Some of these dream pieces were connected, others were separate dreams. But some I can't remember the bridging parts, so each one gets a paragraph.

I was in a hotel for a conference. There was a part of the floor that was very slippery, and I found myself skating around on thin-soled shoes. At first, I was out of control, but after a while I was able to skate backwards and do fancier loops, something I can't do in real life. It felt great, but I was also getting self-conscious about showing off. Eventually I stopped and headed over to the front desk. There were 20 messages waiting for me. Someone I knew shouted, "Now we get to see what happens when an Asian doesn't answer his Mom's phone calls for two weeks!" The messages were put on speakerphone and it was my sister calling on my mom's behalf. Every message started with, "Actually..." I ignored them and walked outside, where my mom was waiting for me in a really beat up old silver-and-red car. I watched, shocked, as it flew around a bit like the delorean in Back to the Future, except that it did so very clumsily, hitting parked cars along the way. I got in, and my mom was trying to be angry while keeping control of the car. Eventually we took off into the sky, and both of us started dancing and singing. I'd never seen her loosen up so much before.

A man who seemed to generally be in control of things was getting a tatoo on his back. Near the neck was the word Lulu (which was supposed to be Lila, a character on the show Dexter). On his back was a large grid, like a crossword puzzle. Every time a hit that he ordered was carried out, the victim's name was filled in somewhere. Somewhat connected to this was me watching the season 4 finale of Dexter (which I never watched in real life) where Dexter kills John Lithgow's character, a mass murderer. In this version, there is CGI showing the vital organs and major blood vessels overlaid somewhat cartoonishly on Lithgow while Dexter kills him with a pair of scissors. Very creepy. There were some other hyperviolent things that happened in this dream, unrelated to the show, but I fortunately can't remember them anymore. It happens when it gets too hot when I'm sleeping.

At a dinner at my boss Lynda's house, I was sitting with several professors. The guy next to me looked to be in his late 60s. Lynda gave each of us a joke present of some sort. He got one alluding to him being a serial killer, which apparently was a running joke with all the professors. Everyone laughed, including me, until Lynda said, "No really Larry, you should look into it, he totally fits the profile of [some notorious killer?]." The guy shook his head, but then started smiling rather creepily. He looked to old to actually hurt anyone, but I didn't take any chances. I said had to be going.

Back at the lab, Lynda asked me how things were going while we waited for the elevator. I mentioned that I had what I thought was a great new idea for the project. When she didn't respond at all, I just left it at that. When we got to the lab, I went to look through my latest slides. Lynda came over and said that I ought to do staining for the Sin3 protein to look for senescence. I smiled and pointed to my slides, saying that I had just done that. But she ignored me and kept talking about other things I should do (actually quite realistic).

At a movie theater, we were watching a movie about boys growing up in an orphanage. The headmaster hired a bunch of older boys to wear dog costumes and scare the orphans into doing their chores or going to bed. Eventually, he started getting half the orphans to dress up as the dogs, and switch them around, to save money. Apparently this was the source of the phrase "who let the dogs out?" I left the packed cinema.

posted by Larry at 10:30 AM

Merry's Dreams

We went to a lighthouse (sort of thing), which was pretty much surrounded by water except for one side that was connected to a parking lot. So we were basically throwing balls, like baseball sized but hollow, and trying to see how far we could throw it. My sister was there, and a girl from my elementary school who was really tall and athletic who could throw it really far. Then it was time to leave, and some sort of realtor came to take us to our car. At some point, Tyler came along and was walking us to our car too. We got to our car and the realtor couldn't find her car. She finally found it, but it was stuck between other cars. Eventually, she got her car out and that was it.

Second dream: We were upstairs in my parents' house in the room across from my sister's. It had this door that leads to an attic-type thing, which was semi-open. I was in bed and Terry must have woken me up so I got out of bed. Shortly after, I heard a mouse sound coming from the bed. We looked for the mouse, but could not find one. Eventually, the mouse appeared on the carpet, walking slowly. We were scared, but did not scream for the mouse was very cute. Then later, we saw a little rat that was also kind of cute. It took the mouse by the tail and slowly took it back to the attic door. Then we screamed.

posted by Larry at 1:29 PM