Dream #539 (September 20, 2015) Bus Trip to OCB

A mere dream.

I began the dream in Redeemer Missionary Church, though it was far larger than it is in real life.  The sanctuary had a stage in the center of it with rows of pews forming an octagon around it.  The basement of the church resembled the musicians' practice rooms at Bethel College.  I was walking in and out of the rooms as various cellists, violinists, and violists auditioned to play on my next album.  I was struggling to find anybody who could fulfill my vision, so I rejected everyone.

I walked into the sanctuary where a sort of prayer service was being held.  A young woman was there praying aloud for all to hear.  She was thanking God for my existence and for all the great times she had with me.  I found this strange and a bit comical because I hardly even knew this woman and didn't really have any desire to know her more.  I walked past a few more rows and sat down by Reed and Jess Lyons.  I leaned over and told them about the prayer I just heard and how absurd it ways.  Jess began to laugh and for some reason the breath of this laugh hit me and caused a stinging sensation in my whole face.  it also smelled like a harshly strong mint.  I quickly leaned back and began to massage my face, trying to relieve the pain.

After I listened to Pastor Jason speak for a bit, my mom and brother Matt came up to me and said it was time to go.

We walked out to the parking lot (which, in the dream, was huge and surrounded only by cropless fields) and stood before a large white bus.  My mom told me to board it.  She and Matt both rode in some fancy blue SUV in front of the bus.

The other bus passengers were all young adults with whom I was not familiar.  I sat in the only empty seat and began playing my harmonica to pass the time.

An ambiguous amount of time passed.  I turned and looked out of the rear window of the bus and saw my dad's car following behind us.  I got out of my seat and walked to the back of the bus to get a better look.  He was waving his arms at me, seemingly trying to get the bus to pull over.

I ran up to the driver and instructed him to let me out, which she did.  As soon as I got out, my dad zoomed right passed me and the bus took off, leaving me there alone.

The traffic on this highway was insane, both because there were many cars and because the cars were traveling at incomprehensible speeds.  I needed to cross to the other side of the highway to reach my dad, who had done a U-turn and pulled off over there.  Several times I took a step out and had to leap back to safety.  After a burst of courage, I made it to the median, but then looked on in horror as a car, followed by a semi, were both accelerating toward me in the median.  I took a wild dash toward the other side of the road and narrowly avoided getting hit.

When I finally reached my dad's car, he was nowhere to be found.  However, the keys were still in the vehicle, so I decided to take it to where I needed to go (see Dream #537 in which I found and drove off in my brother Mike's car without him being there; what's going on here?).

The place I needed to go was apparently Old Country Buffet.  This particular OCB had several arcade games inside, though it still had the aesthetic style of any old OCB.  It was kind of interesting, as if the visitors to the restaurant had all brought their own arcade game and placed it wherever they wanted.

I sat down by Mom and Matt and told them of my near-death experience on the highway.  Mom gave me a couple quarters to try my hand at the claw machine.  I was a bit embarrassed by this at first, pretending to deny her offer, but deep down I really did want to play and didn't have any change on me, so I took it from her and walked over to the game, followed by Matt.

Then I awoke.

Dream #538 (September 19, 2015) Mega Church Pastor Slam

Here we go.


I dreamt that I was living with Kyle and Kody Heffelfinger in a house just a bit larger than the one they have in real life in a subdivision just a bit more vast than real life.  The atmosphere was an eternal twilight no matter what time of day it was supposed to be.

At the start of the dream, it was Saturday night and I was packing my things because I was going to move into this large dormitory that also housed a huge mega church.  Kody told me he wanted to play in the community Start Wars event before I left, so we went and got our lightsabers and ran out into the street.  Many other subdivision dwellers were out on the street with their lightsabers, pretending to have an epic battle.  Some were throwing Nerf debris acting as if they had the Force.  Kody and I went on a rampage, destroying any other lightsaber wielder in our path.

After about an hour of this, Kyle drove through the street that was supposed to be blocked off and told me and Kody that we needed to go home so we could eat dinner (pizza).  We obeyed.

I went to sleep after dinner and the next morning took my things to the dormitory/church.  I wandered about looking for a room that suited me.  Finally, on the second highest floor, I found this room with an extremely high ceiling and an unnecessarily huge bunkbed.  It was perfect.  I asked the leader of the establishment, who happened to be my college friend Ashley Miller, if I could have the room, and she said it was certainly available.  I set my bags down and crawled into the bed to take a little nap.

Soon after that church began, so I went down into the sanctuary.  It was dark and seemed to be the size of a stadium.  When the pastor took the stage, I recognized him (not from real life but from the dream world) to be a terrible televangelist who seemed to be all about money and fancy possessions.  He owned several nice cars, a huge house, a helicopter, a jet, etc.  He preached some bogus sermon about how it is God's will that we have plenty.

I couldn't stand it.  After the sermon, I went up to Ashley's office and asked her how she could put up with such garbage.  Then the preacher himself walked in.  I believe his name was Chris.  He was wearing a pin stripped suit and had gelled black hair.  He then began starting to laugh at my complaints and proceeded to mock me.  Then I became furious and started shouting at him, accusing him of being a "false prophet" and "disturbingly and filthily greedy" and more.  I was yelling at a volume that I have never yelled at in my life. The room became quiet when I finished.  Then Chris asked, "This man is living here?" as he walked out of the room arrogantly.

I turned to Ashley for her support, but she looked disappointed in me.  Had I been too harsh?

I went back to my room only to find that Chris had leased it to a young college-aged gal.  I was trying to get my things, but she had a ton of friends and family in her room for a "house-warming party" so it was difficult to get around.  I grabbed only my backpack and found a room on a lower floor.

This room was terribly tiny and I had to share it with six other people.  It smelled like sardines had been sitting inside of a catfish smothered in year-old gravy.  I began working on something on my laptop computer, but then I decided that I wanted to write a note to Chris apologizing for my harsh tone, but still showing concern for his stance on wealth.  However, I needed paper, so I went to my old room to try to find my other bag which contained my notebook.

I finally made my way through the crowd and grabbed my duffel bag.  I pulled out my notebook and pen and began writing the letter right there amidst the chaos.  Another church service was soon about to start, and I discovered that the room I was in also doubled as a greeting room for members of the church, so writing proved to be difficult.  Chris was actually standing just a few feet from me, making comments about me to some of the others there.  Somebody bumped me, causing my papers to fly out of my notebook.  I started gathering them when Chris yelled at me, accusing of taking things that weren't mine.  "This homeless-looking guy is trying to steal from you people!"

He grabbed a piece of paper that had a poem of mine written on it and tried to give it to some woman as if it were hers and not mine.  I tried taking it back, but he kept pulling it away from me like I was a cat and the paper was a string.  The woman then took the poem and handed it back to me.  Finally a supporter!

I jumped ahead in time to some outdoor activity involving candles and balancing and teamwork.  Chris was leading the activity, then, noticing that I was doing well, "accidentally" caused me to fall and break my candle stick.  I was fed up with him, so I walked away proclaiming, "I'm done!"  Chris proceeded to mock me and get all the other guys partaking in the activity to also make fun of me for being a quitter.  I still wanted to write him that note, but he was making it so much harder for me to do.


Then I awoke.

Dream #537 (September 18, 2015) Country Home Visit

A pleasant dream.


I was walking along the side of a country road in Michigan that ran through beautiful green fields with no cars or homes in sight.  After what felt like an hour of walking, I found my brother Mike's white Ford Tempo parked alongside one of the fields.  I happened to have the keys in my pocket, so I started it up and drove down the road.

After a while a gold car started approaching me from behind.  It accelerated until finally it slammed into the Tempo, causing me to spin off the road and wreck the car.  I surprisingly not in the least bit upset and I went over to talk to the teenage male who had caused the wreck.  He had a blonde bowl cut and thick-rimmed glasses and loved his iPhone.

I soon found out that he was really interested in film, so we chatted about that for a while.  We both had nowhere to go because our cars were undrivable.  To make this more complicated, there was no cellphone reception, so we just walked together for a bit.

Finally a blue car drove by and we flagged it down.  It turned out to be Devon, the father of some friends of mine and he invited the two of us to come and stay at his house with his family.  We both accepted, but shortly after that, the teen's girlfriend pulled up and offered him a ride.  He went with her, but said they would come and visit in a couple hours or so.

I went with Devon and chatted about communal living and how it could be implemented into American culture.  When we arrived at his home, all of his kids were in his living room playing some sort of seemingly hilarious party game.  We both joined in and had a wonderfully fun time, in spite of my lack of understanding of the game being played, if it even was a game.

After that, we all decided that we wanted to eat tacos, so we relocated to the kitchen and began prepping the meal.  I was in charge of creating the tortilla shells from scratch.  I'm not really sure how I was doing it successfully and so quickly, but I was pretty darn skilled at my task.  It was a bit like a cartoon, for we were all tossing ingredients and dishes to each other and never dropping them as we all sang a cheerful tune in harmony and in unison.

When the meal was nearly finished, the doorbell rang.  For some reason I answered it and found the teenage boy with his girlfriend there.  He immediately pulled out his phone and showed me a film that he had shot and edited since he last saw me.  I prepared myself to act amused, but to my surprise it was actually incredible.  I was blown away by the production value and the creativity and the speed at which it was created.  It was some short film about a boy who drove a mini taxi around and created changes in weather by punching floating boxes (Super Mario style) around town.  He then suggested that we create something together someday soon, and I wholeheartedly agreed.  He seemed like a fun guy to work with.

I then returned to tortilla shell creating, and I finished up the last few that needed to be made.  The kitchen we worked in was rather small, but it somehow comfortably fit all of us (there were 10 of us in there). There was a dusty window that allowed some very diffused light into the room, which gave everything a nice soft glow.

We all gathered around the table and said a prayer, then began a wonderfully musical feast.  I was seated next to a friend of mine.  I looked at her and she patted me on the head, shrugged, then walked away from the table.  I didn't know what that meant.  I watched her as she went and sat on the living room floor alone, staring at the ground.

After a few moments of contemplation, I also left the table and sat near her, asking her if everything was alright.  She looked up and smiled at me, then patted me on the head again, then began skipping around the room.  I was both amused and confused.

I then thought about how insanely delicious those tacos were.


Then I awoke.

Dream #536 (September 17, 2015) Matisyahu Film, Sweatpants Basketball, and Losing Sanity

This dream had three very different parts.  The last was quite haunting.


In the first dream, I was directing a feature film.  The world I worked in was perpetually night which at least made for consistent lighting.  I was setting up a shot in a semi-demolished building and for some reason I was smoking a cigarette (maybe that's what feature film directors do).

I was discussing the upcoming shot with my assistant director Andrew DeSelm and my Director of Photography Dan McCullum.  I had a crane that was going to drop down into the building and do an overhead track of Matis as he climbed over the debris.  Andrew was working with the set decorator to put trash/large debris in all the right places.  I tried to start blocking out the scene with Matis, but he was busy smoking a certain substance, so I had trouble getting his attention.

I decided to go outside to talk with my gaffer, Dan Jeter, about the exterior lighting setup.  We had dozens of HMI's blasting into the building at various angles, casting interesting shadows over the scene.  Dan updated me on how much time he needed to finish, and I returned to talk to Matis.

After blocking the scene, we shot it, and got the complex shot perfect on the third take.  That was the last shot at that location, so everyone began to pack up, and I rode off with Matis to the next set, which was a home interior.  Matis and I discussed the look of the house as I gave him a tour.  There were mostly pastel colors throughout the home, with occasional dashes of a saturated green.


Then I switched to a different dream.


I was standing on the sidelines of the Oregon-Davis Elementary gymnasium with my brother Matt.  Our team was playing in the championship game and our coach, a random guy from the Dominican Republic, refused to putt Matt and me in the game.

I really wanted to play, and I actually thought I could do better than the people in the game, but the coach was too distracted to hear me out.  He really wasn't even paying any attention to the game but instead playing some brightly colored child's game on his iPad (or similar tablet) with the sound on.

Finally in the 4th quarter, when we were down by 10, I convinced him to let my brother and me play. For some reason every player on the court, including me, was wearing thick red sweatpants with other sweatpants tucked inside of both legs so that everyone's legs looked really chunky-fluffy.  I tried to figure out why this was the case.  Maybe we were supporting some sort of disease research?

Anyway, Matt and I started out our time on the court very well.  Right away we had a double-team that led to a forced turnover and a basket for our team.  We helped tie the game up with a couple minutes left to go.


Then I switched to yet another dream.


In this particular dream, my name was Matt, and another version of me who was named Joe was also in the dream.  Even though I was my own older brother, I didn't resemble my older brother in real life in any way.

I was on the brink of insanity in this dream.  I knew I was going crazy, but I could stop it from getting worse.  In the start of the dream, I was walking around my parents' living room breaking various porcelain and glass decorations and rubbing my fingers over the broken edges, causing my fingers to cut and bleed in various spots.

Then I jumped ahead in time and I was running around outside wearing only a blue cape.

Then I found myself lying on the bathroom floor and my mom and dad were trying to get me to respond.  I wanted to respond, but I couldn't.  I had just ingested a large amount of medicine and mouthwash.

I jumped even further into the future and I had my own apartment.  I had rigged up a machine to pump the blood out of my body into a large plastic bag.  I started screaming about how I needed to remove all the impurities from my system as my sister (who doesn't exist in real life) tried to stop me.  I overpowered her and threw her across the room, causing her to blackout.  Then I hooked myself up to the machine and began pumping out large amounts of blood, all the while shouting about how I was casting out all impurities.

Eventually I began to lose consciousness.  My plastic bag, which held several gallons of blood, was nearly full.  I kept fading in and out of consciousness.  Finally my mom, dad, and brother rushed in and pulled me off the the machine, causing blood to pour all over the ground.  My brother figured out a way to reverse the blood flow and send it back into my body, which he began to do.  My vision turned mostly white and my thoughts became so fuzzy.  My consciousness left my body and I was able to look from a higher perspective at my family trying to save my life.

I started to wake up in real life, but I stayed in the dream for a bit longer.  I was asking myself why I had to dream such a disturbing/disgusting dream, and I think I might have nearly passed out in real life from the amount of blood that I thought I'd lost, which was all over that kitchen floor and all over my shaking body.

I finally began to pull away from the dream and into a weird half-conscious state.  I almost felt as if I were looking down on myself lying in my bed in real life.


Then at last I awoke.

Dream #535 (August 1, 2015) Tim Johnson, Matisyahu in Kalamazoo

This doesn't at all reflect my view of Matisyahu.


I started out the dream at Koontz Lake Missionary church.  Tim Johnson was running some huge even there and I was supposed to direct the camera operators for him during it.  I had finished setting up my station and introducing myself to the ops when I realized I was really hungry.  I went out to the parking lot with Tim and asked if I could go grab dinner before the event started.  Tim hesitated then said, "You have an hour."

I got in my car and, for some reason, headed to Kalamazoo, which is over 100 miles away.  Tim Johnson was probably none too pleased when he realized I wouldn't make it back it time, but I never made it back at all so I don't know what his reaction was.

I went to Bell's Brewery in Kalamazoo and ordered a soy burger.  Then I saw that Matisyahu and his assistant David were also there.  They were dining in a private room and they let me in to dine with them.

Suddenly Matisyahu began singing in some weird language, and it seemed as if he no longer had control of his own body.  This went on for a while until Jeremy Robinson, a friend of mine from Oregon-Davis High School, burst in and, after quickly assessing the situation, proceeded to cast a demon out of Matis.  It was rather crazy.  Matis thanked Jeremy and begin praising God.  Jeremy turned to me and said, "You could've done that, but you were just standing there."

Then Jeremy left and I followed him.  We joined some huge parade of people marching down a winding sidewalk leading out of Kalamazoo.  There were hundreds of men, women, and children, and they were carrying enough stuff to last them a few days.  The atmosphere was a deep and saturated blue, and the houses that I could see off in the distance displayed beautiful orange lights.


Then I awoke.

Dream #534 (June 12, 2015) Tom Cruise and a Van

Weird.


I dreamt that I was simultaneously watching and taking part in a 90's action movie starring Tom Cruise.  The weird thing was that I was the female lead starring alongside Tom.  At some points during the dream, the story felt real.  At other points, I felt as if I were acting (as a female character but not as a female), and at still other points I felt as if I were watching everything unfold.

Anyway, I was the daughter of parents from a well known/respected royal couple, and their only offspring.  They were very protective of me, something I resented deeply.  They wouldn't let me go out on my own even.  At the beginning of the dream I had snuck away from them in a college town and was listening to some punk music as I made my way to the college (my plan was to sneak into a lecture and sit in on it).  I had shortish dyed black hair, a purple backpack with a few patches and buttons on it, and some punk-ish clothes.

As I neared the school, I heard my dad's voice call me from his vehicle not far behind me.  I started running from him.  Moments later, a big grey van sped through town as if it were fleeing from something.  The driver slammed on the breaks next to me.  Tom Cruise leaned his head out the window and told me to get in.  Being the rebellious girl I was, I did exactly as he said.

Tom then swerved around traffic until he made it to the freeway.  Once he was the I asked him a few questions about what he was doing, and he gave me some generic answers about putting an end to some evil corporation.

We talked about a few other random things, then we ended up at some factory.  I stayed in the van whilst Tom ran about sabotaging the place.  We sped away.  Tom told me he needed a safe place to hide away, and I said my parent's mansion would be good for that, so that is where we went.

Tom reluctantly joined me as I went inside.  I introduced him to the family, and we had an awkward dinner.  My dad asked him tons of questions, and he usually gave some sort of witty and vague answer to them.  I caught my dad trying to secretly phone the police when he excused himself to go to the bathroom, so I grabbed Tom and led him out of there.

As we were making our way out to the van, Bill Fashbaugh (a real-life friend of mine) met us there and said he wanted to drive for a while.  Tom and I weren't opposed, so we sat in the backseat as Bill drove.

A ways down the road, there was supposed to be a 'make-out' scene.  At this point I was conscious that I was a male acting as a female in a movie, so Tom and I pretended to make out in a rather comical way, making the crew and other cast laugh.

Suddenly I was back to believing the movie was real, and Bill swerved off the road and flipped the van because he was trying to cook macaroni and cheese in the passenger seat.  Tom, Bill, and I all stumbled out of the vehicle unscathed, but the macaroni had flown quite a distance and hit a group of business women having a late-night coffee meeting (one of whom was played by Tina Fey for some reason).  Tina's character also happened to be a police officer, so she began investigating.

Bill, Tom, and I all acted as if we were merely passers by who had witness the scene, and we rushed to the women to make sure they were ok.  Tina seemed a bit suspicious, but she didn't act on her suspicions at first.

Bill managed to pick-pocket one of the ladies, and Tom pick-pocketed two of the others, and we started walking quickly toward their cars.  Tom dropped one of the sets of keys on the way, which made Tina realize that hers were missing.

I said, "We only have two sets of keys and their are four cars to choose from.  Which one is the right one?"


Then I awoke, a male once again.

Dream #533 (February 23, 2015) Celebrity Prisoner

Perhaps this could be a reality TV show.


I dreamt that I was selected to be on a show entitled Celebrity Prisoner in which D-List celebrities (somehow I was a celebrity in my dream) were put in a prison built specifically for the show.  The show was to be taped over the course of several months.  I had never heard of any of the other celebrities except for Mike Tyson.

As much as I loathe reality television, I thought it could be a lot of fun to get paid to be a prisoner (I'm not sure how that seemed fun to me), so I accepted the role and went to prison.  One of my cellmates was a tall and muscular guy and the other was a tall and lanky fella.  I befriended them immediately and we all decided that we would spend the majority of the show trying to break out of prison.  We thought it would add good entertainment value and be genuinely fun.

After a couple weeks I was the first to discover a flaw in the prison set.  On one of the walls of the recreation center, behind a couple matts, was some wiring that jutted out the wall.  I started pulling on the wire, which ripped a 3-foot hole in the wall, revealing a large hallow space beyond it.  I covered it up and informed my cellmates of my discovery that night at bedtime.

The next day, the three of us went to the rec room.  My cellmates provided a distraction (they acted as if they were feuding) whilst I slipped into the hole to explore the darkness.  I soon discovered a tunnel.  I walked through it for about a quarter of a mile, and I ended up on a mountain by a beach.  I ran back quickly to find my cellmates, but unfortunately only the lanky one was there (the other had been taken to a solitary room).  Lanky joined me and we walked out onto the beach together.

We saw a couple snowmobiles riding out on the water (defying gravity, etc.).  I parted ways with Lanky.  He stayed on the beach and I went into town to enjoy my newfound freedom.

My first stop was the library.  Unfortunately the prisoners from Celebrity Prisoner had been brought there for a field trip (except my muscular roommate, who was still in solitary confinement).  Instead of fleeing the scene, though, I thought I would try to get on camera without being caught by the prison guards.  As the prisoners filed through the aisles, I would pop my head around them every once in a while, hoping to jut my way into a shot.

At last I made eye contact with one of the camera operators.


Then I awoke.