Dream #323 (January 31, 2010)

A dream.

I was working undercover. There was a mob meeting inside of my grandfather's kitchen, and I was there the whole time acting as one of their men. I felt that I had gained the trust of the man in change (an older fat man with a bushy red beard, a blue and purple suit, and a monocle), so I was fairly confident that I'd be able to bring him in.

As we were dining together (the mob boss, a bunch of men, and myself), I got a call on my cell phone. I brought it into the living room and answered it. It was David Badertscher, and he was calling to check up on me (he was the leader of the investigation back at home). He asked me some questions about who was there at the meeting, but I couldn't understand whom he was asking for, so I kept saying, "What?" over and over again. It asked it so much that David began to grow suspicious that I had joined the gang for real. I tried convincing him, but he wouldn't believe me. Finally, I understood the name of the guy he was talking about, and I described him as "expressionless and a bit depressing to look at." He knew I was still on his side after that answer apparently.

Then I went back to the meeting. The big boss was there and he was looking at me suspiciously. Then he began describing the 'big score' that was supposed to take place that night, and he gave each person a different set of instructions on what to do to make things go smoothly. He handed me a strange looking plug and, with a strange smile, told me to plug it into a certain outlet at the meeting place. I knew he had caught on to me, but I tried to play it cool.

Then I switched to a different dream.

I was in the Oregon-Davis school parking lot in the middle of the night, standing next to an unmarked white van with tinted windows. I stood there doing nothing for a long time, occasionally glancing at the elementary boys' basketball game going on in the gym (there is a large window by the side door of the school that I could see through).

Eventually I awoke.

Dream #322 (January 28, 2010)

This was a bit sad and a bit crazy.

I started off the dream driving the old van my parents used to own. I was alone in the vehicle on the main stretch of a small city.

When I pulled up to a stoplight, which had just turned yellow moments before, another van (this one was brown) sped past and stopped next to the man on a motorcycle in front of me. A young guy in a grey suit hopped out carrying a rifle and shot the man on the motorcycle.

I was shocked and frightened, and I immediately crouched down under my steering wheel and put my hands over my head. I even began to cry, for I had never seen a man die in such a way in real life.

I soon remembered that I had a gun in my glove compartment (I don't really carry a gun), but I was too scared and broken up to get it. Seeing unexpected death so close really affected me.

Then I jumped ahead in the dream. I was 40 years old, dressed in Middle Age knight garb (it was a yellow breastplate). I was also blind (but I was looking at myself in the third person, as if I were looking into the future). Apparently the blindness was caused by extreme stress brought about by the death I had witnessed. I was a helpless man. At that point in the dream, I was begging for food at a feast being held in the suburbs. There was a great amount of food, and the atmosphere reminded me of a graduation party. People would occasionally come up and talk to me (they knew me as being a 'wise old hermit'), but nobody fed me any food. Even so, I would give the youngsters who talked to me very good life advice.

Then I jumped even further into the future. I was on a street, old with a long white beard, and I was blind and crippled. It was raining, and the world looked grey. Nobody passed me by.

Then I jumped into another dream that was strangely connected to the previous one. Though it was much different, I still remembered these experiences from the first dream in the second dream.

I was in a great cylindrical tower. There was a spiral path that wound around the tower from the bottom to the top. There was a great march going on, and every living person who had fought in the military were in the parade, and they were all being honored at the top.

I myself had not fought in the military, but I was accepted into the parade because of my harsh and violent life. I remember the others marching feeling angry at my being there, but I also remember Bo Ennis welcoming me with a smile and a pat on the back.

When I neared the top of the huge building, I somehow got separated from the group and ended up inside a blue elevator (by the way, everything else in the building was blue and shiny). I took the elevator to the top floor and found nobody there. I looked around and couldn't find a sign of anybody, which is weird, for the military people were all marching to what they thought was the top of the building. I was there, and they were nowhere to be found, so I grew suspicious of this parade of 'honor.'

Before I could solve the mystery, I found a secret exit to the building that led to a person's backyard. That backyard was the same backyard where my middle-aged self was begging for food. Unfortunately (of fortunately) I did not get a chance to see myself. I went back into the blue cylindrical building and entered a tube slide (like one found in a McDonald's Play Place). I began to slide at a horrifying speed.

Then I awoke.

Dream #321 (January 27, 2010)

Another Kevin dream.

I first dreamt that I was in Kevin's bedroom in Eastwood (a dorm at Bethel College, which is where I actually was). Kevin got up in the middle of the night, turned on an old overhead project (which is what I've been working with a lot late in the creation of my music video), and was showing a hole bunch of building plans on the ceiling. I was getting frustrated with him because I wanted to sleep; the light from the projector was so bright and bothersome.

I soon switched over to another dream.

I was with Kevin sneaking around in what looked like a barn on the outside, but was a fancy house on the inside. We occasionally peeked out the window and noticed a line of people that would embarrass the longest line at an amusement park. I'm not sure what they were waiting for, but Kevin and I were attempting to bypass it.

In order to get to our destination, we had to get past the guards. I figured if I could get my hands on a radio receiver, we could listen into their frequencies and know when the guards were changing (I'm not sure how that would have helped us). So I ran to a nearby warehouse. Strangely the area around the warehouse was lit by the sun, whilst it was dark where I had come from (and to where I would eventually return).

I ran up to the top level of the yellowish warehouse, got into the office, and took a large radio receiver that I shoved into the pocket of my sweatpants. It created quite a huge lump in my side and was not very inconspicuous. Even so, I tried to sneak around. I remembered thinking to myself that I had done no wrong (apparently I owned the warehouse, at least in my mind in my dream), but I nonetheless didn't want to be stopped by the guards. I had one close call in the stairwell, but I managed to sneak around the 6'-10" dude without him seeing me (I slid down the rail behind him).

I finally made it back to Kevin, but by then, there was a small party going on in the house/barn we had previously been sneaking around in. I remember Steve Weiger (former high school classmate) yelling from top floor of the barn (which didn't have walls; it was just another floor) and throwing down a red pole, which hit me in the neck. I was mad at him, and he was drunk and oblivious.

Kevin then told me that he had to study, so I followed him to an odd classroom. On our way there, we passed by some strange goings on. There were a bunch of people eating Jell-O on a waterbed, some people watching a black-and-white film on the ceiling, some others having a saber fight on an elevated walkway, and some people playing jacks.

Finally we reached the classroom which had in it a coat rack and one of those beds that is inside a frame that looks like a race car. I sat on that bed while Kevin sat on the floor and began to read. I asked him what he was studying, but he didn't answer me, so I pulled out a huge math book from out of nowhere and began solving problems.

Then I awoke.

Dream #320 (January 26, 2010)

Some very interesting things were going on in my head last night.

In the beginning I was inside of some sort of military base filled with scientific equipment. There Lauren Bello (formerly De la Calzada) was setting up the computers trying to prepare for some sort of missile launch that was intended to prevent some sort of earth-shattering explosion from taking place (it had something to do with meteors maybe). However, there was a missing piece that Lauren needed to finish setting up the supercomputer. It was up to Mike, Kevin, and me to retrieve the piece from a nearby island (the military base was itself an island).

I first went to the docks and instructed a boat full of island savages and military interns (the savages were wearing loin cloths and the interns were wearing green sweaters and hipster glasses) to follow the three of us in our little john boat. Kevin, Mike, and I then boarded the john boat, and I paddled it, against a current, to the neighboring island, with the savages and interns following behind in their ship.

When we reached the shore, Mike tied the boat down whilst I dismounted the boat and waded to the beach. I waved for the savages and interns to follow me, and they did. I found the large piece of metal that was so important to the military operation; unfortunately, it was being guarded by a one-eyed giant. Not only did he only have one eye, but he had a horn on his head and an extra mouth on his chest. He was quite muscular, and he spoke in a strange language (both moths would speak simultaneously). I didn't know how I could defeat this thing until the interns, on their own initiative, jumped off their boat and threw themselves on to the giant, many of them climbing up to his head and flinging their fists into his tough skin (the giant was probably forty feet tall). This distracted the giant, allowing me to run off with the hunk of metal (that was quite heavy and nearly as big as me).

I shouted a quick thank you to the savages and interns, who were still putting up quite a fight, then Kevin shoved us off and I rowed us all back to the base. When we got there, we dropped off the hunk of metal and returned to the boat, paddling all the way back to the giant's island. I wanted to check on how the savages and the interns were doing. When we neared the island, I beheld a strange sight. Apparently our friends had befriended the giant, and they were all waiving at us and smiling. That was enough closure for me, so I turned the boat around and headed back. Unfortunately I took a wrong turn when trying to get back to the military base, and I ended up traveling a little extra distance (I actually visualized a map that showed my path compared to the one I had taken before).

When I returned to the military base, I left Kevin and Mike and went to see how Lauren was doing with the construction of the supercomputer. She told me she needed a lot of help, so she told me to accompany her to the second floor of the base to get the computer interns (different from the other interns) to help assemble everything. I asked if those guys would be available to give up a whole day, and she informed me that they knew before they were accepted that they had to help her assemble the computer.

When we got to the second floor (parts of which resembled my grandfather's basement, though it was much more futuristic), we found all the interns gathered around a computer that resembled an arcade game. They had tapped into all of the security footage and had put together a video of a bunch of the heads of the military base doing embarrassing things (apparently they did have time on their hands). Just as Lauren and I looked over their shoulders, we saw footage of Lauren doing some very interesting dance moves in her office after hours (involving many jerky hand motions and random freezes; she was also dressed in a female version of Darth Vader's outfit). Surprisingly, Lauren did not lose her composure. She walked up to the computer, typed in a few codes, which erased the computer's memory, then instructed the inters to follow her to the first floor to begin some actual work.

Then I entered into a different dream.

I was standing in a parking garage that was outside of an airport smoking a cigaret (I don't smoke), wearing a trench coat. After standing there looking at the airport lights and at the full moon for a while, a man by the name of Drew Rannels (whom I don't really know and whom I haven't seen for quite some time; he is six years older than me and graduated from the same high school as I) called me on my cell phone. He instructed informed me that he wanted me to accompany him on his next trip to China. He was a part of some sort of orphan care agency, and he wanted me to spend the next two years of my life with him in China taking care of children there.

Then he hung up, leaving me confused, until he walked up beside me. He continued his plea, saying he could really use my help. Why me? I was certain that there were more qualified people out there, but he kept persisting I join him. I wondered if I would be willing to give up two years of my life. Apparently, my life would somehow be endangered as well, or so Drew told me.

I soon awoke.

Dream #319 (January 25, 2010)

This is pretty odd and involves some famous people.

The first part of the dream began in a classroom. I was filming the teacher deliver a lecture to the class. The room was set up in an old-school way. The teacher (who was wearing a Cosby sweater) wrote a few notes on the chalkboard behind him and the students, with notebooks and pencils, sat at their desks and wrote down every word that was spoken.

Several minutes into the lecture, none other than Bob Dylan (as he looks now) walked into the room carrying a briefcase and wearing a blue suit with a bow tie. He stood in the center of the classroom and began teaching a bit about music composition. The teens gathered around and listened to the master story teller without losing focus.

After Bob was finished, he left the room. I really wanted to meet him, so I set my video camera down and followed him out of the room, out of the school, and into the parking lot. He got into an old blue car and began to drive away. I hopped onto my red bicycle and followed him all the way to his hotel (which was probably only a quarter mile down the road). Him, being Bob Dylan, drove right through the front doors of the hotel without damaging the building (the hotel resembled the lodge at Turkey Run State Park in southern Indiana). I followed him in there (but I parked my bike outside the hotel), and saw him greet the doormen as they loaded up his car with several of his bags (which matched his blue suit). I began running to him, so that I could introduce myself to him, but before I could catch him, he got back into his car and speeded away.

I chased him on my bike for a little bit, but he got too far ahead of me.

Then I switched to a different dream.

I was apart of some great competition, and there were only eight groups left in it when I entered the dream.

The competition was strange. Each team had to build an environment, complete with life bonuses, energy boosters, traps, and shortcuts, then the teams would have a battle across all of the environments. The team that gathered the most of their opponents flags before the time ran out won.

Though most teams were made up of at least six people, my team only consisted of me and Daniel Craig. However, during the first competition, against members of the band The National, we kicked butt. I would run around and gather flags while Daniel would defend our environment. Then we began building the next environment, which was made up of many grassy hills and trap holes. I was supposedly the best environment constructor ever to have lived, and I was quite proud of this one. I had many banana bushes (I know they don't exist) set up here and there to lure the opponents. Oh, the opponents were various characters from the game Donkey Kong Country.

Then something unexpected happened. I received a call that forced me to leave Daniel Craig to face the monkeys all on his own. However, I had set up a pretty awesome environment, so I was confident that old Danny boy could pull it off alone.

I ran out of the huge stadium and into a building that was connected with a walkway. I ran through a few hallways and entered a large, futuristic-looking room full of huge computers and white, shiny panels. There were a bunch of college students there signing up for classes, and that is the reason I skipped out on the biggest tournament of my life. I was merely signing up for a class that I feared would fill up (I believe it was some sort of web design class). I waited behind someone who appeared to be nearly finished. I had guessed right, and when the student got out of the seat, I recognized her to be Joanna Suter. I said hello, asked her what classes she had signed up for and, without really waiting for a response, began checking off classes I wanted to take. For computers that looked so nice, they operated quite poorly. The layout reminded me of the old computers found in libraries that only had the card catalogs on them.

I finished quite quickly, then returned to the tournament. I soon discovered that Daniel Craig had indeed conquered the Donkey Kongs, and was in the final match facing a group led by policeman and friend Bo Ennis. The environment he had built was rather weak, for it was an exact match to the stadium bleachers (which I found kind of interesting; maybe he was trying to confuse his opponent to buy some time). I had certainly come just in time, for Daniel looked as if he was about to pass out. He and Bo Ennis were the only remaining participants, for Bo's teammates had all been taken out by Daniel.

Just as Daniel collapsed, I caught him and held him with one hand while I threw a hard football at Bo. This caught Bo off guard and caused him to fall out of the bleachers of Daniel's environment and into the real bleachers. We had won, though I felt bad about conquering Bo in such a humiliating way. After the crowd began to clear, I walked over to Bo, who was still lying where he had fallen, and apologized. He didn't respond to my words.

Then I awoke.

Dream #318 (January 23, 2010)

I apologize for the absence. I haven't been with my computer for several days.

Last night's dream was interesting. The first part began at Prairie Camp. There were thousands of people there, and most of those people were in the tabernacle. I was running around trying to find Carrie Badertscher (the camp director) because I knew I was supposed to do something for all of the people, but I couldn't remember what. I finally found her inside of a cabin.

That cabin had a little putting green inside of it, and Carrie was standing on top of the hole. She looked at me and asked what I was doing away from the chapel. Then I remembered that I was supposed to be running camera there, so I ran out of the cabin and into the tabernacle. I manned a big TV camera there for several minutes.

Then I remembered that I was supposed to go onstage soon, so I ran up to the third balcony of the tabernacle (the real tabernacle is far smaller than the one in this dream) and told the program director that I needed to stop running camera for a while. Then I ran out of the tabernacle, into the nearby bathroom (what is called the "Rookie" bathroom), and changed into a tuxedo. I then walked back into the tabernacle and onto the stage.

Then I switched to a different, more exciting dream.

I was Sanjuro, the samurai from "Yojimbo" and "Sanjuro" (directed by Akira Kurosawa). I was standing in the middle of an upstairs bedroom in an ancient Japanese-style home. It was dark, and the room was empty except for me and my adversary. I looked about, with my hand on my samurai sword, waiting to draw it until I needed it, for I knew the sword would be easily visible if it were unsheathed.

Then my adversary leaped onto my back. I managed to roll him off as I drew my sword. As he landed on the ground, he too drew his weapon. We clashed and fought furiously, each gaining the advantage several times, but none of us ever conquering the other.

After a couple of minutes of intense battling, my opponent spoke, informing me that he was invincible. I didn't believe him until I jabbed my sword into his stomach and witness my opponent suffer no injury. I then slashed across his face, pulled back, and thrust my sword into his chest, and he still was not slain. He only laughed. I had to escape. Then I saw that there was a large window behind the villain, so I jumped up, grabbed a rafter, and swung a powerful kick into his chest, sending him flailing out the window.

I then ran to the ground level of the house and found dozens of captives there, all tied up. I began to untie them one by one, instructing them to flee and let me worry about the others.

After I had untied all but three people, my enemy returned. We again began to battle fiercely.

After a several back-and-forths in the fight with no end in sight, I finally had an idea. I let my enemy knock me to the ground. As he stood over me arrogantly, I, using my back, sprung into the air and chopped the man's head clean off. He wasn't dead, but I grabbed his head and threw it through a trap door in the floor.

Then I awoke.

Dream #317 (January 19, 2010)

This is absolutely nuts.

The dream was like a movie. In fact it was a movie, for I started out the dream by looking at the back of a DVD cover.

Then I entered the movie (though during the thing I thought it was all real).

I was in Kevin Chupp's dorm room at Bethel (which is similar to an apartment). I was there playing with Stella (2-year-old), and we had built a crazy fort out of blankets, then had run Hotwheels tracks all around it. It was pretty awesome. David and Carrie Badertscher (parents of the child) was there watching us play. Eventually they had to leave, so I was alone with my brother and mother (who, in the dream, were nothing like my real brother and mother; I was adopted in the dream as well).

Suddenly there was a pounding on the door and some cops came in and tore the place apart.

I walked outside. It was then that I noticed how different I looked. I had black hair, I was taller than I am, and I looked more like Clive Owen. I walked around the generic-looking city and saw an ambulance pull up. Out of the ambulance hopped a firefighter, who grabbed the town mayor, pulled him into the ambulance, and, from what the newspapers said the next day (which is where I jumped to after seeing this), cut the mayor to shreds with an ax.

Then I witnessed a couple of other people being picked up by the suspicious ambulance and hearing about their demises.

Finally, I jumped to the future and (this is really strange) walked around the neighborhood, looked at all the hacked up bodies. My memories of these bodies are extremely vivid, but I won't go into too much detail. One that really stuck in my mind was the front half of a woman's torso (who was wearing a shirt with a classic car on it) was laid out in a lawn chair, and it was smoking. I also remember Tobey Maguire's carcass sitting on a porch with a camera around his neck. It was gross.

I was the last living person in the city, and I wandered about the empty streets for what felt like hours.

Finally, the ambulance came and picked me up. I looked at the fireman who had murdered all these people so violently, and he took off his mask, revealing the face of the mayor, the one I thought had been the first victim. He said something about regretting the violence he had to commit.

Then I jumped back to where I was looking at the DVD. I saw the fireman's unmasked face on the back of the DVD case, and I remember saying, "Wow, this picture gives away the whole ending."

Then I awoke.

Dream #316 (January 18, 2010)

Here is a dream.

I dreamt that I was in a different world. I was wandering about a very green island, which was full of lustrous trees and bushes. After wandering about the short for a long time (a shore that was grassy, not sandy), admiring the great ocean around me, I ran into some two-headed, one-footed monsters.

These creatures had a giant harry foot, six feet long and six feet wide, that had a giant ankle that connected to a muscular, not-so-harry torso. Each of the two heads only had one eye, and there was a large horn coming from each forehead. They looked quite funny, but frightening as well, so I kept a safe distance.

The creatures were doing something quite peculiar. They would dig their muscular arms into what looked like mole hills and pull, from the earth, funny little dwarves dressed in bright colors. The strange creatures would then ball the dwarves up and stick them to their ankles and feet like they were padding. As I watched this from a distance, I didn't bother to look straight in front of me, so I walked, head turned, into the leader of these creatures.

The leader was at least fifteen feet tall, and he didn't look happy with me. He threw a dwarf he had in his hand into the ocean, then reached for me.

I then switched over to a different dream. I found myself in the my old high school cafeteria. I was there watching a bunch of hobbits rehearse for a choir performance. Mr. Wentworth (my old junior high school band instructor) was directing them.

I grew bored watching the hobbits sing, so I started flicking these weird furry spaghetti things at Ryan Sweeny (an former high school classmate, who was also in band), which the junior high band kids were using to clean their instruments. Surprisingly, they appeared to hurt him quite badly, but he thought it was funny anyway. However, Mr. Wentworth did not think so, and he stopped the rehearsal and scolded me.

Then I awoke.

Dream #314 (January 13, 2010)

A dream (posted a few days late).

I was riding in the front of a train . The entire train carried passengers, and the entire train was made up of cars that had no walls. They were just flatbed cars with rails on the sides to keep people from falling off. I was smoking a pipe in peace, looking at the beautiful rural scenery around me. Also riding in the front were Carrie Badertscher and Amber Kreider (Prairie Camp People), and they were discussing something important (maybe).

The train slowed down, then stopped by a white train station. A few people got off, and a few others boarded (everybody looked like they had come out of an old Western movie), then the train began to move again. It was then that I noticed a little girl trying to board the train as it gained speed. I knew that she was never going to make it on her own, so I jumped out of my comfortable seat in the front car and ran to her aid. I picked her up, sprinted as fast as I could (in view of what I was carrying), then leaped onto the connection of a couple of passenger cars. As I began to slip, I managed to throw the girl onto the passenger car behind me, which resulted me falling backward, landing in the gravel by the rails. They girl had made it, but I still needed to board.

I ran back toward the train, which was moving at a much faster speed than before, and I managed to catch one of the last cars as I jumped toward it. I didn't quite calculate my landing correctly, which caused me to crash into a bunch of passengers. As we got up, wiping the wood chips from our coats (that is what the floors of the cars were covered with), I recognized that I knew the people I had run into. They were Ben, Jen, David, and Jessica Smith, Reed and Claire Lyons, and Neil and Jamie Silveus. They were happy to see me, and we sat down and talked for a while.

After a hardy conversation, I parted with my friends and made my way back up to the front of the train, where I resumed my pipe smoking and scenery observation.

Then I awoke.

Dream #315 (January 17, 2010)

I apologize for the lack of dreams lately. I was at the conVERGE Conference all weekend and got very little sleep (but I had a great time, not that people care, for this is a dream blog).

I dreamt that I was in the parking lot of a Meijer store. As I walked over to my car (which was a beat-up, old, rusty, brown Studebaker) I noticed that there was a man with nasty, long, black hair sitting on the roof of my car. When I got closer, I saw that he was sniffing cocaine.

He looked up at me and welcomed me to my car, and asked if I wanted to partake in his powder. I rejected his invitation. I then noticed that the hood of my car was up, so I walked up to the front of the car, with the intention of closing the hood, but, instead, I found a dude with long brown hair some sort of board game on my engine (there was enough room for him to sit down by it). He looked up at me and asked if I wanted to learn what he was playing. I had nothing better to do, so I consented.

The game involved a box of multi-colored sand and marbles. He was jumping pieces to matching colors of sand (the different colors were closed off by small walls within the box), then taking marbles and putting them into his pocket. I learned how to play in the dream, though now I have no idea how the game was played, or how it was even considered a game.

After a while of this, the cocaine sniffing dude from the top of my car came down and joined us, as well as Ethan (a high schooler from Koontz Lake Missionary Church). Then, out of nowhere, Ethan's mother pulled up in a van and, without getting out of her vehicle, scolded me harshly for being such a bad influence on Ethan. She commanded Ethan to get into the van, and he did. As she began driving away, I tried to stop her to explain what was going on. However, I lost my footing on the frozen blacktop and slipped, falling on my rear end. As I fell, I dropped the F-Bomb (definitely not a typical thing for me to do), which made Ethan's mother even more angry.

I then flashed forward to a meeting with Ethan's principal (I don't know why that had to take place). He began screaming at me.

Then I awoke.

Dream #313 (January 12, 2010)

This was much fuller than the night before, and made up of many parts. The second part is boring, if you would like to skip it.

In the first dream I was visiting the dunes of Michigan. After walking through the mountains of sand and through some small forests, I found the beach. The water was purple, as was the sky, and there was a still tidal wave, hundreds of feet high, resting on the shore like a wall. It was quite a site to see. There were hundreds of people there sunbathing, playing frisbee and volleyball, doing usual beach stuff, but nobody was in the water (which was probably difficult).

I decided to be the brave one there, so I headed for the water. I realized that I was not wearing a swimming suit, so I walked to the parking lot behind a large changing station, got into my car, and grabbed my suit (I don't know how my car got there, since I had just journeyed a long ways to get there). Then I went into the changing room, which was all red, and prepared to swim. Right when I walked up to the giant, still wave, I switched dreams. Nuts.

In the second dream I started out practicing with the boys' basketball team at Oregon-Davis High School (where I went to school). It was my senior year and, though we had won the state tournament the year before (in my dream, in real life we won my senior year), most of the seniors, except for Brandon Johnston (the center) and me, decided not to play.

During practice I went out into the hallway to get a drink from the fountain. There I saw Adam Pflugshaupt (former classmate) and asked him why he wasn't playing. He told me that he didn't care much anymore. I talked with him further, all the way to the back entrance of the band room (which really isn't far at all in the small school), then we parted. Apparently practice was over, so I waited in the lobby for my little brother to finish with his practice.

After a little while, I met up with Nathan Ferch (another former classmate, and neighbor). I asked him why he wasn't playing, and he told me he was playing with a college team. We walked into the school parking lot and talked a little while longer. We began throwing a tennis ball back and forth, spreading out further and further, until we were a few hundred yards away. Finally Mike came outside, which distracted Nathan, causing him to throw poorly. He hit a bus, causing it to bounce off another bus, then off another bus, then on and on until it had hit every bus there. Finally, the ball rolled under the fence to school track. Mike got on my shoulders and I tossed him over the fence, and he retrieved the ball.

Then I entered into a third dream.

I was just a spectator at first. Donald Duck was paddling a raft down a swampy and dank river. He looked lonely and a bit sad. Suddenly, from out of the trees, a green witch appeared and attacked Donald. She flew down at him, trying to scratch his face off, but Donald deflected her with his paddle, knocking her into the river. She immediately melted (not in a cartoony way, but in a disgusting way), turning the water around her bright orange. Then Donald pulled the witch's hat and ashes from the water and set them in his raft.

Then the river ran into another river, and Donald met up with a large caravan of small boats. That caravan was full of evil people who were on a journey searching for some sort of magical power at the end of the river (I'm not sure exactly what it was). A little ways behind the caravan, my boat was following. I was a passenger in what looked like a motorized paddle boat. David Badertscher (of Prairie Camp) was steering the boat, and I was navigating the way with the use of a map. My little brother Mike was in the back with an orange life jacket on, staring into the water.

As we floated along, I spied on the group of evildoers in front of us, using my old telescope to get a closer look. As I was searching for a weak spot in the caravan, our motorized paddle boat was hit in the side by a one-man canoe, operated by Brent Boehner (Bethel student). He was wearing clothes that reminded me of something Sid, from Toy Story, would wear.

Brent immediately hopped in our boat, leaving his black rebel canoe behind. He tried to act friendly, but David and I were both suspicious (Mike was oblivious, and he kind of disappeared for the rest of the dream). Brent began asking us questions about what we were doing and where we were going, and we gave him only generic answers. We really had no choice but to let him ride with us, for neither of us had the ability to kill the poor guy. He reminded me a little of Gollum from Lord of the Rings in that way.

Darkness soon overtook the river, which allowed us to get much closer to our enemies. We were even able to ride right among them without being seen. After a little while, to our surprise, the entire caravan halted in a cave, through which the river ran. The evildoers parked their boats on the rocks beside the water, and their leader stood up and addressed the people.

Right in the middle of his speech, Brent stood up in our boat and gave us away.

Then I entered into a fourth dream. I'm guessing we would have ended up dead in the last dream, so my brain was sparing me the pain.

I was in my parents' kitchen playing a board game with my dad. It was an abstract strategy game, so the turns took quite a while to carry out. In the middle of the game, my little brother walked over to the refrigerator, opened it up, grabbed an entire package of cheese singles, a bottle of Louisiana hot sauce, and a box of crackers (we don't usually keep our crackers cold) and began to feast.

For some reason, this gave me secondhand diarrhea, and I sprinted to the bathroom.

Then I awoke. My brain spared me of pain yet again.

Dream #312 (January 11, 2010)

Instead of having many different dream worlds, I just had one last night.

I found myself in my old high school. I pillaging through my tiny red locker, searching for the books and folders I needed for the next two classes after lunch: one was a social science class and the other was an English class. I was creating quite a mess in the hallway; old papers, old food, old textbooks, and old trash were flowing out of my locker at a constant stream. Finally, after much rummaging, I found my two books and two folders (one red and one yellow). When I looked through what I had I remembered that I had forgotten to do the assignments for either of the classes, which filled me with great fear. I had never missed turning in an assignment, and I didn't want to disappoint my teachers, which made me panic.

I saw Andrew Jensen (former classmate) walking down the hallway, and I quickly met up with him to see if he had the assignments completed. He did, and I then asked him if I could borrow his homework, so that he could repay me for all the times I had let him use my answers to finish his assignments. He agreed to give me the answers to the social science class (which was kind of pointless, for they were just definitions), but he said he wasn't in the same English class. As he handed me his papers, I decided to reject them, for I am not a cheater, and it would have made me feel even worse than not turning in the assignment at all.

I ran to the lunch line, hoping that I could get my food early so that I could work on the homework for the remainder of the lunch period. The line was backed up all the way out the door, so I decided just to skip. I asked Mr. Miller (the vice-principal) if I could use the special study room above the library (which doesn't exist in real life), and he took me there, unlocked the door with his special key, and I was all set to study.

For a long time I was alone, which allowed me to zoom through the definitions for the social science class. However, when I started working on the English homework, I began to move through it at a much slower pace. The questions were easy, for they (for some reason) were about Super Mario World, and I knew all of the answers without having to look in the book for them. Even so, I was writing so slowly, and nothing I did could make me write faster (I used to be a very quick writer in high school). I became flustered and began writing in extremely large print, which began to take over the page.

To make matters worse, Peter Badertscher (former youth pastor of Koontz Lake Missionary Church) and Brian Can'trememberhislastname (he was a grade below me and no longer went to the same high school as me after junior high) walked in and began a long discussion about Lord of the Rings and about track and field (both subjects that I am was interested in at the time, so it was hard for me to ignore them). They talked for a long time, so long that I couldn't believe it was still lunch (I felt like I was there for hours).

Finally the bell rang and I went to the social science class, which was being taught by Mr. Marsh (high school social science teacher at Oregon-Davis, also a believer in Big Foot and Martians). The classroom I was in looked nothing like any room I had ever been in, and it contained many desks lined up in narrow rows. The room itself was long and narrow, and it was painted completely red.

All the students, including me, passed up the homework to the front of the classroom. As that was happening I started working more on the English homework, for I was nearly finished. However, as Mr. Marsh was collecting the definitions, he gave me a fierce glare over his John Lennon glasses.

Then I awoke.

Dream #311 (January 10, 2010)

Last night felt like a weird mash-up of dreams.

One part of the dream I was in my parent's old bedroom from the place we lived before I entered the third grade. I was looking in the closet for something when my younger brother Mike walked in with Morgan Ferch (neighbor) and LeeAnn Meyer who immediately shoved me into the dark closet and closed the door.

Then I was in the gymnasium of California Road Missionary Church (where I went to church when I lived in the house I just mentioned). There were mats laying all around (the mats that I used the Little Lamb Daycare kids had to use for napping; I was one of those kids), and the place was a mess.

Then I was in a submarine with Mike. We were a part of a video game or something like that (it didn't make it any less real), and our mission was to capture a great blue whale. We emerged from the water and floated on the surface of an ocean. When I crawled out on top of the submarine I noticed that there was an island nearby where we could rest, so I ordered Mike to steer the sub over to the island so we could dock on it.

When he pulled it up, I, in scuba gear, jumped off the sub and swam a rope over to the island. When I tried to stake it in, I realized that we didn't arrive at an island but at the great whale. When I pounded the stake into his back, he turned with great force, damaging the submarine in the process.

Then I found myself on a dimly lit forest path. I could see the whole path, for it on wove back and forth straight up a mountain. I walked along this path, not cutting across for some reason, and encountered little life until I neared the top. There I found Scott Johnson (former Bethel Professor, who recently died of cancer) laying on the ground, holding a blue and scarlet flower, smiling at me. I had to leave him there and journey on.

When I reached the very top of the mountain, I walked up to a cliff and looked down upon a bright city below me.

Then I found myself in the yard of an elementary school with my little brother. We were both elementary school-aged, and we were building catapults to launch fireballs at the school. After a short while, we were prepared to fire, so we launched at the school everything we had gathered to light on fire. We lit toy soldiers, bushes, sports equipment, and playground equipment on fire and launched it at the school, which soon became enflamed.

Then I awoke. That might have been too many places for one night.

Dream #310 (January 9, 2010)

Here is a dream. I'm on a roll, I think. If only I had blogged on January 1, I would have not missed a day yet.

I found myself in a parking garage. It was empty except for a single blue car and the car's owner.

I was a part of some sort of contest that had many different stages, and this was one of the middle stages. Hundreds (if not thousands) of people had already fallen out of the competition, but there were still quite a few people still ahead of me.

In this particular stage, Rob Mills (a middle-aged guy from Koontz Lake) was in charge. He instructed me that I was supposed to roll a bowling ball across the parking garage, around several cones, and into what looked like thirty bowling pins. It looked impossible, and I didn't have much hope of success.

Then Rob told me that the competition was a matter of life-and-death. Those who fell out were to be sacrificed. That forced me to have a little hope in myself (for if I didn't have any, there is no way I could knock down all of those pins). I took a few steps, then, with quite some force and much spin, I release the ball.

It rolled around the cones, as it was supposed to, then, to my pleasure, hit the pins in the perfect spot, causing them all to fall. I was able to move on.

The excitement was short-lived, for I soon remembered that in order to survive, I would have to conquer challenges more difficult than this one.

I appeared in a busy street. I'm not sure if this was a part of the same dream (I doubt it, but it is nonetheless possible). Some sort of war of the worlds was taking place, and bizarre-looking spacecraft were blasting away at the city, knocking down skyscrapers, blowing up cars, tearing up the road, and disintegrating people. Those who survived were running around, hands flailing above their heads, throats expelling ear-tearing screams. I, however, did not panic, but, rather, walked slowly and calmly down the street as if nothing was happing at all.

I then entered into another dream. I was wandering through a woods and, at the same time, I was being hunted by a pack of witches. I again walked slowly and calmly, through the dark forest, as I was being chased.

Then I found myself in an aquarium. It was closed, and all the lights were off except for a few random purple lights that lit up a few of the tanks. I walked around, studying the great whales and sharks that were on the second floor of the building.

I soon awoke. I wonder why my mind couldn't rest in one dream world for long last night.

Dream #309 (January 8, 2010)

This was strange.

In the dream I was living with my brother Matt and his wife Brittany in a house much larger than their house in real life. It was two stories and very simple looking, painted mostly in baby blue.

In this dream, strangely enough, I somehow lived through several days of living with them in the dream. I didn't do much; I recorded music occasionally, read some books, and slept. One day Matt and Brittany came home from the hospital with five children. There was a set of three with two boys and one girl, and another set of brothers, all of which were going to be adopted by my brother and sister-in-law. While this was a good thing for the kids, I was a bit disgruntled because I had to give up my room to the kids, and they dominated the house. They were nice kids, but I couldn't get anything done.

I ended up leaving the house, trying to get something done. I ended up walking into a volcano (still active by the way) and discovered a contest going on. I immediately became a contestant. The objective was to throw a disc the furthest into the boiling pit of lava in the center of the volcano stadium. There were hundreds of people there, and M.C. Hammer was the emcee (wordplay).

After a bunch of mediocre guys threw, a very athletic young man who resembled a young Michael Johnson (Olympic sprinter). In fact, he was wearing track and field clothes (complete with short shorts). He was outstanding, and he launched the disc more than twice as far as anyone there. The crowd went berserk.

I was so impressed at his throw that I didn't want to even take my turn. However MC Hammer handed me a disc and told me to take my throw. I did so and, to my surprise, I beat the other guy buy a few inches. I couldn't believe it, and it seemed that nobody else believe in the auditorium believed what they saw either. As I stood there watching my disc melt, MC Hammer walked up to me and patted me on the back.

Then I awoke.

Dream #308 (January 7, 2010)

I'm a day late on this post or so, but at least I did it.

I dreamt that I was in a dark city with Kyle Heffelfinger. It was snowy and cold outside, and we were in a green classic car trying to flee from the cops following us. I didn't want anything to do with breaking the law, but I fell to pressure from Kyle. I'm not sure exactly what we had done, but we broke some important laws, and broke them well.

We managed to outmaneuver the cops and we hid in a supermarket, which was still open. I was feeling extremely guilty while we were walking around looking for a hiding place. We found none, and we ended up in the toy section. I was thinking about how I was going to go to jail for a very long time even though I didn't deserve it. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I decided to justify the jail sentence by stealing some Matchbox cars. It didn't really match the sentence, but I wanted to do something.

Suddenly, as I pocketed my third Matchbox car, two guys from different Law and Order's. One was Vincent D'Onofrio and the other was Jerry Orbach (you can find them on IMDB). I love both those guys (though the latter has passed away), but I could not enjoy their presence at the time, for they hated my guts for the crimes I had committed. They both pointed their guns at Kyle.

Then I awoke.

Dream #307 (January 6, 2010)

This wasn't too fun or exciting, but it was still strange.

I dreamt that I was in an extremely long hallway (I could not see an end on either side) with brown carpet and no ceiling or walls; everything around the hall was empty dark blue space.

There were hundred of people walking in the hallway, some walking one way and others walking the opposite way. There were some desks set up here and there, some arcades, a few small restaurants (completely open, of course), some living rooms, some bedrooms, and some offices. It was quite a sight to see.

After I had walked for quite some time, A giant tidal wave came crashing toward me, filling the hall with ten feet of water. Everything and everyone, luckily, was floating, and nobody was completely submerged. As I looked around, I saw several essays drift past me, all of which were handwritten in pencil and also graded with red ink. Though they were in the water, they weren't wet.

They were all essays for a class that was being taught by Brother Tim (a Bethel professor). I was also in the class, but I did not see my paper float by. When the teacher's assistant/secretary drifted past me, I asked her where my paper was.

"You never turned it in." (said with a New York accent)

I argued with her for a little while, but she was out of my vocal range (which is significantly smaller than that of most people) before long.

I floated there disappointed in myself. I didn't even really care when the water level dropped down and eventually disappeared completely. I walked over to a nearby bedroom, not lifting my head and barely lifting my feet. Right as I sat down on the warm mattress, a crazy old scientist popped into my dream from out of nowhere and began asking me where he was.

Then I awoke. I wonder if the scientist was a real person who actually found his way into my dream.

Dream #306 (January 5, 2010)

This was fairly long, but exciting.

In the dream I was a detective. I even wore a trench coat. There was a corporate conspiracy going on on the west side of Chicago and I was on the case. A couple murders had occurred in the area as well which could have been connected to my case that I was to investigate as well.

I checked into a motel in the middle of a big field so that I could investigate the murders that happened there while staying far from the big city where my suspects lived and worked. I could describe the motel in great detail, but that would be pointless. My room was on the third floor (all the doors were accessed by outside walkways and stairs), and it was a cozy place. There were golden flowery decorations on much of the furniture, carpet, and bedspread, and the room had a golden, welcoming glow to it. I laid my coat on the desk chair, kicked off my shoes, sat down on the bed, pulled out a notepad, and went over my notes. I planned the next days trip in my head and went to sleep. It was a strange time to sleep, for when I walked into my room the sun was just setting.

I woke up to my alarm in the middle of the night, got dressed, and walked out the door in not much more than a minute. The air was cold, and it was tough for me to breath in. I trotted down the stairs and across the parking lot and hopped into my car, the only car present.

After a short drive I arrived at a large business village (I call it a village for the business was made up of several large buildings that were all connected underground). There was a bunch of kids there who were on some sort of field trip, and I tried to avoid them. I snuck through the garden that was in the center of the buildings and found my way into a dark, damp building where the records were stored. After breaking through a barricade of two-by-fours and bookshelves I found my way into an abandoned hallway with dozens of abandoned rooms (they resembled classrooms slightly). I was walking by the men's restroom when I was suddenly grabbed and pulled into the restroom (which was almost completely boarded up). It was a young half-hispanic woman who looked frightened. When she saw my face she helped me up and then kissed me right on the mouth. After I realized what was happening, I shoved her away. I remember her breath smelling like a mixture between onions and very strong (and nasty, at least to me) perfume. It definitely not a good experience.

I soon realized I had to go to the bathroom, so I instructed the woman to turn around as I sat down on the toilet and pooped (I know it's disgusting, but that onion breath made me have to go). It smelled awful, and I don't know how that woman just stood there breathing it all in. Maybe she had no sense of smell. When I was finished, I unsuccessfully flushed the toilet, made use of the plunger there, then washed my hands. By the way, there was no stall in the bathroom. It was just a sole toilet and a sink in a very narrow room.

After I had done my business, I followed the woman to a dusty room, and she showed me the accounts I needed.

When I had acquired my desired information, I left the business and returned to the motel. Though in the dream I did not actually see the information I was collecting, I did know that I had enough evidence to put the culprits behind bars for a long time. To make things better for me, I was even able to connect the murders to them as well after snooping around the motel for a while when I returned.

As I packed my things in my room, I was struck hard on the back of the head and knocked unconscious.

I awoke in the middle of another man's room, and I was tied to a bed. Luckily I was in there alone, and I was able to, with a lot of effort, cut myself free with a knife I kept near my ankle in my sock. I ran into the parking lot with the hopes of getting out of there before being murdered, but I was too late. A jeep sped into the parking lot and directly toward me, and I barely was able to dodge it without being killed. Then Alik Hall and Michael Kaser (who were the suspects in the case I had just solved) hopped out of the jeep and opened up the back. When they did so, two alligators (they could have been crocodiles, I suppose) crawled out of the jeep and headed toward me.

The beasts looked like they were ready for a good meal, so I began to sprint away from them as fast as I could. However, to my surprise, one of the alligators began moving so fast that it started running on its two back legs, resembling a human as it did so. It was very bizarre.

Then I awoke. I wonder if I would have survived.

Dream #305 (January 4, 2010)

A three-part dream. None of the parts are related, on the surface anyway.

The first dream took place at a beautiful log cabin house in the middle of a magical forest in the middle of the night. There were dark green pine trees all about, and golden lights that had no visible source shown from the trees. I was with three other people, Eric Jensen (high school classmate), Sarah Konkey (another high school classmate), and Joanna Suter (Bethel student). We were all photography students Ms. Amy Paul (now Amy Schmeltz, who was my former high school newspaper/English teacher). We were at this cabin with an assignment to capture its beauty with the use of a camera. Eric and Sarah were partners, and Joanna and I were partners.

Eric and Sarah decided to take some pictures of the interior of the house, which had the most beautiful carpets, lamps, and decorations (I could see them from outside, for there were many large windows). While they were there, Joanna and I entered the forest in the rear of the house to take some photographs. As we walked, we saw some amazing things. There was a bird bath, sparkling with the reflection of the moon, that was surrounded a several small black birds. These birds were decorating the trees around the bird bath with ribbons and various silks. We soon passed through a gate, which opened for us to a brown path that ran through the forest.

As we begun taking pictures, we were joined by Ms. Paul, who was taking some pictures for herself. We were shooting with film, but every time we took a picture, I could see the photograph being developed in the dark room. It was a visually thrilling experience.

I soon jumped into another dream, though I was not ready to leave that one.

I was in a nasty backyard of an old school building. I had been chained up to an enormous dying tree as some sort of punishment for rebelling against the leaders of the establishment where I was formerly employed. It was raining outside, and I was quite miserable. I crawled into a rotted-out hole in the trunk of the tree (which I had avoided until then, for I was nervous about what else might be inside). Right when I did so, a bunch of bats flew out of the trunk, scratching up my face and arms on their way out, and scaring me severely in the process. However, it was not nearly as frightening as the badger that snapped at me a moment later. I held up my hands to shield my face and, to my great fortune, the badger missed my arms and bit my chain, snapping it in two.

I had been free, well, free of the tree at least, because there was a giant fence enclosing the yard completely, and I could not escape the yard, but at least I could move about freely. I found a spot near the fence that had a cement block by it, which gave me something to lean on. I fell asleep right away.

I woke up to the noise of footsteps. I looked above me and found a bunch of crazy-looking kids crawling through the bottom of the fence and into the yard. They hadn't noticed me, which was good, for there were about 100 of them inside the fence already. Then lighting began to flash and the kids began to viciously attack each other. Wait, I noticed that they weren't attacking each other. Apparently, while I was sleeping, about twenty teenage girls had found shelter in the yard and were sleeping there in pink princess sleeping bags.

The battle between the teen princesses and the vicious elementary school kids was interesting to watch, but, even so, I wanted it to stop. I made myself know and tried to create peace. However, the kids didn't like that idea, so they turned on me and began tearing my clothes and scratching at my arms and back (they couldn't reach my face).

I didn't know what to do. I decided to try to make peace still, so I began running to the injured kids (who had been knocked out by the teenage girls), picking them up, and putting them back through the hole in the fence they had made, all the while being torn up by the fingernails of the young violent kids. Finally, after I had assisted three of their kind, they got the point that I was trying to create peace, and they ceased attacking me. Not only that, but they stopped their assault upon the teenage girls and left back through the hole in the fence they had made.

The teenagers thanked me, then left through a hidden door in the school building.

Then, right as I was about to find my way out of the enclosure, I switched over to a different dream.

I was in the parking lot of California Road Missionary Church (where my dad used to be the youth pastor). A bunch of young adults, along with a few older guys (including my father and Dan Madison, who attends that church still), were preparing for a great journey. They were packing up clothes and other necessities in a van, for they were expecting to be gone for a long time. I believe that this journey involved great risk and danger, but that was all I knew about it. Just as we finished packing one van, we realized that another van was needed, so I went into the church (the interior of which looked more like Koontz Lake Missionary Church, where my dad now pastors) and grabbed, along with some wooden tables, a small square hunk of metal.

When I got to the parking lot, I set the tables down and presented the hunk of metal to my dad, who didn't know what it was for. So, I began to unfold the metal and, after a few minutes, I had revealed a 15-passenger van that had the potential to be packed very tightly. My dad was amazed at the contraption, but worried that, because it had such potential to fold up, it would not be a safe vehicle to drive, especially in an accident. I assured him that it had very advanced locking mechanisms and metal superior to any on earth.

Then I awoke.

Dream #304 (January 3, 2010)

This has some strange elements to it.

I dreamt that I was attending a pool party at Jeff Kreider's house. In real life, he does not have a swimming pool, but in the dream he had a large deck built around a huge above-ground pool. Now, interestingly enough, Jeff wasn't actually there to host the party. Instead it was being run by a bunch of middle-aged people I didn't know. There were some crazy people doing some crazy things (flipping off the rails of the deck into the water, throwing glass bottles all over the place, ect.).

I, however, was sitting at a wooden round table with some filmmakers and Katie Zook (who had the same characteristics as the Katie Zook from Dream #302). Katie was apparently the leader of the filmmakers and was working on a film about an elderly woman who was actually present at the pool party. She told me she was about ready to leap into the pool, so I turned and looked and, to my surprise, I saw the naked backside of an 80-year-old woman as she 'jumped' into the pool (it looked more like she just fell in intentionally). It was a disgusting site to see, and I asked Katie why she had to be naked. She replied that it made the film more marketable for her target audience. I then wondered what target audience would enjoy seeing a naked old woman. Probably the same people who love all 'indie' films with weird nudity.

At that thought, I awoke.

Dream #303 (January 1, 2010)

Happy new year. Here's a tiny dream for you all (all being the 2 people who read this blog, including me).

I dreamt that I was in the living room of Kyle Heffelfinger's house (which was true in real life, for I was sleeping on the couch there). It was morning, and the sun was shining. The doorbell soon rang and Kyle and my little brother Mike answered it. It was a FedEx man delivering a box full of muffins. Kyle didn't know why he received the packed, but signed for it and the delivery man left.

He then handed me the box of muffins and told me that I needed to eat them all (there were 16), and Mike agreed, for they wanted to save room for the big breakfast we had planned.

I accepted the request and sacrificed my appetite for them. The muffins, after all, were blueberry, and were very good.

After I finished the 16th muffin I was sick to my stomach.

Then I awoke.

Dream #302 (December 31, 2010)

This was real to me at the time.

I was in a large open room in which a bunch of people were sitting around, playing games, talking, and generally having a good time. The room reminded me of an old church classroom in which I used to take group naps with the rest of the daycare kids after school. Anyway, in the dream I happened to be playing some sort of playing card game combined with jacks with a few young lads.

After we each took a few turns, I, on my turn, bounced the ball too hard, causing it to bounce away from us. I dove after it, but tripped and fell through the nearby wall. After passing through the wall, I crashed onto a sandy beach where I saw an endless body of water.

I suddenly realized that I was wearing proper swimming attire, so I jumped into the sea and joined the few other people who were out there treading water. I asked them what they were doing, and they informed me that they were waiting for their leader. I asked who their leader was, but before I got an answer, Katie Zook (Prairie Camp coworker), followed by two other girls, came leaping down from the blue sky right in the middle of the circle that the water treaders had formed. She was their leader, and became my leader, and we all followed her to the shore and into a nearby beach house.

Inside the beautiful house was a tall and narrow staircase enclosed only by glass on all sides. There was a team of people there who were all wearing black spandex lined with purple, which led me to noticed that the group I was with was wearing black spandex lined with orange. We walked into the class enclosure, to the bottom of the staircase (which was quite crowded by then).

Suddenly a starter gun fired, and everyone there immediately ran up the stairs as fast as they could, fighting each other for position, up to the top of the stairs. When I got there, I realized that the top of the stairs led to a floor where there were several more glass-enclosed staircases. Now, these other staircases had items that everyone was after, for these items were worth points in some sort of competition that was going on.

I was quite good at this game, for I was able to leap over people and slide down the rails with ease, allowing me to collect several items of point value. When the whistle blew, everyone returned to the ground floor with all 0f the collected items, where they were to be counted.

Thanks to my skill in this game, the orange team won, and Katie Zook crowned me as the most valuable player (she literally placed a crown upon my head).

Then people began to leave as if it were no big deal.

Then I awoke.