Dream #521 (April 3, 2014) Student Film and NYC

Here is a dream.


In the first part of the dream, I entered a large bar with my brother Mike.  Bethel College was showing a film there that had been made my several students at Bethel and was funded by the college (it was an interesting venue choice since Bethel doesn't allow their students to go into bars or drink).  There was an open bar, and I grabbed a tea (yes, they served tea) before sitting down in a folding chair facing a projector screen.

The movie started, and I managed to sit through the entire thing.  It was well over an hour long, and it wanted to be hilarious, but it was horribly obvious and boring.  Somehow Bethel had tons of cameos, including Samuel L. Jackson, Adam Sandler, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman and more.  Some of these cameos were just stills animated with voices of Bethel students, but others were actually in it somehow.  I was perplexed and angry simultaneously.  There were some occasional special fx (there were a ton of explosions) that were impressive, but I couldn't stand most of the film.  The plot revolved around a game called 'Ambush' (created by Andrew DeSelm) where people had to target each other, eliminating them until there was only one last survivor (it's a bit more complicated than that, but I don't think I need to explain all the rules here).  Basically, there were many death scenes in this film.

When it was finally over, I was happy to leave.

The second part of the dream flowed seamlessly from the first.  I walked out of the bar and was in New York City.  I decided to go on a walk, and walk I did.  It was afternoon when I started, and I walked clear past sunset into the night.  Finally I decided that I should find a place to stay, so I knocked on a random door.  Gwyneth Paltrow answered the door and told me she didn't feel like hosting a guest, though she suggested I try an apartment across the street.  I walked over and found that the door was open.  I walked inside the dark apartment and found it to be empty.  So I wandered around through the kitchen and living room until I entered the bedroom.  There was a bunk bed in there, and I climbed up to the top bunk and wrapped myself up in the dinosaur sheets and blankets on the bed.  There was a Batman pillow case with the face of the Joker on it that I remembered from my childhood (I used to be terrified of that face), so I flipped the pillow over to the Batman-faced side.

Suddenly a light was turned on in the next room.  I cowered under the covers.  I saw the silhouette of a woman standing in the doorway.


Then I awoke.

Dream #520 (April 1, 2014) The Failed Film Shoot

I was at last directing a feature film.

I began the dream on a plane.  I was flying to somewhere in the Middle East to shoot a feature length film with a few friends of mine.  I was with Jon Andrew Castleberry, Dan Jeter (both friends of mine from college), Jon Andrew's wife Emily, TG (an acquaintance of mine), and a few other strangers.  The film was a drama about a Middle Eastern elementary school, and TG was the lead actress.

When we landed, Jon Andrew and Dan helped me haul all the lighting and camera equipment into a bombed out school house.  Though it was a bit eerie, it had a certain beauty to it that I liked very much.  We began to light the first scene on the shot list, in which TG was suppose to walk around the destroyed building trying to find hints of the past that was buried below the rubble.

In the first couple takes, TG had a pretty rough performance, so I brought her into another room and had her sit on the floor.  I instructed her to make up stories about her former students that her character would have had.  She sat and thought for a while, then I asked her to tell me about those students.  She did quite well making them up, and seemed to become the character in the process.  We went back to the scene and she had two excellent takes in a row.

Then we began shooting more similar shots in other areas of the school.  They all went very well.  We ran into a couple issues with lighting one of the rooms with a lot of windows because the sun we setting and changing the look drastically.  We eventually had to call it a day, and everyone was told to return the next morning.

Everyone except for me left the school.  I wanted to get to know it more, so I slept there.

The next morning I awoke and walked to the parking lot and waited for TG and the crew.  The crew all showed up on time, but TG was thirty minutes late.  When she parked her car, I walked up to her and asked her what had taken her so long, and she told me this crazy story about how her hotel had a few gunmen enter and rob the place.  She luckily was unharmed.

I then met with Jon Andrew and Dan outside the school.

All of a sudden, people began to run about in the streets.  Gunfire was heard in the distance, and it was getting closer.  Dan, Jon Andrew and ducked under a concrete structure and watched as a military parade walked down the road nearby.  People began to poke their heads out of there windows, and most were waving guns about.  It was rather scary.  Then, somebody in a 3rd story window spotted the three of us and began shouting at us.  He then fired a couple shots in our direction.  I wasn't sure if I should hide or show myself to be unarmed and not a threat.  My heart was pounding.

Finally I decided to stand up with my hands in the air.

Then I awoke.

Dream #519 (February 27, 2014) Castle Prison

An epic dream.


It was a snowy evening.  I was driving an old Studebaker with three other young men.  We had just finished visiting the museum of art and were trying to find a place to eat.  The roads were pretty bad, and visibility was low so I pulled off to the side of the road to gather my bearings.

As I was looking at a map another car pulled up and parked in front of mine.  A man in a pinstriped suit came out and, with a smooth confidence, persuaded us to follow him across a long bridge over to a castle on an island.

The bridge was a mile long, and the caste was grand.  The man in the pinstriped suit waved us down at the draw bridge and we all got out of the Studebaker there.  Suddenly he pulled out a tommy gun and he was joined by a couple other thugs with guns.  Together they led us into the castle and into a dungeon.

There we sat all night, not quite able to sleep.  We tried to talk about what was going on, but we were all a bit speechless.

In the morning, some older ladies came and instructed us about our chores for the day.  I was given a mop and bucket and I went to clean some of the endless hallways.  The stone was blue and grey, and emitted an overall dismal tone.  There were hollow echoes bouncing slowly off the walls, and it sounded like people crying out in pain.  I tried to determine where they were coming from, but it was impossible.

The dream went on slowly from this point.  I did more chores, day after day.  Eventually I met a few more of the slaves.  From what I gathered, I determined that there must have been about 100 of us enslaved altogether.  I began to realize that if we were to come together, we could possibly overthrow our captors and escape the castle.

I began to organize each prisoner into different groups with different purposes.  Some kept track of all supplies going in and out of the castle, and others had to intercept those packages and steal a few supplies here and there.  Others studied the layout of the castle, searching for the best ways to escape.  After several weeks of work, everything was coming together and a massive escape was imminent.

The evening before the great escape, I had lunch with a young woman who had started as a slave but worked her way up to becoming an actual employee.  I had fallen for her and revealed my plan of escape to her and welcome her to join in.  She told me that she enjoyed her life in the castle too much to leave.  I tried to tell her that she was still a slave there, no matter what they called it, but she was stubborn.  The meal ended with her boyfriend (who was a terribly cruel slave master) coming in and making her leave me.  He punched me in the gut before dragging her away from me.

I was depressed, but still determined to escape.  The next morning, everything went according to plan.  Several people, including me, snuck into the lift that lowered down into the basement of the castle.  From there we crawled through a tunnel we created to a river that ran underneath the castle.  We climbed out of the river at the entrance of the castle and forced it open, allowing the other hundred of slaves to leave.

We marched toward the bridge with determination.  Suddenly spotlights were shining on us and a loudspeaker informed us that we would be shot if we left.  Everyone froze, except for me.  I kept walking.  The loudspeaker continued to threaten me, but I kept on marching.  I arched the bridge.  I felt a hand on my shoulder and I turned around and saw the young women who had refused to leave.  She begged me not to go.  I tried to get her to join me again, but she wouldn't.  Finally, I turned and started walking again, shouting for the rest of the prisoners to follow me.  They did.

Suddenly the bridge began to collapse as I walked onto it.  The prisoners jumped into the great lake and started swimming to the other side.  I was about to jump in, but I was hit suddenly by a bullet in the back.  I fell into the water.


Then I awoke.