Dream #548 (October 13, 2017) - Halfway House and Cadet Society

How quickly dreams fade from memory.


In the first dream, I was wandering around a mid-sized city at night.  I walked past apartment buildings, small parks, and a college, all lit with amber lights, making amber the only visible color.  Finally, I arrived at a sort of halfway house for the severely depressed.  It was a place where people could come and live communally with others suffering from depression, as well as counselors and caregivers.  There were a lot of people walking about in pajama pants upon arrival, since it was late at night.

I walked up to the front desk and asked several questions about the place, out of curiosity (though they initially mistook me for an incoming patient).  I then decided to donate several movies from my DVD collection (which I had with me in a backpack for some reason), including There Will Be Blood, The Departed, my Quentin Tarantino collection, among a few others. I'm not entirely sure why I thought such dark films were a good idea, but it seemed appropriate at the time.

I was excited about the work the place was doing.  People there seemed happy. It was setup much like a hotel, with a general lobby and dining area in the center, and hallways lined with doors reaching out from the center. When I left, I immediate sought the company of my friends Matt K and Adam P (a friend from high school) and told them all about this place.  Adam immediately decided he would donate a large set of rainbow umbrellas and blankets that he had stored near Koontz Lake in an old garage.  We gathered these things (I remember thinking that these would make for good props for a stylized video shoot) and took them to the halfway house.  They accepted this donation with great joy and had us set them up around a beach area they owned.

After finishing this task, I joined Matt and Adam in exploring the property a bit further. We saw only a few people as we walked down the various hallways.  Finally we found a somewhat-hidden entrance to a basement, and we explored down there. We found some nursery areas and kids' playrooms, which had all the typical toys.  Then we discovered the bathroom.  There were pools of urine on the floor, and green slime crawling down the walls.  The door jammed behind us and we couldn't get out the way we came in.  We were fortunate that there was an open door on the other side, though unfortunate that we had to wade our way through the urine and unknown gunk to make our escape.  I had the sudden urge to go to the bathroom, and did so in the toilet, though I'm sure it didn't matter where I went.

We finally emerged from the bathroom and made our way back up to the sandy beach.  We discussed for a while how we could improve the living situation of the guest at the house.


Eventually I transitioned into a different dream.


I was living in some sort of cadet society.  It was like a weird combination of military and farm life.  We had a farm to attend, but also took part in rigorous military training.  I was a younger version of myself, and everyone there was in their late teens.  The leaders were all middle-aged, and they were also all quite cruel to everyone living there.  The cadets had not volunteered to be there, and were instead something like slaves, for we didn't get paid for our work.

All the cadets slept in the same barn loft. We had only sleeping bags with no extra padding, and no area for privacy.  There were a lot of goofy characters there, including a very scrawny kid who spoke quite highly of himself regarding his success at charming the ladies.  There was another kid who was a pyromaniac, and enjoyed lighting fireworks and starting fires at inappropriate times (often getting the rest of us in trouble).  I seemed to live out several sitcom-y episodes, though there was a much darker element to it (as if Hogan's Heroes actually portrayed a more realistic prison camp).  There was a lot of racism among our leaders, and those among us with darker skin (including the pyromaniac) often got more severe punishments.

We, the cadets, were at last fed up with the way our leaders were treating us.  They had their fancy house were they all had their own living spaces.  They ate well while we ate terribly (many of us were malnourished).  They enjoyed entertainment, while we had to creatively come up with ways to get our minds off of our living situation.  But at least we had each other's company.

One among us was a combination of Chris Pratt and Ryan Gosling.  He was the oldest of the cadets, nearly 20, and he was beloved by everyone, for he often stuck out his neck for the rest of us.  At one such occasion, the leadership grew threatened by his leadership, and decided to overly abuse and torment him as a warning to the rest of us.  They took and beat him severely, nearly to death, and chained him up high in one of the large barns on the property.  Then the leaders locked the barn so that we could not visit him after they showed him to me and a few others.

I knew that we couldn't let this happen.  I gathered a couple of close friends (including the pyro), and we snuck out at night and made our way silently to the large barn.  We couldn't figure out a way in, so I decided to climb up to the roof with Pyro.  There we found a loose spot that we could pry back just enough to allow me to slide through.  After I had made it, I heard the voice of one of the leaders shouting at Pyro, who was forced to flee (I did not blame him at all), leaving me alone with the leader close behind me.

As I climbed around on the rafters, looking for a spot to drop down to the floor of the barn, I saw that the leader had climbed in after me.  He then descended, almost magically, to the floor far below and began to taunt me, laughing ferociously.  But I could not give up.  I saw a wire nearby that looked strong enough to hold my weight, and I leapt from the beam on which I was balancing and grabbed the wire.  My momentum carried me, allowing me to swing all the way to the wall where a ladder was resting conveniently.  I latched onto the ladder and came to the floor.

The leader began threatening me, pointing at what he had done to Chris/Ryan.  This particular leader, though strong, was of a heavier build, and I knew that I could outrun him (though I also know it would get me into further trouble).  I decided to run around him and leap up onto the rig that stood near where Chris/Ryan was dangling.  The leader tried to follow me, but I threw a wrench that was sitting on the rig down at him, hitting him in the face and knocking him out.  I leapt once more and clung onto the chains holding Chris/Ryan and was able to free him.  He fell a small ways to the ground, but managed to have a decent landing.

I heard shouts coming from outside the barn.  More leaders had come out.  As I considered my options (or a lack thereof), I heard another, more exciting noise: the sound of fireworks, followed by the screams of the leaders and of blasts hitting the barn door.

I climbed up the large door and unlocked it, and walked quickly with Chris/Ryan to the cadet barn, accompanied by Pyro and a few of his friends, who were covering us with firework blasts to keep the leaders away.

There we discussed what action we needed to take next. Pyro began to talk more like a leader and he assembled a large amount of angry cadets who were ready to take a more violent stance against the leadership.  There plans were to coral all the farm animals into one of the barns and threaten to light it on fire if the cadets could not get there way and their freedom.  Others wanted to capture a few of the leaders as well.

I feared this type of violence personally (I was very fond of the animals of the farm and did not want to see them come to harm.  However, I completely understood Pyro's perspective, and knew that extreme measures probably had to be taken at this point.  I was torn, as were several others among the cadets.

As we debated, the sun began to rise (which is rare in my dreams).  A gray early morning light began to shine around us through the various holes in the barn.  I was then able to see into our future.

I saw a vision of us inside the leader's home, tying down several of the leaders and trying to get them to agree to our terms, but then I saw the leaders overcoming us, causing us to fail in our attempt.  I saw another vision of a burning barn and of devastating animal cries.  I saw a vision of cadets sneaking along a river, hunting a large species of river rat in order to eat them to stay alive, always staying low and out of sight.  I saw many of the events of this dream replayed on a television, with different faces faking all of these experiences. I saw families watching at home, eating meals in front of the screens, enjoying themselves.


Then I awoke.

Dream #547 (January 10, 2017) - Con Artists and Cults

This dream was very long.  I've been told dreams only last an hour or two, but it's difficult to believe that sometimes.


I began this dream as a clean-shaven, brown-haired man married to a blonde gal.  We were con artists and traveled around the state of Oklahoma (I'm very unfamiliar with that state) and would con semi-wealthy folk into investing in pieces of real estate that we didn't own (I don't really know how this worked exactly).  We would take over property of people who were on vacation or deceased or whatever and bring in customers and make the transactions all in the matter of a couple of days, collect the money, and move on.

After a sort of montage of this behavior (that portion of the dream was pretty long, included a lot of hand-shaking with portly old men smoking cigars, and me dusting and arranging furniture), my wife and I accidentally broke into a home that was still occupied.  Inside this beautiful farm house were dozens of black-haired men with bowl cuts and white button-up shirts and black jeans.  It was apparently some sort of religious cult and they all stared at us without saying a word or looking particularly upset or angry with us.  They just had totally blank expressions.  For some reason they were scattered about the room arbitrarily, and they all were slightly leaning on something (a wall, a railing, etc.).  I was freaked out and wanted to escape.  Then I noticed that my wife had started to form the same expression on her face as she stared at one of the men.  I grabbed her arm and ran down a long glass hallway that led out into the backyard of the house.

A bunch of friends of ours were there with portable water-based entertainment (little pools, squirt guns, water bombs, water balloons, buckets, swimming suits, etc.).  They thought that we would have control of this property for a week, but I had to tell them they had to move their water party elsewhere.  My wife and I joined them (we followed their fleet of pickup trucks in our wood-paneled station wagon) to a remote grassy spot.  We set up all the pools and sprinklers and whatnot and the party commenced.

I couldn't stop thinking about the weird men we had seen; I wanted to know exactly what was wrong with them and if they could be helped.  I decided to leave the party (my wife stayed with them) and I returned to the farm house.  I hadn't noticed before, but there was a huge conference center built into the farmhouse (I wondered how I could miss such a thing).  The driveway and side door of the house, by the way, looked very similar to the driveway and side door of my family's old house that we lived in when I was very little.

I got out of my station wagon and walked through the glass hallway again, but this time taking a different turn that went deeper into the conference center.  The once empty hallway had since become nearly full of people.  It made me feel less conspicuous, though I felt weirded out by the masses.  They didn't all have the same bowl cut or clothing style as the men from earlier, but for some reason that didn't make me feel any more comfortable.

I entered the cult's gift shop, and there were all kinds of porcelain knickknacks and books with somehow stomach-churning graphic design.  A short elderly man with perfectly circular lensed glasses and simultaneously warm and eerie smile was at the cash register taking people's money.  He saw me and grabbed an angel figurine and offered it to me.  I refused it and continued walking.

Past the gift shop was a vast open space with a lot of windows and high ceilings, resembling an airport terminal.  All the decor was grey.  I saw my brother Mike talking with a group of his college friends, and I approached them.  They told me they thought this cult was hilarious and that they really wanted to see a service because of how ridiculous they hear it was.  I told them I would probably join them.  I was really curious.  I told them I would meet them in the sanctuary when the service started, and I left them and continued to explore the building.

I found a weird offshoot room that didn't resemble anything else.  It was a wooden, garage-like room with an insane amount of support beams connecting the floor, ceiling, walls, and other beams at varying angles.  There was a spinning wooden wheel in the center of the room with a trough of water below it.  The wheel was spinning without any sort of force propelling it.  I heard a choir singing in the distance and thought that the service was starting, so I headed for the sanctuary.

The sanctuary was blocked off by a huge concrete wall with four solid, windowless doors that led into it.  I saw my brother and his friends enter, and I starting speed-walking so that I could see where they were going to sit.  Then a boy started walking toward me from the sanctuary, causing me to pause.  He was a normal looking boy from his head to his knees, but his body ended there and his shins and feet were replaces by large metal forks that made an excruciating screech as he walked.  My heart was racing because this kid really freaked me out.  To top it off, he was wearing this green pair of goggles that had swirling black circles where his eyes should be.  I couldn't help but look into those goggles when he stood in front of me.

In the eyes of the goggles I was able to see inside the sanctuary.  I could see that my brother and his friends had all exchanged their regular clothes for white robes and were singing in the choir.  Their eyes looked dead.  I gathered that there was some sort of hypnotic quality to the service and decided I shouldn't enter.  Instead I headed to the nearest exit.

When I left the building, I discovered that my car was at the farthest corner of a vast parking lot and not in a driveway.  I wasn't sure if someone had moved my car or if there were something illusory about the whole place.  I began to see more and more people in the parking lot that at first looked empty to me.  They were all screaming and running about, flailing their limbs.  My car was the only car in the parking lot and some of the people were trying to get into it.  I also noticed that parts of the parking lot were burning and I was scared I would walk into a fire without seeing it.  I didn't know what things were real and what were illusions.

I managed to shove away the people around my car and I quickly got in and shut the door.  Then I heard someone pounding on my window and I saw Donald Glover (aka Childish Gambino - I called him "Childish" a couple times in the dream).  He was begging to get in, but I wasn't sure if I should open the door.

He appeared to be real, and in less of a panic (but still worried) than the other people in the parking lot, so I scooted over to the passenger seat and let him in.  I asked him if he knew the way out and he said he did and he booked it out of there.

I looked out the passenger window as the chaotic parking lot passed by.  When I looked at the driver's side, I saw that Donald was no longer there.  I called out for him, checking the back seat, but he was gone.  Then I realized that my left foot was stretched out over to the gas pedal and that I was in fact driving the car, and at a dangerous speed.  I looked through the windshield just in time to avoid crashing into a tree.  The car spun out and I climbed back into the driver's seat and continued driving. I had no idea where I was.


Then I awoke.

I tried to go back asleep because I wanted to keep that dream going, but that, of course, never works.

Dream #546 (January 9, 2017) Beach Firecrackers

Extra.

I was with Matt (older bro) on a hazy beach in a gloomy twilight (it felt like day, but didn't look like it).  We wandered through a series of locker rooms, past the navy lockers which looked like they could use a little touch-up.  Matt was wearing a grey hoodie and I had a blue Dashboard Confessional shirt (which once belonged to Matt in real life).  I was also carrying two awkwardly long (12 feet) firecrackers and I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do with them.

We made our way out to the beachfront and saw a college girls soccer game to our left and high school volleyball to our right.  Neither of us had much interest in watching either of them, so we walked right through the soccer field to the water (annoying spectators and players and referees).  The waves were tall, but gentle when they landed on the sand.  Matt and I walked away from the people for about a mile, as I tried to figure out the purpose of my firecrackers.  We didn't talk (my brother and I), but not because we were angry at each other or anything like that.

We encountered a large wall made from red sand bricks, on top of which we saw a dozen men pulling up a dozen stones using ropes attached to pulleys above the wall, all in unison.  They ignored us as we walked past the wall to a large rock face.  Matt decided to climb it, but I felt that it was important for me not to let go of my firecrackers, so I let him go and I walked back to the locker room alone.

I sat on a massage table in the middle of the room and decided it was at last time to take a rest from the firecrackers, so I set them outside the locker room building and relaxed on the massage table and fell asleep.

I woke up to a soccer player turning me over by the shoulder and diving in for a kiss.  I fought it off and ran outside.  Then I saw that the fuses on both of my firecrackers had been lit, and I sprinted away from them without much thought needed to consider the danger.

They exploded with a disappointing bang, but the flame produced was marvelous and horrifying.  The overhang above the locker room door caught on fire, followed by the whole building.  It was then that I realized the exteriors of all the buildings around me looked like something from Aladdin, and they all started to catch on fire.  A tiny firetruck (about the size of an electric car) pulled up to me and asked me the source of the fire.  I pointed to where the fireworks had exploded.  I knew we would all soon be engulfed in flames and didn't know why it mattered where the fire had begun.

Then I awoke.