Dream #25

Summary:
This dream felt like it went on all night. The very earliest memory I can go back to is being at my grandmother's country ranch-style house, kind of doing that thing where you explore spaces from your childhood and reminisce.  In this version of her home, there was an upstairs (not one in real life) and I was snooping around looking for the room where we used to play as a kid. I remember stepping over an xbox one with a sticker decal on top that was on the top floor. Eventually this space sort of morphed into a blend of grandmother's house (her bedroom where she had a separate TV) and my uncle's house which is really nice and had awesome upstairs bedrooms. From downstairs I could hear people playing old school video games, specifically I remember seeing a box for an adaptor on the floor that would let you play NES games on a sega genesis. Weird detail. I got upstairs to find my cousin Stephen playing the old school game and my cousin David making hilarious commentary with him on it among other things. Basically, a page directly out of my childhood. I said "hey guys can I play" in a silly childlike voice and they welcomed me in.

They knew everything there was to know about video games, including Stephen knowing that the President of Nintendo just died (he actually did) and pointing out that the computer downstairs had several game ROMS downloaded onto it - a fact that I took with a sort of "I'm around that computer all the time and never knew that" kind of awe. Pretty soon David started showing off this "game" on his phone that was sort of maybe illegal but very cool. It controlled a can of what looked like canned air and the temperature of the flame that it could spit out. He burned things, melted things, etc. with it before the real game started (it gets weird). A sheep was wandering through the house and it was an understood part of the game to burn the sheep until you took its health bar down and it died. The sheep would occasionally shoot fireballs at you from its mouth but it had terrible aim. Eventually he overwhelmed the sheep.

At this point I started showing off all of this cool stuff to my immediate family and Craig. They weren't that impressed and worried about how dangerous it was, dad feigned being impressed, as he is so good at doing, and even called mom over to "look at this" as I burned something on the ground. I had to explain to the fam why the sheep was bad and why I was burning it. "No really, if you wait long enough it will shoot fireballs out of its mouth!"

Somewhere mixed in with all of this we did some basement exploration of grandma's house and found the "old" back porch that predated her actual back porch buried under the house. It was made of old wooden planks.

Here the dream takes another odd and frightening turn,  Aliens come down and basically start off a body snatcher type situation. Without seeing the aliens but in the middle of the night, myself and my sister Melissa are basically visited and told that we needed to adopt new bodies in order to search the wooded area around grandma's house for remains of an ancient alien civilization. They didn't say it, but I was under the impression that if we just helped dig up their ancestors, then they'd leave us alone. As a part of the "help" process we had to enter some sort of pod and get transferred to new bodies. I remember when Melissa was in the pod bumping the pod to reassure her that we were still outside. She did the same when I was in my pod. When we emerged we looked mostly like we did before, with bumpy grotesque skull tops. There were two other people who were podded that we were close with.

When we decided we would help them we when into grandma's yard, which was suddenly a high school parking lot, and found four cars used for drivers ed in the back. They had instructor stickers on the front, I said that was how we'd know our vehicles, I took an instructor card out of the car and held it up for the UFO in the sky to see and aknowledge that we were going to cooperate with their plan. They came down closer, the UFO was poorly disguised as a helicopter when it was close, like a bad drawing of a helicopter, and it showed that it understood we were agreeing, then took off. We took some kind of pill that was supposed to serve as a type of insurance against the aliens. Our old bodies were covered by a white sheet in the bed. I was under the impression that when we were done with our mission, we would get to go back to our old bodies. We had the aliens mobile number and would call them to get instructions. One time, before the mission, I met with them. They had the bumpy heads and were very pale and had remarkably featureless faces. They went over the details of the mission and how and where we should dig, etc.

After the mission they met with us again, this time, they had done a much better job of looking like humans, like hispanics, actually, and they wanted us to do more. I started realizing this wasn't going to be a one-off gig. We also noted that our original bodies were gone and I began to wonder if the whole thing was a ruse to get us in new bodies and steal our old ones for experiments or something. I was angry, but at that point, you have no choice but to keep playing along.

There was a big party outside in grandma's yard and a lot of our friends were out there. We went and hung out with them but they could tell something was different about us. By this point, we all thought we looked pretty normal with not unusual heads and everything, but everyone could just tell something was a little off. We got together to meet about people acting strangely toward us and realized that we did all have creepy smiling expressions, something that went previously unnoticed, and that we were all acting uncharacteristically similar - a floaty pleasantness to each. At some point grandmas' house got cut in two or broke in two, exposing the old porch floorboards to daylight and dad made the comment that it was the old lollypop shop porch. We gazed in awe. For this portion of the mission we had to make our way though tunnels in the ground that were now exposed to air back underneath the woods behind grandma's house. This is about the time that I woke up, more or less.

Influences: 
This is a little difficult to pull influences for at first but I think I have a few. The Video Games are from the new xbox one that I just got. Before purchasing I consulted Stephen on it, and my respect for his video game knowledge goes way back to childhood and these sorts of gameplay situations. David always has something cool or funny to show off, thus he had the goat burning game? I don't know, but it made sense in the dream. The inaccuracy of the goat with the fireballs probably comes from playing Call of Duty with bots (computer controlled players) at John's place just before bed. He made the comment that they fire at you but have terrible aim. Maybe grandmothers house represents those earlier video games sessions in my life with my older cousins and that would explain why it was the setting (with elements of David's home place mixed in). I recently discussed a family vacation that would include Craig and Elizabeth, so there they are. Aliens? I mean, I watched a tv doc about Area 51 a couple weeks ago and read something about the Roswell incident being a part of Project Mogul on Reddit yesterday, but beyond that, nothing really fresh. I have seen invasion of the body snatchers but it was back in college several years ago. The Caswell people and social environment is easy to explain, I live in that every day. Grandmas house splitting at the end? Read a New Yorker article about a big earthquake that is due in Seattle just before bed.

Overall Mood:
Nostalgia, Fear, Acceptance of doomed fate.

Dream #24

Summary:
I was with Katie, she had, the night before, invited people to a party where here house was switched with other people's houses. Literally, the house was moved off its foundations and other people's houses were put on top of it and this was some cool hipster party. I was invited but I didn't go because I was hanging out with Melissa and Jordan, I think? Instead she sent me picture texts through the night of different houses being put where hers were and people partying inside and outside the house. It was some kind of cool party that I probably didn't get because I didn't live in Durham. Next thing I know, I'm asking her how she made it happen and and she takes me to a sound stage where the just pull out backdrops and fake houses to create the illusion of it. The stage is raised about 8 feet off the floor of the totally empty rest of the audience room. Melissa and Jordan were there, next scene I remember I am standing outside but its still kind of a soundstage. There are grassy, rocky "riversides" and in the middle is a fake river that Katie can make repeat a regular wave pattern - like a long wave pool. there are ladders every so often on the sides that allow you climb up. Katie is swimming with me in it. When we finally emerge from Katie's fake river wave pool (which I navigated out of well),  Melissa and Jordan made a recommendation that we go to some restaurant, but earlier Mom and Dad had made a recommendation for a different restaurant that was more conservative and probably affordable. Since I'd have to be paying, I went with the latter. Katie couldn't come, or something, so I ended up going with my dad and some other person, a man. We ordered our food ahead and for some reason the restaurant had a Caswell radio that they used to ask me about my order. I thought about joking with them over the radio, but since I was now in Wilmington(?) I was too afraid that Mr. Holbrook could pick up that I was joking over the radio. The food came sporadically, in courses - with one course including a burger bigger and piled with more toppings than any burger I've ever seen in real life. I devoured it and the people I was with were astonished at how quickly. I made the comment that the food was really good but the service had just been spotty and my dad scolded me quietly, I look up to see that the waitress is standing behind him giving him the check (it was the same waitress from Outback last week when I ate there with Mom and Dad. I try to play it off by not flinching and asking her if she'd prefer that we not place our order that way, she said no, it was fine, and immediately walked back to process our checks. I commented that that was rude to not answer my question more thoroughly, Dad agreed in his "I'm just agreeing with you to show that I support you" kind of way. NEXT scene, and no idea how it got here unless it was from driving home from the restaurant, I'm watching, as if a TV show, Bob Saget drive around the ruined remains of San Francisco. It's completely abandoned and overrun with trash and debris in the streets. He goes down the famous "stair stepped street" and there's like furniture and crap everywhere. He drives over a long old bridge and remarked that the little flea market on the side of the bridge (lots of small, brightly colored huts) are abandoned now. I get the sense that he's reminiscing on how much better things were in the 90's before the economy tanked and apparently created an economic catastrophe in San Francisco. So where was he driving? To the country on the other side of the bridge, like, rural California wine valley. There was a priest, in cassock I believe, with a bald head talking about how he sees the economic downturn in his area as a sign of the coming apocalypse. Says something like "I can only see what's going on in my district and from here, it's looking like it will be coming soon." I follow the priest back to his place and it's a very tiny ranch style house, or like the parsonage at FBC Four Oaks. Apparently this whole time, I've been following the instructions of whoever I was supposed to be on the date with in the first place and this was an ideal that that person had to help me see what the afterlife would be like or communicate with someone who was dead, not clear on which. The priest explains that he has developed a new method for going beyond our world and directs me to lay on a towel he's put on the floor. FUN FACT, there are two headstones in his living room, as if his house was built over them in a graveyard. He instructs me to lay on my back with my feet bottoms at one of the tomb stones. He gives me a little book, (like a tract) and tells me to read it and relax and then he's just gone. I'm really really aware of how alone I am in this mans house, he had turned on some colored lights on either end of the room but mostly it was very dimly lit. I noticed his hanging religious portrait (Jesus? Mary?) in another room that I could see through an open door. Laying there I began reading the booklet. There was not much on each page, usually picture or biblical quote. As I went along I started remembering his instructions, that I should relax and that he had discovered that through meditation on the things in the book and the mixture of colors in the room he created an environment where you would trance out into the afterlife. Lots of people had done it before me, it was a new popular thing. I was informed that I would feel I was being hit with a heat wave and that I should just let the feelings take over as they made me jerk, sit up involuntarily, and generally freak out. When they took full control I'd be in the beyond, or whatever. I had already felt a heat wave so I was nervous about continuing. I can't emphasize enough how incredibly quiet it was in this man's house. I kept reading but as I went there were seemingly demonic things mixed in the book with the biblical quotes. Demonic images like goats heads and devil goat head's I specifically remember seeing as I turned pages. I started shaking and sat up wildly out of my own control but fought to keep control. I decided that it might be inviting demon possession if I kept reading it and that the mixture of good stuff and bad stuff in it was weird. So I sat up and looked around for the priest. I was really twitchy, nervous, etc. When the priest did emerge from a back bedroom it was because I had called for him frantically. I was seated in a wooden chair with the towel over my shoulders looking and feeling crazy - I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sight of him and screamed. He said here, have a beer man, and passed a half drank small bottle of PBR to me as he opened the front door to invite the girl who signed me up for this into the house. The pries had taken he cassock off and he was wearing a wife heather exposing all his arm tats and somehow he now had dreads and a darker complexion. The priest was totally different now. The girl who came in was not who I was supposed to be on the date with but she explained that she thought I'd enjoy the situation. Then she made the comment that there are videos of people doing it online and it's hilarious to watch them when they get spastic. I asked her if she'd ever done it and she said no. Then I was like "well don't make me do this crazy crap that you won't even do!" She got quiet and looked upset to be scolded. I woke up not long after that, still freaked out and trying to keep the "spirit waves" of heat from flashing through me.

Influences:
There are a lot of little ones from all different times. Katie is a Durham hipster and I feel like she's always having some kind of cool thing that she's involved with that I just don't understand or am not cool enough to come to. I've spent a lot of time recently with Melissa and Jordan visiting Cary/Apex, so I'm used to hearing them talk about the places they like to go. The overarching "date" theme is likely because I've been thinking a lot about dating recently. The missing date is an interesting one, no idea on that, maybe because I don't know who my date/wife is yet? Eating the meal at the burger place seems to be a reflection of having gone to outback with my parents not long ago. The sound stage before that is from reading a wikipedia article about Mary Tyler Moore and how she guest appeared on a TV show that was shot on the same sound stage that her show was shot on. Driving around abandoned San Francisco with Bob Saget, other than being a life dream, was influenced by the episode of Top Gear that I watched the night before last where they drove around abandoned things in Spain to show how dire the economic situation was there. The priest could be due to Catholic Youth weekend being last weekend and seeing a good number of them. No idea where the scary possession tract experience in the priest parsonage came from.

Overall Mood:
WHAT THE FREAK THIS IS TERRIFYING (at the end). Otherwise, pretty meh.

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.

Dream #22

Summary:
Hanging out at what felt like my sister and brother-in-laws old house across the street. Played old NES with Craig, my brother-in-law. At some point everyone went out side to celebrate. There was a little brown dog in the house playing with maggie. I thought it would be funny to open the fridge and let it go in looking for food and then close the door on it. I did and it freaked. When I let it out it spilled stuff on the floor and it was furious. I tried to intimidate it into calming down but it nipped my finger so I slapped it hard. Then Melissa, my other sister came in. She started giving me a hard time about everything (the dog, not hanging out with people, other stuff that I don't remember). I got so angry with her I picked up my stuff (two empty shopping bags) and yelled "Screw You!" at her. I remember she asked me "What did you say" and I repeated it. I instantly felt horrible and went to the utility room (in our house?) and bent over on the dryer near tears. My thoughts were that I didn't like who I was becoming. I took out a receipt from the shopping bag and on it was written a big 08 07 07 and "jesus crossing the..." So I knew these were verses and that they were in a gospel but I didn't know which one. Woke up.

Dream #21

Summary:

This was sort of two dreams that bled into one. In the first one I was with my father in my house trying on a new suit. For some reason this suit had a hood. It was tan, plaid, and had a hood that had two corners to tie together under your head. The doorbell rang and I went to get it. Before I could get to the door a gust of wind (or something) blew my suit off ( I was fully clothed underneath) and try as I might to get it back on it just kept getting more and more flipped inside out and tangled, so in the interest of time I left it and answered the door.
At the door was an incredibly elderly gentleman who introduced himself as being 98 and having lived in a house near ours many years ago. He asked me if I could help him recognize the house and showed me 3 ancient photographs of straight-faced turn-of-the-century folk standing on the porch of a very old house. Around this time my dad walked up and took a look.
"Looks, like you've found it - that's our house!" dad said.
Upon closely re-studying the photo I could see that dad was right, I had just been picturing it being taken from the wrong angle. The old man wanted to tour so my dad happily obliged. At some point here I stepped outside to admire the outside of our house. Turns out, we had a big tower with a dome over it and it was about twice the size that it is in real life. I thought to myself, "hrmph, I wonder why mom and dad never showed me those other rooms before. Dad took the old man through all the rooms that we had kept locked down and hidden away since as far back as I can remember. There was a banquet hall, a theater, a library, etc., all of which was beautifully furnished in Victorian style. After the old man left, I don't remember asking my parents any questions, but I decided that I was going to go check all the rooms out myself and go to the top tower myself.
A small amount of exploring later, I was terrified to find that mom and dad had shut it off for a reason. It was, (of course), haunted. Loud noises pronounced displeasure in my being there as I explored and at the top of the tower the bells started ringing themselves. I was very scared.
The second dream, if you can make the distinction, had to do with Transformers. I had convinced myself that Transformers 2 hadn't come out yet - that the one that was just released earlier this summer was bogus and that the end of the summer version was the real deal. Somehow, I was in this movie. I don' know if they were filming it with me or if it was just real, but I was in it. The movie started out with these really cheesy live-action special effects that had me thinking, "Uh, really guys? This is the best you got? We are not going to beat the other version with this," but then it pulled out from it and it turns out to have been on a T.V. screen. The real movie then started and the special effects were better. In this version the transformers could just leap from vehicle to vehicle. In the part I was in we were having to hide from the bad guys in a house so we leapt into some toys, one of which may have been a teddy bear.

Influences:
Where to start? The old guy coming to the door was reminiscent of an occasion when this actually happened and with the alumni reunion we had a couple of weeks ago at Caswell in which a lot of old staffers came back and told stories of the good old days. The suit I was wearing at the beginning is pretty obvious. In my job hunt it has become necessary to shop for suits so I have been doing that lately. The extra rooms on my house looked a lot like the rooms from the Reichstag building in Call of Duty: World at War, which I was playing last night. I saw transformers earlier this summer and hearing people talk about G.I. Joe made me think back to the old cartoons of the 80's. Last night same read me a story about a teddy bear that clogged a drain and killed 1500 fish. That may be the teddy bear tie-in.

Overall Mood:
This is creepy - but cool...

Dream #20

Summary:
Barack Obama came to town! I can't remember why, but he was coming to deliver the message at a church that looked a lot like my home church in Four Oaks. There were a lot of African Americans there, though, so I feel like it was a different church (I don't know that I've ever seen one at my church before). I know that some of my family was not excited at all that he was coming to town, but I resolved to go see him. The start of the service was just held by a black preacher and he was a very stereotypical African American preacher. The service was interesting, and at some point I realized that the Obama family was in the room - wife, kids, the whole shabang. Obama got up and gave the sermon and I remember thinking what a decent person he seemed like. Some part of me really wanted to like him even though I haven't been 100% onboard in the past. Then I started looking around for security and the secret service because I was nervous that someone might wish him harm. Obama was preaching just like the other black preacher - it was really funny. All of a sudden, he was just gone. The Secret Service escorted the family out of some back door and they were gone. When I realized that they were gone, I was really sad.

Influences:
Obama is everywhere so that could be anything. I think I've secretly liked Obama for a while. This may be why I had a very sympathetic mood toward him in the dream. Also, my friend Jeff just bought a celebratory plate with Obama on it and I just saw it this past weekend. I'm sure that's all floating around in there. I think I'm also really afraid that someone will harm him or his family. I hope the secret service is well prepared to do their job. No problems since JFK so I think we're good.

Overall Mood:
Neato!
...and, I feel out of place...

Dream #19

Summary:
The earliest part that I can remember (but it seems like it was going long before this), I was walking with my mother and sister through some old, 17th century European looking back alleys and we came to a staircase with a landing and two flights that ended at a a red wooden door on the side of a stone house. When we went in, we found ourselves in a Boy Scout lodge. Yes, I'm aware that the Boy Scouts don't have lodges. Anyway, there was a really ancient looking boy scout sitting at a desk in the lobby room and he asked us if we wanted any brochures on the forest. This is when we realized we were in a forest and not in the village. The village just ended at that point and we must have climbed up a ledge into the Boy Scout Lodge. It was a really nice log cabin place with high ceilings.
Skip to me staying there, alone. I had a room that I was staying in and I knew that I was living on the kindness of the Boy Scout overseer guy, whom I could tell was uncomfortable with letting me stay there but didn't have the heart to kick me out. Eventually I came back in and the bed was gone and lots of stuff was in the room. I knew he must have moved it to get rid of me. When I found him he told me that he'd been asked to move it out and that they couldn't help me anymore, and that he was sorry. I went outside and found the "bed" which was now a raft for some reason and floating in an intense stream that went under a bridge and right by a dock next to the room I had been staying. I think that I took the raft somehow over the big waterfall and back up to a chill point where the water branched further-upstream. Then JaySun Webb shows up and we're chatting.
This is weird and hard to describe. There is a huge grate, like a fence, at one broad point in the stream before the part that branches off to the waterfall, the dock, and the Boy Scout lodge. My raft gets loose and gets stuck near this grate on a wall that is built to hold the water back on either side of it. I'm in a mild panic to get it back. For some reason I have to strip down to my underwear to get it. About that time, it gets loose and flows down the waterfall toward the boy scout house and I notice that JaySun has stripped down to his underwear to help in the recovery. Then, miraculously, the stream shuts off in the middle (Moses, anyone?). About that time a Jeep FILLED with Caswell BDT staff comes rolling through the water on the now clear creek-bed. They turn when they get to us and drive down toward the boy scout house. I throw on my, (completely dry), clothes and follow them in hot pursuit. JaySun follows me, still mostly unclothed. When we get there some of the BDT are cracking jokes on us, (I don't know why in my case, but in JaySun's because he's wearing whitey tighties). I go under or into the building, and pick up the raft. It is so wet and soggy, like ruined cardboard or a chewed up toothpick, that it falls apart when I pick it up. I carry out the biggest piece I can get. As we're walking away, some of the nice BDT girls come up and talk to us, and JaySun in noticeably embarrassed. They bring him an oversized coverup T-shirt, the same type they give campers at the pool and beach when they don't follow dress code. He doesn't put it on but instead holds it in front of himself to cover up. Presumably, we walked away.

Influences:
Well, for the boy scouts bit, I found an old photograph of myself in cub scouts a few days ago while cleaning my room. I also talked about little league with Joe last night and that was sort of the same thing at the same time in my life. Maybe that's where it came from. As for walking with Mom and Melissa, we went walking yesterday. The overseer in the boy scout lodge is a projection of how I see my supporters for CCF, (some of them, certainly not all), in that I worry I'm a strain to them and they just would like for me to move on. Also, as CCF intern I sleep at a lot of different places in Raleigh. JaySun's appearance could be for any reason, I talk to him a lot. The BDT's arrival on the jeep is most likely due to my thoughts being on Caswell a lot lately since I'm going to visit there on the first for staff reunion. I have no clue about the underwear, unless it was just a way of embarrassing myself in the dream. I felt worse for the dreamed up JaySun, though.

Overall Mood:
((grumble grumble)), piece of crap...