Thursday, December 31, 2009 5:46am The Dangling Body
I am traveling with a man and his young son. The boy seems to be autistic or such, and sometimes has to "led," apparently often with the light from a flashlight. At one point a large steel frame blocks our path; I move it up and for a moment the man thinks we'll need to coax the boy, but the boy quickly moves past. As I let the frame back down on the grass, there's a spark at one of its interior corners from which a small flame erupts.
Despite being a tiny wee flame, I go to stamp it out and see the entire corner of the metal frame is glowing red hot. As setting it down and leaving it would set alight the nearby brush, I carry the large box framework down into a parking lot, a few yards away having espied a couple of wide puddles into which I figure I can put down the corner and let it cool. The corner hisses angrily as the water cools down the metal. As I lift it up to carry it across the parking lot back to where it had been lying, I suddenly notice on one of the corners is a dead man, attached to the corner at his neck as though he'd used this cube like framework to hang himself. I am concerned I will be blamed for his man's death; he did not come from the puddle, his clothes are dry. It is as though he was attached the whole time and somehow I managed not to notice. The body is at the far end, the cube framework now elongated and the body a few yards from me. While at first he seems to resemble Brendan Frasier in neutral coloured clothing, moments later he lacks hair and has a bright button-down yellow shirt.
Just as I am realizing with surprise that the framework and the full size man dead body appear to weight nothing as I'm having no difficulty carrying across this parking lot (much farther returning than from where I'd found it), suddenly I notice near the end from which dangles the body a car has parked. Just as a family begins to emerge from their car, I make a feeble attempt at "hiding" the body, simply letting it come to rest next to the car, it slowly folding up like a marionette with slack strings. Now I notice a bloody welt at the back of its neck, the face downwards and out of sight. For some reason I know we are near Universal Studios, which helps me as the family's son notices the body; the father is so silently aghast that his hands raise to his head in horror. Clearly obvious that a cell phone is about to come to call the police, I have traversed the distance and as I approach I say simply, "Please do not touch the prop."
The entire family relaxes with relief, as the son and daughter come closer, the boy touching the back of the head (as I anticipated), the boy commenting, "Whoa, it really feels real...!"
"Careful, careful," I gently admonish. "That’s expensive..."
Predictably concerned he might have to pay for something, the father calls the boy away from the body. The freckle faced dirty-blonde daughter (wearing a 1950's hairstyle and similar time period style dress), declares she cannot get past the framework (on which the body is still attached). I sweepingly point with my right hand that she can just go around. "Oh, you think so?" she says in a slightly haughty, challenging tone, putting her fists on her hips.
I lean forward in a quiet but mock-authority/threatening way: "Oh, I know so...!"
The young girl squeals with delight at the playing-her-game aspect of my statement, and she scurries around the framework and joins her family.
My real concern during this encounter is somebody taking a photo with a cell phone of the body, but the family quickly moves off.
Dream Shift: I am in some sort of dilapidated museum; my mother is looking for something but is concerned that some of the tall bookcases, (as though in a library), are causing darkness as they're not well lit. I offer to walk those along-the-wall aisles while she walk in the better little center of the hallway, but she continues on into the shadows.

Monday, December 28, 2009 5:08am The Monster in the Pit
I am being pursued; I know that my pursuers seek me for another for whom they work. These would be henchmen, not their main boss, who I know to be the Master from Doctor Who (the better Derek Jacobi version, not the sociopath John Simms incarnation). As my pursuers are human, I deduce they might not think three dimensionally, so as I have enough of a head start, I quickly begin to head downwards, down escalators that get thinner. Even the top stairs of the escalators are wider than the lower stairs, as though I am progressing through forced perspectives. I race down several sets of such escalators, almost gliding... but not floating as in other dreams. Several levels down, I suspect I have eluded capture, only to find the Master casually having waited for me patiently to come to him... as I realize he does think three dimensionally, and expected I might try this way. I manage not to be seen and careful get oudoors into the night.
Dream Shift (with much Dream Fade): what would seem to be the climax either of my storyline or one I am witnessing, two adversaries come right down to it. The villain of the two stands near the edge of a pit lined with loose quarry like rocks. The other is higher up on a landing; the pit is within a series of empty bleacher seats. The villain's intent is to have his opponent in the pit from which the hero had already managed to escape. Within the pit is some man-eating monster. As I move left to right as though watching the scene like a dolly-camera, the hero makes his move and drops down, slamming hard onto the loose rocks. Somehow this creates a ripple effect enough that the rocks under the villian's feet loosen and slide him into the maw of the pit. This time the monster is awake; its roar is more like a piercing, peculiar yodeling. The hero and I hasten up the opposite set of bleacher steps to escape, as the villain below chest deep in roiling, white-foamed water, does not relent, but angrily fights to climb before being set upon by the monster that would be his doom.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009 4:57am Not Oscar
As I crossing an outdoor childrens-playground of sorts to get to the picnic tables, my feet briefly leave the ground and I continue to drift forwards. Wait, am I floating...? I wonder to myself, and lift up my legs, and drift over a box. I am less amazed than I am puzzled. I stand next to a table as I work at deducing, Don't I only float like that when I'm dreaming...? I rap on the hard wooden table top and as there's no door jam around, I rap again thinking hard, Am I dreaming?
Unfortunately the dream still has me pretty strong and I'm convinced I am awake, yet think no more of the apparent ability to float.
I go into the nearby building, its internatl layout similar to the front hallway and foyer to the Montclair [New Jersey] house, though here the front door and porch lead to a back yard. My friend's dog Dumbledore is there waiting for me; the yard is uneven and at its boundary seems to drop away, bordered for safety by a chain link fence. At the left corner near the porch (where would be hedges were it the front yard of the Montclair house), is a small chain fence enclosure. Near it is a small Yorkshire terrier spinning around madly. I pick it up and I'm surprised to learn it isn't Oscar, one of Dumble's dog friends. It squirms in my hand more to get back to the ground than asking attention as Oscar would do. A man walks up to the fence (not Oscar's owner Shane), and indicates it's his dog that recently got loose.

Thursday, December 17, 2009 5:12am Thirsty lover
A young, pretty girl is being very flirtatious with me; she is shorter than I, and slightly resembles actress Anna Kendrick without actually being her. As the conversation continues I suddenly begin to deduce she is a vampire, and she begin to request of me for some blood. I politely decline, mostly due to concerns she could get carried away and instead of a small drink could easily drain (and/or turn) me.
While she becomes more insistant, she does not force herself on me (apparently to her, no does mean no...). While concerned, I am not fearful. At one point she steps close enough that I instinctively put up my hand, which ends up falling on her breast. I quickly pull away and after apologizing, I convey and inquire a) how can either of us be sure she will only take a little blood, b) inquiring after how painful is the process and c) this is a high level request from a female with whom I am not actively having ongoing physically intimate sexual relations.
While she understands, she seems to consider the sexual aspect as appealing. Meanwhile I wonder whether she can accept blood from an alternate method of actually biting me (already quietly determinate that should sex be involved, I could not be expected to allow her to perform anything too -- oral...). Having seen enough films that vampires do not require to drink from the neck, I begin to pull away my right thumb's cuticle until it begins to flow blood. Not without irony, the girl is horrified at this method, and steps out onto a balcony for some air. At first what emits is a strange clear-watery liquid with a hint of orange, almost as though a water blister had been broken. It spills onto some newspaper as she returns and sees the many sickly-orange droplets. She tastes it from the paper and finds them tolerable. Meanwhile actual blood has begun flowing down my thumb in a straight line down almost past the knuckle; this she accepts happily (and for me, painlessly).

Wednesday, December 16, 2009 5:07am Dumpster
On the south side on Hollywood Boulevard I walk east crossing Highland, into the back of a building which geographically feels as though it is where would be the Museum of Guinness World Records, just beyond the McDonalds. The alley is essentially two buildings, the two walls of which creating a roofless ten foot wide "hallway." Along side the red-brick southern wall is a small, regular green dumpster, into which I toss a bag of trash. Above the open dumpster is swarming with mosquitos or mosquito-like flying insects. As I toss it in, I strike the swarm with the bag. Thankfully they remain just above the dumpster opening. I am aware I am to take the dumpster in a truck of some kind for removal, and the loading thereof will be done for me; all I have to do is drive the truck (I do not feel it will be a standard garbage truck sort of truth).
I go into the building to where I'd be working to finish up something, aware that by now the truck outside I am to drive is ready; its engine running. The gated door opens as Aaron Douglas (Chief Tyrol from the Sci-Fi series Battlestar Galactica) suddenly enters, along with a group of men who begin to retrieve a series of boxes. Before it is recognized that the truck I am to drive is running unattended outside, I quickly close the program and switch off the computer, relaying I am on my way out.
Later I am driving the truck southbound on what appears a version of Bloomfield Avenue in Montclair (New Jersey, though the road is more flat than that aspect of that main street), to my right I pass the Claridge Theater, the marquee of which declares it is showing The Lone Ranger, and apparently one of the classic versions with Clayton Moore. (As the Lone Ranger is one of my favourite fictional heroes), as I drive by, I think to myself that I should remember that that is playing there, and to check it out.

Monday, December 07, 2009 5:23am Visiting vampires and silver blood
As a welcomed guest, I am with a group of [Twilight emo type] vampires at some large estate. Without their knowlege they have been infiltrated by some other not-quite-human species, that have bright silvery blood that glows almost phosphorescent, one being a young blonde girl (closely resembling similarly to Dakota Fanning's character in the New Moon movie). A thin ribbon of silvery blood runs from her nose to her upper lip. Somehow as she goes to hide so as not to be exposed as a non-vampire, she must have bumped into me or such, as a some of the blood ends up on my right hand.
My local best friend and I are attending some large function that will contain a performance or presentation of some sort. I carry a massive long archery bow slung across my back until we reach the front of a balcony from which we plan to observe this display. One of the lead vampires (sort of liked Edward James Olmos), discovers I have the bow and retrieves it from me, admonishing me about taking it, but not outright scolding me.
The balcony extends as though from the second floor of the house, overlooking the large free-standing stage building within the estate's yard. Numerous people/vampires are below on the lawn between the house and the wide stage. The very center of the balcony is thrust forward as the inside of a V; we sit forward so as to have no vision blockage, particularly aware another couple want the same "seats," as it were. At the right of the balcony is a higher section of lawn, resembling a small area of the Pompton Plains homes up in which I grew, at the tween place of the back to front yards.
Eventually I realize I have this weird silvery liquid on my hands, and that it strongly reflects light, similar to the material used as Krypton clothing is the Geroge Reeve's Superman feature. I know this would Not Go Over Well, so foolishly I go to wipe it off but do so on the left knee of my pants, leaving a similar lightning-vein pattern thereon, however on the material the reflective glow is a deep scarlet red. I cannot leave the proceedings that are just about to start so as to change, and I on the lawn along the hedge I quickly manage to find two of my own dark t-shirts (?!), with which I can cover my knees and if asked claim I am cold.
My back is to the lit stage area, but some sort of spotlight strokes my back, and its rays of light seem to "catch" me; the rays of light hold me fast as strong as Hellraiser barb-hooks. I can visualize it as not quite a full beam of light but therefrom numerous such "hooks," holding fast my clothing, and I cannot move my held-out right arm, and other such thin "hooks" hold along my outline, as it were. The lightning-vein pattern on my left knee glows bright red, threatening to expose being on my clothing, and I wonder why/how the light beam can hold me thus. While I deduce most likely it could be being used to expose some of the non-human non-vampires, it must be attunded to the silvery blood.
Like Sauron's gaze, the light beam eventually moves off, and I am released. Relieved, with the t-shirts I hastily cover my knees and resume sitting back on the balcony. The other couple and my friend inquire if I'm alright and as to what is wrong. I simply reply, "It'd take too long to explain, and it would upset you."

Friday, December 04, 2009 5:35am Floating along
Wearing my winter coveralls and gloves, I am with a very small group of people being toured around some large theatre, even though a choir performance of some kind is going on. I never really look to the stage, but I can hear them singing quite well. I get bored and gently lift my legs and float along behind the others, never once suspecting I am dreaming; in fact, I silently commend myself for having finally learned how to fly. From the balcony We ascend stairs to the main hallways at which we turn left to head down towards the lobby, my feet still never so much as touching the floor (I am, in fact, in an apparent sitting position). One of our group is a young woman who I follow. She passes some sort of free-standing concession stand, and I drift too close to it and bonk into it with all the control of a loose helium balloon. She turns and I jokingly quip it being tough to stop. She continues on into a crowd of people, as I begin to float along with a bit more speed. I pass into the parking lot as though it is Pequannock Township High School, though its second main front lot is mired within a Florida bog. I realizes I must avoid touching down in the water, and manage to touch down in what turns out to be thick mud. A small flock of startled ravens fly up at me; I have just enough time for my hands to be up as each hand's glove is savagely bitten by one bird each, and they continue on, passing behind me.
I realize I am in a tenuous situation, aware this is probable alligator country. Very carefully I tread my way to more solid ground, where a tiny long-haired Gary Oldman is extricating himself from an ancient Conquistador helmet (he is tiny as in, his entire body fits into this regular size helmet).
I head back into the building, now at the other end, and find a long room in which two people are watching something (a movie or television program), projected on the wall. One of the two is my Pasadena friend Amy, and I glide by to a corner desk on which is paperwork I know is mine. Amongst the paperwork are some small autographed photo-posters. Nearby is a wide, open door (wide along the lines of being a sound stage door). Outside a station wagon pulls up to a fast-food order box (the box ending up on the car's passenger side), from which a voice complimenting the adorable kitten in the female driver's lap. Without a word the woman chooses to drive off, to the surprise and puzzlement of the order-taker.

Monday, November 23, 2009 4:53pm Cabins and cars
My friend is dropping me off. As my jacket and stuff are in the back seat, as I get out I clearly say, "Let me just get my stuff out of the back." The instant the passenger door shuts the car begins to move away. I quickly rap hard staccato taps on the back window, and the car stops; another couple of raps has her unlock the door/s so I can retrieve my jacket.
I turn away and head towards a house as her car pulls away. I see a flurry of golden-brown movement at my right; I see an animal on the lawn has fled, but it was fast enough I cannot tell if it was a large rabbit or a small fawn.
Opening the front door of the modern-day style cabin, sunlight streams in to reveal Daniel, a former coworker. He is on the floor playing some board game by himself whilst just behind him is a rather old fashioned television set, playing December holiday footage. I close the door and notice how dimly lit is the room. I re-open the door as I mention this fact, but Daniel points out the sunlight falling directly onto the TV glares the image.

Thursday, October 29, 2009 4:47am Snogging Madonna

Of late it has been very difficult remembering my dreams; weird that this is the first that has been vivid enough to record...

Saturday, October 10, 2009 5:40am Hogwarts Secret Society
Some sort of at-night initiation is going on with numerous young males of Hogwarts. One boy is nervous about drinking from a goblet, and I notice the goblet is small, and silver, and apparently floating in mid-air. I am unsure if it's being levitated, whether a boy has gone invisible from drinking from it, or if Harry Potter is holding it whilst he wears his Invisibility Cloak. One of the older men running the event urges the boy to go for it; I presume it's also this particular boy's father.
Suddenly a horseman madly gallops in, seeming Draco Malfoy, demanding Potter and not in a good hail-fellow-well-met sort of way: very murderous intent, in fact. Everyone scatters in panic and the scene mildly shifts to another, as though one is in a strange movie trailer, but not of the Harry Potter series. A girl in her late teens or early twenties is at a vendor counter, the sort of vendor one would have at Diagon Alley or a Renaissance Faire. She verbally describes the situation, that she and her boyfriend are leaving on holiday until this dreadful business has passed. Glancing about I cannot see Harry Potter, so I approach the girl, who I notice is a bit taller than I (in fact, it seems as though she is my longtime friend Alison).
"Is this... is this the actual movie trailer?" I ask of her.
"Yes," she whispers, conspiratorially.
"Well," I say, still covertly looking about. "Where's Harry?"
The girl gestures over her right shoulder. Across the aisle is a tall fellow; within his large dark floor-length coat I can just make out (Daniel Radcliff as) Harry Potter, cautiously giving me a bit of wave, his face darkened by the shadow of the coat. The girl all but answers my next puzzled question when she says, "We can't show him on screen yet until his films are all done." I realize she means he (Harry), cannot be seen on film in the trailer with his glasses, as they're his trademark. Once the Harry Potter film series is complete, Harry (as opposed to Daniel Radcliff), can be in other movies...

Tuesday, October 06, 2009 5:47am MSTie'd training films, stroke-driven cars and rogue tobacconists
Somehow a friend has convinced me to accompany her to a newly acquired job... and help her at it. Turns out it has to be do with packing tobacco products (I quickly realize it's more about smuggling tobacco than packaging it legitimately), and after a while she is accused of not being efficient enough. Remembering it is her first day, the boss above her supervisor realizes should watch a training film. We find out way to a white room with numerously highly-raked rows of seats. The silver-bead screen at front row level is easier to see from the front row so we sit right there. I notice that the screen is torn from top left to bottom right; beyond is another room with an ancient film project facing the right. The black and white training film starts suddenly and it remains visible even where there's no screen. Immediately I suspect this thing was made in the 1040s or 50s, just as a narrator starts to say, "It's of paramount importance..." just as the highly recognizable voice of Kevin Murphy riffs in with, "... to find a proper film shoot location!"
Generally having a low tolerance for well-written humour, my friend realizes while this may be a training film, it's a MSTie'd version. She goes to get up to leave, but I whisper urgently in her ear that it'd mean her job to walk out. Sheeluctantly sticks it out to the end (Dream Fade has me lose most of it, but a lot had to do with a group of friends hanging out, and little if nothing to do with doing the job at hand). Even though I've filled out no paperwork, there are hints at scheduling about to take place, and I know if my friend is threatened with being fired, I can threaten to notify the authorities of this operation.
Dream Shift: I am sitting in someone else's car (apparently somewhere on Sunset east of Vermont), and for some reason I need to move the car. I put it into reverse and K-turn it onwards, obviously close to the curb. Instead of parking, I discover my legs are not working, as well as their hanging out the car's doorless driver side. I am facing out the windshield towards the right side of the car, so I can see the curb, and the ground dropping away beyond it... if I cannot keep the car straight and it drifts right, it will plummet down the increasingly deepening ravine. I managed to keep turning the wheel to the left, but the car remains rock steady straight, the curb mere inches from the tire.

Friday, September 18, 2009 5:08am Co-workers at the Gate
I am at work at the table I use as a desk, however, instead of sitting straight on, I am sitting on a chair at its side; the table is between me and the pedestrian aisle one uses when one enters. The gate is open and one or two of my female coworkers enter, saying hello and glancing over to me, and halting in surprise, noting that I am not wearing a shirt and realizing that while the table accurately eclipses anything obvious, I verbally clarify that yes, I happen to be naked.
I have no idea as to why I am not wearing anything, but unlike the stereotypical dream about nakedness, I am more characteristically unembaressed about the situation. I am fully aware that for the benefit of my coworkers I'd best put on something, and I diplomatically suggest perhaps I be given a minute or two alone so as to be dress myself. The ladies are more amused at the situation than embaressed, but they do begin to file out, a few less hastily than others (one or two of the more mischeivously playful ones [who I won't name here] casually try to See What Normally They Wouldn't as they slowly pass, heading to the gated-door and out). One such "dawdler" is gently pushed to the door by another woman to keep her moving. As they depart I begin seriously wonder why I would be undressed this way, as there's no practical reason for it.
Dream Shift:
[Clothed], I arrive at some event, passing behind a group of people that I deduce are actually part of a long queue for something. They are facing to their right, leaning against the metal railing, leaving open their section of the queue as I walk behind them. I figure if I am challenged I can point out I'm not really in the queue, just passing through. I do continue on and enter a large two-storey tall room, a tall and wide open doorway to the sidewalk.
Dream Fade has me forget what goes on in the room, but I bring outside into the night some item that needs washing; a rain spout is broken that a strong shower of clean rainwater or such spews onto the sidewalk, and I place the item there to be washed off.

Thursday, September 17, 2009 5:53am Incompetent phone caller
Outdoors in a park or such, with numerous people milling about (none of whom pay attention to myself or the certain Kenyan who is with me), there is a computer monitor and keyboard on a lengthy picnic table. Apparently to dial a phone number one just begins to enter numbers and the dial-number box auto-pops up; once entered and return is pressed, the number is called (this is not Skype or anything, nor is it a dial-up connection: just making a call). I am assisting Barack Obama who is trying to use the computer with which to make a call (only the monitor and keyboard are visible; if it's a desktop it's under the table). Obama stands there and enters numbers but consistently keeps getting it wrong. My characteristic patience wears thin; while Dream Memory negates my remembering to call him on his Socialist agenda/s: I am busy actually trying to assist him making this call properly.
He constantly misdials by using the numbers across the top of the keyboard, despite my insistence he use the keypad on the right side of the keyboard.
The phone number is either 1-800-900-1010 or 1-800-900-2020, but Obama constantly cannot enter the numbers correctly. At one point he asks if this is okay, and the numbers in the box read 1-8-9-1-0, making me exclaim at him, "[Eff] me; are you really this [eff]ing stupid...?!"
"Are you busy tomorrow?" he suddenly asks me.
"Tomorrow?" I reply cautiously. "Why?" I ask with understandable suspicion, considering the source.
"I need you to work for me for just one day," he says simply.
What's he up to? I wonder worriedly, as I ask aloud, "For how much?"
"The normal amount rate," he begins. Before I can point out this is an (annoyingly and willfully) obtuse answer (plus, my hourly pay-rate working for an anti-American would be well outside his budget, I'm sure), he immediately clarifies this as being twelve dollars an hour. I happen to drift awake quickly, aghast at knowing that for a moment, I actually was considering the perfidious Socialist's offer.

Tuesday, September 08, 2009 5:06am Doctor Who and the Holiday Tree Mystery
Much Dream Fade, but generally we are at a large house, formerly an orphanage or such. Legend has it there was some major carnage, the perpetrator of same carried off the Christmas tree.
Now it is years later and (the Patrick Troughton incarnation of) the Doctor has been about, examining the house for clues as to what happened.
As we walk through the industrial kitchen, I find the floor so slippery it becomes very difficult for my feet to find proper purchase. The Doctor suddenly realizes something and dashes from the kitchen into a large room, the majority of the unused early 20th century furniture stacked about.
"You see...?" he shouts with characteristic worried urgency in his voice, pointing. "The Christmas tree is still there...!"
Sure enough, a relatively small artificial fir tree rests atop a stacked against the wall pile of furniture. Apparently this either means the assailant is not who was accused of the crime, or the assailant has returned, and/but either way, the latter of which means trouble...

Friday, August 28, 2009 4:54am Clothing needs and rolling buildings
After walking some distance I realize all I am wearing is a t-shirt. I struggle to remember how I could go outside such, and all I can think is what a long walk back to where there are clothes. Dreading coming across someone who will see me, I hasten back towards wence I came.
Dream Shift: I am in a tall city building which Dream Memory tells me belongs to Donald Trump. I quickly go into a small office to change clothes: I hastily put on jeans despite wearing a suit shirt and jacket.
A side door into the room suddenly opens. "Whoa, whoa!" I say, my left arm outstretched in a vain effort to keep someone from walking in on me, mostly as I'm not supposed to be there.
A cleaning woman or so stops abruptly on entering, noting I am putting on pants over my underwear, and she hastens back out. As I finish being dressed, I notice that the building clearly is moving on rollers or such, and I somehow know it is heading to the water's edge. It stops, but being way high up I can feel the building gently swaying as the momentum below suddenly halts.
The main door opens and a few business men enter, talking amongst themselves, too busy to pay any heed to me, and I move about a few papers to give the illusion I belong there. I remain unchallenged, and the moment I can, I exit the main door and make a left through the office environment; around the corner I notice the unremarkable side door, which I deem I should make a mental note to remember in case I need to use it again.

Friday, August 14, 2009 4:43am Cabin Waiting Room
I enter a cabin of sorts with a wide living room which is an extremely crowded waiting room of some kind. I sit on a sofa against the wall as a seemingly random amount of people rise up and head to the next area while simultaneously the same number of people enter from outside and take the newly available seats.
I get that it's more of background artists that are going and new ones coming in, as though carefully choreographed for specific movement, or at least for minimal chaos.

Thursday, August 13, 2009 5:04am A Bit Too Much Exposure
5:42am 8/13/2009 A Bit Too Much Exposure (In what seems to be a mall "store" or such), I find myself in some tantric workshop or such where the naked participants are working on their own mats (far apart from each other), each of them all rather middle-aged and not very attractive (to me). As I stand observing, I notice my pants are down; as though I've drowsed for a moment I notice the people are up and milling about, their clothes back on.
I'd better put this away, I think to myself and hastily pull up my pants. I go upstairs where as I try to keep moving forward my progress is nearly non-existent; outside I can see through the windows the background exterior (trees and streets and such), is all moving as though the building was moving though no momentum is felt. With all this I suspect to the point of realizing I am dreaming but I neglect to take advantage of Lucid Dreaming.
Finally I make it to an upper level with a very thin ledge onto which I land, and even though Dream Memory assures me I've done this route countless times, but I still find myself concerned about stepping off into space and falling to the one-storey floor below.

Monday, August 03, 2009 4:53am Executive Downsizing and the Rose Exhibit
I am near the center of some science museum. There is a clamour inside than some major exhibit for which everyone has come, has been closed. I am walking with someone around the perimeter outside the room, a glass wall separating us from inside. I cannot make out what the multiple projection screens are indicating; for some reason I believe the exhibit is about fractions. Once inside we head to a bank of escalators, almost all those working are coming up (one or two others are closed for preventative maintenance). I can now see banners indicating the closed exhibit is about the rose. I find that as surprising as the multitude of furious people that are angrily leaving due to the exhibit not being available.
Later, not a participant myself in the scene, I witness a woman, seemingly resembling Kathleen Turner (in the 1980s), having returned to some distant (from California) state, apparently southern. She has been crying so hard that her words are almost difficult to understand. I am aware she has been affluent, but she has been downsized from a high paying job; she has had no choice but to return to her home town, a choice she loathes. She is sober but her crying jag leaves her voice sound suspiciously so...
Sitting in her parked car, she makes a lame attempt to get the help of a local postman. Her description of for what she seeks has him suggest he drive her "out to the Wainwright ranch."
She gets out of her car, her ragged voice still in pain from crying, refusing such assistance (I deduce that that is her former home, at which lives her family she dreads facing). She manages to point out she might do that, but that she does not know if anyone is home, and she cannot remember the location of the hidden key.
On the sidewalk a man she her and decides to help, but cannot see beyond his own perceptions, thinking her to be a "regular homeless" person, despite, her pearl necklace, wearing white high heel shoes, et al.
The man makes a lame attempt to comfort her, citing a bit of scripture, but this sets her into a sarcastic binge of citing numerous such lines, as she literally prances about (almost madly), proving her point that such recitations do nothing for her situation
When he cautiously suggests she accept his information about a local homeless shelter, her voice clears up in fury. She reveals the job she just lost was at 20th Century Fox... where she was earning a hundred thousand dollars... a month (as clearly she'd worked here for some years under such conditions, I personally wonder briefly why she would be so distraught as to be [that is, sound as thought she is] financially destitute, having been making one point two million a year: she an't have lost it all...).

Thursday, July 30, 2009 5:42am Where being an ichthyologist might have come in handy
I am in a moderately lit grey warehouse in which a close friend has some sort of college science fish experiment. For some reason I am to clean two aquariums, one atop the other. My friend stands there, ready to depart for class, but is a little snappy, demanding, "I want you to clean that side dish!"
While I know she means a meal dish, not anything to do with my immediate cleaning project, her order is still overly vague and I have no idea as to what dish she refers. Aware of her dislike of being clear in th'first place, and her being even more aggravated when her vague directions are given clarifying questions, I do not answer to find out what she means.
The aquariums are on a large piece of plywood atop saw-horses: not exactly sturdy or secure. My cleaning thankfully only consists of the exterior, not inside. But as they are precariously placed, the shift dangerously, and I struggle and manage to maintain their Not Falling (a tricky enough endevour, as I have to stand on a step stool).
I move the top one over onto another pile of something flat, when suddenly while I'm not looking there is a rush of water. I look up and the nearest wide-side has broken, all the water in the tank has rushed out. Just at my waist is the other tank, and a large fish rests on a wide drink coaster, above water level. I do not know if he fell out of the higher tank with the water; I put him into the water of the tank in which he rests, and be breaches violently. I figure one tank must be salt water and the other fresh, and I've no idea what sort of fish this is.
Being an emergency, I go to call my friend, but my phone refuses to start up properly, its screen showing bizarre symbols and incorrect menu choices. I quickly walk up the path and even though it's an incline, I feel it's a movie sound stage back-lot. A few Dream Characters greet me pleasantly as I walk by, or they're walking in the same direction. I feel a tug and my phone has a massively long power cord coming from ahead, despite any farther back and I would not have reached.
As I walk outside the lot on the sidewalk (still an incline, to the left), the sidewalk has a strong current of water coming down, just above shoe sole level, making my feet drag as I try and walk uphill against the current. With no way to save the fish without my friend's help, even were I to get her on the phone I dread the fact by now they must be goners.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009 5:36am Losing lift
Following some events, Dream Fade has clouded, I am in a small elevator with three others who are space merchants (apparently Star Wars-ian), but unbeknownst to them, they are marked for an "accidental" death, to avoid having to pay them. And unfortunately... I simply happen to be in the same elevator.
The elevator begins to drop suddenly, clearly out of control. The control operator comes on, reassuring to stay calm etc. She tries to explain how the contraption operates, indicating it goes through a loop (as in, passing the same place in a single direction).
"Wait," I offer, and suggest some technobabble about quantum mechanics that should stop the elevator.
After a pause, the operator replies with, "I dunno even know if you actually jus'said anything...!" Somehow I manage to repeat it, as I simultaneously visualize that the control operator is a large, sentient, angry-faced white chicken.
The elevator manages to slow to a sudden stop, but on going to disembark we find there is no floor, just a ledge just outside the elevator door, barely able to accomodate a foot. A few feet out on the wall is an old black-rotary pay phone, on which I rest of right hand. The three hold my arms to keep me from falling; the leader of the trio assists me in sitting on the ledge. Below us is a marble floored elevator lobby, as though we stopped one floor too early. It's not an overly far drop, but a bad jumped landing most likely could break a leg. One of the two others carefully jumps down and manages do so so without injury. I cannot find a wall-ladder, and when all three are down there they're able to catch me as I hop down.

Friday, July 24, 2009 5:22am Ev'ryone knows it's Windy...
I am in a small loft-like apartment that has been mostly gutted of furniture; during what seems to be the poorest turn-out for a wine-cheese party, a large screen TV plays the film Strictly Background while its director Jason frets at the sad turn-out.
I meet a young man who greets me at the bar; Dream Memory tells me this Dream Character is a recent but good online friend (a la Facebook or MySpace), and we chat for a bit.
I go to get a chair but despite it leaning casually up against a long flat table, a cascade of nearby stacked chairs takes place. Dream Memory tells me that locally this is a strong cultural taboo: that it is a very dark omen of bad luck. I attempt to make humour of it, and thankfully those who assist me do not appear to be frightened.
After a bit, Jason and I are distracted looking out the window at extremely mobile clouds, many of them right only ten or so floors up in the streets. They are moving as though via time-lapse photography in real-time. In the distance between two buildings we see a massive black cloud forming and rushing this way, all but racing past us above the buildings as we watch it zoom by like a cloud-made dirigible.
I run downstairs and find the backdoor to outside. Making sure there's handle so I can get back in, I walk out into the wide, sun-lit alley. The clouds zoom about in the strong winds, as in one direction I see what would appear to be the Los Angeles skyscrapers but they are all varied shades of dark-chocolate brown in colour (that is, not all one dark-brown colour: some highlights are darker than others, but all very dark brown). I head back in and up the stairs to hear what seems to be a live staged reading with my friends Jack and
Marvin, through which Dream Memory makes me "remember" I am part of this live show and I've aleardy missed any earlier scene in which I was supposed to be on stage. It seemed to be behind-the-scenes scenes of Strictly Background; I wondered if I would be allowed to participate in the Q&A if I wasn't part of the "show."
I go up many flights to large white-walled suite in which I am staying with my best local friend. I notify her of the strange clouds and the strong winds, just as I notice outside a peculiar white shape. I quickly realize it is not a cloud, but an out of control, quickly deflating hot air balloon.
Aghast, I tell her to look, as we watch in horror as the winds outside pull it down the street below our floor level. Suddenly the entire building lurches, swaying in the wind's grip. She and I feel the building pushed, then right itself.
"Time for us to get out of here," I point out and she does not argue the point as we head down to where the wine and cheese party is located.

Thursday, July 16, 2009 5:06am College girls, Dumble and dogs, and hiking in the San Pedro wilds
I am at a college eatery with a young woman (seemingly) very attracted to me. The server brings over a wide round tray and sets it on top of my head. When he removes it, a large pile of french fries cover my hair. They do not want to simply fall off; with some annoyance I walk to the grill area and swish my head hard, expecting them to fly off my head into the food preparation area.
They don't. I touch them and find they've all but apparently solidified together in a mass in my hair. Extremely annoyed, I pull out what bits will come out, and toss them into the food preparation area, but the cooks (and the server) don't seem to mind or take notice. The girl, meanwhile, figures she should go to class. While she sympathizes with my predicament, she merely gives me a kiss goodbye and leaves me to it. I realize I am going to have to walk around with this lot on my head until I can shower it off. I take a bus to San Pedro to house and cat-sit for my friends, anticipating having to ask them to shower off these french fries on my head. On the bus is a girl I briefly mistake for the previous girl, which this one finds extremely amusing. The bus is close, but I find myself having gotten off a few stops too soon. I start walking, the geography seeming a bit off: the back streets are a bit labyrinthal. At one point I come to a yard with a rise in its lawn, and I note I have to climb down a jagged rock to get back to street level.
A tiny Yorkshire Terrier appears before my, barking at me, mostly for attention which it receives. On the street level is a slat-wooden bench, under which is another dog barking until I lean over to pet it.
The road bends to the left, which I know is the wrong direction, away from my destination about five blocks away now (according to the street signs), but I spot a small parking area at my right, at which is a doorway to the next street over towards the correct direction. Someone comes through and I have to run to catch the door before it closes. I then notice that somehow my Sherman Oaks friend's dog Dumbledore is with me, his red leash in my hand. I do not mind (despite IRL Dumble would be thrilled in a household of cats mostly in his insistence on killing them). We get through the door, meeting a large dog and its owner heading in the opposite direction. The man's dog is about a good third larger than Dumble, but is handsome and friendly, though Dumble uncharacteristically growls a bit at it.
"Maybe yours is another alpha-dog," I surmise, and the owner concurs, as his dog gazes at me longingly to be patted and to let me be kissed.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 4:59am Nippy hedgehogs and turtles
I have just microwave-cooked a dinner; outside I put it on a level surface at about eye level. Suddenly to my surprise, from off the plastic serving plate is a green turtle, the shell of which is about six inches long. Of course now he has his head fully extended. I go to pick him up but he goes to bite me, and rather energentically. I am careful to keep his wide mouth from catching my fingers; at one point pressing on his head with my index finger, but he tries to circumvent this action.
Someone comes out and wonders what is going on. I reply that this turtle is trying to bite me, as I also wonder whether he was in the plate as it was cooking. The wide round plate contains a large helping of spinach, but I do not notice any other food. The rest of the plate seems to have been large enough in for which the turtle to have been resting.
As I notice the person speaking to me is one of my best local friends William, the turtle is now far more... flexible, and it drops to the grass and heads away rapidly. I go to pick it up to keep it safe as I realize it is now a very surprisingly large hedgehog, its back a dark mossy green. I manage to pick it up, but (to William's apparent amusement), the little animal is also (or technically, still), working at biting me as I hold it, though as a hedgehog it isn't trying as hard as was the turtle.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009 5:32am Tunnel floods and school-replaced work
I arrive at work and go to what I feel is the correct floor, but the hallways are different, similar to some of the modular-type looking wall of my New Jersey college. I go into a room and find it is emptied, and I wonder where is everyone. I return to the hallway, now filled with numerous people, and children. As I pass by, one adult worker mentions to another that he knows me and that it's okay [for me to be there]. I notice in the front hallway there are large blackboards on the walls, as more school children pass, head left and into the CFO and CEO's offices, as apparently they are now classrooms. I seriously begin to suspect I am dreaming and decide that by looking at my shooes should prove whether I am asleep, but I continue to walk with no further clue.
A smooth Dream Shift transition puts me outdoors, taking a "short cut" to some building, but I find the wooded area far too steep and I begin to slide. Having similarly once fallen off a cliff years ago, I manage to stop myself by sliding my feet into the roots of a tree. A nearby bush offers little help as it comes up, having been either newly planted or about to be (it still has the burlap bag over its roots).
With me I notice is my friend who recently put me up. She too is understandably concerned about getting down the hill. I glance to my right and see cars drive by: just beyond the autumn-fallen leaves is the driveway. All we have to do is walk about fifty feet to get to it. I find even earlier another, secondary driveway of sorts, headng into a tunnel seemingly large enough for a car through which to drive. It is green, as though made out of material to make built-in swimming pools. The secondary driveway and the tunnel are both very slipperly (I even can see some ice on the main driveway).
I wonder if the tunnel goes to a parking garage, despite not being level. While the walls are smooth, they are extremely uneven, and inside after a few yards bends to the left. I warn my friend to hang back as I check it out, but at the turn I notice quite a rush of water coming as though an oncoming car is displacing it ahead of itself. I rush back to the mouth of the tunnel, exclaiming for her to get back. She goes to the one side, I cut left at the mouth of the tunnel but it's a stiff decline and I have to hold onto an outcropping of tree on the rock wall beyond the mouth of the tunnel.
The rush of water pours out, and not surprisingly heads in my direction due to the decline. There is enough water than even lifting my legs my shoes/feet get soaked up past my ankles, and it's obviously ice water cold. The water lowers and stops, but no car emerges. I walk away from the tunnel and at my right is a risen path (a couple of feet higher, creating a shallow trench between it and on what I'm standing). A woman comes out through a two-legged dolman (the sort that form Stonehendge); she is wearing a red flowing outfit similar to a belly-dance outfit and the costumes worn by the Sybiline in the Doctor Who story Fires of Pompeii, however she is wearing around her neck a necklace with a golden pentacle (unencircled five pointed star). She carries a medium'ish open jewelry box in which rests a blood-red ruby she offers me to admire.

Tuesday, July 12, 2009 4:59am Missed meetings and wrong turns
I am arriving at some job, the entrance to which has been blocked, blockaded it seems, by shopping carts. I can see that inside some sort of conference in the lobby, but I know I cannot get through to the front door, so I head inside via another entrance. Once inside I quickly realize it's the service entrance, and I still have to go around to find my way to the front. As I go around a corner I feel on my back what would otherwise be felt as cat paws walking on me... were I lying down. Here they feel like the cat paws are poking my back quickly to get my attention, but as I turn I see nothing.
Dream Shift:
Heading to the movies on foot, I am between bus stops. Geographically it appears to be an nature-overgrown area of Cedar Grove [New Jersey], on Pompton Turnpike, but I turn as though walk up Grove torwards Verona [New Jersey]. Behind me is a bus but I'm sure I can reach the next bus stop before it arrives. I continue straight despite the ashalt ends and I am walking a tree-lined, well-driven dirt road, albeit with grass in the center of the tire tracks. After a few hundred yards I see ramshackle domiciles and I turn to see the bus still on the asphalt road, making a sharp turn to its left. I realize I missed turning left to stay on the main street, and I am off course. Seeing the bus turn I know it will pass the movie theatre; I run for the bus. Halfway back to the main road I see to my right an established trail breaking through the tree-line along between properties one can use to short-cut down to a downtown area, very similar to downtown Morristown [New Jersey].
I run along the walkway as I figure I can probably make it to the theatre on foot, although I keep running. In the distance down in the street, I can see [Nicholas Cage?] falling to the ground in a loud cry of pain, having been shot in the leg.

Friday, July 10, 2009 5:23am Tyrant boss and cellar peacocks
Along with a Dream Character as well as an actual friend from back east, I am in cavernous cellars of some large department store of sorts. For some reason I have with me some luggage with personal items (possibly an overlay regarding my recent domicile issues of late). I hear strange sounds from behind me, followed by screams of my friend. He is huddled, terrified, in a tall but shallow alcove, in absolute terror that "it's going to get" him. I realize he is referring to a peacock that is trotting around and making his loud peacock sounds. Pointing out it's "just" a peacock does no good as apparently my friend is completely phobic about them and refuses to come out. Irritated, I calmly shoo away the bird, which at one point fluffs up massively in defense, but quickly retreats as I hold my bag out ahead of me. I follow it and find a large, high-ceilinged room with several hallways intersecting; the bird could have headed in any direction of the passages.
Returning to find my friend, however, I discover he has taken the opportunity to flee as well, and I make my way upstairs and into the main store. Dream Memory conveys I'm a long-time worker at the store.
In an aisle, a passing customer accidentally bumps me, causing the heavy baggage to fall. I look inside and realize I can consolidate much of the stuff. One disconcerting item is a plastic gallon container of milk which has spilled inside. I notice nearby there is a large trash bag and I quickly transfer milk-ruined stuff to it. After a few minutes I suddenly suspect my actions could look really strange (or worse, suspicious), to security cameras. I hasten my efforts so as to depart, when suddenly lights go off, then on again. Having substantially reduced my load, I head to where I know are elevators which will take me to the worker entrance, as the lights again keep going out then on. I abandon the idea of the elevators, and head to the worker area across a wide open floor, as the lights go out and a man steps out from the doorways to which I'm heading. As the lights come on a tall, frilly yellow curtain starts being drawn to delineate the floor as the man (seemingly resembling actor Bruce Davidson), brings a bullhorn to his mouth and announces, "Attention shoppers! There has been a security breach and we are going to need you to come forward and be searched."
I am appalled at the announcement, having nothing but my own property on me notwithstanding. It is a flagrant violation of privacy and personal civil rights, but almost instantly I see customers lined up as though at an airport security check-point, one elderly man placidly removing his necktie to comply with an unwarranted search, as I stand in combined disgust and wondering how to depart without being demanded to be searched.

Thursday, July 09, 2009 5:43am Star-crossed lovers
Apparently a very attractive (and surprisingly young) woman is all but head over heels attracted to me. In her mid to late twenties with a long mane of black hair, she has agreed to spend with me an overnight holiday (New Years Eve type, but it may not specifically be that one), and she is utterly thrilled and it seems she and I will make love for the first time (as though the party to which we'll be going will cinch it). It turns out, however, that her father greatly disapproves, but I can't tell if it's me or the relationship, both, or what.
Outside along the rim of a high ocean-cliff, is a small, colourful children-sized metal-track roller-coaster done up as a toy-train; she and I get in the small ride and it takes off, racing pell-mell up and down along the cliff-face on the bright, clear day. As the cars are not large enough for two people side by side, I sit behind her, my arms about her waist.
Dream Fade or Dream Shift:
We are at her home apartments into which her father enters. Resembling a combination of UK actors Jim Broadbent and William Morgan Sheppard, the father begins to rant and rave incoherently, and even callously destroying trinket-like objects he knows she treasures, much to her dismay. He departs, leaving her distraught and inconsolably in tears; there is nothing I can say or do to comfort her.
Later I carry a basket of sorts, filled with objects to be brought to the party; we are outside apparently at Bloomfield Avenue and Orange Road in Montclair, New Jersey, where we are to meet those to take us to the party, but she is still utterly miserable. I put down the basket and go to embrace her but she all but recoils from me, having decided instead of going to the party she will spend the evening with some friends (Dream Characters I know in passing), but she wants to be alone with them: not with me and certainly not with her parents.
Stunned at this news, I cannot bring myself even to go along with my own friends (who eventually depart), and I stand transfixed as she walks over to her friends sitting at a small metal sidewalk-table up against a/the small restaurant.
Dream Shift:
I am cleaning up in some large penthouse apartment type hotel room, putting small product-bags into larger product-bags (e.g., a Kingsford charcoal bag into a slightly larger bag, both of which into a large dog-food bag). While working alone I feel my face is sweaty, I lean over and stick my face into a small built-in pool to rinse off the sweat. As I rise up from the water, I feel at least refreshed in that respect.

Wednesday, July 08, 2009 6:00am The hidden diamond
In Italy, a girl in her 20s has hidden a large lost diamond in a can of restaurant food to keep it from being stolen. A Spanish man (very Antonio Bandaras'esque), has been helping not only with the search but in keeping the search quiet. He has claimed that for some reason the diamond must be returned to Spain.
Along with a woman friend in her 30s or so, the girl very carefully begins to search various receptacles of food. Regular patrons of the eatery notice this and deduce the valuable item could be in their servings, so large portions of food are suddenly unceremoniously dumped onto the floor, and a large pile of people begin to sift through the mess for the jewel. Also interested in the diamond, a well dressed man and his assistant enter during the fracas, the assistant carrying a wide, shallow box from which the well dressed man carefully removes handfuls of baby chicks so to search the box. . The chicks fall amongst the maddening crowd. From another box he takes three ducklings, two of which he simply tosses gently aside, but suddenly realizes, and with the third duck stops, and carefully lets the fluffy, dark-green tinged bird drop onto a few people so the duck has less distance to fall.
Back in the kitchen searching on the floor, the Spanish man is seething not only that he cannot find it, but that the women have caused such a commotion. "It was not a Spanish diamond," he tells the women. "It was an Italian diamond...!" he reveals. It was/is his intent to sell it locally for far more money, but the diamond remains elusive.

Sunday, June 28, 2009 5:54am Coinage and crooked cop/s
Dream Fade most likely is the culprit for why I am unsure how All This Began.
I am sitting on a low stool or such in front of some sort of on-the-street vending machine that dispenses postage. It is on the bottom shelf of a two-tier esction from an entertainment center; a flat scale onto which to put the mail matter, and one puts in enough coinage until the correct postage is dispensed.
Surrounding me are surly cops, being as willfully intinmidating as they can be. I have a handful of clean change, but at least one cop (at my left), refuses to allow me to use quarters, demanding I only use dimes and nickels. I have several large manilla envelopes that would hold one or two flat documents. Apparently I am to obtain the correct postage and for some reason I am being forced to do this.
As I have great issues with corrupt cops, all of whom have Trouble With Authority (e.g., sovereign Americans are the public, while [corrupt or not], cops are public servants...), I am extremely irritated at their characteristically anti-American behaviour. As using quarters (many of which I have in my hand), will take less time, I am less annoyed at the situation than in their refusal even to explain why I "can't" use quarters, as they are valid coinage, and the machine should accept them.
Despite Knowing Better, I choose to challenge the large, burly and apparently most alpha cop, at my left. I hold up a quarter and snarl, "How much money does this represent?" (Technically such a question is a waste of time, as it attempts to introduce civilized reason to a dialog; when he answers it represents twenty-five cents, from there I can demonstrate that logically it follows quarters in the machine should work just fine...)
Being deliberately obtuse, however, the criminal cop sarcastically replies, "I don't know." He adds, "It doesn't matter."
Against my normally better judgement I spit back at him, "What, are you retarded...?"
This predictably gets to him. "That's an ugly word to use," he says, as based on results, he cannot deny it.
"Then we're in agreement." I say with flat but obvious authority. "It's the most apt and accurate description I can use..."
The corrupt cop glares back at me, surprisingly at a loss for words or even action.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009 5:12am Action sequence
I am working the second day on a science fiction movie or TV series. The shot has me playing some Russian scientist who believes he has the task of blowing out a circuit next to an open elevated garage door at a truck docking bay. Cracks in the white cement have grass sprouting through. The key moment is that two other scientists warm me in time not to do it, and for me to get clear. The trick is they are several yards away and I cannot hear what they are saying, so somehow by splashing around in water conveys their message.
At first I'm to turn and make as though I believe they are urging me on (I even have a white futuristic rifle with an orange arming lever on top, and I go to pull it back), but at the last second I realize they mean for me to get clear, and I jump from the platform, slowing down before I actually hit the ground and while I realize I am wearing a full astronaut outfit and helmet, the slow down of gravity does not surprise me. I nearly get up and realize I have no heard "cut" called. I also realize that the previous day I had lines I'd now forgotten I was to say. I slowly glance to my right at which is the open ground to where the others were, the direction from which a diminutive script supervisor approaches. Figuring I'm safe, I get up, apologizing for not remembering to say my lines and admitting not quite remembering the lines as it is, but as I go to request a copy of the sides with the lines, the woman merely says it was fine, as the scene was being filmed MOS anyway (e.g., no audio).

Tuesday, June 23, 2009 5:56am Casino anti-hero?
I am what seems to be a high-end penthouse presumably in Vegas or such. I hear a familiar name of someone quite powerful and I look about to see them, but a female Dream Character friend tersely admonishes me to "Stop it." I find this irritating and ignor her and she no longer remains, she may as well have been written out. A couple on the other side of a room-island bar seem friendly enough, but beyond them as a double doors swing open and a group of business-suit men enter, the couple take out Uzis and fire a quick blast at me. I say "Freeze!" and time instantly freezes, similar to a Star Trek: Next Gen holodeck program. The two sets of Uzi bullets are clustered in mid-air, annoying me greatly as either set would have hit my chest.
I walk around and find the couple have been with their backs up against a partition, their heads above the partitions. With time frozen, I am able to lift and pull them over. Strangely, both fall to the floor, which technically should not happen. The male resembles Kevin Dillon, and the female a young Lea Thompson as a red-head. She hits the floor and un-freezes, struggling and resisting. I verbally order her to freeze, which she does, albeit still with visable reluctance.
I notice a police badge has fallen from her pocket. The male I bring over and search him, finding another badge in his jeans pocket as well. Feeling even less guilt over my intentions (what with corrupt cops being even far worse than flat-out, overt criminals). I bring them to where I was standing, so when time unfreezes they can meet their respective clusters of bullets head on, as it were.
To dispose later, I pocket their badges signifying their evil corruption, and head to the main door beyond the double doors, at which I say "Unfreeze!" I do not even need to turn around to see the sudden carnage I can hear taking place behind me, but I've already left the room.
I pass a lobby of sorts just outside a large casino, and I find a service elevator into which I head, wish to go to the ground level and depart. The elevator indicator is peculiar, and despite the sensation of movement I am not precisely sure if I'm going up or down, and the floor indicator keeps looping the numbers counting down from fifty to single digits then down from fifty again.

Thursday, June 18, 2009 5:17am Weird work mid-week...
I am at work, failing to notice the room is larger, with wider aisles, and different stuff on front shelves rather than bankers boxes, such as televisions. Three TV turn on and while there is no picture, loud music of sorts begins to play, and while two switch off, the second one in the middle will not turn off (the sets are on different shelves, not in a row). I try various knobs and buttons on the ancient style set, to no avail. Suddenly I see a tall, lean man (wearing a black shirt and white pants with tiny black spots) walk by and down an aisle. Knowing no one should be in there but me, I wonder if I could have seen a ghost.
I walk to the aisle and turn the corner and find the man lying face down on the floor, as though he'd suddenly turned and fell forward. Unable to tell if the man is dead or unconscious, I glance down and the image sort of locks up, generally a condition that would have me realize I am dreaming, but in this case I am merely puzzling; as I physically turn my body around but my vision retains the same unmoving image of the body.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009 5:56am Film screening problems

Backstory: Film maker Henry Jaglom wrote quite a positive blurb about Strictly Background; this past Monday night was a preview screening of Jaglom's new film Irene in Time to which I had planned to attend (after which would be a Q&A, at which I could meet him), until an emergency came up and I was unable to attend.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009 5:34am Room moves and Nelson absent
From a nearby room I hear the opening theme to Mystery Science Theatre start then the lyrics going ludicrously stupid ("They hired a temp by the name of, well, you already know... and everbody was..." [at which point I realized there was a problem; the singer never lost stride but despite the extra words, the song doesn't really continue to the actually music stanzas beyond trying to squeeze all the new lines into the same bit of music stanza]...). I hasten into the room to find a few Dream Characters watching the show on a large screen TV, but the set is some peculiar living room with strange, plush, Muppet-like characters; the editing jumps rapidly to different ones, one flailing sheets on a bed, et al. It looks ridiculous and unwatchable; I can hear the voices so I say to the others watching, "Okay, I can hear Kevin and Bob, but where's Mike?"
"Mike's gone," lazily replies one of the apathetic two sitting on the sofa, as I watch on with horror the nonsense going on.
Dream Memory tells me I'm still living at the Montclair [New Jersey], but that for some reason my room is the orange front room of the house, not the blue back room. My mother happens upon me and (implying her room would be where her sewing room was, directly below the blue room instead of being below the orange room), she asks me why I've not been making any noise in my room. I am puzzle and tell her I'd moved across the hall, which is when (even as Mom wonders why I would move to such a colder room), I'm already internally wondering, why would I even do that...?

Misfiring fireworks Tuesday, June 09, 2009 6:52pm Misfiring fireworks
Comedian Greg Proops is the host of a new late-night talk show, and for some reason is doing a remote broadcast on what seems to be a farm. It is near dawn and he greets the farm owners under a massive tree, while nearby on another, tall slender tree, are ropes suspending about twenty feet up, a large rock. Techies light the ropes which turn out to be large fuses, setting alight an impressive huge fireworks display, though quickly some of the rockets zoom straight into the ground and explode, much to the concern of the fleeing TV crew and the horror of the farm owners.

Monday, June 08, 2009 3:50pm Escalator attack
I am in the middle of a long queue; as I approach a down escalator, there is a metal detector through which to pass, even though it is only about five foot tall and proportionately wide, so it breaks while I squeeze through it, as I'm thinking Did I remember to take my keys out of my pocket...?
As the escalator goes down, I receive a sharp nasty pinch on my back from the person behind me as though to insist I hurry, despite my having little room to move. I turn to the blue-shirted middle aged man who has pinched me, and I angrily (and quite uncharacteristically) refer to him as/with a politically-incorrect epithet. This does not endear him to me, and I realize we could come to fisticuffs; noting I do actually have about three steps on which to navigate, I quickly prepare myself to hurt him as hard as I can as quickly as I can, while hastily realizing my epithet may have struck a real nerve rather than a fictitious one.
We reach the bottom as I've quickly begun to verbally empathize with "his" plight and manage to diffuse his anger as we begin a lengthy discussion, causing me not to notice I've walked much farther than I anticipated. Noticing I am at a very wide version of Grove Avenue in Upper Montclair [New Jersey], I take my leave of him as he suddenly chooses to lay down on an inclined grassy lawn. The nearest traffic light is a few yards away, but I see its light is green and due to a complete lack of traffic, I run across the several lanes to the opposing side to head back towards from wherever it is I'd meant to be.

Friday, May 29, 2009 5:46am Banking on a retreat
I walk up a few steps to the glass doors of a bank, but before opening the door, I can see inside that standing in line is (the Heath Ledger version of) the Joker. He is not really terrorizing anyone; despite a large silver-metal gun in his hand, he's just waiting in line, with about ten or more people ahead of him.
I still decide that as I am not armed, perhaps my bank errand could be done later... I walk to the right and towards a small building perpendicular to the bank. As I get to the door, I find it locked. I knock for entry, turning around to seeing the Joker casually having exited the bank and walking straight. Suddenly realizing I am inexplicably dressed as Batman, I hastily duck to my left as there are numerous people wandering about the large courtyard. Just as I am losing sight of the Joker, I see his head turn, his having noticed my own move. I turn and begin to knock again, quietly but rather urgently. A woman comes to the window in the door to see me lean my head against the door to entreat being allowed inside, hoping I can be inside before the Joker reaches my position.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009 5:54am The evergrowing quest
I am on the start of a quest of some sort; with me is a sentient animal of some sort which I cannot recall, but as we briefly stop (at a sort of T-junction of the road, where we can go left or right), we are met by a talking crow, who appears to wear on its beak two long paperclips holding in place bright orange clothes pins. These do not hamper his speech, even though they move sideways rather than up and down. The crow understands our quest, having to do with some sort of global devastation we're trying to prevent (or least understand). The wise crow declares not only will he join us but will provide us with the clues so far deduced by his kind.
I make sure our packs and provisions are set on the backs of a mule or two, the crow has been making rapping sounds as though cutting through something with his beak.
The lofty bird returns with a flat piece of bone on which now are several lines cut all the way through, a few of the lines are curved, but most are straight and parallel.
"This is brilliant," I exclaim as I examine it, suddenly crestfallen. "I can't read crow," I realize aloud. My partner apparently can and the two concur with the findings as there's something of a Dream Shift as we find ourselves apparently at an inn.
I go inside and find very much a Dream Character, in a role I have no recollection of ever having had within a dream. I am surprised she is there, and tell her that the quest is progressing. I bring her outside where the crow walks through the dark evening mist, noting our emerging from the inn.
"Crow," I say to him, gesturing to the woman following me. "This is my wife, and I would be honoured if you would speak to her." I do not say that I hope it will even prove to me the bird is actually speaking and I've not lost my mind.
The crow does not speak but does provide me with a round dark-clay tablet on which he must have been working, on which are more markings, these of which I can understand.
"This is a representation of our solar system," I say regarding the concentric circles, and I note "drawings" of buildings below, which Crow (speaking only to me), points out represent planets: that the race of crows was able to deduce which building represented which planet, but they were a little fuzzy regarding Mercury, which apparently is the key to our quest.
Crow heads over to our group, which apparently has had several people having joined us, as my wife begins to climb onto a tall, multileveled wagon of some sort.
I am distracted by a large bright-blue owl hastily walking by (the street on which we stand is below an overpass), heading to the inn. It glances almost nervously at me, as through surprised I can see it. Its plumage is so blue, it gives the appearance of plastic.
As it about reaches the door to the inn, I turn as my wife has declared she is joining us. Sitting on a part of the wagon below her Fred and George Weasley watch her as one of them says, "You certainly are not."
"I most certainly am," replies my wife in a haughty tone and voice sounding like Zoë Wanamaker (without her looking like her). She goes on about courage and how other women shirk from protecting their husbands or sons, and as she says all this, I notice she is wearing a bright orange set of ancient Asian costuming, and that the wagon she is now at the top-most level is also some ancient Chinese wagon or so, despite having no walls of which to speak. As she finishes her little speech, she puts on a little hat with a tassel, and stands prepared to depart, as the group below (now also having added my friend Cary Mizobe) stare silently up at her.
After a few moments she realizes and says, "Oh. Sorry; thought this was our transport." I watch her begin her descent to the street level as I begin to wonder how so many have joined us.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 5:59am Faulty speakers and absent teachers
I suddenly find myself at a desk in a classroom, a mostly unintelligible voice coming from a speaker somewhere. The wall at my left has small objects slowly emerging and retracting, but I cannot discern what they are or deduce their purpose. At one point a slender section of upper part of the wall begins to move forward like a segment of a mirror. I cannot tell if any of these items are monitoring devices.
Eventually I can just make out the voice is that of a teacher or such, with increasing impatience calling on me for something (and possibly accusing me of being uncooperative rather than at a loss), but I still cannot make out what it requests. I feel self-conscious as I am towards the back of the classroom and I have to speak up to point out the audio is too distorted me for me to understand what is being said.

Thursday, May 21, 2009 4:09pm Toy robots, partial nudity and caperpillars
I want to spec on a movie or TV project, but I am missing a specific type of hat required. I know Dream Character friend with me has an elaborate hat which he lends me. It's supposed to be an admiral's hat, despite looking nothing like one. This almost seems to be made of plaster. I glance at the bottom and see a signature. This causes me concern: Oh great, I think to myself. It's autographed.
I bring the hat to a registration table, finding available one of the five or six people signing people in (the rest are lines of three or more people each). Irritatingly, the available woman is chatting with the person on her left, completely ignoring me, and her duties.
Later as I'm walking elsewhere, a man points out there is a large caterpillar on the marble floor: I look to my left and sure enough, there it is. With a few black spots, mostly it is deep reddish-orange with yellow at its "face." It is also about five inches wide and maybe a yard long. For an instant I worry the man is going to step on it, which would be messy beyond belief. Just put it outside, I suggest, and he picks up the massive thing. A while later as I climb a flight of stairs, I notice a "miniature" version (e.g., more regular caterpillar sized), on my jacket along the zipper gently remove it and carry it onto a wide patio balcony. The caterpillar is now the small white with red and gold highlights G-Force robot, at least from the Robot Chicken sketch. Unlike the dimensions it would be (the size of R2-D2), it is very small, like an action figure size, but it is still the actual robot.
I am holding it by its antennae, and as it swings back and forth in my hand it is loudly chuckling merrily. I reach the balcony and hold it out to pretend as though I am going to drop it, but suddenly as it laughs, its antennae suddenly elongate and it all but zips down the four stories towards the lawn below. I call over a (different) Dream Character friend to watch this amusing bit, particularly as I wonder if the seemingly flexible antennae will retract into the robot's head when I release them, or will they fall like limp spaghetti.
As I let go I turn back and realize to myself, Oh crap: I'm not wearing any pants...
I quietly request of my friend to go to where I recall my pants and underwear are sitting, to bring them back to me: going myself would make me too obviously noticeable. My friend rushes off as I wonder, how could I have forgotten to put on pants?
While my bare legs would indicate my not having pants, my t-shirt is just long enough to hide my not wearing underwear... mostly (it only goes down to just below my buttocks). Front wise, I still have to cover manually what even a long t-shirt won't cover, particularly as suddenly the area has numerous people casually walking to and fro.

Monday, May 18, 2009 3:58pm Work photos and bad-cop avoidance
I am in a wide room, similar to a nearly empty school cafeteria, with but one or two tables away from the center. Somehow I know I am at some telemarker job place as I walk towards what appears to be stage-theatre make-up mirror.
Suddenly my friend Norma Jean is there, requesting our having a photo taken together. I have one of my one-time-use cameras and we pose in front of one of the make-up mirrors, but facing to the right at which stands a full-length mirror. In the reflection I can see we are not properly standing next to each other. In the reflection Norma Jean is standing in front of me; when I notice a Dream Character friend standing nearby who agrees to take the photo, I look back to see we are still facing but not aligned with the mirror as I can no longer see our reflection.
In the distance I hear a slight bell ringing numerous times, which I deduce is an arriving elevator outside the door. I depart to meet with someone outside, but as I hasten down what appears to be a long airport concourse, I drop my thumbdrive. I notice I am being followed by the character Doakes from the series Dexter, who apparently is an office coworker of mine, similarly suspicious of my activities. He asks if, should he need it, whether he can take my thumbdrive onto which to put files on which I can work. As he doesn't ask for it now, I agree, making a strong mental note to start bringing to work an empty thumbdrive so he doesn't go through any files of mine.
At the end of the corridor are doors to the left and to the right, as though I'm in a multiplex cinema, but from inside at least one door I hear a college professor teaching a class. Concerned Doakes is nearby, I spot an adult Emma Watson obtaining a pass to some sort of nearby gaming conference, using as currency a used PS3 disc drive.

Thursday, May 14, 2009 4:46pm Dining with Murray
I am finishing up in a diner, having paid my bill. I head to the glass door and hold it open for my cat who comes running to follow me. At the last moment the cat realizes there are two glass doors, and I'm currently holding open the inner one. He veers to his right, managing to avoid running pell-mell into the outer door, but just collide a bit with his shoulder. I wonder why I don't have him on a leash, and whether it is safe for him to follow me on foot into the parking lot (as opposed to my wondering why he's even in a diner with me).

Wednesday, May 13, 2009 4:10pm Missed Netflix return and the clean rock band
In a cozy living room is a casual meeting with a group of four Dream Character friends who play in a very popular rock band, who are all about to go back out on a bit concert tour. Also is attendance, sitting across from the group on the sofa, is the group's manager and some major doofus who's a roadie or such. The roadie guy is softly laughing in a conspiratorial fashion, making overtly not-so-veiled refrences to providing the group with Ecstacy, that he had smuggled it to them via a thumb-drive (?!), but in a way he wasn't coming right out and saying it. All he would chuckle was vague that he had done so, and rhetoric questions as to whether his actions had been appreciated.
The group sits silent, clearly equally annoyed at this guy hanging around them. On the carpet I notice my own thumb-drive, along with one I don't recognize, both of which I pick up and pocket.
When the manager has had enough to ask the jerk guy as to about what he's talking, Dream Memory gives me enough information to state, "He's refering to providing the guys with Ectasy during last year's tour; but the guys are smarter than that and didn't use any, just as they never have."
Faced with the truth openly revealed, the roadie almost chokes with what he hears. The group and I walk away to let the manager kick him out, as I go to check the thumb-drives in my jacket pocket. To my great annoyance I find two Netflix discs and mailing envelopes, seeing one title (Tones: A Kennedy Story), I growlingly recall I had meant to mail out that morning, and as it is now early evening I know it is too late for it to start its way back, so now my next disc will be delayed.

Friday, May 08, 2009 5:52am Uninvolved breaking and entering
Some Dream Character friends are breaking in to a building, using a set of claw pliers to jam open a large window. Dream Memory tells me this is done regularly, and that I've been in this building before; that I've explored the place but not actually broken in myself.
It is too late in the night to be doing this sort of thing safely: it is nearly morning, so I depart from my friends' activities and I wander around the corner where there is an open newsstand. There are a few people there ahead of me so I patiently wait, when suddenly a man shows up that apparently is the manager of where my friends are breaking in. The friends must have seen him, as they bolt past; he sees them run and angrily goes to give chase, then sees and recognizes me standing there. As I am not running, a brief glint of triumph lights in his eyes as though he's caught one of them.
"No!" I say to him with the firmness of giving a Psychic Punch, "I am not with them: I'm standing here waiting for my coffee...!"
The man's shoulders droop slightly as he realizes I'm right; he has no way to prove whether I was with them or not, whilst on my own I wonder why I worded it that way... in my waking life I wouldn't drink coffee if to do so were to win me The Amazing Race...

Tuesday, May 05, 2009 6:01am Horses and truck crashes
Atop a mountainous cliff, a parked, massive 18-wheeler truck is struck from behind, causing the truck to roll forward and start to crash down the side of the ravine; this is seen very cinematic (and as though I am not actually there), even cutting to different angles as large amounts of dusty dirt cloud along the base of the slowly sideways-skidding truck. Finally the side of the mountain becomes so steep the truck begins its roll towards the bottom, tearing metal screaming.
Below in its path, stands a woman between two long rows of buildings; she is dressed in full Kabuki garb, and stands singing, her arms outstretched, even as the crashing truck approaches and reaches her.
A few thousand yards away in a small section of forest, I know I have to get to the truck, suspecting a friend is inside. In the other direction a herd of horses stampede towards me, the lead chestnut horse cannot change course in time to avoid me, but instead of my being trampled, when it strikes me I am hurled up and onto its bare back. As we race forward, the horse glances back at me. A low branch knocks me from the horse's back onto the ground.

Sunday, May 03, 2009 7:38am Squashing a litterbug
In a small living room of sorts in a small apartment, a Dream Character male in his thirties has been harassing me, bossing me around, threatening me with violence if I don't cooperate. Now we're at "my place," and he's just finished smoking and dropped behind the sofa a spent cigarette. Disgusted, I demand he pick up the cigarette butts he's dropped. "We're no longer on your ship," I tell him, which at the time the ship reference makes sense.
He calmly smiles and, clearly not intimidated, replies, "Is this the way you want to play it?"
Hating tobacco by nature, I uncharacteristically grow more and more angry. He stands up, seemingly about to leave, but he suddenly takes a strong swing at me. I just manage not to be struck and get in a solid blow to his midsection. I grab him by the throat with one hand and drive him back down onto the sofa. I try to bang his head over and over but predictably the sofa is not hard enough to cause any damage; still just able to breathe, he tauntingly laughs at my attempts. "You know I'm gonna kill you now," he manages to promise.
Realizing now I must defend myself with actual deadly force, my next shove goes to the right so his neck hits the sofa arm rest just right, and his neck snaps.
Despite our size difference (his being considerably larger than I), my concern now is no corrupt cop is going to even entertain an idea of self defense, particularly with my having gotten the upper hand in the scuffle so quickly.
On the wall at my left I tug at a wire which causes a softball sized hole. Realizing that probably wasn't a very helpful thing to do, I doubt I can fix that before losing my deposit.

Friday, May 01, 2009 5:47am Interrupting Rowan
I am in an empty school, searching for a specific mail-receipt postal box; there are various walls in the labyrinthal halls with broken box doors and such, and sometimes small hand-written papers of the box numbers nearing my goal. When I get to a section in which even the wall of the postal box doors in gone, leaving only open shelves of mail matter, I realize with annoyance I've forgotten the precise box number, the name of the recipient, and the sort of mail for which I was searching.
Before I head back to the front of the school, I figure if I go outside it might be faster the through the many halls. Opening and glancing out of various double doors (being careful not simply to step out so the doors close to lock me out), I cannot deduce which door might be best, until I came upon one with a friend's car. I head to it where a Dream Character friend agrees to drive me to the front of the building.
After traversing several streets, we come to the front of a white, tall, plantation-columned style porch of a building at which (wearing an 18th century powdered wig, and his face made up with a strangely yellow tint), actor Michael Dorn stares into the car at me. I become slightly concerned as a strong Dream Memory conveys Dorn and I had some sort of substantial blow-up in our past and he could get really ugly about it if he realizes who I am (I have never met the talented Michael Dorn in real life, btw).
The car continues on and somehow ends up being parked on the middle landing (between first and second floor), of the wide front staircase within the front hall of the antique but obviously well maintained house.
Around the side of the staircase on the ground level is a wide alcove in which are a group of people relaxing; my friends' young son Rowan has the floor apparently, haltingly but energetically going on about something, when at one point he uses the word "expurgiation" to describe large dimensions of an image on a big-screen TV.
"It was 'expurgiated'?" I ask. "I hate when that happens...!" The (adults in the) group finds my quip tremendously funny and they laugh uproariously while Rowan continues unabated to relate his story as though anyone is listening.

Thursday, April 30, 2009 5:36am Feathered Dragons and Magickal Gardens
With some other people, presumably we are in a haunted house. I walk from a kitchen into a large storage room area, expecting to find some sort of apparition or paranormal activity. Suddenly a fuss comes up in the front room, and two of the people present a large metal cake container, in which they claim to have caught a dragon. I am given charge over it, to release the dragon back into the wild as it has somehow found its way into the house and was being a nuisance the way would a raccoon or opossum.
A young and attractive female Dream Character accompanies me. Somehow I trip and my weight nearly crushes the thin-metal container, effectively folding it over. I am devastated I may have harmed the creature, but I also cannot simply release it within the boundaries of the town; the dragon will be very retributive. She and I run as I carry it, as the creature slowly begins to emerge from a break in the container.
As I run, tears stream down my cheeks as I hastily explain to the girl the need to get the dragon to a safe magickal environment, and my regrets I may have harmed it... as I continue my exposition, the dragon continues to emerge, resembling more of a small feathered griffon than that of a dragon, but taking its time as, while not facing me, it clearly is listening to me and comprehending what I am saying. The wise creature is weighing its options and giving me the benefit of the doubt. I am careful not to let me fingers next to its eagle-like beak, as I know I could lose said digits.
Dream Shift: I am at an interactive information kiosk on a subway platform. Typing in a question (though possibly a warning about the dragon, the results of that sequence of which I am unsure), the train arrives and slows to a stop down the platform, and I have to leave the kiosk to catch it. Several people all reach the last car and they struggle to force open the doors that have not opened. I walk on, figuring the train's cars farther up may have opened, but people are now impatiently sitting on the floor, their backs to the subway train. This scene shifts as though the train is actually the wall at the boundary of a large exterior courtyard, and the many young people are attending some sort of Town Meeting during which a press conference of sorts is taking place.
A male Dream Character friend of mine is confessing and taking responsibility for having put to sleep his pet which apparently was much loved by the community. As I move about, several people are standing, and I deduce they await their turn at the mic for Q&A; I cannot, however, figure out their order as they seem to be randomly placed and I cannot see where would be the mic.
I find a set of filled bleachers where a boy has the mic, inquiring as to why the pet was put down when [the boy] would have happily accepted the pet for whom to care. I do not hear the response as my friend Paul Brown notices me and provides me with a promo flyer with cryptic information and post-it notes but right-side up and upside-down, but either way it seems to make sense, but forces the reader to invert the document to try and make sense of it that way as well.
Supposedly it promotes some sort of musical production but I'm unsure whether Paul is directly involved. I do notice Paul is no longer around, so I walk and find myself about a block away from the town meeting, and find a table with tall diner-counter chairs on a small triangle island within a three-way street intersection. The same girl Dream Character from earlier sits on one of the tall chairs and we converse over the issue at hand. I am unsettled that my friend used the platform with which to lay some of the blame on me when I had had no warning he would kill his pet.
The girl walks with me and offers me comfort that anyone knowing me would be aware I would have had nothing to do with my friend killing a perfectly healthy pet.
The girl and I enter a small garden grove, obviously magickal in its very nature.
"Let's see if I can get any of my Friends to come," I say; I squat and cup my hands together, bring my thumbs to my lips and blow, creating an odd little Hoot sound. I look up and where there had been a wall is now a wide field stretching out into the distance. Two small creatures approach: golden coloured (e.g., the same colour as a Golden Retriever), they are the size and shape of Corgi dogs, but their heads rise up, and they each have distinctive, same-golden colour Falkor faces. I risk picking up one and setting it on my chest as I lie back. The placid creature takes in its surroundings as the girl watches on in awe.

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Wednesday, April 29, 2009 5:00am Conveyances
I am in a Mulholland Drive scenic overlook park when one of my local best friends calls. Next to me stands a raised, cement lined cornered pool the size of a very large hot tub, with four to five playful adult sea lions inside. I hope they will vocalize for amusement sake, so I can pretend to my friend I am with dogs.
Later my mother and brother and I are in some sort of fast-moving subway. While devoid of anyone else, in each of the empty cars there are a few empty, ramshackle wheelchairs that my brother indicates in which "we can fly." As there are no motors, I figure he by fly he means go really fast.
The subway stops at "the" airport, whichever it's supposed to be, and using a wheelchair it indeed moves very fast down the empty corridors. I eventually come to what appears to be a combination of a security metal-detector arch, and the waist-high sort of ticket swipe for New York style subways, but no actual turnstile.
My wheelchair whizzes through it, up an incline, and to the left where now about which there are people milling. By accident a slender, young red-head lady steps back from her conversation as I pass and she plunks down into my lap in (thankfully amused) surprise. I managed to come to a stop after a few feet, at the street sidewalk [!], and turn about to return her to her friends (her face stays forward; all I can really see of her is her mane of hair). She indicates a boyfriend, but I cannot figure out which one is he.
She eventually points out her beau and she is return; even though she gets up I do not see her face as the boyfriend thanks me for returning her.
I head back to the sidewalk, the wheelchair now seemingly is a very small car. I drive along until suddenly a large Great Dane type dog rushes from a property, its teeth bizarrely huge, like cartoon teeth. The car skids left into its home's incline driveway. Suddenly it seems I am southbound on Upper Mountain Avenue in Pompton Plains [New Jersey]. I back up, but thick autumn leaves at the side of the street give the tires no purchase, The dog is still barking but not vicously. I put the throttle into a lower gear and manage to move but irritatingly slow. Despite it now being a tricycle, I notice there are gauges on nthe wide center bar, and it warns the petrol level as being at empty.
I growl at having to stop and get gas for the tricycle, as I head north in the San Fernando Valley (heading to meet friends from Pasadena), despite the roads looking like a peculiar mix of southern California and Little Falls [New Jersey]. Finally the nearly non-moving trike annoys me enough I just stand up, lean over and pick up the tricycle, and lead left on the Boulevard to cross Rory McCombs' yard to get to Libby towards my White Birch childhood home [Pompton Plains again].

dogsrule.com

Friday, April 24, 2009 6:09am Alias
I am in a "scene" with a Dream Character being "played by" Anthony Head. Actor Danny Woodburn shows Head a plastic folder packet with some papers in it, proving that Jennifer Garner is a spy. Head covers his eyes, both irritated that this is the umpteenth time this man has accused Garner, but that Head is working with her and trying to keep it secret. "Let me see that," I say, and notice the additional documents behind the outer page, the front showing small gizmos used for spying, but it's also obvious to be a page from a regular spy-stuff catalog. Woodburn happily explains this is final proof when suddenly Jennifer Garner enters from a doorway on a landing and comes down the small flight of stairs alongside the wall of the room. She has heard enough to know what is going on, saying regarding the document/s, "Yeah I've been investigating this company for months, they totally stole all that same stuff from Radio Shack; they should sue." This seems plausible and Woodburn cannot pursue this line of persecution. Head tells me the llama should be here at any time, at which point there is a knock a nearby glass door. I answer it and a trainer has a minature black llama, the size of a medium-sized dog. Despite being a llama, its lips are a peculiar pink, and the lips are pulled back in a grotesque smile (in retrospect, it was a black llama with my friend's chocolate lab lips and smile).

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Tuesday, April 21, 2009 5:31am Possible ghosts and awkward auditions
I am involved in some sort of film school. Students are going down into an old house cellar to audition for a role set in WWII Germany or such. I go down and the teacher is Stuart Craig Wood from Ramapo State College I attended (here Stuart is substantially taller than when he was alive, and even authoritative and imposing). He cpvertly tells me he has never really "auditioned anyone since high school," always casting people he knows in roles for which he know they'd be best suited. The scene with which I audition is my Knowing there are art treasures down the hall, and my intent to steal them later, so as we talk I allow my sight line to looks towards where the treasure room might be. Stuart and I cross to the other side of the room where his improv starts to get a little peculiar, as he begins to refer to my having knocked over some five foot tall vase or such. As I head to the stairs, a man resembling Marc Warren follows me, indicating in an escalating rant he is the executor of a will and either he is trying to prove I am a ghost, or implying that he is a ghost. I hasten to another set of stairs back up to the kitchen where there is a wide wall of small brass-door postal rental boxes highlighted with glass. I see my box, but the layout is different and mine is just at my top of my head level. I notice it is no longer a key lock, but a small turn combination lock as with the Pequannock [New Jersey] post office. My friend Brian emerges from the back, and I request the combination of my rental box as it no longer uses a key. He looks up at it, wondering what to do.

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Wednesday, April 15, 2009 5:40am Not quite the X-Files...
One of my best friends and I enter a large room in a warehouse where a massive set of cut up tree trunks are slightly burning like a massive campfire. I notice the flames are cobalt blue, and ask if she notices anything unusual about the flame, Dream Memory telling me I/we've seen this effect before. It takes her a few guesses to my inquiry to realize the flame is blue. I add another few large chunks of wood over the gaps, to make large flames. We head outside and walk down Ventura Boulevard, where I suddenly hear a cantankerous male voice threatening to get me back for steal his rat-dog; we see a large tan Cadillac drive by, someone inside from which had been shouting at me. Dream Memory tells me I rescued from that man Chico, the loving Chihuahua that belongs to my friend's business partner, and that it had been me who had provided Chico to her (which has no bearing in waking reality). Later, on a wide second floor of an old hardwood building, I head to a flight of stairs with David Duchovney and Sophia Myles. At the top of the landing looking down there are two obstacles awaiting us: to the right stands a large man in white coveralls and a bright-orange hockey mask wielding a police baton, and right at the bottom of the stairs a woman holding a large fire extinguisher, but swinging the wide funnel nozzle about as though she intends to use the hose as a nunchuck or such. David Duchovney rushes down the stairs to go after over the big guy, but the silent woman will not let him pass, and spins the nozzle threateningly. David even verbalizes to her he wants to fight the guy, but she keeps having him back up across the first floor. Looking down the stairs, Sonia Myles and I can see the bulky guy coming out from behind some stacked boxes, as he slowly advances on David whose back is now to him. Sonia hands me a stick and I rush down as the bulky guy slowly pulls back his baton so as to strike David. I touch my stick to his baton, and despite my noticing my stick is a long thin Tinker-Toy connecting rod, the bulky guy's oak-brown baton is prevented from moving. As his head turns to see what the heck stopped him, without thinking I reach up and grab his baton and twist it backwards, wrenching it from the guy's grasp. I jam it hard into his side, causing him to buckle and go down as another swing slams into the side of the base of his skull.

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Tuesday, April 14, 2009 6:01am Is my subconcious this effed up...?
(After some substantial Dream Fade, which removes much of the context), I go into the backyard of a home and meet with a Dream Character girlfriend. I sit on the bench of a picnic table and, suddenly realizing I'm naked, I hastily plunk her onto my lap so her flowing 60s era dress covers my lower half, considering there are others in the backyard. "I guess I came out here too fast," I explain to her in a whisper, figuring I must have simply forgotten to put on clothes. Later we are inside (where I may or may not be clothed), and she initiates a deep kiss, my arms about her neck and shoulders, my fingers caressing her hair. She leans backwards, until she slowly reaches the floor onto her back without gravity being an issue about it. However, when she has me lie atop of her (she's still clothed), she yelps in pain for a moment as I must have arranged myself wrong in some inexplicable way. I apologize but she indicates it's no problem. We kiss for a bit, but she suggests getting the car for us to visit a theme park. Once she has departed, a small dog on the kitchen floor wrestles with a shoe, as my brother enters and requests I assist his friend with something. I go over to the kitchen back stairs (which are so cluttered with Stuff they cannot be used: only a cat quickly scampers up and through); my brother's friend is a pretty young woman with very short blonde hair. She is wearing (apparently only) a flimsy white nightgown like garment. She is working at assembling something on the floor, which I cannot make out as I am distracted: she keeps leaning over, suddenly revealing Everything, but instead of the same youthfulness of her face and head, her body appears to be ancient and decrepit.

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Monday, April 13, 2009 5:41am Driving past corruption
I cross a small downtown Montclair [New Jersey] parking lot, rain coming down on an otherwise bright day. At the sidewalk the rain ends; I get into a white convertible at Park and Church, heading torwards (but still a block away from) the Bloomfield Avenue light, actor Vin Deisel hops in the passenger side (quite literally: he doesn't bother opening the door). I go to make a left onto Bloomfield Avenue and across from the opposite direction I see a cop car. I inwardly growl as I know from experience and observation how utterly corrupt is the Montclair New Jersey "police" force (e.g., theft, willful cruelty to animals, even willful sexual assault on a friend of mine). I make my left turn, and thankfully that's the last I see of the cop car, as I drive in the northwest direction towards Pompton Avenue.

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Tuesday, April 07, 2009 6:02am Gym picnic orgy
I am with a large group of people of various ages and ethnicities. While it is unclear as to what sort of group we are (tour group, book club, et al), apparently we've met and know each other long enough that as we enter a grass-floored high school gymnasium, one young woman encourages that we have an orgy. It only takes me a moment to realize the female to male ratio is extremely small; there are only a few women to numerous men. However the idea seems to go over well, and somehow each person has a large beach towel they place in orderly fashion on the grass. One woman is tolerably attractive but she pairs up with someone, while an extremely homely woman beckons me to follow her. I follow her to her towel, somewhat puzzled, as (over five years without a sex partner notwithstanding), I already knew there'd be no way I'd be able to Do Anything "even" with this one: she being well beyond my tolerant range for unattractiveness. As I sit on the grass next to her towel, I notice everyone is lying on their respective towels, but only two men can be seen atop their paired partners, but no one has removed their clothing. Even the two men still wear their shirts. Those people without partners merely lie flat on their backs on their towels. At the open double doors to the hallway, the woman who suggested this "event," continues to urge participation, adding, "Who cares about the surveilannce cameras...?" It occurs to me that I cared about surveillance cameras. As I glance at the woman, I see two uniformed guards approach the doors. I quickly but unobtrusively get up and exit to another door, out into a different hallway and into a bathroom. I wait a few minutes to provide plausible deniability, then exit, quickly ducking out a side door to the outdoors. Outside the school borders a public park of sorts in which there are many vendors promoting some big festival coming up. From another door exits a Dream Charactor who Dream Memory tells me is a cousin of mine, despite his close resemblence to a taller version of actor Joshua Gomez from the TV series Chuck. He is understandably agitated, having just eluded capture himself. I ask him what precisely took place, anticipating learning if there were any arrests, etc., but he keeps walking as though to make sure no one can hear him when he provides his report.

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Monday, April 06, 2009 5:56am Actors acting weirdly on set
I am on some sort of set, presumably near a holding area, and at one point pass through a large sound stage, and from the other direction actor Hugh Laurie passes me, and smiles at me with recognition as Dream Memory tells me he and I have worked together enough that we know each other. Later in holding I ask a Dream Character actor whether he's ever worked on the TV series House, as, the Dream Memory notwithstanding, I realize I've never worked on that show, making me puzzled as to how Hugh Laurie would know who I am. Suddenly from the next folding chair actor Jason Lee snatches me up and sits me on his left leg. I call the attention of a friend of mine and Jason and I pretend to be ventriloquist and dummy, for the amusement of those around us.

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Thursday, April 02, 2009 5:23am Sitting in transports
While it's moving, I hop up onto a small tram-like shuttle in which the two rows of seats face sideways towards the right side of the tram. As I get into a seat next to a pretty young woman, I see heading away from the tram a wide rickshaw like vehicle, though by then one could only see it from behind. "Look," I say to the girl at my left as I point towards the rickshaw before it's no long visible (as the tram is making a left so the rickshaw will be out of view in a moment). "There are towns in Connecticut in which that's the only form of transportation." For some reason I believe this is funny. Later at night, while listening to a cassette tape being played of a specific Spooks R Us radio program, I am in the front passenger seat in a large shuttle-van, the sort used for movie production to take cast and crew from basecamp to location (with a Dream Character driver). We are heading out of a public park, and at my right we pass a young couple who have recently gotten married. THe pair are sitting on an old fashioned wooden split-rail fence which runs along the road on which we're driving, and the woman is crying nee bawling (her heck litereally bent back so her face is crying upwards towards the sky), and I cannot precisely tell if it's from joy or regret. We reach the exit gate, when suddenly the groom (who I realize is my friend Tad), is running alongside and pounding on the side door. The driver stops at the gate and Tad slides opens the side door, hops in with the no-longer-crying girl, and they hastily scoop up large bits of rubbish that are laying around in the floor of the van. Despite my being puzzled at this behaviour I casually report to the driver, "They're cleaning the shuttle again." Finished, they hop out, and Tad comes to my window and demands I bring to him the cassette tape of the radio show by a certain time, then he runs off. For a moment I wonder how to deal with this, as it's the only copy I have. Somehow the van cassette player makes a copy, though the cassette copy is a bizarre half-cassette. Despite the fact it works perfectly fine, it only has a single spool of tape. I'm less concerned as to how it even works, that whether Tad will accept this rather than the one playing in the van's player. I hit what I think is the pause button but it keeps playing. I look but cannot locate the pause button. Finally I see a single button with all player controls on it (tiny icons indicating play, pause, fast-forward and fast-rewind). I press the button to pause it but the two-hour plus radio show restarts from the beginning. "No," I exclaim with annoyance. "I just wanted to pause it...!"

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Monday, March 23, 2009 5:50am Day at the Museums
At "work," I am in a small pharmacy like store (akin to Rite-Aid or CVS, though mostly similar to a 99 Cent Only Store). Regular coworkers cluster about within the gift-card aisle near the door. My boss needs a specific issue of a magazine, and asks my father to go out and find one and bring it back. Dream Memory keeps me from remembering my father has been dead about 15 years, and that my also-present mother lives on the opposite side of the continent. I quickly volunteer to go myself, fully aware of the magazine issue needed, implying dad might have a hard time finding it. Dad departs as Mom begins to defend Dad, a bit too snarky for my tastes, so I cannot help myself but retort with equal snarkiness: "Oh yeah, Dad never needed directions." As coworkers laugh at this amusement, Mom glaringly steps forward, but I am called away to return to my "work station," which consists of a CCTV monitor, monitoring the store in which Dad enters down the street. It seems as though Dad has walked into a sitcom of sorts, complete with laugh track. For some reason people start dancing, and I notice Alan Hale among them, dressed in his Gilligan's Island Skipper outfit. Heading down the aisle, I find myself in some sort of empty museum before in which I've never been. At the top of some steps I enter what seems to be a small waiting room, large doors opening either at my arrival or on a timer, inside is an auditorium. I am about to enter when I realize I do not have my blue bag with me, and I remember I must be at USC for a student film shoot. I rush downstairs and find the front desk; someone is on the phone but clearly she is not a worker there. A small group of people enter the veranda area who obviously are museum staff. I inquire if there is a lot and found, and as I describe my blue bag, one girl immediately assures me it has been found and she brings it to me. Realizing I am wearing my winter outer wear I wear at my day-job due to the cold work in the cellar, I remove it. I hastily head outside and find myself in a courtyard cafe style place; resembling Max Baer, a matre de or such stands at a podium, notices me and I approach and ask him about the other musuem right next door. He's a little obtuse at first, but he drops some coins into a device resembling a laudromat change machine, at the bottom of which drop several clay tablets about five inches long and four inches wide. There are about ten or so whch he gives me, implying they will get me into the museum. As I head over with the awkward tablets, I remember again I need to be Elsewhere. I return and ask if these are good only today, or are they transferable. I also strongly suspect that it might be a bad day to visit that particula museum this day, as it's "Parents Day," and its workers' parents are running it, and that that never bodes well...

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Wednesday, March 18, 2009 5:20am Weirdness at work
At work, all the boxes along the back wall are gone; some strange construction on the wall beneath the shelving is being done. I notice someone has absconded with my sneakers; in their places are two very mismatched sneakers, each with full soles, but the front top is missing on each. The left one is blue with black laces while the right is red-pink'ish with white sprinkled with black laces. Looking to my desk to see if my own black sneakers are there, a friend (recently lost to my local circle of friends), pops up and greets me, along with a great big hug and a very lustful kiss, far more amourous and deliberately inviting than she would were she still around. I can feel her bare back just beneath her t-shirt when suddenly with a smile she backs up but the tactile feel of flesh is still on my hand. I cannot look down to see if in fact my hand may be on my stomach or such. In the distance down the cellar corridors I can hear the plaintive cries of a cat, which I wonder if it will come this way and into my room.

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Thursday, March 05, 2009 5:12am Slushy yard
One of my best friends in California and I are going from the back yard to the front of my Montclair [New Jersey] home, on the porch of which I go to unlock the very different door. Instead of the ornate glass door behind a screen door, this is either a pinewood or simple pressboard wooden door. I find it awkward to get the keys to the locks, as for some reason I am holding several inflated balloons. As I try and get the keys to fit, a uniformed man or sorts at my left suddenly walks up as though to the wall. When he sees I notice him, he conveys there's been some sort of sewer back-up down the street, making it seem like quite the event to see. Across the street is a warped version of Warren Place, and there does seem to be a commotion a distance up the street. My friend and I follow the excited man, but once across the street I have trouble getting my legs to move fast enough to keep up, even with my friend who's just walking. I step left onto a lawn and sink to my waist in what seems to be an instant snow bank, now nearly melted slush. I manage to move [or "wade"] slowly back toward the curb, which now is at armpit level, and I endevour to climb and crawl out onto the slate sidewalk pavement.

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Tuesday, March 03, 2009 5:27pm Helga
It is mid-afternoon and I am at some sort of student film audtion or such, though it's ADR and not in a proper sound studio. There is a long wooden folding table on which are two techs and sound equiment. At the next such table is a microphone at which I'm do do my lines, page twelve. I open my script to find most of the pages blank, and page twelve seems to be the last page of a scene, with a single line. Music has been playing, and somehow I know that part of my audition is to sing (!), but the music playing is generic background music. We are jusdt about to start, and I politely request the music either be lowered or shut off. The music is turned off; I sit at the mic and as I take a long intake of breath, I am hand-cued to begin, at which point two doors open in the wide room and a large group of students suddenly enter the room. The two male students running my session apologize profusely; they explain they had assured those from whose room they were using that they would be a very short time (in the morning), so now other students could use the room as the room well past its usage time for the delayed ADR session. I notice another table beyond where we are, and it is filled with craft servies type snacks, at which the newly arrived students are beginning to consume. I turn to find too many students there for me to move easily. In front of me is a very attractive woman with red hair and a few freckles, and a rather tightly fit, brightly-coloured horizontally striped shirt. The throng is such she and I cannot avoid being in each others' faces (and I all but cannot remove my elbow from pressing into her breasts), all which thankfully she doesn't seem to mind either. She introduces herself as Helga, and she and I manage to exchange a few pleasantries; I indicate auditioning for the LA Film School, and she conveys being in some sort of musical program with the school. It quickly becomes obvious to us that we clearly are each equally attracted to the other, so we try to turn back towards the mic table to escape the (literal) pressure of the crowd. Her cheek sensuously pressed to mine, she takes advantage and embraces me, whispering in my ear she Wants To See Me again. I go to pull out a contact card only to find the few I have heavily damaged even in ways normally they couldn't be (photos or from words letters missing, et al). Finally I grab a pen to write out my contact information for her, with great anticipation she looks forward to obtaining.

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Thursday, February 26, 2009 5:54am Closed-in at work
I am walking down in the the main corridors of my day job and as I get to the back door, and I notice some workers are about to emerge from offices and into the hallway... I suddenly realize that, being naked, perhaps I should get dressed, or at least make myself scarce. I turn around and run back and around the corner. From behind me I can hear my friend Bonnie calling after me after a fashion, loudly proclaiming my nakedness. I quickly enter what in the dream is my work area (unlike anything at the real job). It's a small room, but lengthy. I am already dressed, and coworkers are in and around the vertical file cabinets using lockers. I deduce the room doubles as a worker locker room. A higher-up Dream Character brings in to show around a messily hand-written letter with some photos, sent from some client. She begins to "dictate" a reply letter, which I realize is for me to write up. I have her follow me, excusing ourselves around numerous people wandering about. I try typing but notice it's a peculiar calculator, not a computer. I sit at my desk but as she begins to talk, loud music from various directions drowns her out. I go to four different radios to shut them each off, one is on the desk of a coworker who, noticing me stopping the music, shuts hers off herself. Music comes from what appears to be a sophisticated walkie-talkie; I cannot fathom where its Music Off switch is, so I risk just shutting it off completely. I sit down and begin to type, despite the woman's dictation being slow and grammatically nonsense. I try to keep up but despite normally clocked at 61+ WPM, I keep entering typos and keep trying to correct them as I go instead of typing the gist of it and making corrections later. I spend about five minutes working on the second half a single sentence...

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Saturday, February 21, 2009 6:01am Neighbourhood alligators
Dream Geography alters a nearby intersection near the Montclair [New Jersey] home in which I used to live. Around the corner, on the south-western end of Fullerton, is a slight bit of marshland, near which to my surprise are numerous rather active alligators. I begin to feel concern that they may be more hungry than I'd normally believe, and I am very careful keeping a distance from them. The backyard of the Montclair house has the below ground pool from my childhood Pompton Plains [New Jersey] house, but here it is raised above the ground. One lone alligator glides along its surface.

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Tuesday, February 17, 2009 5:33am Boat raising and new cats
My friends have just given me their handsome cat Murray. In my bedroom, he is curious and puzzled as to his new surroundings; the bedroom is unlike my actual bedroom. There are two doors in a corner of the room, each to a different corridor. Murray is on my bed, wrestling with beige, wide-knitted sweaters or such. Somehow I know my mother has left the doors open to the room, and I am concerned Murray isn't fully acclimated to his new place before he can go off to explore beyond my room. Dream Shift: A super-smart girl, around 11 or so, devises a way to raise a swamped ship by attaching flat letters to the hull, each of which inflates to give the ship buoyancy.

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Thursday, February 12, 2009 5:22am Dream-character family members and dead brothers rising

Backstory: Normally when I have what I call nightmare imagery, I do not experience fear. Some of this dream was so effed up in its vividness, that while never actually afraid, I was extremely creeped out. During the dream I did not associated any of the imagery that clearly came from book, TV and/or movie storyline sources... Also, in real life I have one brother, a year and a half younger than I; I have no other siblings, sisters or otherwise.

Monday, February 09, 2009 5:37am Stores, dogs, Mars and valley vistas
I am in a grocery store with my friend's dog "C." Instead of his regular leash, attached to his collar is a long, thin chain, similar to the sort attached to yard run-lines or dog-houses. "C" decides to run unexpectedly, yanking out of my hand the chain. We are at the far back of the store wall, perpendicular to the aisles, so knowing the store is finite, instead of merely chasing him (as he is running as though he were three instead of thirteen), I cut left down an aisle and as I reach its end towards the front of the store, "C" happily runs past, and I can step on his chain. "C" stops, panting with his silly grin, as though he thought (or probably thought), that I was running with him the entire time. Nearby on his phone is my brother, casually lying on his side on a small stack of skids in the front of the store. He finishes his call as I sit down next to him. Beyond him, what would be the front corner of the store, what would be the walls are gone, showing a wide vista in the distance of a row of mountainous skylines, coming to a cliffside down to a distant shore. I feel it is perfect backdrop for a photo, and Alan takes up my request, but inquires as to whether such a background would be a distraction if I wanted to use this photo as a headshot. Dream Shift: I am in a simulator for a Mars-mission lander. There are barely any instruments; but there are large monitors looming over my seat. Outlines of outer planets seem like sonigrams, and I report seeing Jupiter and even report that Pluto is visible. The lander comes to rest near a grey cliff rock-wall, which makes me wonder if I've actually landed in a deep hole. I begin to have a vivid recollection of some college-humour type friends preparing for my departure party. One runs across a parking lot to a garbage truck as I video record it from a distance. Suddenly there are real-time jump cuts, and as I am recording it live I realize the only I can see time jump-cuts is... if I am dreaming. I stop and concentrate and deduce I am in fact dreaming, and briefly go lucid, in the distance watch a plane clearly coming in for a crash landing that doesn't happen. The wide partially-clouded sky seems even wider than the real sky. My theory that I am dreaming is reinforced as I find it difficult to move my arms.

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Friday, February 06, 2009 5:59am [Not Quite] Hell's Soundstage
Somehow I am a contestant on some version of Hell's Kitchen, without so much as a Dream Memory as to my getting there. No one else are current or previous contestants, and it's simply several people, not two teams of all male and all female. A one-on-one challenge has been made (Gordon Ramsey nowhere in sight), making a dish simply called Pollo Loco. The two men competing against each other go to a storage room, similar to one that might be on Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, and for no good reason I tag along. I sit near the door in the closed room as the two men begin. They seem still to be on a same team, as one of the two on the far side of room, admits not to know how to make this particular dish. The younger skinnier guy by me near the door knows it and slightly talks the guy through it enough to help him get started. He pours a large can of brackish looking black beans along with regular golden beans. The glob sticks together in a way that the young man can "flip" the stuff on the large cooking pan onto which he's poured it. I've had enough and I walk out, with TV crewmen passing me as I head back to where the other contestants are waiting. There is a kitchen of sorts facing a large sound-stage like side door which is partially open to the outside. Most if not all the costestants are hanging out rather casually, though a few remake their concert about making this conveluted dish, at which point I simply declare openly it doesn't matter, at least certainly not to me, as obviously I am dreaming. One guy finds this rather amusing, but I continue that I am lucid dreaming (albeit at the time I don't notice it's a form I've not before experienced: I'm lucid but not really excited about it, as though it's perfectly normal). The guy goes for a water in the other section of the sound-stage. As I follow to demonstrate I'm not lying, when I glance at my hand (as generally that's a good test to prove you're dreaming), I notice the middle knuckle of my right hand's middle finger is rather bulbous, as though it'd been injured. Also two small black thorns begin make their way out of my flesh, which the guy sees to his horror. At the middle on my left hand's index finger, what starts as though a small black thorn rises up the side my finger to its tip like a dog's dew claw nail. This proves to the guy, as well as to myself, that clearly I am dreaming. Next to the water container is a small room in which my brother and several others are seating at a table. I realize that somehow they are background performers being served lunch, although their lunch consists of a halved cut bagel with some strawberry-pink glop on it. I head back past the the waiting area, the storage room with the two cooks, into a larger sound-stage area. A wide banner from the ceiling stretches down to my waist level and moves past me. A crew member who knows me holds up a map of northern New Jersey, conveying his plans to go deer hunting in Suffern. I point out there are deer in the mountains between Pequannock and Riverdale and Butler, but he tells me he doesn't want to be so far south. Continuing on in search of regular craft services, beyond that area is another sound-stage area with more crew members, and passing in front of me is a "familiar face:" a Dream Character woman in her 40s wearing strange sunglasses and a straw hat. I greet her familiarly, though I do not readily indicate aloud that I cannot immediately recall her name. Thankfully while she recognizes me with great happiness, and sits me in a chair, strides my lap and kisses me (at which point Dream Memory tells me she's a First Assistant Director), she admits being unable to be absolutely sure of my name as well, getting close with "Joe...?" "Geoffrey, actually," I remind her politely. "Of course," she says with a smile. "Geoffrey...!" "Did you get my Christmas card?" I ask: apparently I've worked with her before. "I just got it the other day," she replies, which I figure could make sense as the only address to which I would sent a card would be via the production offices. She stays while continuing to lean foward, frequently meeting her lips with mine. She seems very happy to have received it, and in my head I wonder if it will help me get more principal work.

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Wednesday, February 04, 2009 5:47am Night date at the museum
I am in some sort of large museum with one female friend from back east who actually is a combination of two different girls back east I know. The vast museum lobby resembles a cross between the offices in the TV show Eli Stone, and the main set in the series Dollhouse. She and I enter one room in which it appears in the center to be a small grassy bog. I step onto one of the grassy protrusions but slip and sink waist deep into the water, climbing out onto the walkway surrounding it. There I find an open aquarium like a little mini-bog, and a tiny frog hops into one of my fingers, which I call for my friend to see. We admire it for a moment as it casually hops off my fingertip and back into its li'l habitat. She pulls me to the far end of the empty room where behind a desk she pulls me down to the hardwood floor to lay atop of her and she begins to kiss me, even very tentatively offering some tongue. I am surprised as, while with one of the girls she slightly resembles such behaviour took place more than once, while the girl she does more resemble never was so generously intimate with me. A noise brings us up short as apparently a custodian has entered with a rubbish bin to empty waste baskets. I quickly rise, gesturing her to get up a few moments later, when suddenly from around the desk come a mother and son, the latter of whom watches us quizzickally as my friend makes it to her feet. Both of us highly amused, we hasten from the room. I make sure the doorway is shut as we enter a wide hallway that contains a staircase, and I see my friend cutting up some sort of paperwork on a wall bulletin board. It's something that offends her love of animals or such. We quickly head down the stairs (at which I can see the "tv set" museum lobby below and behind us on the open stairs), my friend realizing she still has her box-cutter in her hand. She all but sits on a step for a moment when she realizes this, and at my behest hastily pockets it, both of us positing how such could be considered "brandishing," etc. We also notice on the far wall a black glass bulb implying security camera/s. We make it to a parking garage where we quickly begin to find where we parked so we can leave.

Monday, February 02, 2009 5:55am Night shoot lunch
I am booked on an afternoon into a night shoot movie gig, my film producer friend (along with one of her two dogs ["C"], and one of my ex-girlfriends). We drive up Pompton Avenue (aka northbound Route 23), through Cedar Grove, turning left onto Grove Avenue (south-westbound), at the crest of the hill. We immediately pull in and park next to a long honey wagon (production trailer), and we all get out. We learn crew parking is farther up the road. We realize "C" is missing, ut quickly spot him lumbering up the nearby incline of grass, just as happy as he is at the dog park. Dream Shift: We arrive at some fancy dress affair, in a tudor-style room. I am dressed in my all-black thief outfit I used to wear at the New York Ren Faire, along with my original cloak (that the same ex-girlfriend lost on the move to California). On entering, I am irritated to see a man dressed as Santa Claus, with an ill-fitting beard and no white wig. My producer friend asks me why I look so annoyed, and as somehow I know this man is hired as entertainment for this party (not just a costumed guest), I point out, "I know a professional Santa Claus they could have hired..." Along the wall, We find we're already on a long buffet line. Drsesed in grey fine-tailored Victoria-era garb, the man ahead of me turns to me and pleasantly says, "I guess you'll want me to be moving then?" As he turns to move on, I realize it's Hugh Jackman. As we move along the line, across the relatively small room, I see two women espy me, one wondering aloud if I'm [supposed to be] Batman (my head uncovered notwithstanding). There are countless foodstuffs, generally finger-food, and none marked as to what is what. I try various golden cheeses to find cheddar, but everything I try is utterly tasteless.

Thursday, January 29, 2009 4:33am Gelatinous bully
A hotel mezzanine level has boxes and boxes heaped up against its walls (similar to the upstairs offices at my day-job at the moment). My San Pedro friend John is seated at the head of a rectangular table, next to him sitting a large, strange puffy and bulbous man in a grey t-shirt. He is bald with thick black stubble on his chin; he seems like he has no neck, just mushy flesh. He is accusing John of something which John understandably refutes. The puffy man's mouth is strangely shaped in what seems to be a perpetual pucker, but his looks don't stop him from endevouring to intimidate John. He refuses to acknowledge John's rebuts, so John leans forward and literally shouts into the stub of an ear on the side of the man's head. John shouts his refutations, almost smiling at demonstrating the puffy man's stupidity. The quite tall and wide man stands, and John stands up, refusing to back down. "I think you should listen to him," I say darkly to the puffy many, a full head taller than I. He demands my being quiet, as I cannot help but gaze at his peculiar mouth... there's something just not... right about it. It's circular, seemingly with no teeth of tongue, and what appears to be a transluscent grey film is just within his lips, giving the impression it's almost like guaze protecting the inner mouth, but it's obviously not fabric material. In an attempt to force John to confess, the man grabs John's head and begins to kiss him. John doesn't agree to this but really doesn't fight back. As though I feel that striking him would be more grotesque and wondering if he even has a skeletal system, I begin to shout over and over the word, "Fire!" It comes out rather croakishly (as my throats been bothering me the last couple of days), and after the fourth or fifth shout, the kiss is broken, as both men look at me. "No one comes when y'shout 'Help'," I point out to them simply. "When it's a real emergency you're always s'pposed to shout 'Fire'..." Sure enough, what appears to be upper management staff of the hotel can be seen coming from down the hall, as with a snarl, the puffy man releases John and hastily departs.

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Wednesday, January 28, 2009 5:40am Shattered cell
I am in a small waiting room of a small airport. Several somewhat disheveled people are in seats along the walls; the center of the room contains flimsey tables with jury-rigged computers available for use by the public. I work on one to get flight times, somehow aware my father is off recovering his luggage from an in-coming flight. The computers are so makeshift they barely work. When I have to leave a terminal for a few moments a grizzled man with long black hair takes my place without so much as an "Excuse me." I go outside into the parking lot, getting into and sitting in the front seat of the first car I ever owned. My friend Bonnie is in the front passenger seat, watching videos or such on a laptop. I go to pop the trunk but the engine hood opens. I get out and, going around to close it, I check to see if my cell phone has a signal in case my father tries to call me. To my surprise, the screen and buttons of my cell phone are missing; the front of the outer casing is shattered as though the phone has taken a bullet, but the components are also gone, as though they have been scooped out. "Whoa, that doesn't look good," some guy at the next car says, seeing the phone's condition. "I don't even remember dropping it," I reply in puzzlement, examining the device. The top third has been hollowed out and despite the front buttons being missing, I stupidly wonder if it can at least accept calls...

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Monday, January 26, 2009 5:26am Noise isn't music...
Sitting at a computer with a coworker to my left and a producer friend to my right, I am at the far back wall of an apparently people-empty warehouse-like Home Depot sort of store, despite seeming a it CostCo'esque. Suddenly in front of us, beyond our computers, loud music suddenly begins to blare. Fo some reason this sudden noise annoys me big time. "Oh hell no..."! I exclaim as I race around to the next aisle. On seeing me, two pre-teen young boys lounging on a sofa, see me and leap up, fleeing towards the front of the store, as I shout at them to turn off the music. They finally reach a boom-box of sorts, but the one boy trying to switch it off cannot find the power button. I do, and I switch it off. I am ir ritated and all but furious at the two boys, who are standing to the side, now nearly cowering. I point to the front and order them to get out, adding, "Y'know it's kids like you that prove as to why condoms were invented...!" The boys run from the store. Returning to the back I find only my producer friend is there.

Saturday, January 24, 2009 6:44am Unexpected feline return and expositional chats
Almost as though out of a P.J. Wodehouse story, my [Dream Character] girlfriend and I are famous stage-actor toasts of the town. We are finishing up at a diner, preparing to visit my parents, as I verbally exposit storyline facts that it's the first time my parents are meeting her, that she and I have been together for about twenty years [?!], and I even ponder aloud questions to be put to us, such as why we have no children and we we have not yet married. I kiss her forehead, and with a napkin wiping away the red slight smudge of stage make-up I inadvertantly leave there. We depart (the Wodehouse similarity ending), and outside the diner we can hear a radio quiz show asking a three-part question about the movie Darby O'Gill. We head to the underpass at which sits the radio, to see if I can arm-chair answer the trivia question. Standing next to it is my brother. The question concerns aspects of the film's storyline that do not exist in real life, regarding certain dates. The only one I get right is about a female character having been ten years younger during a certain incident. The underpass is along the lines of the 101 crossing over Van Nuys Boulevard, although there's no traffic, and Dream Memory says it's actually a train route. From the north I can see a train coming, despite the road still being train-trackless asphalt, in fact as asphalt-rippled as downtown Newark New Jersey through which all the buses run. My girlfriend has almost deliberately stepped back, just enough I have to firmly remind her to step forward so as not to be struck by the silent oncoming train. Inside a bizarre version of the Montclair [New Jersey] house, the [apparently nameless] girlfriend and I head up the stairs. "You're not allergic to cats, are you?" I ask, apparently never having asked this of her. She points out she is not, at which I'm relieved, notifying her I'm getting a cat. As we enter my old bedroom (which I verbally announce to be so), Dream Memory keeps me from noticing numerous differences from real life memory, such as the room door being at the wrong angle from the stairs, my Pasadena friends' son's bunk beds just inside the door, and the shape of the room in general. Plus my current bed next to the bunk beds, the top of its mattress about at my armpit level, onto which hops Murray, my San Pedro friends' cat. "Oh," I notice with surprise, addressing Murray. "You're already here." As he walks towards the head of the bed, I notice with some alarm my first cat, whose name I exclaim in startled surprise: "Bast...!" My loving white cat looks up from cleaning his front paws, vividly looking perfectly healthy and even wearing his blue collar. I am utterly astonished. Bast sees me and begins his mega-motor boat purring, and immediately begins his normal demands of attention. Murray comes over for head-petting and rubbing as well, and the two cats clearly are fine with each other. I am not so fine; Dream Memory neglects to rectify in my head the knowledge Bast cannot be there, let alone be alive: the passage of time is not lost on me. "I didn't sign up for this," I say, and I quickly go downstairs and find my brother with our mutual friend Jude. I sit down at the kitchen table (which is in a main foyer hallway across from a flight of stairs that does not match any set I've ever used). I demand of my brother an explanation. "How is it that Bast is in my room? He died, what, around fifteen years ago, in my arms, at the age of maybe sixteen or so, and he's on my bed, alive and well, and looks as he did when he first came home from the shelter! Tell me before I go upstairs and wake up Mom and Dad to ask them" (Dream Memory not reminding me that my father too has been dead since almost around the same amount of time as has Bast). My brother casually deflects the direct inquiry, and off-handedly reports that he and Jude are working on some sort of reality-show type video, of which such a sequence would be included, albeit the conversation would have to take place in the morning, meaning that's how long I'd have to wait for my answer. I am not pleased with that as a response...

Thursday, January 22, 2009 5:52am Lucid work
I "awake" at work, actually surprised I am lucid and fully aware I am dreaming. I am wearing the coveralls I wear for when it is really cold downstairs. I suspect I realize I am dreaming due to room being substantially different: entire shelf units are missing. It is as if the nearby construction workers have taken over the entire level, but I observe the floor is slippery and that the carpeting has been pulled up. I notice a slow steady current of water coming at a decline in the room, as though the normally plum room is now slightly declined as is the hallway outside. I spot a small television set on the floor, with several bankers boxes stacked on top of it; checking it out I discover it is playing some sort of porno video... I look up to see, even though I thought the gate was closed and thereby locked, that a few construction men have wandered in, standing and noticing what the TV is playing. Unaware of where its VCR might be located, I hit the power button on the TV. I stand and in my most sarcastic and authoritative voice I "ask," "Can I 'help' you...?" (essentially declaring I am aware they are trespassing and they'd best move along). My tone quickly has them depart the room. From upstairs a few coworkers have come down, but are still in the hallway, one of whom is leaning up against the jutting wall corner, as though concerned there could be some sort of gun-play about to begin. I ask why she's not coming across and into the room, but with no reply, I walk out and over to her. Beyond her the corridor wall is gone, in its place being a small patio and a three foot stone wall with four foot iron bars above, giving the impression of a restaurant patio that prevents after-hours intruders. I find this a surprise as (obviously), I've never seen this before. While this is enough of a distraction to have me forget I am dreaming, the dream remained staggeringly vivid and tactile throughout.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009 5:21am Wet and dry work
I am at work, and somehow a large cluster of dust has taken to the air, giving the impression of long strands of asbestos-like fibers. A coworker from upstairs seeks a few files and thinks nothing of the slowly lowering visibility. The dust seems to have eminated from one of the boxes through which she'd been searcing, and may in fact be paper-disintegrating pulp (despite being long white strands of fiber). Later I am in the back row and notice a sudden, considerable amount of water. I glance up to see long row of black metal pipes (not there in real life), that are shower water all over the cardboard bankers boxes in which are countless files. I realize I'd best get upstairs to notify somehow for the water to be shut down, and I hastily rush to the front to close and put away the laptop, despite finding it already being drenched with water from above.

Friday, January 09, 2009 4:59pm Off Road Motel, a 1930s scene, and Love Attacked
I am at the end of a long corridor; two walls have long cushy sofas, while the third side wall has a metal sliding door to a sound stage. I am having a polite conversation with Jennifer Love Hewitt when this obese kid (resembling Raushan Hammond from Hook), comes up not only to butt his way into the conversation, but suddenly grabs Love and gives her a very non-consentual kiss.
Love is so startled by this she does not actually fight off his unwanted advance/s; her arms begin to flail a bit and she begins attempting to vocalize as his hands make their way onto her chest. Rolling my eyes, I grab the kid by the scruff of the neck and yank him back, propelling him onto the far sofa. I sit down next to him to convey sternly how inappropriate that was/is. The kid makes a very coarse comment about Love's breasts, at which point (uncharacteristic even for me in a dream), I smack the kid across his pudgy face, the sound of the sharp slap strangely applified. The brat flees as Love stands there facing me, still aghast and wiping her mouth from the disgusting event.
At my left the metal door slides open and wrapped in clear plastic are various pieces of set flats are by the door, as whatever scene was being shot deep within the sound stage has finished. I notice one of the flats closely resembles the front of a familiar Police Box, and ask one of the techs about it. It is clarified it's an in-joke, occasionally visible in a shot.
Somehow I know my mother has been working this shoot, and I am permitted to bring the set piece to show her. She slightly recognizes it but for some reason the dark blue bit of flat being only about three foot tall, she misses the connection it's a reference to the TARDIS.
Dream Shift:
I am in a small vehicle with the woman who was my first-ever sexual partner. She is driving us to a special location, which turns out to be very off-road. At one point as she is driving up a steep hill and working at traction in sand, I point out the car is nearly verticle. She doesn't seem to mind; my concern is the vehicle tipping back and over.
At the top we hike over rocks, mostly-buried by topsoil and moss, and lined with snow. Following us are several grey-brown squirrels that seem remarkably tame, almost as though they're expecting to be petted or hand-fed.
In the distance we can see a motel of sorts, which is our destination. Next thing I know, I am waking up in the motel bathroom, covered by a large comforter, somehow stretched across the closed toilet with no other bracing (my legs and upper torso are still flat-out, despite not lying on anything: only my pelvis is across the top of the closed toilet seat).
I wonder how long I've slept there, and as I emerge I find four relatively attractive women in their late twenties/early thirties. Somehow I know these are my friend's roommates. They report rather casually that my girl has gone to hospital for some unspecified reason, though it's implied it's serious. As the women become vague as to why I wasn't notified or otherwise awakened when my girl left, suddenly my friend William enters, offering to take me to the hospital at which my girl had been admitted.
Dream Shift
My producer friend and I walk down a rather busy suburban downtown street. Peculiar low-hanging clouds render a strange 3D effect to a distant orange glowing advertising sign. As we approach we see the thin layer of cloud touching the street. "We're going to get cloud all over us," my friend worries.
"No, we can just pass through it," I point out, and we do, despite feeling very very strange. I stop and examine the vertical layer of cloud, having strange translucency and stripes after a fashion. I notice it's actually malleable, and more from the edges, virtually solid. I begin to tear it like fabric, but it seems to tear like silent gelatin without leaving any residue.
I marvel at this for a few moments before my friend finally insists we continue to our destination, forcing me to leave our strange paranormal find.
Apparently set in the 1930s (the entire sequence now in a black-and-white film noir style), my friend and I enter a restaurant for dinner, at which a famous private detective is also dining. Whatever entertainment they had has already been completed as we have our meal, and the manager is notifying the detective at the next table that he'd been invited and fed for free in exchange for solving some crime that's taken place at the establishment.
Unsure if this is another aspect of entertainment, I go to switch my cell phone to silent, but it keeps going to some sort of .jpg function my bare-bones phone normally doesn't even have. My friend goes to take the phone to do it herself, but I point out if this is going to be an ongoing issue, I have to learn how to switch it back myself.
When we go to check out, the cashier behind the bar insists my portion is twenty-four dollars, despite my recalling the menu saying my dish was twelve and for some reason was supposed to be halved that as well.
A slight Dream Shift has me in part of some sort of (still 1930s film noir) con game against some stereotypical gangster (suit and tie, fedora hat, thin moustache and overdone Edward G. Robinson style speech patterns, et al). I am retrieving a money box from under the floorboards in an attic. Outside the door I can hear the guy speaking with his girlfriend (to whom the money actually belongs).
I can hear him tell what I presume to be a third party, "Actually when y'come right down to it: her money... is my money..." The loud gun retort almost isn't a surprised as I still think, Okay now that can't be good...

Thursday, January 08, 2009 4:37pm Government gunmen, botched breakfasts and mutant kids
I am in some sort of warehouse, I am to make breakfast or lunch for a group of friends.
There is the equivalent of a stove on a waist high shelf at the end of one of the rows, but my supplies are not all together, I have to run back and forth to retrieve a pan and other materials from various shelves, seek out eggs (enough of which I noticed there aren't), and on finding a loaf of bread for grilled cheese sandwiches, I bemoan how after only a couple of days I can already seen bits of green mold forming, having rendered the cheaply bought bread useless.
The burners are literally hidden (the blue flames rising from what appears to be a flat surface), and the flames have gone out, despite the knobs implying they're on. I suspect they are connected to a propane tank which could have emptied. Lifelong friend Gayle is nearby on a cell phone while try to calculate for just how many people I'm supposed to be cooking. I figure about ten, so I keep seeking out eggs with which to make a large batch of scrambled eggs, but there are only a few left in a single container. Another container's eggs are clearly unusable.
Gayle offers me the phone, claiming the woman on the other end is single, available, and interested in me. She and I chat briefly while I am distracted trying to find more eggs, and wondering if I have time to get more provisions nearby... but I am not completely certain of our location. I know outside is some sort of a suburban location, and I now know there are numerous children outside.
In an adjoining TV room, at the right my mother and my [late] father watch a documentary on animals on a massive plasma screen, while to the left teen boys are preparing to play D&D or such, and a fellow in his late twenties, anxious to be included, presents each with high-end figure or set-design carvings. These figures have intricate moving parts and while the younger boys are highly impressed, they are uncertain whether to let the older (to them) man join in their game.
I remember I am on the phone but discover the woman in no longer on the line. Machine gun fire is audible from outside. "That can't be good," I deduce, and quickly head outside.
Government hit men are shooting at a long line of children, each of which has some sort of mutant ability. One child slowly starts levitate to escape but machine gun fire kills him. Several of the men vanish, to appear as large framed caricature portraits on the white exterior wall of the warehouse. One boy, seemingly dressed like Iron Man, walks to a nearby popcorn vending cart, and punches his right arm through its glass, somehow creating popcorn under so much pressure the metal of its popper bends as easily as an inflating balloon: the resulting explosion of popcorn takes out numerous gunmen.
I do not see how the rest of the gunmen are dispatched, but shooting at children merely as they are different is an easily unforgiveable offends, and their deaths (and/or transformations), are more than justified.
Later, similar to a Dream Shift, I am in a nearby building, a small art gallery with old fashioned exposed wood. As an exhibit are displayed several other portraits of transformed gunmen, each of which, Hogwarts-style, the subjects move, though not always of their own volition. One sepia-toned portrait shows a young woman on a swing, from which she cannot get off, as instead of gently swinging, it spins around, and literally bounces jarringly so the would-be assassin can spend eternity in extreme discomfort.
As I go through a box of "pills" that resemble pebbles and small stones, a man explains about these pills to some of the children by the door, but I'm not sure if they were to enhance or supress their abilities. One boy points out he cannot take pills. I go to say I can best swallow pills with a mouthful of chewed food, but the man speaks over me, and the group departs. In the small box, the pebbles seem broken up and substantially smaller. As I go to leave, I hear a familiar grating voice manage to croak out, "Exterminate... caricature pictures..."
On the floor by the door I see what I perceive to be a Dalek eye-stalk, even though it really looks nothing like one. What is on the floor is a clear cylindrical tube, interntally lit electric blue, with a flat end facing the room, halfway down an analog clock face, etc. But in the dream I know this is part of a damaged Dalek; I kick it hard as I head quickly for the door, even though knowing the piece is undamaged.
Outside resembles the trolly area at the marina in San Pedro, boats and the water in the distance beyond a standard cyclone fence. I run to the right onto the small road, back towards where I know are the others, to warn them at least one part of a Dalek must be in contact with others.