Dream #287 (November 29, 2010)

This is far less intense than my most recent dreams. I kind of like the intense ones sometimes, but I needed a break.

In the dream I had recently moved to Virginia Beach to prepare for a three-month tour of the world that I was going to take with a bunch of missionaries. We planned on going to Portugal, Spain, South Africa, China, Brazil, and more. I was very nervous about this trip, for I did not really know what I was getting myself into. At the same time, I was very excited to acquire some new experiences and friendships.

Unfortunately, I did not get to visit these places in my dream, for I still had three weeks in Virginia Beach before taking off. The first thing I did was go disc golfing at the dunes in North Carolina (I've never actually been there). Interestingly enough, my brother Mike and Kyle and Kody Heffelfinger were all there. My dream skipped forward to hole 9, which was at the base of a very steep and very tall dune. I kept getting frustrated with it, as did those with me, for we were unable to throw the disc more than ten feet in the air, and it would slide back down every time. We didn't know how to finish the hole and thought it impossible until a couple of other guys came and, without any effort, launched the discs all the way to the top of the dune with one throw.

Then my dream skipped forward to another night. I was outside the Regent Communications Building, waiting for somebody to let me into the school. My friend Jon Ayee walked up to me and asked me if I wanted to help out with a film he was working on, and I said I definitely would.

We went inside and I was asked to mix the sound and hold the boom microphone (which is always what I'm asked to do). The film was being directed by Dan McCullum, and it was, of all things, a musical. It takes a lot for me to enjoy a musical, so I was not too excited about what I was going to be doing for the next several hours.

The lighting setup for the shot that was happening was very interesting. It involved some medical and dental lighting equipment that was being reflected off of many small mirrors. It was pretty cool.

We soon started the first take, and the lead actor began to sing. At first, I was annoyed, but eventually and strangely, the song grew on me and I began tapping my foot. Before I knew it, I was bobbing my head and enjoying the music coming from his mouth. Then Dan cut the take, claiming he needed to rearrange everything.

This meant that I had a long break, so I, for some reason, hid under the actor's chair. At the time, Jeff Kreider was sitting there, and I wanted to hide from him. He soon asked, "Where did Joe go?" and I laughed to myself. I snuck out from under the chair and ran to the bathroom, which had a monitor that allowed me to know when I would be needed. I pulled out a deck of cards and began playing solitaire.

Then I awoke.

Dream #286 (November 28, 2010)

Another war dream.

I was living in the Medieval, and a great battle was taking place. There were knights, both good and bad, scurrying about, slaying each other in the twilight of my dream. I was sneaking around dark alleys in the castle corridors, trying to avoid death and pain. I ran into a couple of enemies, but I managed to overtake them (but I had the mercy to let them live). I was very quick with my little short sword.

I was wearing baggy old clothes, and I knew that I was no knight. In fact, I was a peasant in the dream. The only reason I was fighting was because I was fond of the prince and princess (who were soon going to be in charge of the land in which I was living). In fact, this royal couple was a couple I know in real life: Mike and Rachel Phipps.

As I snuck around the deepest and darkest parts of the enormous castle/city, I ran into Princess Rachel. She was wearing a great white dress and gave off a glow so bright that I was forced to look at the ground when I encountered her.

She was glad to see me, for she could not find her Prince Michael, and she was alone. I told her that I would do my best to protect her, but I was not nearly as good a fighter as Mike (Prince Michael). In fact, I was more of a runner (I often fled battles because I was too reluctant to kill).

She and I ran swiftly through the dark corridors, with such silence that we were about to sneak by even the alert enemies. There was one time where I was forced to fight a man, who had thought it would be great to slay the princess of the great city. Luckily I put a stop to that, but at the cost of the other man's life, who was the first person I had ever killed. I stopped and thought about my actions, for too long.

Before I knew what was going on around me, I heard Rachel shout. I turned around and saw a large, armor-clad knight swinging a sword toward my chest. There was no time for me to dodge the blow, and he cut me across my un-armored chest, causing me to fall to the ground. The knight went to capture Rachel, but she had managed to disappear. I was glad for her, but I noticed that I had a pool of blood all around me. It was indeed my blood, and I knew that I was going to die.

I was alone in a dark place that was, to me, getting even darker. I began to fade when I saw the glow from Rachel's dress illuminate the area around me. She had risked her life and come out of hiding to be with me as I passed away. I smiled, laid my head back, and began to embrace for the death that was about to hit me.

However, I lasted longer than I anticipated. I was able to have one last conversation with Rachel. She asked me what it was like to enter death. It seems like the last thing you would want to talk to a dying man about, but I appreciated the question. I told her that it was terrifying, for I did not know what the 'other side' would be like. I had my faith, but I still had no idea where exactly I was going. I told her that I was, as I breathed my final breaths, able to comprehend more things about life than I had ever been able to comprehend while I was in the prime of my life.

At that point, I laid my head back and died.

Then I awoke.

Dream #285 (November 27, 2010)

Here is a dream about war.

I was in the heart of the United States in the future. War had torn the country apart, and it was a mess of broken down city buildings, smog, and rivers of tar that ran all through the streets. Dead bodies were piled on the side of roads, the government was corrupt, and people were used to living in fear.

I was with a small band of rebels, and I was teaching them about the government's military. I was telling them all about how they are quick to kill and slow to get to know situations. I then gave them a history lesson of how our nation began to decline, a history that started all the way back to when William Jennings Bryan was not elected as President of the United States, getting beat by Progressivism. I talked about war and about industrialism as if I were some great authority (well, in the dream I was, for I was a well-respected leader of a successful band of rebels). When I reached the end of the lecture, I picked up a gun from the hand of a dead man on the street. I began to say that the military men were so paranoid that if they saw me with a gun, they would kill me immediately without getting to know why I had the gun or if it was even a real gun at all. At that moment, as I showed my followers the gun, I was shot in the back.

I fell to the ground and knew that I was going to die. Even so, I still fought hard to remain alive. I had a great fear of death in my dream, and I was terrified. I began to shake, cry, and wail, but nobody would listen to me or care for me.

I went into darkness.

I soon woke up (in another dream) on top of a tall wooden watchtower. I stood up, knowing that I should be on the look-out for enemy troops. When I looked down at the vast field below me, my heart sank as I saw a military completely clothed in black, made up of demons, advancing quickly toward the tower. I turned around and saw that, behind me, there was another army. This army was made up of men and mystical creatures, and I was led by my own father. He was wearing a helmet with rams horns, and he had the most amazing armor. He was going against an extremely threatening force, yet he looked confident and calm.

Then I awoke.

Dream #284 (November 26, 2010)

This is very strange.

In my dream I was visiting Bethel College. I pulled up in a green car (I've never owned a green vehicle) and parked it on the street outside the main entrance (where cars are not allowed to park). As I walked by the fountain, I saw a very tall and loud evangelist, who was nicely dressed in a black suit, standing by the water, screaming out the word of God.

I walked by him, for I had come to meet up with Kevin. There were a large number of people in the area, most of which were having picnics (which is definitely not usual). As I walked past the evangelist, he began to shout at me, asking, "What is your name and why are you here?" I turned and noticed that Kevin was there to meet me. I didn't want to give this crazy dude my real information, so I made up a name and told him I was just exercising. Unfortunately, Kevin pointed out my lie and said, "That's not your name, Joe. Don't lie."

Then the evangelist walked up to me, with a strange confidence, then swiftly put his hand in the back of my pants and yanked out a fistful of butt hair (I know that is absolutely disgusting, but it is extremely interesting). He held it up and yelled, gaining the attention of all the people within earshot. "This is why you have come!"

Then I awoke.

Dream #283 (November 25, 2010)

I missed a few days, but here are a bunch in a row.

I was in a large field of grass waiting for my ride to come and pick me up. I was standing next to Kevin Chupp, and my friends Stan Marks and Joanna Suter were standing across the field from us. I then decided to create a game to pass the time. We would take turns throwing stones toward each other, and if the stone landed five feet away from the opponent or closer, the thrower would get to move around and the opponent would have to stay still in that spot. Now, in the beginning, we all had to stay still, but Stan soon landed a rock just inches from my right shoe, so he was free to move about.

Soon after that, we had all landed rocks close to other people. In the meantime, Stan had climbed up a tower to try and avoid being hit. However, his plan backfired when I landed a rock right beside him, pinning him up there for a long time. I was running free when I noticed that about twenty other people had joined the game; there were rocks flying everywhere. In a few moments, I was startled by a car that nearly hit me in the back. It screeched to a halt right beside me and the passenger window rolled down, revealing Joanna in the driver's seat. "They never said anything about cars."

She drove me to a rock pile that was a half mile down the road so we could load up. However, when we arrived, we were ambushed and pinned to a spot just a few feet from the pile while our opponents took off in Joanna's car.

Then I awoke.

Dream #282 (November 20, 2010)

Three in a row. I'm getting back into the groove.

I dreamed that I was in a small blue car in a large black parking lot with my whole immediate family. We barely fit in the car, but we managed. We were sitting in a parking space in the lot in front of a large unmarked building.

After sitting there for quite some time, my older brother Matt and I decided that we couldn't wait anymore and that we were going to go into the building. When we walked inside, all we could see were crazy colorful flashing lights and bodies gyrating all around. We soon left.

When we came back outside, it was suddenly dark (it was afternoon before). I ran to the car and discovered that my family was nowhere to be found. I looked back to tell Matt, but he was gone as well. Then I noticed a man in a suit with dark, long hair and a beard standing by me, with a bunch of body guards. He was looking right at me with a strange smile on his face.

He was soon distracted by a pregnant Native American woman who was shouting at the top of her lungs as she walked toward him.

Then I awoke.

Dream #281 (November 19, 2010)

Last night was a bit crazy.

During the first part of the dream, I dreamt through the Crucifixion. It was insane. There were close-up shots of Jesus being nailed to the cross, his crown of thorns, his hands, his feet, his face, and his dripping blood. It was intense, especially because there was no rest from the extreme close images I was seeing. It really effected me.

Then I switched over to a different dream.

I was in a pirate restaurant with Kyle and Kody Heffelfinger. When I say pirate restaurant, I mean that all the customers and the waiters were pirates by trade.

Our waiter came to our table and asked what we wanted to order. We all purchased some sort of crazy seafood platter and water, except for Kody, who ordered a glass of wine through Kyle (Kody is only 16 or so). We soon received our enormous plates of highly decorated food and enjoyed the meal. As we were about halfway done with the food, the bouncer came to our table and asked Kody for his ID. Kody retrieved it from his wallet and handed it to the big, scary man as if there were nothing wrong with it. When the bouncer read it, he handed it back, then immediately grabbed all of us and dragged us out of the restaurant.

I decided to then go home, where I met up with Daniel Jeter and my little brother Mike. We discussed what we were going to do the next morning (it was the middle of the night at the time), and came up with a crazy plan. We were going to search for a princess named Dolores, capture her, and take her to an island where she would show us the location of buried treasure.

As the sun was still on it's way to the sky, Dan, Mike, and I journeyed to a nearby school where we hijacked a big yellow school bus. None of us knew how to drive the thing, so we just decided that Dan would be the best option because he is the oldest of the three of us. As he started up the bus, we heard police sirens. Apparently somebody had spotted us, and we were trapped.

Luckily for us, the other busses were pulling out of the school at the time, which created an intense yellow blockade that prevented the cop cars from reaching where we were. Dan then slammed on the gas, running into the rear of the bus in front of us, smashing it up severely. After a few more slams, he managed to force an opening to the road, where we made a successful getaway, thanks in part to the unsolvable maze created by the busses after we pulled out.

At that point, we forgot all about capturing the princess and just drove to the sea. On the way there, Dan drove the bus over a then opening bridge and successfully made it to the other side. When we reached the water's edge, Dan decided that it would be best just to accelerate into the water with the bus, and that is what he did.

There was a loud and confusing impact and, moments later, I was several hundred feet from the shore, holding onto a hunk of floating seat and metal, drifting toward the island.

Then I awoke.