery (including the lower part of my golden prom earrings) when the donation dish had come around. Suddenly I realised that I wasn't going to get those back, and I wondered aloud quite unhappily how exactly they were making any money off fake gold. My friend said, "I know, right?"

We had to leave afterwards by a large, hexagonal elevator. It went to four floors (one of which was the concert area, and other of which was the bar and grille), but no one pressed any buttons because the lift was already going up, and everyone wanted to get to the fourth floor. As the third floor approached, I kept prompting to see if anyone wanted off, because I really wanted an excuse to get off there, but no one did. Finally the fourth floor approached, and we all prepared to exit. But since the button had never been pressed, the doors never opened, and the elevator suddenly went sailing back down. I had to grab a handicap-style arm rail to keep from slamming into the ceiling as the others screamed and we finally crashed to the ground. The impact irreparably damaged the lift, and the walls were in pieces enough to let us escape.

We needed to get to the higher floors, though, and a man at the bottom, wearing a large fur coat, offered to help us out. We went back into the seats and were given jerseys for the local basketball team that were folded neatly into fourths. I unfolded mine to look at it and then folded it back, although it had to go into three parts because its neck was now occupied with a hanger.

At some point, our mission to go up was revived, but we had no way to go aside from the elevator shaft, which was a skeletal wooden structure. The climbing was brutal, and one girl on her last bit of energy clung to a corner some distance up. Knowing she was going to fall to her death if she didn't keep ascending, she pulled out a picture with a hut and a sparkling river beside it. She tried to use her powers to teleport into the river in the picture, but she couldn't.

*Weiss and Sara were two school friends from some time ago. Together we called ourselves "S.O.D.D." (The Social Outcasts of Doom and Destruction), and our mascot was the S.O.P.O.D. (SquishyOraclePenguinof Doooooooom, said in that fashion). I made it to high school with Weiss, but Sara had moved away, so it oddly makes sense that I was more surprised to see her.

Dream Journal #15

I had gone so long without remembering a whole dream that I scribbled this down in the dark before I fell back asleep.

11 Sept—12 Sept

I was at some sort of band camp, sitting in an auditorium-type area with a planetarium feel to it. Everything was a bit dark and bluish. Becky* and I had done some kind of musical performance, culminating in playing a video game together that was something like a dating sim. Now I was sitting next to her, among many others at the camp.

Dr. F** was presenting something to us, resting his hands on a cheap, one-legged podium. He concluded his little speech by grinning and informing us he was a dork about it before zombies became "a thing." He then readied his flute and played a few halting bars of a song before awkwardly trailing off. Telling us he was trying to play a certain song (which I can only remember ended with the word "Power"), he chuckled and lowered the flute. I didn't know the song, but I recognised that it was some sort of classic hard rock song. Since I had a huge book of hard rock sheet music, I volunteered to go get it. Dr. F was pleased and waved we me out to find it.

I had walked to a far room full of bunk beds before I realised my sheet music was in my locker, along with my oboe and a spare pair of jeans. I turned to leave the room, but a Hispanic mother was in the way, sitting in a chair that blocked the space between beds as she helped her daughter get her bedding set up on the top bunk. They kept chattering in Spanish, and I tried to catch the mother's attention so she would get out of my way, but she didn't look at me. I contemplated climbing up and over one of the unoccupied beds, but there were little, dead bugs all over the mattress covers, and, even though the bunk bed I had been eyeing had a little metal ladder extending over the top of the upper mattress, I didn't want to risk it. Suddenly the daughter asked her mother something in English pertaining to the move-in, and she answered. Turning to me, the mother said she asked her child to ask questions in English because I was there.

Somehow I escaped those two, but I wasn't out of the bunk bed room before I ran into a familiar-looking girl with straight, shoulder-length blonde hair. I told her I thought I knew her, but I couldn't think of how. She shook my hand and reintroduced herself as Allie (her real name being Alpha). Recognition finally dawned on my face, but she continued to tell me we had been to the same church camp since before my congregation moved to a different campsite.

I said goodbye and hurried back to the locker room. The floors were black like lab tables, and the lockers were cubby holes with swinging wooden doors. The door to mine had been closed while I was gone, and I started to panic because I didn't know the combination. When I pulled at the handle-less door, though, it swung right open. Finally I saw my things and started to pull out the book of sheet music. Apparently the cubby was at some sort of slope, because everything kept trying to slide out onto me. Eventually I managed to get out the hard rock music book, along with my Journey sheet music book and an extremely thin volume of Schoolhouse Rock! sheet music.

Closing my locker, I backed up, arranged the books in my arms, and started back towards the hallway. Before I was out of the room, one of the band kids, a rather large male who had been standing casually by a wall perpendicular to me, puffed out his chest so that he thumped into my side. This threw me off a little, but I kept walking because I was sure he was just joking around despite the frown on his face. I gave up that theory when he and a male friend, who had been a bit behind me, shoved me hard in the back. I stumbled but managed to hurry out of the room.

* Becky is a family friend/mother of my long-time best friend. I think I've seen her play a keyboard, so maybe we did a duet with that?
**Dr. F (he often goes by that because very few people can spell his last name) is my physics teacher. He tries way too hard to be funny, but he still is funny sometimes. He was quite in-character here, although I have no idea why my subconscious decided he plays flute.

Dream Journal #14

I woke up early, tried to repeat this to myself, and went back to sleep. The details suffered, but oh well.

3 Aug—4 Aug

I was in a large arena, probably a basketball one, although not one I knew. The halls were all empty, blank, and dark-walled, and few of the lights on since the arena was closed. I had snuck in to steal a petri dish from one room in the arena that looked my Genetics lab room. I got into the lab, but in the Histology room just behind it was Dr. Phelps*, working on some sort of experiment. He was very excited about what he was doing and didn't see me, but I still lay down behind one of the lab tables for a while. I could somehow see his reflection in the wood, although the Histology lab was on the other side of the room. Finally he looked away long enough, so I swiped the petri dish from the counter and hurried back out. I had to go upstairs to get out, but luckily there was roof construction, so I could get in a lift.

In another, similar room, I met up with another teacher. He was bald, wore a white lab coat, and was someone I apparently knew from school. He was preparing for some sort of party/exhibition, so he pointed me to a few piles of pinky-size action figures and asked me to link them together. All of the figures had magnetic hands, so I started putting them in a line for each group. The first group was all superheroes. I got overly excited when I saw he had some Ben 10 figures.

At some point, I had to use the bathroom, so I snuck out of the room. A three-stalled bathroom was right outside, with two more closed doors leading outside. All of the walls were a plain white, and everything was clean. I settled down in one of the stalls, but, when I came out, Molly** and two others were standing in the open area of the bathroom chatting. For some reason I had stepped out without covering myself, so the girls immediately took out their phones and started taking pictures of my rear end. I chased them out, though not without finding out this was actually the bathroom that connected to their shared dorm room.

I went back to the second teacher's room, where I realised I had accidentally started putting the action figures down the sink. I started pulling them out carefully and, knowing that if I pull out the wrong one the rest would all fall in, I started picking out the unique figures (there were a lot of copies of the more popular superheroes). Then I realised I could just use their hands to link them, so I tried that and pulled out a long chain of them.

Later, I had finally escaped the arena, but someone had found out that I had killed one of the three girls with a weapon that looked like a giant, blue, disposable flosser. For this I was on the run.

* My Cell Biology teacher. He's not typically deadpan, but he was still a bit too cheerful in this dream.
**The residence assistant, she was one year older and lived in my dorm to keep an eye on us.

Dream Journal #13

I suppose this is what I get for watching K-ON! and Moyashimon on the same day as reading an academic article about anime for a research paper.

13 Jul—14 Jul

I was in a large history classroom with a long, curved desk, around which everyone sat. The teacher hadn't arrived yet, so I was looking up things on the Internet with my laptop. After discovering that, contrary to what I read earlier, Wikipedia now said there was only one season of K-ON!, and I was disappointed that I had indeed finished the entire series. After looking up something about Hetalia, I got out my laptop charger, and, realising it was unwound, anyway, decided to plug in my computer to charge. I found an outlet at chin level by the front door and proceeded to slide the plug into it very slowly.

In the middle of this process, I noticed a spark jumping at the back of the outlet (which I saw through the outlet holes as the plug had yet to completely fill them), and suddenly the entire outlet panel caught fire. I quickly removed my charger, and everyone in the class started freaking out a little bit until the teacher* came in. After observing the situation with a clear head, he instructed two of the girls nearby (I had already retreated) to put out the fire by flinging handfuls of yellow oil on it from the sink a few metres away. He remarked to me that this was sort of dangerous to the girls closest by, but the fire steadily went out.

Next, I was Ritsu of K-ON!, trying to catch up to Naruto. He was chasing Sasuke, but I knew the Sasuke was a fake, so I was shouting and running to stop Naruto before he could run into a trap. At some point in the chase, we had to go across a very long bridge with several supports that cut straight across a low mountain range. As we started on that part of the race, the view zoomed out to explain that the stretch of wood was the longest of its kind, a fact that I did not appreciate under the circumstances.

I continued running down the bridge, some ambiguous high school friends behind me, and I had to keep dodging camels, which stood shackled to either side of the bridge, and their owners. At one point we had to hopscotch over a row of kids stretched out across the bridge and halfway hidden by a layer of ash. All of a sudden, the camel owners started hollering at each other in concern about the camels braying, but I didn't understand because it was happening far ahead of us. Soon the braying passed down the line of camels far enough to hit us. Now all of the camels were braying in unison rounds of two syllables**, and it was so deafening I had to clamp my hands over my ears to keep going.

Finally I made it to the end of the bridge, where a shounen-hero-type kid stood on a level platform to stop us. Carrying himself rather arrogantly, he wielded an odd, double-javelin-axe-sickle-type weapon whose heads were made of jagged stone but squished like spongy foam. The boy claimed he didn't even need a good sword to defeat us and then singled me out, throwing me a similar weapon. I accepted his challenge, and we fought for a while. I got in a few hits, but he decided he was finished with me. Complaining that I couldn't even finish a fight, he tried to fling me away, but I was angry enough to dig my fingernails into his arms and hang on to him. I swung back around and landed an admittedly weak kick to his crotch before I pulled back.

Suddenly some other allies of mine had come in, and now the kid was surrounded. Knowing that they could handle him for me, I ran off after catching another glance of Naruto. He was ninja-jumping across bridge supports above us, shouting Sasuke's name again.

* I'm pretty sure the teacher was actually one of my former history professors, for Western Civilization. That may have been an addition after the actual dream, though.

**As in, "bray, bray ... bray, bray ... bray, bray." I wasn't sure exactly how to phrase that.

Dream Journal #12

I feel like I could actually make something out of this one.

1 Jul—2 Jul

There were two main characters: a brother and sister, who were both in their teens and had dark hair. They lived in some sort of modern-day rural area where most of the villagers knew each other and many buildings were bordered by woods. I had the feeling this was part of some sort of series starring the brother and sister, and I knew they had dealt with the supernatural before.

The siblings were staying at their grandmother's house (although they did have parents, or at least a mother, living in the village) and were on the old, wooden front porch with them when something that looked like one of the "bonies" from Warm Bodies came towards them. The skeleton wasn't moving particularly quickly, but it was menacing, and the brother and sister knew to run away. The skeleton took off after them and, without turning to look at the grandmother, who was standing on the edge of the porch, jabbed the first two fingertips of its left hand into her pupils. The grandmother screamed as her eyes withered away, and the skeleton generated the same eyes in its eye sockets. This took only a moment and barely hindered the skeleton, who continued charging after the siblings.

The brother and sister came to hide in a hotel, where several others of the village were staying. This included one of their teachers, a plump man with a rusty voice who taught chemistry. The hotel seemed safe, but one of the other kids told the teacher they smelled HNO3 in one of the rooms. The teacher, who referred to this as "caustic acid," went alone to the room to investigate. There he was possessed by the same spirit that was responsible for the earlier skeleton; I could tell because his eyes and some of the skin surrounding them turned black.

It wasn't long before the siblings were captured by the skeletons, although the latter had already stolen enough from the villagers to look more like slightly rotten witches. One who seemed to be the head witch ordered the other witches to force the brother to kneel in the centre of the room, which was made of old wood like just about everything else in this village. The sister was not restrained but knew she couldn't do anything; she just tearfully tried to convince the head witch she was wrong. The witch said something about her sense of incompletion and what it means to be human before walking back to the brother. After a moment of thinking, she decided she first and foremost wanted to hear again and so placed her hand over the boy's ear.

Outside, a few villagers and I were running from the possessed teacher. While we were in the middle of descending some tall, wooden stairs, we heard the brother scream. This brought us to a nervous halt, but we realized all we could do now is try to keep ourselves alive, so we went back to running. One of the stairs had several uneven planks jutting out over the next step, so I had to find a gap between the fingers of wood to keep going down.

The brother and sister had apparently made it out of the witches' house and were now in a scene at the local park, where several groups were running from their possessed loved ones. My group was going over the thin sheet of snow on the ground when I decided to try to throw a snowball back at our pursuer to dissuade her. I really only threw a clump of snow, and it didn't do much good, but I kept trying.

Another group joined the fray, fleeing from a possessed large woman with long, curly, red hair. They had apparently decided running wasn't fast enough, because they were skiing down the gentle incline of the park with makeshift skis that were just blocks of wood below their feet, attached to strings for them to hold as they went down.

The main characters were running from their possessed mother. Apparently this was actually a book, because the next chapter was about half of a page. The brother was relating the general chaos and hopelessness of the scene, and then at the very end confirmed that the witches had succeeded in making him deaf.

The scene jumped to the same village some time later, and the survivors (main characters included) were climbing up into a wooden play house in the park for some sort of gathering. It was difficult enough for them to get up there, since the ridged, wooden slope was sized for children, but they made it inside, where a blonde teenage girl greeted them. More and more villagers kept coming, and few had made it into the play house before the siblings realized there was not going to be enough room. They pushed their way out, and soon everyone was sitting on the sun-warmed ground, listening to someone giving an emotional speech about the events that took place here.

Dream Journal #11

One of those dreams where I always knew where I was, yet the surroundings were nothing like the actual place.

25 Jun—26 Jun

There was a girl with very short, blonde hair, who was going to my church. At some point she fell in love with a boy there, but for some reason neither could hang out in public. So the girl arranged her hair over one eye and covered the bottom of her face to look like a male and went into the men's restroom where her crush was. They met in the first stall to the left and somehow both managed to plunge wholly into the toilet bowl (which may or may not have temporarily changed into a swimming pool-type apparatus). They made out underwater and resurfaced in the restroom stall. The girl put her disguise back together and walked out feeling quite happy.

I was at my first high school, talking with L.J.* and some girl friends. I was sure to keep good track of the time, because my parents would expect me back after school ended (even though I wasn't actually taking classes). Getting nervous and leaving the classroom with my friends, I decided to wash my laundry in some sort of sports coach area of the school. While waiting for the first load of whites to watch, I went back and chatted with my friends, still feeling uncomfortable, until the washing machine made a beeping noise to signal the end of the cycle. How I was able to hear it from that classroom, which was quite distant, I'm not sure, but my friends were completely fine with me leaving to take care of it.

I switched over that load and checked my watch. It was almost 17:00. I had just decided I had to find some decent excuse for still being at school when I realised there was a chemistry lab going on. I hurried to the lab building, where I had to get in a very long line of other students in order to go past the teachers and get my lab supplies and reactants one by one. A friend ended up in line two spaces behind me, so we chatted a bit as I texted my parents (on my current phone) that I was stuck in a chemistry lab. Dad was very upset because I didn't need to be taking chemistry again, and soon I was becoming rather irritated at this as well. I drew close to the front of the line as I continued texting my father about this, and I let the two people behind me cut in front to buy myself some time.

Dad decided he just wanted to actually talk about this instead of texting, so I left the lab building and somehow called him through the texting page. The phone said I was calling several people at once, though, including Phillip**, so I hung up and went through to call my dad the normal way. He finally bought my chemistry lab alibi, but I was still upset about having to take chemistry and so decided to myself I would skip the rest of it. Instead I remembered my laundry and went back to check on it.

Although I clearly recalled having changed enough loads I should have been down to the coloured clothes in the dryer, all I had were the whites in the washer. It was 18:00, so I was extremely upset and sure I really had to get home soon. I didn't want to wait another hour for the clothes to go through the dryer, so I just set them there, on top of several neatly-folded quilts and blankets that apparently stayed on the bottom of the drying machine. Then I imagined that the sports coach would notice in the morning, get upset, and track me down (which would have been simple because he knew the kinds of clothes I wore), so I pushed all of my clothes to the back and folded the uppermost blanket over the top, vowing to take care of this tomorrow.

*L.J. is my professor for my summer term class that let me go to Japan and China. Pretty sure I would have noticed him if he had ever come to my first high school.

**Phillip is a friend who went to that old high school and was famous in our group for his "five-and-a-half-pack." I last saw him working at Subway, and I don't think I actually have his phone number.

Dream Journal #10

I think I put all of the parts in the right order.

16 Jun—17 Jun*

I was travelling on the grounds of the hospital where I volunteer. There I met a teacher of mine, with whom I chatted and followed into a restaurant, which was called Himalayas and served Thai food. I intended to sit down with my teacher, but he quickly got in a booth that was already seating three eating people, and there was no room. Slightly forlorn, I looked for a two-person table and sat down at one that was scooted far too close to an empty six-person table. A black waiter in his thirties served me and, seeing my state, made some friendly conversation with me, which I enjoyed.

I went underground (still on hospital grounds) and tried to discreetly make my way through a series of narrow passages with yellowish paint on the walls. Along these hallways were several room, a few of which I had to pass through to continue on. The rooms I passed were all nurses giving checkups or vaccinations to children. I had to stop in one of these rooms; it was so small I would have to jump over the nurse, patient, or sharps box to get out, and I didn't want to do that. I waited, but after the nurse was finished and put away the sharps box, a scanner (that had been in one wall, covered with glass like a fire extinguisher) swept over us with purple lights. The nurse crouched in the corner protecting the child, while I froze where I was, sure that the scanner was going to shoot me. But it receded back into the wall, glass sliding over it, and the nurse and child left. I took a quick mobile photo of the disclaimers on the glass (which concerned the lack of responsibility the hospital had for deaths it caused) because it was in Engrish, which I somehow knew to have been translated from Japanese.

From there, I slipped back into the hallway and followed it a while, and eventually it opened up into a very wide underground passage lined with concrete. Doctors and other staff were now walking to and fro, but I was no longer concerned with being caught and just followed the passageway until it led me aboveground. Coming out near the back patio area of Himalayas (and wondering why I didn't notice the opening earlier), I went onto a normal outdoor pathway, where I ran into my parents. Dad gave me a slip of paper that looked like a receipt, and I looked at the text, which had a list of guitar-playing keys/styles based on the guitarist's mood. Dad then pointed me to the top of the paper, which advertised the current video competition and invited people to make a free short film with the equipment.

The scene then changed to one of the short films. The main character became a man who looked like the Cake Boss, and he was pursuing a robin. An epic chase scene ensued, helped by the fact he was somehow doing this for the sake of justice. Finally he climbed up a tree where the robin was perched and came within reach of it. The robin then pecked at his head and proceeded to attack his hair with its beak (although the video effects on this part made it obvious the robin was attacking a mannequin, spliced with shots of the actor's face in pain). The scene switched to the main character at his house, explaining this event to his wife. She interrupted him at this point in the story and told him it was okay to just admit he was balding.

*I'm actually quite sure everything took place on the morning of the 17th, because I first woke up at 3:00 with no dream in my head.

Dream Journal #9

100th post, hooray! Thanks to anyone that's been more or less keeping up with all of this. Hope it's enjoyable.

18 May—19 May

I was playing some sort of video game with Schoolhouse Rock!-like graphics. It was a small, modern-day town, and by selecting various buildings, etc., I had to explore the area and find all of the sections I could. I had found all but one thing on the goal list before I finally caught sight of a certain selectable sign that had a list of all of the sites. Amongst several places I had already been was an option labelled "Don't tell me I don't exist." I selected it to be taken to a screen showing the town's king. He had short, brown hair and was in the process of spinning his crown in the air. Apparently his label was some sort of reference to his lack of political power.

At this point, the video-game feel of the dream was gone. Kari* was the mother of a 4- or 5-year-old brown-haired boy whose father (the real king of the town) had been missing. They lived in a big mansion with white wood stairs. At some point we managed to track down and release the real king, who went on to battle the usurper.

As the two kings stood poised for battle with their swords, the fake king prepared some momentous pre-battle words and shouted: "I like your daikons!" The real king responded, "I... don't know what to make of that!" and they both charged into battle. (It should be noted at this point that the fake king had made similar comments before using different vegetables.)

The real king won, bringing peace to the town and whatnot. I wondered why Kari didn't free him sooner because she had a blue, superpowered sword.

*Kari was the wife of the sponsor for the Japan portion of my trip. She has two kids as well, but she was the only one of the group to appear in this dream.

Dream Journal #8

This actually shook me up a bit, though once I was suitably awake such thoughts seemed a bit silly.

Also a bit strange how I was only an observer the entire time, rather than switching places with the main character ever so often.

And a random welcome to all of the hits from Ukraine!

19 Apr—20 Apr

I was watching a DVD of some sort of anime. The first few clips (they were all too short to really be called episodes, since it wasn't as random as Hetalia) played without any unusual intervention and introduced the main character and her family. The main character was a brown-haired Japanese teenager who was rather cheerful and liked to ride her bike. I don't think she ever had a mother.

Then, after the end of one clip, a menu opened where I could choose which clip to watch next, each of which was near the same time in the storyline and so could be watched in any order. As I selected and watched clips, more options came up after every one, sorted by the character with which they were involved, including more characters (all connected to the main character) as I progressed. In this manner I continued to watch the series, where everything in the main character's life started falling apart. Her little sister was slowly dying of a mysterious illness; her boyfriend, with whom she played basketball, proved to not care enough for her during her troubles and left her; and her father, who was still quite young, was losing his memory in some mundane way piece by piece. I was hesitant to watch the father's first clip because I knew how bad it was going to get.

The main character also had a companion that was some kind of light brown, furry bat. He talked and pretty much only showed up from time to time for comic relief. His first segment (or at least the first that featured him enough to count as his category) was actually the fourth of his listed clips, but I couldn't select the previous ones, which, I reasoned, had to be because I hadn't watched the right clips in other categories yet. Caleb came into the room where I was watching the DVD and made a snarky comment about the bat and his colourful, furry ear lining. I shooed Caleb off and continued watching.

At some point the main character was running back to her village past a rocky area that happened to be some sort of shooting range. She had to run between rounds of shots (which were small, black rocks instead of bullets) and then hide behind outcroppings as the people, who never took any heed of her, fired. There was also some point when she and her bat friend were dropped off from a bus in the middle of the village/city, and she had to find her way home past a flooded roadway.

Dream Journal #7

I have returned from Asia, so the blog is back in business. Might as well reopen with something interesting.

04 Apr—05 Apr

I was at home with my mother. I'm not sure exactly what was wrong with her, but she began acting so terrible and somehow cruel that it made me cry. Huddled on the green couch under covers, I texted Grandma Mona*, tapping letter by letter, always fearfully checking if my mother was watching. In the end I couldn't bring myself to send the text message and just sat there crying.

Later the same day, my mother seemed to have been healed. We went to a museum, its walls dull pink, that was about the size and layout of a house. The exhibits were mostly sculpture-type things, including one human-height skeleton with an elongated skull like a cross between a triceratops (I seem to like them subconsciously?) and a rodent. In the centre of one room stood Lori**, a younger Kennedy*** in her arms, with the latter's face buried in Lori's shoulder. We may have conversed for a bit before my mother and I moved on. We commented that it was a shame Dad didn't make it today. Somehow we knew the apocalypse was coming soon, and we thought that everything there would be reduced to skeletons by the time we could come again. I briefly imagined the Lori-and-Kennedy exhibit as skeletons before another museumgoer brought up that museums change exhibits fairly often, anyway. My mother and I realized how much that really undermined what we were saying.

My father joined us in a restaurant, which we had earlier visited for breakfast while my mother was still being tyrannous, for dinner and a show. It was Disney-based, with many characters from different worlds interacting, and I somehow already knew some of what to expect. In the introduction, various groups of actors, from different Disney movies, came in. I particularly remember Luke**** and two other boys with purple wolf masks resting on top of their heads. Parts of the show included a party, with a long table full of stacks of punch bowls and other food containers that were obviously empty but pretending to not be. Rapunzel dipped out some invisible punch as she was talking to someone. At one point it was hinted that Peter Pan was going to arrive, so I looked to the ceiling excitedly. To my disappointment the actor was not Sealand, but he still "flew in" on cords and tumbled to a landing just in front of the stage (which was actually a few steps lower than the dinner area). It turned out that Peter Pan was actually also Pinocchio, and he made a show of stuffing some of his strings in his clothes before going to interact with the others.

During the intermission, I ended up heading outside on some sort of concrete porch. A grid of folding chairs seated quite a few people who were ambiguous church friends. At some point a bald man dressed in black with a scowl on his face walked by while I stood there, and I hurried to hug him while informing him he looked like he needed a hug. Then I realized he was a random stranger and felt awkward about it, so I pulled away, though not without having gotten his attention first. As I stood there being awkward, the man made some sarcastic comment about how he was doing fine. This also had something to do with him tasting beer but no longer drinking it, and one of the men sitting on the porch congratulated him and told him not drinking was a good thing.

I went back to the show after that. Now only a small amount of ice was left in my drink cup (which likely had Dr. Pepper in it previously), but I started drinking and it soon ended up being a full glass of ice water. My mother announced she was leaving to track down someone she could pay for the meal, as well as for the morning meal in the restaurant she had failed to pay in her reign of terror earlier.

* Grandma Mona is my paternal grandmother. She's single and not tech-savvy, so I have no idea why I would try to confuse her by texting her.

** Lori is a family friend whom we haven't visited in a while.

*** Kennedy is Lori's daughter. She's a lot younger than me, but she was probably about three in the dream, and again terribly shy.

**** Luke (not the one mentioned in The Scribes) is a school friend who's pretty awesome. He did excellently in the recent improv contest, if that gives you a good idea about him.

Dream Journal #6

I'm not sure how I managed to remember this. I'm pretty sure I went back to sleep afterwards, but I really thought this was worth keeping and so rehearsed it quite a bit before dropping off again. Apparently it worked.

28 March—29 March

Some ambiguous school friends and I were hanging out in a normal house, with sort of an old-person feel to it. It wasn't well lit, mostly by desk lamps, and the carpet was light. At some point we left the house, going along a path of worn, rectangular stepping-stones across the front lawn and onto the road. It was dark, probably a bit before dawn. No streetlights were on.

I'm not sure what happened, but we scattered. It seemed like a game at first, as I ran through the dark cul-de-sac, but at some point I found myself rather frightened and hiding at the front porch of someone's house. I couldn't see if I was that hidden, so I got a bit of light from my mobile phone before quickly putting it away. Still, the others—I'm not sure who in particular, or even if they were still my school friends—found me and tried to take me away. They grabbed my arms, but I managed to wrench myself away (this kind of thing happened quite often in the dream).

I ran away harder. It started to become lighter as I reached some sort of hotel. In an attempt to stop the others from following me, I ran straight across the edge of a large, blocky swimming pool, a sharp-edged hole in the otherwise undecorated concrete. I managed not to slip, and three boys that had been following me, one of which was Caleb*, came to a stop at the edges of the pool and argued with each other.

Still running as hard as I could and knowing I was still pursued, I went through the actual hotel and ended up in an indoor shopping mall. After some time of running across the main floor, I ended up going in a "store" that was really a type of popular shooting game, akin to laser tag. With no time to lose, I kept running through, dodging the crowd. I almost ran into a girl, donning the game's white, mecha-like costume, on the way back out and apologised to her for it.

After going across the main floor of the mall for a bit longer, I ended up underneath the building. There was a series of criss-crossing, otherwise deserted hallways on different levels that seemed very much like hotel hallways. The carpets were a bit darker than mint green, and there were few doors, only near places the hallways bent. Somehow Amelia had managed to almost catch up with me as I ran here. She caught me by my long skirt, and I couldn't quite get away. Crying, she begged me to stop running. I told her I couldn't do that, but also that it wasn't because I hated her. I couldn't convince her, but we did emotionally hug before I escaped and fled to the main mall.

Not feeling safe enough in the open area of the mall, I ended up running through stores in my attempts to dissuade my constant pursuers. I seemed to have lost them in some trendy but sparsely-stocked clothing and accessory store before I ran into another store. It was quite large, with two columns of various recliners spaced some distance from each other and extending back for a while. As I entered, a man in a coaching uniform who worked there asked if my shoes (which were my normal navy, undecorated walking shoes) were for the [city removed] team. I told him that they weren't, but my father coached at the school (which is true). With a grin, the man revealed he actually was my father and shook my hand, saying no one had complimented him like that before. He asked me what I was doing at the mall here, and I quickly thought to tell him some school friends and I were playing the popular shooting game.

Dad was fine with that, and I left the store, running from the pursuers again. At occassions they caught up and grabbed my arms; I managed to get away every time. We went through all types of stores, none of which I remember well, before I finally lost them. Wanting a break, I ran until I saw the front of my favourite bookstore chain. Although I knew it was terribly predictable and the others could try to look for me here, I entered anyway. Passing some typical displays of children's books, I realised how badly I had to use the restroom and looked at ceiling signs to find one. One sign pointed to a sort of atrium area, which included a rock wall (as in, a slab of grey rock in the gap between escalators that reached to the next floor) and various displays of small, square pieces of speckled soap.

Unable to find the restroom, I went to the second floor hoping for it there. Not far from the escalator sat one of the moderators of the improv contest I had the evening before (in real life). I knew he was one of the people after me, but I decided it was time to stop running. He seemed rather shocked and unsure how exactly to react to me just standing there watching him. As we were at some sort of video game station (consisting of a large, wooden box), he invited me to play with him and another girl, who had been sitting there with him. I agreed to it but asked where the bathroom was, hoping he wouldn't think I was just trying to get away again. He directed me towards them, but warned me the women's were a lot worse than the men's, with a score of 7-0. I tried to pull up the back of my jeans (apparently I was no longer wearing the skirt from the rest of the dream) but was unsuccessful and instead pulled my shirt down before hurrying towards the restroom.

*Caleb is a school friend, though we don't see each other much. We both went steampunk for Halloween, though, so that was cool.

Wow, this was a dream of rather epic proportions. And surprisingly consistent, as far as dreams go. I wonder if it actually meant something.

Dream Journal #5

20 March—21 March

For some sort of dire grievance, some others and myself were to be banned from our home planet, which, as far as I can tell, was not Earth, although we were all human. We were forced into a very cartoony rocket, where we all stood in the centre, by the one round window, as we were launched. We were supposed to be condemned to die on the "spring moon"—a moon, not far from our home planet, that was labelled with an extremely large pale blue structure in the shape of two intersecting semicircles.

Before we got to the spring moon, however, we came across another celestial body in our path. It was a very small (probably about the size of the rocket) planet made of rocky, deep scarlet stone. I remembered hearing a presentation about this planet (whose name now escapes me), so I decided to take my chances with it rather than the spring moon. Without a space suit—none of us had one, it seemed—I managed to slip out of a wide hatch in the spaceship just as we came to the rocky planet.

As I grappled to keep hold of the rock, I noticed Logan*, the one who had done the presentation I remembered, sitting on top of the planet. Not wearing any special equipment, other than a somewhat casual suit and fedora, he greeted me cheerfully. I reciprocated and mentioned his report on the planet. He nodded and informed me that "the natives—yes, natives—are really nice." This was indeed the first I had heard of any natives on the planet.

While I did not see them at first, after a while of living on the planet, I finally managed to observe the natives. They were tiny (about the height of a finger), standing triceratops creatures that usually lived underground. They weren't very social and never talked to me, but I was okay with that.

Meanwhile, I was trying desperately to get an Internet connection on my laptop, but reception on the planet was terrible. There were several Wi-Fi places to which I could connect, but they didn't work correctly, and the one that I actually received properly kept sending my browser to a bright green website advertising a hotel on my home planet and insisting I sign up for a night or two.

* Logan is one of my lab partners in Chemistry and sits next to me in class. I really feel like he would be the type to energetically do some presentation on a weird, tiny planet. He also likes to sing annoying things, but luckily that didn't crop up in this dream (although I woke up with "You're So Vain" stuck in my head).

Dream Journal #4

Notes on this one were just as sparse as the last one.

14 Mar—15 Mar

I was looking through a museum with a lot of girls I knew—no one specific, although I did know they were from Honors or the Asian Studies program—and enjoying it. Everything had sort of a golden colour scheme, with various spotlight-type lights enabling us to see the paintings. One was in a golden frame, featuring a normal-looking tree among a field of fall colours. Somewhere else in the museum, on the first floor, was an ongoing blood drive.

At some point, I took the elevator to the fifth floor, for an interview. Some others were sitting in chairs in the front waiting room, but behind the counter was Mrs. Spencer*, so I chatted with her. She informed me that the family dog had died, but she kept a smile on her face and motioned to a stack of standard yellow sticky notes. On the top note, she had written some note on how at least now "he" (the dog) could see his "bone father."

I eventually went in to have my interview and then proceeded to seed the fifth floor with bombs. I fled the area as the storey blew up. I think I was watching the fiery explosion from outside a cafe across the street. No one fled the building or anything, it was just a nice flaming boom. A bit later, I realised my friends were still inside the museum. Worried, I hurried back into the museum, where everything was still orderly.

After some searching, I came upon them. A few were standing outside an elevator, while a larger group had just stepped inside. A few of them acknowledged my presence. Although I never entered the elevator, I noted that the buttons now only covered floors one through four. One of the girls inside the elevator was trying fervently to guess the name of one of the girls outside, next to me. The girl outside was grinning, just barely dropping hints, when the inner elevator doors started to close. Freaking out a bit but not trying to stop the door from closing, the inside girl kept trying to guess until the black doors closed in front of her.

* Lady who goes to my church. We don't talk much, but she's the mother of one of my friends.

Dream Journal #3

Took very sparse notes on this one, but I'll try to put it all together.

4 March—5 March

Near the beginning, I was with a large group, probably a lot of school fellows, walking somewhere. At some point we began to walk along inclined train tracks over gravel. This was completely fine with me, and I think they were based off some tracks on a concrete bridge I often see but always from a distance in the car. At one point in the walk, three of us got sort of separated (or at least stopped noticing everyone else), and the tracks split. One path continued straight and uphill, while the other slowly curved off. We tried to ask someone which path we were supposed to take, but no one would answer in time, so I led us up the straight path. Then we realised the crowd was going to the curved path, so we crossed the gravel and went in line with them.

At some point after this, the three of us were definitely alone. I'm not sure who the girl in the group was yet, but the other member was 80s-era Steve Perry. We made it to a certain point on the tracks where, less than a foot from the metal, the ground dropped off in a cliff. Not too far below, though, was the ground. It was flat, with concrete flooring, and several black-tablecloth-covered dinner tables. They were obviously part of some restaurant, and there were chairs around them as at a normal table, but no other people were around.

Now, Steve decided we had to jump down from where we stood on the tracks. I sort of knew this was the next step of the way to wherever we were going, but it looked like a really long way down, and I didn't want to risk it. To show me it was safe, Steve climbed down a little, gripping the rail as he swung himself over the edge. He informed me the tables would break our fall before he dropped and landed on one of them. It didn't break, and he landed fairly unperturbed, but I still wouldn't go. The girl friend had at some point made it down there as well, and they finally convinced me to come down. They sort of caught me, but I landed on my rear and lower back on the table, and I just knew the pain/injury was going to be a nuisance as we went on.

Later I had entered an auditorium. It was really a lot like a movie theatre, but huge, and with a small stage rather than a screen. Certain sections of the audience were sort of colour-coded by the group that was supposed to sit there; I remember one where everyone was wearing lime green hoodies. I was carrying something—not sure what—and desperately looking for my group of three. Then the girl, who was now clearly Laura*, managed to wave me down. I noticed the empty seat between her, and Steve, who had somewhat ambiguously become David Tennant, notified me they had saved me a seat. I thanked them and sat down.

At this point Laura decided to show off the new hoodie she was wearing. It was sort of greenish, but when she drew the strings of the hood shut, it looked like the face of some famous video game character girl similar to the lady in Wreck-It Ralph. Laura informed me said character was from Transformers before going in-character for her and yelling, "Snake!" I was fully aware this was another character in the video game. She kept yelling it in a hoarse man voice, very much to the amusement of those sitting around us and Steve/David. Then she pulled a second set of drawstrings, which cut off her mouth so the entire character face showed. I couldn't hear anything from her now, so I made a sarcastic comment about how I liked this function of the hoodie better.

* Girl in my class. She's a little wacky and sarcastic, and we took/are taking some of our classes together and live in the same dorm.

Dream Journal #2

I remember that I woke up from a dream about various Hetalia characters dealing with the same theme of sorts, but I proceeded to go back to sleep and forget about most of it. I did manage to have another dream (or two?) afterwards, though.

28 Feb—01 March

Sealand somehow had come to have jurisdiction over two small islands of many islands close to the east coast of Australia. Sealand successfully convinced the micronations representing said islands to call him "senpai" and was very happy about that.

Next the scene changed (at no point do I remember being involved personally in the plot) to what I knew to be a corporate office. In reality, the lighting was dim, there were no desks or cubicles, and it gave much more of a skating rink feel than that of an office building. The first outstanding character was a standard jerk corporate leader, whom I shall refer to as Don. He was in a typical crisp suit, with dark hair, and looked somewhat like "Mayhem" from the insurance commercials.

Also entering the scene was a Mexican worker, whom I shall refer to as Juan. He wore a black hat (the popular kind, with a brim sort of obscured by a lump of fabric bulging out from the top section) and a dark blue uniform with his name (whatever it really was) written on the back in an arch of cursive, yellow letters.

Juan messed up some operation, likely involving a phone. Don picked up a corded phone, holding it upright so that the ear and mouth pieces faced in the same direction as him, and continued to hold it up as he explained his distaste for what Juan did. Don slammed the phone back in its holder.

All of the other workers were sure Juan was going to get fired, and they watched him go to the locker room area of the office. Here there were full-length lockers arranged in rows that alternated with wooden benches, simple ones with no back on which one could sit from either side. Opening his locker, Juan put up his hat as Don walked up behind him.

With a sneer, Don looked around at the other workers and asked some rhetorical question involving what Juan needed to put on his greasy hair. After an arrogant pause, Don answers himself with, "Oil." This sudden sign of approval (based on anointment or something?) shocked the other workers as Don slapped Juan on the back with a grin. Don had somehow figured out a way to make this into something that would look bad for a rival company.

At some point during this sequence, I was observing a plastic box full of fingernail-sized, white, sparkly, fluffy things. They looked like those little felt balls (pom-poms? I forget) and had googly eyes as well. For some reason we were snacking on them.

After Don's proclamation of success, there was a typical rubbish movie ending with a band singing. They were on a black stage, black curtains behind them, that was also a part of the office. The main singer was a fat woman with curly hair that was either red or auburn.

There was also a scene where I was on an escalator behind Grandma Shirley*, the both of us going down in an escalator area painted white. I explained to her the cities of origin of the characters from Macbay Transportation Services.

* My maternal grandmother, who's a rather typical grandmother and can be silly. Her birthday was recent.