Dream #23

Summary:
On the road driving down a highway - we were on the outskirts of a small town in the country. I was definitely with some people that I knew but not family, probably Caswell people and  I can specifically remember Zack Ross but there were more in the car. In the distance we see a black swirling cloud. That cloud, it becomes apparent, is a tornado, and it's ripping through the countryside, destroying some little buildings.  There is some hesitation as to what we should do, should we stay on the road and wait for it to pass (it looked like it was going away from the road on the right side) or should we get out and lay in a ditch. Eventually we noticed that there were several smaller tornadoes forming all around us. We got out of the car to lay in the ditch and someone, (David Lloyd maybe?) was sucked away in the debris while the rest of us made a run for it through a field on the left side of the road and into town. Here, one of the people I was with had an old family house which we went to for shelter. We were in a room upstairs looking at the tornadoes through different windows when eventually, the others left the room and I was upstairs alone. I looked out a window at one point and it was completely black, like there was soot on the window or something. I tried very hard to look through it for about 15 seconds because for some reason I though it was just an obstruction on the window, but then I realized it was from the tornado. I ran down stairs and everything started to move in slow motion. Across from the bottom of the stairs was the basement door, which was still open with stairs heading down to the basement. I turned the corner to look into the living room where I could hear the TV running. As soon as I saw the TV it switched to one of those weird Indian Head "no signal" patterns then black. I could now hear the house breaking. I turned around and ran for the basement door. About 1/3 of the way down the basement stairs the house above me disintegrated and I felt intense suction pull of tornado above me. It was just strong enough to pull me mid-step into a sort of levitation for a second or two, then it moved on and I was released to tumbled the rest of the way down the stairs. I was safe. I woke up. 

Influences:
The Caswell people being in the dream are the most apparent influence, because I work around them every day and especially this week because we had the guest services planning meeting so I am used to being around them a lot. The fact that I was traveling on a highway may have something to do with all the travel I've been doing over the past month. I've made several trips to Raleigh and Charlotte, and on the Charlotte trips especially, I drive through little rural situations like this quite often. The biggest influence, I believe, is the wind storm that happened last night. Strangely, I wasn't aware of the wind storm's intensity until I woke up after the dream and heard the wind howling on both sides of my bedroom. At Oceana, the screened in porches create a relatively loud whistling noise that I would have been able to hear, I guess even in my sleep. Pretty strange and cool how outside environment in the real world can influence the content of your dreams in your unconscious mind.

Overally mood:
Legitimately scary.