Dream #499 (April 10, 2013) Gorilla Taxman

So close.


I was living in a very tall hotel.  The stairway to the rooms was located inside this square prism of a building, and the room were only located on one side of that building.  Every hall and every room had a light yellow wallpaper plastered to it, and they were all set to 68 degrees.  This hotel also had no ground floor; rather, it rested atop an eternal black abyss.

I returned home (to the hotel) carrying two brown paper bags full of vegetables and loaves of French bread.  I walked in at the bottom and climbed a dozen sets of stairs, which, for some reason, were built on alternating sides of the hotel so that I  had to walk down the hallway of every floor to make it to the next ascending stairway.

When I finally reached my room (the third to last room at the top floor), I, with great finesse, managed to pull out my keys, unlock and open my door, and safely set the groceries onto my dining room table.  I proceeded to unload the tomatoes, heads of lettuce, potatoes, ears of corn, etc. into my cupboards.  When I was about done, I heard a knock on the door.  I left the groceries and opened the door after peering the the people at the little taxman before me.

This guy was actually not a guy at all.  He was a gorilla, yet I treated him and thought of him as a man. He was wearing a suit and tie and was carrying a briefcase, from which he pulled out a large stack of papers and handed them to me.  The gorilla-taxman explained without words (mainly using gestures and eye contact) that the paperwork had to be completed in one hour, or else I would go to debtor's prison.

I panicked and, after grabbing the papers, slammed the door in his face and rushed into my bedroom.  I closed the blinds of my window that overlooked the city and turned on a red lamp next to my desk and began working like a madman for what felt like hours.  I flew through page after page, but the pile seemed to never end.

Finally, I had only about ten pages left to finish when I heard a knock on the door.  I looked up at a clock in my room and saw that an hour had passed.  I ran to the door, with the papers in my arms, and saw through the peep hole that the gorilla was there, with two cops, waiting for me.  I wasn't ready!

I kicked my own door open and leaped over the cops and the gorilla taxman and even over the guardrail of the hallway.  I began falling down past the several floors in the hotel as onlookers waived to me.

Before falling into the black abyss below me, I managed to grab onto the safety rail of the first floor's hallway, the papers still tucked under my arm.  I held on the rail with one hand and shoved the papers into my pocket with the other.  Then I started swinging like a monkey on the rails as I headed for the exit.  I saw that the cops and the gorilla were nearing my location, so I tried to sling a web from my wrist like Spider-Man, but that didn't work, so I continued to swing toward the exit.

I finally made it.  I was met there by a half gorilla-half rhino wearing grey pants and a purple vest.  I was at first scared of this thing, but he managed to (without words) tell me that he would buy me as much time as he could, but I would have to try to finish the paper work.

I thanked him and began to run again.  I went out the exit of the hotel, which led to a grey hallway with doors lining both sides of the hallway.  I ran all the way to the end of the hall, where rested a final door.  I tried to open it, but it was locked, so I opened the door to the left of it and jumped in the room (which resembled an office that my dad once worked in) and frantically began to finish the final papers.

I was on the last page when I heard the rhino-gorilla say that he couldn't help me anymore.  I popped my head out the window and saw the whole community coming after me.  Some were even carrying torches and pitchforks.

I took a quick but deep breath and finished the last page just as the crowd got to the door.  I held the papers above my head so that the people would know that I had finished.  The rhino-gorilla started the crown in a slow clap that lead to an applause by the time I made it to the end of the crowd where the gorilla-taxman stood, arms crossed.  He ripped the papers out of my hands, sifted through them, then signaled to the crowd that they were indeed complete, and everyone began to celebrate.  The vest-wearing rhino-gorilla came a patted me on the back.


Then I awoke.

Dream #498 (April 6, 2013) Grey City Speaker/Shrinker

Dream.

I was in a twilight city made up of gray and pale yellow stone and brick buildings.  I walked down the smoothly paved sidewalk that ran along an empty, narrow street.  I entered, through a cage, into a small Greek restaurant and waited in line to order a gyro.  After receiving my food, I left the restaurant and ran into an acquaintance outside and began chatting with him (a 40-year-old man whom I don't know in real life).  This hairy fellow told me of his fishing business and of his newfound love.  I listened and bode him farewell after congratulating him on his recent successes.

I walked to a great tower and entered into it.  After taking a tight elevator (with a 1-skinny-person capacity) up 23 floors I walked into a massive indoor stadium.  People cheered for me, giving me a standing ovation, as I walked up to a small podium that looked down onto the massive, faceless crowd. There were a few elementary school and high school classes that had received special tickets to hear me speak, and they sat right in front of the podium.

I began to deliver an address with charisma and power to the people there, talking about all sorts of subjects, from community building to running camps, from filming to photography.  They were excited about everything I had to say, and they let me know by applauding often.  When I finished my speech, I knelt down from the podium and had a more intimate discussing with the students about the communities at their respective schools.

After that, I left the tower and headed back down the street to my hotel.

Outside the building that I had been set up in, I ran into my friend Caitlin Geeslin.  She seemed excited to see me and after talking with me about some of her recent endeavors (mostly cross-country journalism), she invited me to her room in the next building to meet her friend Aaron.  I asked who he or she was, and Caitlin informed me, somewhat ashamedly, that he was her husband (I'm still not sure why she seemed so ashamed to tell me this).  I agreed to meet him, then Caitlin began having second thoughts.  I told her I had an idea.

I ran up seven flights of stairs to my large but empty hotel room and grabbed a sparkling vile and drank a potion in it.  Caitlin had followed me and when she entered, I told her how I had discovered a solution that would allow me to change size at will.  I shrunk down the the size of a peanut and told Caitlin to carry me in her pocket so that I could meet her husband without him meeting me (I'm still not sure why this was a big deal).

She put me in her pocket, but that was terribly dark and uncomfortable, so I climbed out up onto her shoulder as she walked to her room.  She entered it and nobody was there.  She put me on the ground and I grew back to normal size.  I told her that I should be leaving because I had some preparing to do for my next project, so I left.

Outside I found a woman with black hair that had heard about me and had a few questions for me.  I agreed to answer them if she  could walk with me back to my room while asking them.

The questions she asked were much more deep and personal than I anticipated.  They were questions about the afterlife and about love and about purpose and about my mental state.  I managed to say things to her that, though they weren't technically answers, they appeased her.

She asked if she could observe me for a while as I worked, and I reluctantly agreed.  I found myself shrinking as I tried to write while she was watching me.  Soon enough I was again the size of a peanut.

Then I awoke.

Dream #497 (March 28, 2013) Super Powers and Jungle Hot Wheels

A pair of bizarre dreams for the price of one night.


I stood in the doorway of Koontz Lake Missionary Church.  I hesitated to enter in, because I had become a different person.  Inside the church an all-nighter was taking place (with both kids and adults oddly enough) and people were running all about, having a lot of fun.  I knew that I could bring danger.  I stepped inside anyway.

I saw that in the sanctuary people were watching "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" on the big screen.  That interested me, but I didn't want to start watching it part way through, so I continued on up to the Fellowship Hall.  There I found over one hundred people dining and conversing.  I walked in and grabbed a plate and began tossing food onto it.

Suddenly, through a far window of the Hall, a bolt of blue energy shattered through and struck the drum set, causing it to burst.  Everyone began to scream and run away, except for me, because I had half expected something like that to happen, for I was Spider-Man.

Not too long after the explosion came Shocker (a villain from Spider-Man for those who don't know) through the window and Rhino through the wall.  I thought I was the only one left in the Hall, but when I turned to double-check, I saw that three people had stayed to watch me: Bennett Wilson, Jenna Jackley (two people from a traveling band that played at Prairie Camp last summer), and a young Glen Hansard.  I told them that they should leave, but they persisted in staying, saying they would help me out if they found a way to do so.  Glen brought up the argument that Batman had no super powers, which was indeed a good point.

I turned back to face my opponents.  I shot a burst of thick webbing at Rhino, holding him up for a moment.  My spider-sense warned me of a bolt from Shocker, so I was able to jump out of the way.  I shot a line up to the ceiling and swing-kicked Shocker in the face, knocking him out cold.  Rhino came charging at me, and I jumped up out of his path and landed on top of him.  I put my wrist up to his face and shot web down his throat, causing him to choke and pass out.  I signaled the police via a transmitter on my belt and through the two bodies outside for pickup.  That was easy.

After I had finished with them, Bennett, Jenna, and Glen asked me if I could make them super-heros.  I told them I probably shouldn't, because it would change their lives forever.  They persisted, and I gave in to them.  I went to working building three cocoons of red and blue webbing, and each person entered their own.  I told them to relax, and after about five minutes, they were ready to emerge.  I expected them all to have the same powers as me, but I was wrong.

Glen had the ability to shoot balls of fire from his fists (and to light his hair and beard on fire on command).  Bennett, unfortunately, only developed a chest of steel, which was kind of cool, but not all that useful.  Jenna looked normal at first, but then electric fields began to encircle her and her eyes turned solid blue.  Her hair, which was brown, turned red, and somehow a yellow-and-red outfit formed atop her normal clothes.  She looked rather frightening, and even I was scared of her.  She walked up to me and said, "Let's get to the sanctuary before we miss The Two Towers."

We all went down and began watching the movie.


Then I awoke, but it was still the middle of the night, so I fell back asleep.


This time I was in a jungle that sat just off of a major U.S. highway.  My brothers (Matt and Mike) and my dad were with me, and were were preparing some sort of attraction that would draw people off the highway so that they would purchase produce from my dad's produce stand.  I was down near the river, working on building a crazy Hot Wheels track with my brothers.  We used the bright orange track to do loops, turns, rises, and falls all around the trees, down over the river, and even out to the highway.  As we built, my brothers and I discussed life.

I decided that it would be cool for the Hot Wheels car to actually drive along the highway, and for some reason I thought I would test it out with a real car.  This car was an old gray piece of junk, but it sure could move.  I got it up to 90 mph before hitting a giant ramp I had built out of a semi truck and a couple other pieces of metal.  I flew high into the air, yet I managed to land safely on the road.  It was so much fun that I turned around on the one-way highway to do it again.  A semi was coming right at me in my lane, and I forced it off the road, causing it to jump the ramp I had built.  Even the semi landed safely (and it also turned around, probably to jump the ramp again).  Then I remembered that I had actually built the ramp for a Hot Wheels car, so I drove back (the wrong way on the road) to the jungle area.

Matt and Mike were finishing up with hanging black lights from the trees.  Dozens of people had started to gather around for the opening Hot Wheels car.  It was a small white and red car, and I had the honor of releasing it down the track for the first time.  Everyone ran alongside the car as it flew down the track, turning, looping, rising, and falling.  It dipped into the river and came out successfully, then entered onto the highway.  It sped along the track, all the way to the last ramp, and jumped it successfully.  I launched off the track for a few seconds, but found its way back on and through to the finish line.  For some reason the car stopped abruptly just before crossing it completely.

Even though the car hadn't quite made it all the way, everyone began to cheer.  They lifted me and my brothers up and sang a song about us.  It was wonderful.

We went back to the produce stand (it was getting dark by now, and the black lights were doing their job of giving the place an interesting vibe).  My dad told us that he had sold more produce on that day than he had sold the whole month.  I turned and looked toward the road and saw hundreds of people coming to buy even more produce.


Then I awoke.

Dream #496 (March 26, 2013) The Daughter

Wow.


I was inside the sanctuary  of Koontz Lake Missionary Church where my father was delivering a message to a packed congregation.  I was sitting in a different pew than I normally sat growing up (I was in the front row, but clear off to the right of the stage).  As my dad spoke, everyone in the congregation was standing and listening, even the elderly.

Mid-service, a skinny young woman with long brown hair, leading a brown-haired 5-year-old girl, walked in from the back of the sanctuary.  She came right to me and handed me the child, without saying a word.  I wasn't sure what to do when she walked out of the sanctuary.  Apparently I was now a parent.  I knew the child was not of my loins, but for some reason the child had become mine.

I ran with the child out to the dark parking lot and caught up with the girl.  We began to walk down a large hill that led into the houses of Koontz Lake (that doesn't exist in real life).  I started asking her why she was leaving me her child.  She wouldn't respond.  I tried again and again.  Nothing.

I looked up and noticed that she had lead me to a large and strange sort of carnival that was going on.  It was lit by old oil lamps.  Then the 5-year-old asked me if I would take her through the carnival.  I agreed.

We entered an extremely long log cabin that had been constructed in the center of the carnival.  It was a sort of museum/I Spy activity (I used to get those books often from the school library as a child).  The girl was having a wonderful time, asking me questions about everything she was seeing.  I enjoyed explaining things to her, for she seemed incredibly sharp for her age.  The first stage of the cabin looked like an old grocery store.  The second stage more resembled a pawn shop.  In this room I somehow entered into the mind of the little girl and could see things from her perspective.  Every object was fascinating, and I had to touch everything so that I could know it better.

The third stage was a mostly black room with a only a few odd brown pieces of furniture in it.  When I stepped into it, I immediately left the girl's mind and reentered my own mind.  I discovered that I had left the 5-year-old in the cabin by herself, for I was standing in the grass outside, staring at the ferris wheels, one red and one blue, spinning in opposite directions.

I felt terribly guilty, and it was made worse when several people began to gather around me and ask me where my daughter was.  I couldn't answer.

I rushed back into the cabin and found the girl in the third room.  She was sitting alone next to a wall, so I joined her.  She asked me why I wasn't with her.  She sounded deeply saddened by my absence, so sad that I began to cry.  I told her that I would not always be able to be with her, and though that was sad, it was for the best.  I tried to explain to her how somebody could still love another person, even when they aren't together.  I told her to put her hand in mine, and she did.  I said, "Even though I am now letting go of your hand, I am still grasping it in my heart.  We are connected."  She smiled and asked if we could go home, and I said yes.

I took her to my house (a house that I don't recognize in real life).  She was my daughter, and I loved her as if she had always been, knowing she always would be.  I had a fireplace that we started up.  I sat with her and made up a story about a great bearded fisherman who was always searching for a creature he once dreamt about as a child.  She loved the story.


Then I awoke.  Where in the world did that come from?

Dream #495 (March 21, 2013)

What fun.

I was a part of a special team of heroes in this dream, made up of six people: Tommy Lee Jones, a young athletic guy, Chewbacca from Star Wars, Ewan McGregor, a woman in a leather suit, and me.  We were on a secret mission of sorts to rescue some young Japanese political figure from the mob.

The dream began inside of an enormous mansion decorated in white and saturated yellow.  There were many fancily dressed people there (I was even wearing a tuxedo).  I had a tiny speaker in my ear and a microphone in my sleeve, as one would expect.  It was my job to spot the mob boss - an skinny, white-haired man in his sixties with a yellow ascot.

I visually sifted through the guests time after time on the ground floor and was unsuccessful in locating the target.  I passed by the leather woman on my team and we subtly signaled to each other, indicating we would meet out in the dark hallway where there were no other guests.

I saw her enter the hall out of the corner of my eye, waited a few moments, then followed her.

She told me that I was to sneak up to the master bedroom, because it was discovered that the mob boss was supposedly ill and bedridden.  I agreed and began coming up with ways that I could get past the butler-guards roaming all about the house.

I saw a long curtain hanging from an enormous window that looked out to the backyard from the hallway in which I stood.  I immediately climbed up the curtain to the top of the window.  I found a spot in the window that I could open without breaking it, and I squeezed through to the other side.  It was then I realized that the house sat at the edge of a cliff, and if I were to fall, it would be certain death.

I took a deep breath and proceeded to climb up the side of the house to the window of the master bedroom.  I felt so proud of myself when I made it up there, how stealthy and agile I had been.  I thought to myself that I should buy myself some ice cream after finishing the task at hand.

Suddenly the window in front of me burst open and a strong Japanese man (who was also tall) grabbed my hands and began to squeeze and crush them with his monstrous grasp.  I thought it would be the end of me, and I was sad that there would be no ice cream at the bottom of the cliff.

Suddenly, from a nearby evergreen, an arrow flew through the air and planted itself in the chest of my opponent (I knew that Chewbacca had shot the arrow with his crossbow).  He hunched over the window, and I held onto his arms so that I didn't fall.  To my terror, his carcass began to slowly slide from the window.  I tried to climb up the man, but he was too round.

Just in time, Tommy Lee Jones came from inside the bedroom and pulled the dead man and me inside.  We sat in silence for a moment, but it was interrupted by two armed men bursting into the room.  Tommy yelled for me to grab the mob boss (who was lying in a bed next to me) and jump out of the window while he dealt with the gunmen.

I didn't know how I could do as he said and survive, but I began following the orders anyway.  As I carried the frail mob boss to the window, I saw that Chewie had shot a zip line into the side of the house from the pine tree he was sitting in.  I ordered the boss to hold onto me, and I grabbed a fancy coat hanger and zipped out of the house.

We crashed into a tree and fell about fifteen feet to the ground, which was rather painful.  I opened my eyes and saw Chewie standing over me, smiling.  He did his weird growly thing and helped me up and patted me on the back.

I then began to interrogate the mob boss (in Japanese!), asking him where the young political figure was being held.


Then I awoke.

Dream #494 (March 5, 2012)

This was absolutely crazy and scary.


I was riding in a big yellow bus full of adults.  We pulled into the parking lot of Koontz Lake Missionary Church and the lights in the bus began to flicker.  Then a voice could be heard over the speakers, and it said that we were all about to participate in a game, and it would take an emotionally and physically strong person to finish the game victorious.  The voice also said that there could be no escape from the game.

As soon as the voice left, someone on the bus began to scream.  I ran to see what was happening, and a middle-aged woman with curly black hair was bleeding profusely from her stomach.  Suddenly the wall of the bus opened up to the parking lot, and everyone sitting on that side, including the bleeding woman, fell out.

I ran out of the bus to see if they were ok, but they were all being dragged away by an unknown puller.  A young woman ran up to me and grabbed my arm and told me to follow her into safety.  I obeyed.

This gal's name was Amy (I knew that without her telling me so), and she said this game was too dangerous to play, so we should try to escape it.  I reminded her of what the voice had told us, and she said, "Never mind the voice."

We snuck into the church.  Some of the lights were on, but it didn't seem like anyone else was there.  We wandered up into the library, which was dark.  I felt around a bit and found the light switch, revealing the body of a woman, apparently dead in a folding chair.

Amy and I quickly fled the room and tried to leave the church, but all of the doors were sealed shut.  We went down into the basement (I'm not sure why), where none of the lights worked.  Amy and I stayed close as we tried to find a window we could crawl through to escape the building.  I felt Amy grab my arm, and I realized that some unseen person or thing was pulling her away from me against her will.  I pulled back, and had a sort of tug-of-war happening against the unseen opponent.  I finally embraced Amy and threw myself back, freeing her from the grasp.

We both ran ahead, though neither of us could see much of anything.  Finally we saw a glimmer of light coming from a nearby window.  I threw a heavy object (I was unable to see what it was) through the window and helped Amy through it.

As I was following her through the window, I watched helplessly as she was attacked by a dark figure. My pants were caught on the edge of the broken glass, so I was slow to help.  It was too late by the time I was free, for she was gone.  On the ground, I found a piece of paper with "Clay City Docks" written on it.

I ran back to the parking lot where I hopped in my helicopter.  I got it off the ground and began flying over to the docks.  By the time I landed there, the sun was just beginning to come up.  The docks were all clay colored, and the water itself had a brownish hue.  I saw a strange boat with a few dark figures standing on it, apparently waiting for me.

I walked down the dock and encountered a ticket taker.  He told me to give him my ID and my credit card if I wanted to enter the dock.  I, desperate to do what I could do end this violent game, did as he asked.  I stepped onto the boat and found two men in black suits standing beside Amy.

At that moment, I had a revelation.  This whole game had been one elaborate scheme to steal my identity.  Amy smiled at me and handed me a cheap crown.


Then I awoke.

Dream #493 (March 4, 2013)

This was long, but not much happened; therefore the post will be much shorter than the previous post (not that anyone cares).


I was walking for what felt like hours down a paved road in the middle of a vast desert.  There were no signs of life anywhere to be seen or heard.  Sand was continually blowing in my face, and I was often picking it out of my teeth and from under my tongue.

After a long and slow walk, I saw a bald eagle soar above me, which brought me a bit of energy.  Then, out of nowhere, a blue car pulled up beside me and Andrew Jensen (a former classmate of mine in high school) leaned out with window and told me that I was "almost there."  He rolled his window back up and sped off into the sand.

I soon walked up to a baby blue house, which appeared to be falling apart.  I heard the phone ringing inside, so I entered the house and answered it.  It was some woman calling me from a church.  Though I wasn't the man of the house she was trying to reach, she talked to me anyway.  When she talked, I lived out her descriptions, but in my own body.

I was in her story, at a funeral taking place at a small Catholic church.  There were beautiful stained glass windows, and the pews and carpeting was gorgeous.  The flower arrangement was nice, and the priest did a nice job with the ceremony (all of these things were from her point of view).  I kept wanting to turn my attention to the decorations about me and to a mysterious green box sitting next to me on the pew, but I was stuck with her story and her perspective, and I was unable to leave the set path.

We finally finished talking and I was back in the apparently not-so-abandonded home.  As I approached the door to leave, I noticed that under the floor below me (I had to walk over a stage to get to the door) was a huge yellow anaconda snake, sleeping peacefully.  I have an Indiana-Jones-like fear of snakes, and I froze, scared to move in fear that I would wake up the dreadful creature.  My heart was racing.  I looked behind me and realized that there was no other way out of the room.

I began to study the old toys that were strewn across the room, many that I had played with as a kid.  However, the distraction didn't last long, and I was again focused on the snake beneath me.  I decided to just go for it, because I thought the particular snake was a constrictor, so I hopped over it and landed near the door.

Suddenly, the snake lifted its great head and cocked it back as if it were about to strike.

Then I awoke very early in the morning (much earlier than I had wanted to awake).  Somehow there was a bit of light coming from the window, reflecting off the wall beside me in a perfect shape of a snake ready to strike me.  I sprung out of bed and turned on my reading lamp, only to discover that I was free from harm.  I was unable to go back to sleep after that.