Larry's Dream Blog

2012-01-18T08:57:00.002-06:00

I woke up in an elegant, yet run down little hotel room somewhere in Europe or South America. My room was in the basement, and I headed out to the semi-public bathroom. As I sat on the toilet, I studied my surroundings: an irregular white board was nailed to the wall running towards me on the left, and it was too long so it stuck out into the corridor in front of me. I briefly wondered what horrible damage or stains it was covering up, but then thought it better to think of more pleasant things. The large white tiles on the floor were chipped here and there, and the grout was a deep moldy black. Even so, the ornate shelves on the wall and the native decorations and curios gave the place a gentle charm. It was then that I noticed with some alarm a waitress standing at the far end of the hallway, and beyond her an open air kitchen: everyone could see in! Fortunately, I was wearing a towel, but when I stood up and headed out, I realized even the front part of the bathroom was completely open to the lobby. I quickly changed, as I had brought my suitcase in there, and walked briskly out, only pausing to notice a standalone bathtub filled with a dark brown liquid.

I was happy to be out with the other guests in the lobby, which had a reddish-brownish elegance of wood-paneled walls and plush carpeting. I wanted to join for breakfast, and wandered from table to table, wondering which ones were being served. There was a broad table against one wall, with two computers on one end and several menus across the rest of it. Stately semicircular chairs were tucked in, looking inviting, but I was too worried that it wasn't a true breakfast table. So I headed for the doors. Soon, I was in a large college cafeteria-like room, and I went to the buffet. I grabbed three plates: sliced pork, bacon, and pork rinds. I brought the first two plates and sat down with Fernando, who I haven't seen in years. Apparently, he had become a vegetarian and teased me about how unhealthy I was being. I went back for the last plate, and while I was getting up, Fernando called out to a blonde woman who was walking down the aisle, "Hey, your sister is amazing!" Turns out her sister is a major pop star in Europe (although Fernando is Peruvian). She smiled, then sat down at a nearby table. When I got back with my third plate, Fernando asked me if he should go over and sit down with her. I encouraged him, but first I tried a few bites of my food. For the first time in a long time in a dream, I actually ate buffet food: the sliced pork was rubbery and bland, and almost made me puke. The bacon was a little better, at least it was crispy if tasteless. Just then Fernando did what he asked, and so did several other people from the room. Oddly, as she was chatting to all of them, her pop star sister walked past and was only briefly cheered by her fans. I guessed they thought they had a better chance of spending time with her sister. I wanted to go over and tell her not to worry about Fernando since he's gay, but she didn't looked distressed so I let them be.

I headed back to my room. A maid told me that my manuscript was back from review, but not their comments. I excitedly grabbed the large beat-up white binder and fleetingly thought how odd it was that I had delivered it in a blue binder only for them to change it to this. I excitedly took the papers off the binder rings and started pulling the sheets up one by one against my chest, looking for something interesting. There were yellow highlights virtually everywhere, and my heart sank. The first set of scribbled comments were on the references list, and said things like "Wrong reference!" or "This is outdated!" I felt sad but determined.

2012-01-14T10:05:00.003-06:00

I was out with a large group of friends, maybe a dozen or so, eating at a trendy new place. Ordering happened very quickly and confusingly, so I didn't know exactly what I was expecting. Everyone had rather exotic dishes, but when mine was dropped off, everyone oohed and aahed: someone asked, "are those... fried bees?" I proudly answered yes, glad to show off my adventurous side. It was an enormous square plate, with a huge bed of dirty rice supporting scattered, well, fried bees of various shapes and sizes. Just as I was working my way up to grabbing one of the medium sized ones, there was movement. Suddenly, half my plate buzzed and bees began taking off randomly, fried batter and all. Everyone else giggled politely, and began reaching in and popping bees into their mouths. It looked like they were enjoying it, but every time I went for a still one, a few big ones would wake up and zip out in front of me. I also saw increasingly large insects as I turned the plate around, with a giant red (battered) beetle on the corner. I was losing my nerve. The guy next to me, a skinny, long-haired hippie type who was enjoying several at a time, told me to just go for it. I noticed a huge insect, maybe a grasshopper, that took up the entire side of the dish, which really made me lose my appetite. But I was determined. Next to that was what actually looked like a jumbo shrimp, so that was my candidate for edibility. Just as I was about to touch it, it moved. My hippie friend chuckled and sliced into it with his butter knife, revealing the green mushy entrails and severing it completely in half. It kept swimming up and around, as if the plate had become an aquarium. I waited for it to die, but eventually I just felt sorry for it and gave up on eating anything.

As I headed out, I had to cross through a crowd of shady-looking people. I kept my hands at my side, to block pickpockets and to constantly feel for my wallet. Sure enough, I got the old bump-and-excuse-me, and I immediately felt that my phone was gone. I confronted the guy and he said he didn't know what I was talking about. I pushed him, while at the same time questioning whether it was worth it for me if he turned violent. But just then, a couple other people came at him too, realizing they had also lost their phones. He began stammering that it was just a misunderstanding, and he pulled a couple phones out of his pockets. One looked melted and flattened, which he tried to push on me. But I recognized and grabbed my Blackberry from his other hand. I put on a macho front as I threatened him and walked off, but I felt nothing but nervous relief that it had gone so well.

Soon after, I was back in my dorm room, once again starting my senior year of college. It must have been orientation week, and some of the people at the lunch were probably incoming freshman in my dorm. I had with me an electronic book: not an iPad, but a physical book that had buttons at strategic places all around. There was some kind of Skype connection set up, as I could hear all 40+ dorm members chattering at once. The resident head called for order, and we began to run through the standard welcoming and so on. On the sheet I was turned to, on yellow lined paper, were the names of about 30 various jobs and positions. That day, we were voting on half a dozen, and they had buttons next to them. Everyone had one of these electronic books, and whoever wanted the position we were talking about could push the corresponding button and we would vote on them. Once someone nominated themselves, it had to reach 36 votes to be validated. A small narrow screen showed at the top with the person's name and vote count. I desperately wanted the president or vice-president positions, but was too slow each time and someone else got there first. Even the treasurer was taken quickly, and I began to scan the remaining slots. They were strange names, like "water" and "honey." For some reason, I knew the honey position meant having to deal with the fried bees that had gotten loose, so I let that one go. When water came up, I was ready with my thumb on the button. I was in! But after a few seconds, I still had zero votes. Nervously, I flipped the pages to find the speaking button, but couldn't see it all the way to the back. Finally, I saw listen and talk buttons at the bottom edge, and quickly pushed talk to plead my case. But it was too late, a freshman had buzzed in and now it was a race. Only, he zoomed up to 90 while I didn't get a single vote. I was dejected, but had rather expected it as well (something similar but far less dramatic had happened in real life), so I forgot about it quickly.

I went outside to the common area of our unit to find my roommates, Mike and Tim from high school. A huge family of maybe 20 black kids were watching TV in the living room, with Mike sitting at the front and Tim to the side on rows of folding chairs and a couple sofas. The kids' mother was in the kitchen, making cookies, and looked a bit like Aunt Jemima (complete with the handkerchief on her head). I remembered that for the summer, we were trying to split our costs, so we let the family move in. They were watching football, and an amazing play was developing. The running back had hit the wall of defensemen and bounced off, then had broken a solid tackle. Another push knocked him down, and players slowed down to start the next play. But no one had touched him on the ground, so the ball was still live. He jumped up, ran to the sidelines while the announcer shouted hysterically, was tackled at the one yard line, and somersaulted in for the touchdown. As he rolled in, I saw that his jersey said Bears at the bottom, and I'm huge fan so I jumped up in joy. But then he stood up and it said "New Orleans" on top, complete with black and gold colors. That's when I realized it was the Arena Football League, and I dropped back down into my chair. By this time, Mike and Tim had turned into Kai and Seol, my actual college buddies, and they had brought their friends over for the game. Now, at the front of the room were a jazz band with the dad of the family on guitar, the young aunt singing, and the cool-cat uncle with the beret playing drums. The dad started to kick out some awesome guitar solos, and I really dug the singing/rapping, kind of like the Digable Planets. But it was short song, just to please the kids, and we were soon filing outside for dinner.

I was hoping to find some of the freshman to get to know them better, so I got split off from the roommates. I wandered about town and tried to locate people through the book, but with no luck. Finally, I called Kai but got to answer. I tried Seol and it went to voice mail. I was just about to hang up when I heard his voice. I quickly asked him where they were, and he said on Harris St by the stadiums. He mentioned that his light was green, which apparently indicated that my phone was within range and that I must be close by. I ran ahead and found that the next intersection was Harris, and took a left towards the only stadium I knew. I passed several clubs/restaurants that had lines of nerdy people waiting outside, but I didn't recognize any of them. I finally reached the stadium, which loomed, darkened, over the street and which looked run-down and maybe even bombed-out. But I didn't see Kai or Seol anywhere, or even anyone at all. Nervous, since it was late at night, I started to run pas the stadium, hoping there were more restaurants ahead. I actually galloped, on all fours, and sped by to the faraway intersection. After I passed a few houses, the sidewalk and road ended, leading to a broad sandy area. I walked cautiously forward, and looked around corners. There were five or six buildings or houses, spaced far apart from each other and clearly abandoned for years. It looked like the apocalypse had happened out here. The rolling sands stretched out in all directions, with Lake Michigan the only border on my right. I turned back and called Seol again. As I reached the stadium once more, the call went to voice mail and I hesitantly waited. He answered again, and I saw the green light on my own phone. He said he was just across the street, and suddenly he appeared nearby along with a basement-restaurant and a thin crowd out front. As I followed him down a slope to the entrance, he spoke Korean and I turned to see his friend next to Kai and his two friends. I had hoped to just have a meal with my two friends who I hadn't seen in forever, but still welcomed the chance to meet new people. As we headed in to be seated, I woke up.

2012-01-07T10:00:00.001-06:00

Dream 1:

I was in a large, fancy hotel with my family somewhere in Asia. We were sitting around our smallish room, relaxing and deciding where to have dinner. The entire hotel had a deep red motif, and our room had a large window looking out over the city. In a quick flash, the entire outside turned a deep blackish purple, streaked with slivers of lightning. My dad whipped around to see it and immediately shouted for us to run. We all knew it was a massive tornado, and I could see the clouds curdling towards us. We dashed outside towards the elevators, but the entire hotel began tilting over at an alarming rate! I felt true panic and terror at my last moments alive.

Then, I experienced a sudden flash of knowledge, maybe a memory and a whisper. I somehow knew that if I blinked my eyes twice, I could shift time back a few seconds. Doing so in a panic, I only managed to set it back about a second, so that the hotel was still tilting, but at a lesser angle. Somehow, none of the people were sent back in time, so my family could all make it onto the elevator. I kept blinking, but had to do it in a controlled, rhythmic fashion or else it wouldn't work. Very difficult. The elevator lurched with every time shift and kept getting stuck at various floors, probably as other people tried to get downstairs. With a huge flood of relief, we reached the lobby and flopped down into seats. Somehow, it had stopped and we were safe.

Dream 2:

Lynda sent me over to a collaborator to help verify certain data. I had to be flown by helicopter by my collaborator, a skinny bearded guy named Frank, over to an island (Merry and I have been watching Lost every night). We immediately got off on the wrong foot as he was irritated by all the questions I was asking him. We set up at a classroom that was part of a series of tunnels into a mountain, and started some experiments. I think we were trying to verify some anti-MITF drug results by using RNAi knockdown. I ran some RTPCRs to look at expression levels of genes that Lynda and the collaborator had previously found to be important targets. But I kept getting negative results, including finding genes that changed in the opposite direction of what was seen earlier. As Frank and I were discussing the results, I could see he was getting really angry at me for contradicting his data and for being stubborn. I suddenly decided that I didn't want to be in the classroom anymore and blurted it out.

The next thing I knew, I was back on the helicopter, tied up and headed back to the mainland. I pleaded with Frank to take me back so I could finish the collaboration, but he ignored my questions and kept being sarcastic to me. I didn't want to leave the island yet, I had only wanted to abandon that part of the project. I slowly realized as I played things back in my head that what pissed Frank off was that I had kept making decisions like that without asking him first. I tried to promise that I would be more collaborative, but within a few seconds I was back in my room.

The place looked like a medieval castle, but with modern amenities. It was something of a prison, and I could see scratchings of former captives on the walls and floors. My roommate tried to help me as I sat down at the computer, intent on emailing Frank and asking him exactly what I had done wrong. I wrote a quick draft, listing three things that I could have done to make him mad. After reading it over several times, I realized I was pointlessly including dummy reasons and that the one I had thought of earlier - making sudden, unilateral decisions - was the real one. I started to erase what I had written, when the entire place rumbled and shook. My roommate and I went over to my small circular bedroom, which had now sunk down about 20 feet. I could see a ring of emptiness around my bed, so I got on the bed and peered down over the edges. I could see glittering lights shining through a message that I seen earlier scratched into the floor. My roommate and I got down and pushed on a square metal inset where the message was, and it gave way. We could see an immense hoard of treasure below us. Right then, we could hear police sirens outside, and our joy turned to apprehension. They would think we had stolen it

2011-12-08T08:40:00.001-06:00

Merry and I had just gotten married and were having our reception in a colorful upscale lounge, filled with tall, free-standing glass walls of underlit oranges and blues. Dressed in a tux, a waiter who was also our emcee was taking our order. The laminated menu sheet was mostly Chinese-American fusion, and I ordered in Cantonese and finished off with a 7-Up (I didn't know how to say "Slice" in Cantonese, which was the actual brand). He didn't hear this last bit and turned as if to walk away, then changed his mind and sat down with us. Kai slid over as well and we all started chatting, but I don't remember what about.

Some time later, Merry was stationed in an island nation something like Cuba, and we had to travel an hour to see each other. She kept coming to visit me in the city, as she said the journey was too difficult and she needed the military training anyways. I got really curious, so one visit I decided to accompany her back. The first half hour was a normal bus ride which took us to a modern glass-enclosed mall (with a prominent dome motif). Inside the mall was a gorgeous military depot where jeeps and such took personnel off to various bases. A rickety bus took us to a remote location covered in wet mud. Now we had to hike, and Merry had a long walking stick which helped us keep our footing. It was really tough and I could see why it was such a hassle to visit, but was a great workout.

Once in her dorm room, it morphed into her room at her parents house (looking absolutely nothing like the one in real life). Her dad, who was a white guy and looked like Josef Fritzl (we even called him Josef) came in and immediately gave off bad vibes. He told me to come into the adjoining bathroom where several large raw turkeys and chickens were sitting in the bathtub. I threw some into the toilet and flushed them, because they looked disgusting, and because I thought he was using them for sexual purposes. I told Merry I didn't trust "Josef," and she got mad because he was her dad after all. Needless to day, her real dad is nothing like that and is a sweet old Chinese man. My dad then came into the room to tell me that dinner was ready.

A few days later, on a Sunday, I was back at my own apartment and decided to go see Merry before we were scheduled to fly back to America later that day. I went through the whole bus and depot process again, and while I was on the second transport, decided to call Merry to surprise her. But she was already at the airport and really mad that I was late for the flight. I tried to say that I was on my way to see her, and that I had thought the flight was later in the day. I thought she was being unreasonable, and she hung up. In real life, Merry and I never fight like this, she's always reasonable and understanding. So I was extremely relieved when I woke up and realized it was all fiction, and that my actual marriage was going so incredibly well by comparison (so far! haha).

2011-11-04T10:14:00.000-05:00

I was playing mahjongg in a smoky backroom with a bunch of middle aged, balding Cantonese men. The room was smoky from their cigarettes and they all wore the kind of ragged wifebeaters associated with Hong Kong. Each player had large smoothened logs standing up in their corner of the table, inscribed all around with large Chinese characters and were an integral part of the game. When you had particular combinations, you were supposed to look at the stick and make additional bonus chains. I was seeing the room in some sort of dramatically rotating cinematic mode, and it looked like a stereotypical back-room mahjongg den. I remember thinking that I was such a terrible player - that I still needed a cheat sheet for the bonus combinations despite having even learned the characters.

It soon became clear that I was the one recording the game, using a small camcorder hooked up to a VCR in the room, which had turned into a rather staid little living room with an old green rug. I was making the recording for tax purposes. There was some particular amount that I had to bet or something, and would end up being categorized at 0, 20, 40, or 60 percent. This was to determine your tax bracket, and I was making this particular recording for Merry. We want the 40% bracket for some reason, and was really happy when I somehow got it. A large checkbox appeared over the scene, and was subsequently filled by a huge splotch of ketchup.

Now it was my turn, and I wanted the highest bracket. This involved me assembling the jade mahjongg tiles into specific patterns and taking both pictures and video with what was now a big digital camera. The middle aged men were gone and Kai was sitting across the table from me, laughing, joking, and generally being entertaining but unhelpful. I had set up the tiles so that I had some sort of big red bean sitting on top of the middle of three neat stacks of tiles, each looking something like a sofa (we used to make little furniture out of the tiles in real life). Some of the tiles were extra-long and skinny. I was trying to set the pattern up exactly right, so I kept adjusting and taking new pictures. The red bean was supposed to look like it was diving off the tiles, over the edge of the table and onto the floor. Then my sister came in and tried to help by handling the camera while I tried a new setup on a different side of the table. It was rather stressful, but I felt confident at the same time.

2011-08-12T21:51:00.000-05:00

I was at an epicmealtime-like party where they were eating egg dishes. It was a small, cramped room filled with people and of course was being videotaped. I was a participant in the eating, but i don't remember much of what happened.

Then i was on a train in Hong Kong, waiting to buy a ticket in the driver's car. The driver was a short, older balding man. In front of me were two young women who bought a ticket each for $4.50 HK. There was a clock on the wall and I saw that it had just passed the half hour and that the train was leaving on the hour. So I rushed forward to buy the ticket. The driver charged me $16! I thought it was because he thought I didn't know Chinese and could charge me something different. I asked him in Chinese why it was so much more expensive and he kept mumbling in garled english - on purpose I think. Finally I had to shout "in Cantonese, in Cantonese! I understand it!" so he started yelling at me in Cantonese that I had been late, so he charged me more after the half hour mark. I told him that a four-fold increase seemed unlikely, and we got into a heated argument. He had by now become a young kid, maybe in his late teens with a buzz cut and a round head. He charged at me, trying to kick me. I immediately kicked him back and knocked him to the ground. He told me to get out, and I said fine, I don't want to take this train anymore. So I jumped out of the now-moving train and onto a sloped grassy field.

He jumped out as well, and I kicked him down again and told him to stay away. The grass sloped sharply up, and I climbed this steep hill, which was very long and triangular in cross-section. I got to the top, which was about 30 feet up, and looked down. I could see the boy trying to hide in the grass, so i grabbed a long stick and shook it at him menacingly. I continued along the thin top of the triangle, precariously running forward and trying to look for the end of it, all the while glancing back to see rustling movements in the grass. When i finally jumped down at the the end, there were several rows of similar-looking men dressed in white t-shirts and black pants, preparing for some kind of martial arts practice. The boy was now accompanied by several men who were his accomplices. As soon as they came down this end of the hill, they were wrapped up in barbed wire held by the men in white. Though it looked painful, none of them were bleeding. The men in white annouced that they were the Kwong family - my relatives! And that the others were trespassing on their territory. They would release them if they promised to leave in peace. After some false starts where they were recaptured, all but the boy left on their own. The boy, however, was still belligerent, so they held him by hand off to one side. An elder of my family came out and began some martial arts practice. He started by blowing a fireball out of his mouth and into a nearby fountain, where it floated as a perfectly round glowing orange ball. The boy said "Oh yeah? Watch this," and he shot his own fireball from his hands and into the fountain. One of the relatives immediately sucked up the firbeball into his mouth, slowly blowing it back out into rings of fire. To further increase the display of power, they added more fire of different colors and shapes. The boy didn't seem so proud anymore, and he quietly left.

The displays at the fountain became more and more elaborate, and finally there was one that appeared as a padlock. One of the men stood right next to the fountain and put his face in, making an image of the padlock dial to complete the picture. I wondered if it was safe for him to do that. He turned around smiling, and now overlaid on the ceiling (the fountain was open to the outside but had a roof) was a scene of the local police station. Evidently this was their way of hacking into the system. The relative now had an image of a policeman's uniform on, enabling him to access data. Apparently, they were a vigalante group who also helped to monitor corruption.

The movie overhead warped into an old police drama, where they were strong-arming members of the press into publishing favorable stories, held inside a meat-packing plant. They selected one photographer to make an example of by asking which one of them wanted to publish their pictures, and he had raised his hand. Thry grabbed him by his tie and fed it through a machine on the ceiling that had a rotating part. It caught him up in it and he was rolled through, flattened in cartoon fashion. They then made him into ground meat, as they also owned the factory.

This was now being shown to a very nervous Japanese businessman with long hair who was trying his best to smile and look nonchalant. Tom Berenger was our family's attorney, much like Robert Duvall in the Godfather. He was seated next to the businessman at a small table in between tightly packed shelves, with a single swinging lamp shortly above. There was a package of ground beef with some green strains through it. Tom asked the man if he remembered Mr. Daiichi. The businessman kept hemming and hawing, laughing nervously and trying to say no. Tom leaned closer, and the man suddenly remembered. He heard that Mr. Daiichi had melanoma (which was the story the family was feeding to the press), but that the cameraman that was recording him running across a long, triangular hill had disappeared in his last moments. He kept talking, unaware who Tom was working for, saying that he had heard that Mr. Daiichi had been taken in by some idiotic family that needed powerful people to increase their own power through some magic ritual involving a specific animal each time. The fake smile on Tom's face melted away. Fortunately I awoke before I found out what he had in store for the man.

2011-05-07T09:29:00.000-05:00

I was in an apartment, living with former members of the Knapp House, including newer people I didn't know (though I might have met some - fictitious - in other dreams). There was a very large owl-like creature that had gotten in and was causing some havoc. We somehow manage to capture it, but instead of letting it go right away, Stacey decided to play with. She let it rest on her arm and started petting it, while I headed to another room to rest. Although I closed the door, I could still see through it. Suddenly, the bird let out a huge yellow liquid poop, which streamed and splashed throughout the entire apartment. Luckily, we had just moved in and there was little to no furniture, and many people were out on the large balcony. I could see large goopy strips of it all along the room I was in, and I marvelled at how so much had gotten in despite the door being shut - it must have slipped under the crack. I stood, paralyzed, in the corner, as I could see no way to move without stepping in it. After some long moments of indecision, I finally resorted to jumping and hovering. Stacey had already started to mop it up using our new Swiffer Wetjet. She had cleared most of the main room, and she handed it off to me to get the other one. I very meticulously wiped every spot I could see, trying to break up the stuff by first spraying it with the Swiffer - which had a button on the underside of the handle and the nozzle placed on the topside - so you had it twist the whole thing upside down to aim. After a long time, I had only cleared about a tenth of the room, and I was smearing it around more than cleaning it up. A couple of the girls came back from outside, and were exclaiming about the poop... even as they were standing in it barefoot. I had to say something, but Stacey suddenly came over and grabbed the Swiffer from me. She said to do a rough sweep with it, and that she would use paper towels afterwards to pick it up more cleanly.

We later went out to a bar that night, which was a long, dark wooden affair with a central bar and a outside patio. I saw one of my roommates outside, talking to a labmate of mine, both guys. To my surprise, they started kissing, and the whole bar cheered them on. I went inside and found a seat with a couple of nice, but nerdy looking people. In the table over, also nerds, were two guys that looked a little off, something about their eyes. The bigger guy started picking a fight with the other, and they both took off their shirts and started brawling. Both had huge bodies, but weird looking. The bigger guy had a massive torso, but it was boxy, lumpy and misshapen, while the other guy had a massive gut. Again, the whole bar cheered while they pushed each other into tables and took some good swings. I wanted to get out of the way, so I walked over to the big screen TV on one end. I sat down with a group of black women and grabbed the large remote (it looked kind of like an RC controller). I flipped through the channels, but it was mostly news and snow sports. I commented that nothing good was on, and one of the girls said that "Yeah, when someone takes the remote." I apologized and slid the remote back over. It was then that I noticed each of them had one eye drooped way down, like in the Goonies. They started hitting on me, and I quickly excused myself to the bathroom. On the way there, behind the bar, I bumped into a waiter who dropped his plates. For a moment, he turned into a hooded magician type, but rapidly became a waiter again. I walked past the old table now, and saw deep scratches on the two fighting guys - who were now sitting down again over some beers.

Later, I was wandering around a fantastical outside world, with cartoonishly dark green hills dotted with Stonehenge-like pillars. I walked into some wooden house and saw more of the hooded magician-types, who started to attack me. I launched some fireballs at them, and soon cleared them out. There wasn't much loot, so I headed back out. I wandered farther into ever more dangerous-looking territory. I entered a spiraling corridor of sorts, made from the pillars. In there, I was attacked by more guys, but this time they had the bigger fire and lightning spells. I tried to run as fast as I could, but found that I was controlling my movements by typing "forward, left, right, back" on my keyboard for each move I wanted to make. Each turn would spin the directions, so it was difficult to reorient myself each time. I ended up in a lot of dead ends and eventually died. I respawned in the same area, and tried to run out again. I was typing slowly, so I tried whether I could shorten the directions to "f l r b." Three of them worked, but l was already used to mean "look." So though I was now a little faster, I had gone too far away now from the easy "starting area" of the game and into the high-level regions. I had no way of getting out.

2011-03-04T09:38:00.000-06:00

I was going on a trip to Tahiti with my college friend Kai. I saw him get into the airport ahead of me, but I stopped off for some lunch, which was at a counter contiguous with the check-in one. I ordered salmon and thick fries, with asparagus on the side. They put it on a slippery little white, oblong dish which was made more unstable by a huge helping of sauce. As I picked it up off the tray, everything slid off onto the floor. I stood there annoyed, and the customer next to me looked shocked. As I was expecting, the staff offered to make another one for free, but by then I was realizing that takeoff was in 15 minutes. So I waited anxiously, and when they brought out the asparagus first, I ate it right away. They were thick pieces, and I could actually taste them, very realistically. The rest came in a small metal takeout box, which I grabbed and ran (a few feet) to the check-in line. I kept glancing at my watch every few seconds, but to my surprise, there seemed to be fewer people in the line every time I looked up. Surprisingly, I was through in no time, and chased after Kai who had gone in long ahead of me. I couldn't wait to get on the plane and eat those fries.

The main terminal area looked small and deserted, being basically a dull-white box. It took some time for me to see a sign which pointed me up a stairwell. This was different: the walls were golden and the steps were enormous, so huge that I had to literally climb one turn, as it was one large step made out of many horizontal ones. When I finally reached the top, it opened up into a vast, tropical waiting area with restaurants, shops, and large windows looking out into the sea. I took one of the many elevators and past several colorful gift shops - which appeared to be carved out of a natural stone structure reaching into the building - over to the entertainment reservation desk. It turns out our trip was based around tennis, and we had to rent equipment and court time. Just as it was about my turn, a friend from work walked past, slapping me on the back and telling me to watch out when we play each other. I shouted after him that I kicked his ass last time. The chubby girl behind the desk perked up at this and kept trying to flirt with me, hinting that she needed help with her game. I said, no, I'm not good at all, that guy is just really bad. But she kept on flirting so I put my head down and quickly finished up.

I walked over to my coworker Steve (who was my traveling partner now instead of Kai), and started talking about the trip. Apparently it was now a cruise which would take several days to get us to a conference. I noticed Steve had a nice digital camera around his neck, and that's when I realized all I had was my crappy phone camera. So I raced up to what I remembered was an electronics shop overhanging the gift shop, as it seemed to have cameras hung loosely over the side. The dream seemed to end there, but there was something later about Steve having won a part in a Super Mario Brothers TV show. I never did get to eat those fries.

2011-02-05T13:10:00.001-06:00

Merry and I had just gotten married and were living on the seventh floor of a gorgeous new apartment complex. We were lying on the bed, and I realized I had to go to the bathroom. There was a small hallway leading out of the bedroom, and on the left were glass walls through which you could see the bathroom and study. Since it was brand new, we didn't have any blinds yet. The way it was set up, I had to run around to the front and go through the study to get to the bathroom. Merry and I switched places spontaneously, so I had to go back out one more time.

Because the walls were clear, I realized I could grow cells on them. I needed a large number of mouse melanoma cells to be grown up for an experiment, so I basically sprayed them on. I was worried the surface was too large, meaning my cells would be too sparse to grow, but when I looked close I could see little clusters. I was worried about having to scrape the cells off later, because doing so mechanically could damage them. I wondered if I could spray trypsin on the walls and have it stay on long enough to get the cells off.

But at that moment, my brother (I don't have one in real life) and his wife came into the study. I left and went downstairs, where I looked for an found a sarcophagus in a room. It was white with thick walls, and apparently contained the remains of some king (the lid was on). I was in an Indiana Jones-like role and started looking for inscriptions as I walked over it, despite the fact that I knew this room existed in the house for a long time. I had some assisstants, but ultimately I left without finding anything. When I got back upstairs and back into bed, I was bothered by the idea that I was sleeping in a room directly above a sarcophogus. I went into the bathroom and Merry started helping me scrape the cells off the walls. She was using a big plastic scoop, which filled up pretty fast. When she had gotten about one-third of the way through the study wall, we found that the rest of the cells and media had turned into a thick jello, so we stopped with the scoop and though about just ripping big chunks off into a bigger container.

I left to go find one, and the hallways turned into a first person video game. I had a limited inventory (I was now wearing a trenchcoat for storage) and was having to be selective about which items to pick up. I knew that I could make some powerful weapons out of things like airhorns and calipers, but I was having trouble remembering the proper combination. I ran into my brother in one of the shady, smoky rooms off the hallway, and he was likewise gathering items for later assembly. When I got back to my study brandishing some kind of jury-rigged gun, I finally realized I had never gone to the bathroom. Merry was still waiting in the bedroom, so I was in a rush. However, every time I tried to enter the bathroom, the room would go black and I would have some kind of rubberbanding sensation, pulling me away from the door. I finally snapped through one time and got back to Merry.

Later on, I had gone out of the building and had to come back in through the dilapidated lobby. It looked like my old apartment building from grad school, except as if it had been abandonded for a decade. I stepped into the elevator and mistakenly pushed eight. Just as I was pushing seven, I realized that two-thirds of the elevator floor was missing, and that debris was strewn about, meaning that any little slip or trip would send me down the elevator shaft. Worse, the elevator went straight past both of the floors I had pressed, and even past what I thought was the top floor: it went from 10 to 20 in agonizingly slow time. When I finally hit the top, I repeatedly jabbed the seven and eight buttons, but then realized I should try a different elevator. I grabbed the outside of the doors to hold onto and quickly but carefully leaped out. The other elevator was normal width, but had a very shallow depth. There was only one button on the left side, a large clear seventh floor button that jutted out in the form of a broad, rounded switch. On the right side were two normal buttons for the lobby and fourth floors. The seventh floor button refused to stay lit for more than a second. It was then that I felt my pockets and realized that I had left my wallet and keys in the lobby. So I rode it all the way down and saw them on the floor, just under the call buttons. There was a security guard there, and I felt temporary relief that someone could help me out.

2011-01-17T08:58:00.002-06:00

I was on a plane to Hong Kong through Canada, when I watched it get shot from outside and crash onto a little island. It was an enormous plane, with a very round girth, and after it crashed, I could see it in cutaway as completely hollow and burnt out. In news-style recreation animation, a bullet from the sniper was shown piercing through and exactly hitting a tiny fuel tank in the middle of the ceiling before fire spread out in both directions along the plane. Of course, I was immediately worried that I was dead too, and frantically called my dad. He said he saw the news, and that they feared that millions of passengers were dead (in fairness, it was a gigantic plane). I went to my sister's place and watched the news with her over the next day. It turns out, what I saw happen was just the sniper's imaginative hopes, and that when it actually took place the next day, he only managed to shoot one person despite aiming for the fuel tank. I was very relieved that I wasn't dead and that my family would also be safe on their flights since they caught they guy.

Afterwards, there was some kind of new documentary I was watching on TV about karate. I recognized my old teacher and several former classmates (who I think were real). I nonchalantly boasted that I knew most of the people there and had gotten up to blue belt, but my nearby friends ignored me since it was a pretty low rank. I was suddenly in the dojo watching the demonstrations with my sort-of boss Ron. Fred Villari himself, the founder of the dojo chain, was showing off moves on the narrator. Fred looked to be in his mid-30s with a chubby, rectangularish head (the real Fred Villari is in his 60s). I asked Ron what his opinion was as a blackbelt himself (in real life he is a Tae Kwan Do master), and he shrugged it off. Next, I was in a loud party in a dark nightclub where all the students had gathered aferwards. There were bright orange drinks all around, and I had one.

After getting safely out of the plane form the earlier part of the dream, I stayed the night at a bed and breakfast run by a kindly older couple in Canada. They had a fairly large, modern house with comfortable beds and a light, tasteful decor. We met in a spare, unfurnished bedroom that the woman explained was no longer used for sleeping ever since the plane shooting. I walked to the end of the empty room and saw that it was a loft with a glass railing overlooking a clear, gorgeous pool. I could see the sunlight scattered across the small waves and it was very peaceful. The man came in with an orange netted bag of ping pong balls, and a ping pong table had appeared off to one side. He gave me an ice cream cone, so instead of playing a match, we played catch. The balls were rather heavy, just somewhat lighter than a golf ball. At one point, he threw it far left and it landed back in the bag, and I teased him that he should play basketball instead. He said without a smile that he was good at that too. As I ate the ice cream, I could see that whatever was left was always very spherical and that if I tipped it over (as I did when I picked up the bag after he threw the ball in), the ice cream scoop wouldn't fall out. I ate the tiny last bite before the cone and could actually taste it and feel it melting in my mouth. A table appeared with a plate of fries, and they said I should grab some since dinner was still a while away. Surprisingly, I could taste this too.

In another dream, I was watching a dating game where a big fat black man was out on the beach with a young-Meg Ryan-look alike with very long hair. He said on voiceover that he was both nervous and confident, and kept edging closer to her, telling her all the while how hot she was. Finally, they were hugging and kissing a little. Later, it showed him in the studio with a white guy, both in their bathing trunks. The host revealed that the girl was actually the guy in disguise, which had included large sunglasses (though the guy had a completely different body type than the girl, so I was skeptical). To everyone's surprise, the two men kept talking in a very friendly manner and the contestant admitted that he would be happy to have a second date. The white guy said he was surprised, since the last five contestants he had done it too had gotten very angry. Someone I was watching with commented that these kinds of MTV-style dating shows usually resorted to these cheap tactics when they were close to cancellation.

2011-01-14T10:35:00.001-06:00

I went back to an apartment I had lived in about five years ago (entirely imaginary), which was one of those complexes with long, low arms of units and an uninspired grassy stretch just outside. Mine was about the third one in, and I immediately found a comfortable familiarity once inside. The furniture was covered in plastic wrap, and I went to the side closet to see if there were any interesting things I may have left behind. The closet was entirely full of old ill-fitting clothes, mostly brown jackets and long-sleeve shirts. I thought to myself that I couldn't possibly bring it all back as my current closet is full already - yet I also had a satisfying feeling that at least now I knew where all these clothes were after all these years. On the top shelf were lots of random junk. There were a couple menus I must have stolen from a local place (related to a dream I had last year - but never wrote down - about always visiting the same little family restaurant whenever I drove past it) and a pristine pack of cards in a plastic bag. That was good, my current pack in real life is quite shabby. I wanted to keep rooting around, but decided that it was late and that I should prepare for bed. When I started brushing my teeth in the tiny bathroom to the left of the entrance, I was flooded with a feeling of nostalgia. Ahhh, I thought, I've used a bathroom very much like this so many times before - apparently I had lived in a similar unit for a long time before having moved to this one for only a brief period. So it was a pleasant sensation, but eerie in retrospect since it looked nothing like any bathroom in real life. It was a darkish green all over, with only a sink to the left of the door and an old-fashioned toilet - with the tank suspended above it on the wall - set back to the right of the sink. There may have been a little stall shower on the opposite side.

My high school friends, about five of them, came to visit and to help me move or get rid of my stuff. We started putting things out on the lawn - maybe to have a yard sale - when Mike and Tim discovered a dead body. It was a Hispanic woman in her early twenties, topless, and didn't really look dead at all besides the lack of movement. They moved her, on a little tarp, over to my items and started to contact the police. Just then, a rocker-type who must have been a neighbor walked over with a couple friends. Mike stopped him before he got close enough to see and asked whether he knew the girl (we had somehow figured out her name). He said he did and what of it. Mike then told him she was dead. The guy slowly walked over to her body, knelt down, and looked as if he was about to break down in tears. He suddenly jumped up screaming "Yeah! Finally! Wohoo!" while his friends looked at him horrified. It looked like genuine surprise on his part though, and I had other suspicions as to who the killer was.

That night, we played football in the pitch darkness outside (everything had been cleaned up). I could only dimly see people unless they were wearing bright clothes. I had a dread that came from further down the yard, that seemed to me to be rolling towards us. I knew then that this was the real killer, some kind of fog or spirit that came to possess people. I saw Mike's face turn a bright yet pale white as he ran about with the ball, and his body became blurry. I ran for it, and tried to get Scott, who was nearest, to run too. I didn't get very far before things changed abruptly, though I don't quite remember to what.

After a while, I was standing in the middle of traffic on a nearby road. This part of the dream might have been half dream-half imagination; there were bits that I can't visualize realistically even though I knew they happened - so I might have filled bits in during the dream with more abstract imaginings. Probably because I realized it was a dream by that point. There was the source of the evil standing in the road with a gigantic Lego head (affected from Dead Rising 2, which I've been playing recently with my sister). I was recruiting other people to fight him, and traffic stopped randomly around us as people crowded around with bats and hammers. The villain didn't react as a couple people started to bash his head, causing the plastic to crack and crumble. I knew that he was trying to trick us because his real head, which was a smaller Lego head, was inside and that once they reached it, he would start his counterattack. But I outsmarted him. I had a long towel with me as my weapon, which I whipped at him in such a way to encase his real head. I pulled with all my strength, and then I woke up somehow knowing that I had won.

2010-12-28T10:30:00.000-06:00

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.

Merry's Dream

2010-12-27T13:29:00.001-06:00

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.

2010-10-31T09:49:00.004-05:00

I was alone at my sister's place, which was a small, dark affair tightly cramped with furniture around the edges. Three largish aquariums were prominently displayed, but were difficult to see in the low light. Two of them off to the side seemed strange, and on closer inspection turned out to have no water. The few exotic fish inside were lying on their sides, still laboriously trying to breathe . I somehow ordered for more water to be sent in through a building-wide system of pipes, but it was very slow to get here. I sighed and move over to the main aquarium in the front of the room. This one was full of life, with striped fish of various colors and a lively though small crab. He was pushing against the lid, which started to buckle and push out towards me. Alarmed, I straightened it back out, but found that I was slower than the crab, which was now having help from some of the fish which were jumping up forcefully. Suddenly, the crab shot out of the tank and onto the floor. I knew it was fairly delicate, so I looked around for something to gently pick it up with. I settled on a box of kleenex, and tried to rope the fellow in. On the third kleenex, I snagged him, but it was able to eject its hind legs and scurry away. Somehow I knew that this was one of a crab's defenses. So I tried again, thinking it was out of tricks. Instead of letting itself be captured, the crab split itself open at the front, falling apart into three shell piece with bits of its organs and eyestalks scattered inside. I tried to scoop it up gently with a piece of paper, as if it would come back to life once back in the water. But I saw that I was smearing its insides and I quickly gave up. I put in an order for a new crab, which was for a ridiculously high $95.

I exited the apartment and found myself in long tunnels pulsing with lava through trenches on the sides. I knew I was in some kind of fortress that needed protection. I hurried over to our team's makeshift headquarters, which was a friend's apartment - another small, cramped place, though more elongated, a bit lighter, and more homely. Inside were three team members, which included my coworker Nina. We were playing Scrabble and I couldn't believe what I had. I played the word ZZZINTRA on a triple word score. My friends, astonished, grabbed the calculator and came up with 135,000 points. I was giddy with the possibility that it was the highest score of all time. I tried to follow the math as they explained it, but I kept getting different numbers. Then I remembered that the highest possible Scrabble score for one word is only one thousand something. So I kept trying to recalculate, but the numbers floated aimlessly around in my head. I called over to Nina, who had been my playing partner but had gone into the bedroom. She called out that she was about to head out shopping with her husband and didn't have time to look at the score.

I then appeared in a large, flat beach bordering the ocean. Sparse grass and rocks broke up the sandy monotony, and there were barbed spikes sticking up at various intervals around the place. I knew these to be buried crabs that could lunge out and hurt anyone. However, I didn't know which were ours and which were the enemy's. So I sneaked around, loosely and silently following enemies as they went to check on their crabs. I had a spike of my own and plunged it into the ground when the coast was clear, killing the crabs. Then Will Ferrel came chasing after me with a large spike, but running goofily and making threats in one of his trademark silly voices. I taunted him back, saying I was the best at what I do. So he challenged me to find and stop him, just as he jumped into a small round pit of loose sand. I knew immediately that he had a system of tunnels made by human-sized worm-like creatures (like smaller versions of the ones in Tremors). I started to run towards the border of the beach, which abutted a playground-like area. I zigzagged around to confuse Will and the worms, who relied on sound. I avoided the sand pits as I went. Before I made it out, Will launched himself, riding one of the worms, into a ten feet arc and into another pit. He had was shouting "whoa!" and had clearly missed hitting me, but I knew he would try harder next time. So I doubled my speed and lunged out for the border and into a small wooden house that sat just within. I quickly opened a double door to one of the high balconies just in time for Will to arc into the house and out through the door. Only now he looked like Ron Howard and he was riding a large kite, though he was tangled up in the strings. I slammed the door to catch the tail of the kite and keep Ron from falling to his death. Lisa Simpson called out that I should take care of the problem. So I shouted for one of our teammates, who had played one of the smaller parts in Happy Days, to come do it. He hated Ron for how he treated him on the show, so he gleefully locked the balcony doors. Then, in time lapse, I watched the trapped tail of the kite get bound to the door handles using a wire coat hanger. I couldn't see the guy, just the hanger itself as it got tightly wrapped first up, then sideways, until there was no way Ron could get back inside.

2010-08-13T17:12:00.004-05:00

I knew Inception would make its way into my dreams someday...

Prologue
I started out in a tight attic, climbing my way along twisting little stairways, from which I could watch an 8-year old black boy eating cereal. I made my way up along a little bookcase and through a flat rectangular hole on top of it. This led me into another small room, the boy watching me curiously the entire time. There seemed to be a significance to the whole tableau, but it escaped me for the moment.

False Start
Then I was walking down a dark street at night, my partner in a heavy tweed coat next to me. He was an older gentleman with gray hair and a handlebar mustache. Apparently, we were homicide detectives. We rounded the corner, having kept alongside a smallish castle and now waited just outside the largish wooden front door. There was a bench for us to loiter at, while the dense blackness of the night and the stubborn air made it feel like were in an enclosed room. The prince of the castle (in his foppish duds) walked in after a short time, carrying a large and ornate wooden cross. Acknowledging us with only a dismissive glance, he propped the cross up in the doorway in such a position as to completely jam it. He then walked out with his nose in the air, and we were shut out.

Reprise
We appeared now at the front of a very similar castle, into which we were welcomed by a very similar prince. He evidently knew what our business was and asked us to stay the night and watch out for suspicious activities, as he was planning an elaborate party that night. My partner and I walked around the castle, looking into looming but tasteful rooms. One was marked with the name of a long-dead queen, which dated the castle to several centuries ago. A party guest was unpacking in there, and I briefly wondered if he had wandered into the wrong room. We found our own bedroom in short order, and immediately prepared for bed. Another man, who looked somewhat homeless, also came in and barged right onto the bed, clothes and all. My partner reluctantly took the sofa/bench on the side, while I carefully lay down next to the other man. That isn't as terrible as it sounds - it turns out my detective work operates on people's dreams. So I touched the man's side and entered a new world instantly.

Now I was surrounded by modern-style team members, decked out in neon-lit suits and sporting fantastic machinery. We were in the castle, but it looked different - colder and grayer. We walked from room to room, fearing the worst. We found it in the kitchen, a maid stabbed to death and lying, white-faced, on the floor. I immediately looked away and went over to the freezer area with my gun drawn, looking for clues. In a little niche in the corner, I saw one of the cupboards glowing a bright orange. Knowing this cue, I plunged right in. The portal led me to the start of a maze of vast, empty rooms, each with a mosaic of differently-sized stained glass panels on the ground. In each one, a couple different panes glowed with a different neon color, each connected to the colors on my team members' suits. The idea was to navigate them based on some pattern, but in actuality, I randomly put my foot down on each one until I went through. Each led to a different mosaic room, and I more and more frantically sought out the next exit each time, fearing that I would get lost in a loop.

Finally, I reached a room where none of the panes were glowing. Instead, a huge gap was in the wall, through which I could see that I was way up in the sky and across from another towering building. I gauged the jump to be very difficult, but I could see that I had no other choice. After a long run and leap, I rolled onto the opposite ledge and caught my breath. Looking up, I saw that the tower tapered off to the top, which was close by. There was a very tight squeeze into an opening on the wall, so I slithered in. By now, I was wearing a full-body black spandex suit, which enhanced my stealth. I wormed my way up confusing little laddered passages, surrounded on all sides by books. When I finally popped out, I recognized the little black boy that was suddenly astounded to see me. I raced past him, up the stairs, and back into the rectangular gap at the top of the bookshelf, except now coming in through the opposite way. From this new angle, I saw an iPhone in the cubbyhole, which I grabbed. Having come now full circle to the beginning of the dream, I woke up in back in the castle.

Epilogue
I don't remember how the iPhone told me what I needed to know, but it turns out that the Prince himself had (or was about to) commit the murder. I suppose we would have arrested him on the spot had this layer of the dream lasted any longer.

2010-07-12T07:00:00.003-05:00

I was watching a movie called "The Duster Boys" about a group of four Mad Men-like businessmen in the 60s who continually tried to one-up each other in having affairs. They would keep track of their mistresses through an elaborate system, using slide racks over washing machines: each day they spent with a mistress, they would put a new histology slide into the rack full of PBS. I became one of the lead guys, and I noted that the others had different ratios of "wife" racks to "mistress" racks. Mine was relatively even, while one guy's mistresses rack took up almost his entire system. I thought he was being too greedy and would most likely be the first one to get caught. Now, my own wife was pregnant around this time, but this clearly didn't affect my character in any way... until she found the tracking system one day while she was looking for me. Only then did my character (now I was watching the movie again) become repentant and realize everything he was throwing away. Of course, it was far too late, and all the audience yelled at his wife, telling her to stay away from him and that he can't change even if he wants to now.

The movie then segued into science fiction, where the main character becomes obsessed with a new machine he found in an underground lake. It was this large round orange device with a tight ring of brightly colored little pipes on top, each capped with a metal flower. It had risen out one day, and he had found it through an elaborate cave system. Apparently, the machine was ancient, and he had been able to turn it on by creating another machine that constantly emitted an activating resonance frequency. The scene cut to some lions and elephants going out of control and relentlessly attacking other wildlife one after the other, presumably due in part to signals from the machine. The main guy is then shown excitedly describing everything to the other Duster Boys, telling them in flashback how he had to spend countless hours testing every possible note in combination with pushing every single flower on each pipe to find the right resonance frequency.

Finally, the guy, now driven mad by his obsession with the machine, started attacking people indeterminately. Though he was fairly physically ineffective, it suddenly got dangerous when he attacked an army outpost and a general started going berserk in the same way. He wounded many of his own men who were trying to stop him before he was tranquilized. I was now at the control center of the army operation trying to put a stop to the machine. There was a flexible sheet in front of me that was a touch-screen computer, and I was able to send signals to individual soldiers that way. There were about five soldiers inside the the cave room adjacent to the lake, and were awaiting orders to attack and disable the machine. Another soldier ran up to one of them and said they were reinforcement, but I recognized him as one of the other Duster Boys. So I quickly sent in an elite force, who were able to shoot him, but not before he managed to push some buttons on the activating device. At this, all the soldiers rushed in and destroyed the machine. But the camera zoomed in on the Duster Boy, who, though wounded, was able to escape in the confusion.

Still, the mission was a success, and I breathed a sigh of relief that the source of what appeared to be a maddening virus was now gone. A general nearby slowly turned to me and said "Don't you get it? He is the virus!" In a slow-motion flashback montage, he provided a voice over: all along, the real threat wasn't the machine, but the Duster Boys who had been infected and had been spreading the virus. It infected the strongest and the most likely to survive: lions and elephants among animals and seasoned generals among men. We had focused so strongly on the machine, that we let the real virus go free. I tried to rewind the movie and send soldiers in earlier to kill the Duster Boy, but his fate was already set. The movie faded to black.

2010-06-06T08:08:00.003-05:00

Just bits of two dreams: my sister and I were in a spy organization along with a couple other friends. I was trying out two guns, one which was long and thin but which I forget what it did, and another that was much shorter and fatter. This latter gun fired an invisible pulse which either broke glass or disabled anything electronic. I had a ton of fun just shutting down fans, radios, TVs, and other equipment I could find around the halls of Harvard. At some point, we had to go back in time to medieval Europe and fight evil spirits or something. One of my friends learned how to summon skeletons to fight for us.

Second part: I was on a small enclosed wooden ship with the two spy friends, both women. We had been called in because of two small wood boxes in the back that looked like they contained life preservers, but which the owners believed had been cursed. We were holding down the place while an expert, an old witch, was on her way to seal the boxes for good. She was short with graying hair and a twisted grin, and I immediately distrusted her. As she went about peering into the boxes with her wand, I would stand next to her and keep one hand on the lid, just to make sure she wasn't summoning anything out of them. We were all nervous as she really seemed to be exuding an evil aura. But I was unprepared for the appearance of skeletons around us, instead of from the boxes! The witch herself was surprised, so I looked around to find my friend with her eyes closed, concentrating on the summoning. I didn't know who the good and bad guys were anymore. Then, as they were closing in on us, the witch dismissed them with a wave of her wand.

The boat became a small ranch-style house in a suburb, and we waited for "Dad" to get home. He was a redneck guy in a wife-beater and jeans, in his 50s and smoking a cigarette. Something was up with him for sure. I kept one eye on him and another out the window. He was busy setting up some spy equipment, but for some reason I thought it was a doomsday machine or some such thing. Suddenly, out the window, I saw a huge amount of graffiti spraypainted on our lawn and sidewalk. I don't remember what they said, but we were all alarmed by it. I took it as a further sign that someone knew something bad was happening in the house.

2010-06-03T08:00:00.003-05:00

The tail end of a dream: I was in a 30's-style mafia, complete with oversized brown coat and fedora. Me and another fellow were ransacking a rival gangmember's apartment, throwing stuff around to teach him a lesson. I had with me a little pen-shaped gun; when I pressed the top, a shower of small bullets sprayed out. I used it in his pantry to tear up a bunch of documents and some food. Fear gripped me immediately, as it was just loud enough to wake up one of the neighbors, a middle-aged woman who came out in the hall and started to shout. We raced out of there, my friend down the elevator and I down the stairs. I could hear her screams for the police receding in the background as I leaped down whole flights at a time. When I reached the bottom, ten floors down, I panicked as I didn't know which way to turn. I chose right, and of course walked directly into the detective as he was entering the building. They grabbed both me and my friend. I woke up with my heart still beating strong.

2010-05-31T10:01:00.002-05:00

I was in Hong Kong, in my family's first-floor apartment, lounging and reading. A white civet crept into the room, which looked like a very large rat with a squirrel's head. It seemed tame, so I scooped it up and held it as I read. I scratched its head while it found a few crumbs of food around me to eat. After a while I got sick of it and opened the door to let it back out. Only a few moments later a girl came around asking if anyone had seen her civet. I let her know, she gave me a nasty look, and ran off to catch it.

My mom and aunt asked me to head to the market and buy a spider plant. There was a market on the apartment ground, though still about a block away. When I arrived, I saw that the shops were just tents, so I headed into a red-and-white striped one. I asked the proprietor, a man in his 50s with a mustache, if he had one. I used English because I didn't know what spider plant was in Chinese. So I followed it up by asking how to say it, and hurried explaining in Chinese that I could speak, just that I don't know very specific words. He laughed and said it was all right. It was only then that I heard an accent in his voice, and looking closer, I realized he was probably Italian. Cool. Well, he had to look around for a good one, so while he pickd one out, I headed out to the open part of the market.

I found a table with a small crowd around it, and the hawker was cutting up large pieces of some sort of melon. It looked great, but as he was starting to offer it for people, I noticed a lot of activity just behind the table which was almost backed up against a tent. I looked down and saw dozens or even hundreds of small spiders and bugs crawling around some kind of mesh, with a few large ones mixed in. I lost my appetite but didn't want to seem rude by suddenly leaving. I was so distracted that only when I looked up did I see that my arm had gone purple at the elbow. I rubbed it, only to have a bit of my skin come off. It hurt, so I yelped and asked around for what happened. They laughed and told me that I was bitten by a bat. One guy suddenly turned serious and said that I should go to a hospital to get tested for rabies. I panicked a bit and ran out of the market.

As I passed the plant shop, I realized I forgot to pick up my order. I headed in, just while they were closing up. The man said that he was relieved that I came back, because they were just telling the police that I was scamming them. Only then did I see two policemen standing in the cramped cashier area. I hurriedly paid and left. The policemen came running out past me just then, and I heard loud sirens down the block. Large gusts of wind were coming now, and I took advantage of them to fly towards the flashing lights. I briefly thought of how interesting it was that I only just swam in real life yesterday, and was now getting to swim through air in my dream tonight. I literally pulled myself along with sweeps of my arm and jumped huge distances with each stroke. I had to keep going further and further down the block, as I was behind the buildings and there was no seam between them. Though I was good at flying/leaping, I didn't think I could make it over even the shortest buildings. When I finally hit a gap, I turned in to see the crossroads I was at. The army was there, setting up for some kind of big fight. But I never got to see it as my alarm went off and pulled me out of my sleep.

2010-05-15T10:30:00.002-05:00

I was playing a video game, and controlling my character from a third person, slightly top-down perspective. He was in a fighting arena and had just defeated a number of challengers. Since my character was so powerful, the organizers (who were bad guys) got angry and decided to send a few dozen guys at me at once. As they came, I executed all the maneuvers, watching him tear people in half with kicks and punches. It was all digitized violence, so not very gory; still, I remember thinking at the time that I might have to censor it if I ever wrote down that part of my dream. Ironic.

Turns out he's a superhero who specializes in strength and speed. Suddenly, I'm him and walking inside of an apartment complex. I'm in an open middle section with railings surrounding overlooks to the first floor. There's a small noodle bar in the corner, where the owners smile at me as if they know me. Four aliens pop up around me and I take them out with a futuristic machine gun. I close in on my target apartment and kick the door in, not certain what to expect inside. A supervillain in all black jumps down from the second floor landing and I pull out a sword when the gun is ineffective. We trade blows, but he heals up from any cuts that I land. Finally I realize I have to go for the head, and do a fakeout in one direction while swinging my sword in the other. After his head comes off, a small black spider scuttles out of his body and disappears. The game then goes to a cutscene, where the spider is inside of a lab filled with scientists. It's a very indistinct spider, more sort of a black void with a body and spindly legs. It gets herded into a small pen with a few others, and then it cuts back to me standing inside the apartment.

The family that lives there starts to open the door, and I dash upstairs to hide. Just to the right, there's a small closet, with just enough room for me to sit down in. I hear them outside, just the mom and two kids at the moment, and wait for things to calm down before I make any movements. But as I look around me, my curiosity and wonder widens. There's a ton of stuff in there, and I love nothing more than to poke around for loot in a game. So I start rummaging through bags, literally scrutinizing every single item I take out to see if it's worth taking. I'm working systematically from the right to the left, and the first dozen bags just hold clothes, makeup, and various other boring daily items. When I reach the left, I see a bunch of books lying on the floor, and I wonder whether the game designers bothered to code anything inside them. So I open a particularly thick one up at random, and am amazed when I see not only text that makes sense, but also figures when I flip through all the pages! I even see a book from a series that I recognized, on Chinese folk lore. I thought about how much time it must have taken for the programmers to scan in real books; I also fleetingly thought about how it was possible for me to generate all these detailed writings in my dreams. Finally, in the last place I look, right next to where I had started of course, was a snug rectangular black bag that held a futuristic yellow Nokia phone, a headset, and two AA and an E battery. I grabbed them, knowing that this was what I must have been looking for in the first place.

Finding the phone triggered the game to send home the dad, who came upstairs right outside the closet. I could see through the slats that he was talking to his wife, who was sitting at the family computer in a den-like area. They both started looking at my direction, because I couldn't keep totally quiet. As they started approaching, I had no choice but to run out and jump down the stairs as fast as I could. I literally jumped the entire flight in one go and was just about to open the door, when I heard the dad call me by my name and say that he's going to call the police. I realize that if we know each other, there may be a better way to do this. So I reload the game and I'm back in the closet from a few seconds ago. This time, I walk casually out, and both of them greet me. The dad says hey neighbor, just let us know ahead of time when you're coming over next. I wave goodbye, we laugh, and I head out the door.

Outside, the area had broadened into a large bar and dance club. I was running out quickly to make sure I escaped with the phone, when I ran past three superheroes with their arms crossed, trying to talk to me. As I tried to slow down and turn around, four supervillains burst in through a door on my left, and time slowed down to let me pull out my sword mid-lunge. My friends leaped into action, and I faced the first guy, who had one gigantic eye that took up most of his face. Figuring it was his weak spot, I cut it off, only to see the slice drip off as ooze and his eye unharmed. I remember thinking that I had very little time before hitting the guy to decide what this guy's superpower was going to be, seeing as how the dream depended on my creativity. In any case, I kept the eye-man distracted while one of my allies hit him from the back and took him down somehow. The next guy had a hook on top of his head, but I don't remember what superpower I gave him. I tried cutting off his head, but it took more than that to get him down. I looked around and the other two bad guys were being trapped in place by my friends. Suddenly, they dissolved and once again we saw the spiders come out and disappear to the lab. We had won, but we knew they were just waiting for new bodies to come back again.

2010-05-06T18:31:00.003-05:00

I had just gotten out of some kind of church service in Hong Kong with my mom and sister, and I walked alone to the subway. As I stepped on board, everything went blue and I was transported back in time about 30 years. Two of my uncles and and an aunt were standing there talking to me like everything was normal. They looked so young and healthy, with bright eyes and smiles. The uncle who'd passed away in real life was in his prime. I talked to them in Cantonese, something I rarely do in my dreams, but it felt so natural. I almost cried at how handsome and full of life they were.

We got off at a stop, and it was current again. Now I was with two other of my uncles, and we headed over to one of them's favorite bar. I was surprised and curious since they're a bit conservative, but didn't get a chance to see much as it was closed. We walked down a long narrow hallway inside a minimall, and a teen popped his head out from a door to flag us down. Seems like my uncle knew him and he quickly let us know that this was a great noodle place. They shut down the shop, and only certain customers could get in past closing time.

For once, I actually got to eat my meal, which was vegetables and ground beef with thin egg noodles. It tasted all right, until I lifted up a part that seemed to be stuck together with green goo. I stopped eating then. One of my uncles took out a small sheet of paper that looked like part of a chinese chess board. The other uncle got excited and they both pulled out some small markers that looked like miniature playing cards. After setting down some face cards, they ran out and had to substitute with coins. They played really fast, moving up and down and stacking their pieces in confusing ways. One of the waiters came over, and the staff started asking each other if they'd ever seen such a game before. Turns out the board really was a torn-off piece from a chinese chess set.

I think this was my first ever dream that was entirely in Cantonese.

2010-04-28T09:31:00.002-05:00

I'd arranged to meet Merry for dinner downtown, at my favorite Spanish place. The street curved gently in towards the left, and I got lucky and parked right in the crook of the bend, in front of the restaurant. It started raining lightly, so I was waiting for a while inside the TCBY across the street when Merry called and said she was getting a little closer. That's when I noticed a crowd gathering on the street outside and I headed out for a look. There were base jumpers giving a show, climbing up on the rooftops and swooping down while wearing these harnesses attached to black parachute-wings.

I got another call, and it was from Rob, a technician in the lab. He was crying hyserically and asking me the number of another postdoc. I tried reading of the number to him, but every time I finished, the number would change and I would have to say the new one. The phone screen was an old-fashioned LED one, so when some of the bars would blink, the numbers would be unreadable. I tried tilting it this way and that to get a better look, but it eventually stopped even looking like numbers anymore. So instead I asked Rob what the problem was. He said there was a technique that he was doing that was way too hard, and he was stressing out about it. I reassured him that there was nothing so hard worth crying about, and that either he wasn't taught it properly or that it isn't the type of assay that he should be left to do alone at night. He felt a little better after that, but Merry called and I switched over abruptly. She said she was going to start looking for parking.

During the call with Rob, I saw my sister standing in the crowd. She waited around with me, watching the jumpers. There were also people dressed up as the power rangers, climbing to the roofs and jumping off at lower heights. The guy in pink jumped off, flipped, and bounced right off his head and stuck a perfect landing. I was shocked, but figured that his rather large helmet must have contained some kind of shock absorber. The base jumpers were in their 20s, and one of the quartet bounded off, glided down the street for a bit, and bounced up above our heads and off the wall. He gave us the thumbs up and headed back for another go. I started to feel a bit guilty that Merry had to drive all the way up from New York for just one night's dinner. I called her up again and started to chat when I woke up.

2009-12-08T07:14:00.006-06:00

Merry and I set off on a long road trip to Chicago, using a narrow but fast little highway. It was literally one car in width and was bordered on both sides by a guardrail. We sped along unhindered until we crossed the Illinois border, stopped in our tracks by a group of road workers removing the dead bodies of their coworkers that blocked the way. I tried to push past, but they insisted we wait. Finally, they moved the one in front of us, but I ended up skidding over a few more, just to find out that the way was totally blocked by a fallen wall. I was pretty pissed.

So I decided to fly down to California by helicopter. Next thing I knew, I was watching a movie with Tom Cruise flying a mini one-person copter (his legs stuck out the bottom) that looked like it was built out of Lego. He touched down in the middle of a futuristic-looking classroom and started manipulating the touchscreen computers to play some videos. The movie then cut to these videos, which were replays of some of his 80s movies, complete with washed out colors. I got pretty bored seeing the same stuff I'd seen before (not sure what they were now), until it got to one that was new to me. He was playing a blue-suited, muscled superhero that could bend reality like in the Matrix. He was thrusting both his arms through a solid wall, but without breaking it, to grab at a couple bad guys on the other side. They looked like aliens and were ferociously bearing down on him. After he easily snapped the first one in half, the second one dropped his weapon and started pitifully begging for his life. He had a bony protrusion on his head that fanned out from the sides to the top. Tom ignored his pleas and grabbed both sides of the guy's head, snapped them off painfully so that you could see his skull exposed, and gouged out his eyes with them, leaving him to die. I was a little repulsed.

From there, Tom flew to his own personal island off the coast of Arizona, which had been featured on a lifestyles of the rich and famous-type program. It had its own airport and tourist destinations. I flew over there myself, illegally, and walked into the spacious airport to see what kind of people visited. It was mostly ultra-wealthy businessmen, and I saw Americans speaking nearly flawless Chinese to their overseas business partners, who replied in nearly flawless English. I even saw a Chinese guy talk in German. Spying on their spending practices, I saw that it cost one million times whatever the normal price for something would be. I inspected the bathroom, and though it was well-kept, was otherwise unremarkable. I woke up, but returned to the same place in the next dream.

Now I was being dropped off in a van along with a character from The Office (don't remember which one). We were chatting casually with the driver, who seemed very morose and complained about how lonely the job was. The Office guy said that at least the driver had something to return to: "I know you've got two kids, I saw the toys in the back." The driver turned away from us and mumbled "No, those are mine." He pulled away slowly while we shook our heads and headed in to the airport, which had a conference center on the side. We were greeted by the rest of the characters from the show, and there seemed to be a bit a of a party going on.

Quickly, the cast changed to that of Scrubs, and it became clear that they were all participating in an arcane martial arts training camp. Slowly, everyone except the four main leads (JD, Turk, Eliot, and Carla) were knocked unconscious by the master. The four then started to bicker at each other due to a "love square" forming among them. They started to fight for real and locked each other into a hold, each one grabbing the one they were jealous of. The master kept up with them as they somersaulted down corridors, and threw iron chains around them. When it didn't stop them from fighting, he conjured an iron wheel that constricted them. They rolled down the pathways, still arguing loudly. A preview for the next episode showed up on a TV screen in the corner, showing JD in a box getting his feet sawed off to prove his dedication to the master. In Scrubs fashion though, it wasn't clear if he was just faking it. It later showed him and Eliot in a race on their hands and knees, with his feet seemingly replaced by metal sockets.

Later, I went into the bathroom, which looked like the typical dirty, run-down kind from a Chinese restaurant. As I washed my hands, I noticed blood in the sink. Before I could react, it splashed up on me. Right above the urinal was a showerhead, so I turned it to full power to wash myself off. I remember thinking what a weird situation it was to prefer having urinal stuff splash on me. I levitated a bit off the floor to avoid all that dirt getting washed onto my feet. Then I woke up.

2009-10-12T09:16:00.005-05:00

Several women were staying over at our family's house, which was a combination of several of my old real-life houses. They were there for some kind of cultural exchange program and had a nice home-cooked dinner with us. I was responsible for one of them, and directed her to my sister's bathroom while I headed to my own. They seemed nervous about making too much noise and waking my mom, but I assured them the house was big enough to dampen the sounds. I fell asleep on my bed before I even made it to the shower.

In what may have been a separate dream, my mom and sister were at a local Chinatown market, looking into a stall (within a mall) that was selling art. The artist himself, an old Chinese man with wispy hair and glasses, was working on his next piece. Across his work table were several live young roosters, each the size of newborn chicks. One of them was trying to crow, but it came out more like a little yodel, very cute. The stall was partitioned off by hanging bamboo slats, and we viewed the inside through chinks in the partition. My mom decided to just head right in, as she claimed she knew the custom. I didn't think we were meant to go in, so I circled around the outside for a bit, waiting. When nothing happened, me and my sister finally went inside. Immediately, it opened up into a giant emporium, and we could see a door leading to the street. Quickly, we walked to an open mall area where it connected to both the outside and to a subway system. As we stood there deciding what to do next, we heard announcements that two killers were on the loose.

Immediately, I was in prison, a killer myself. There was a bed along the wall near the hallway and only a table and seat otherwise. I got news of two new killers coming in (not the same as the ones on the loose) and they opened my cell door to let me talk to them. My cell was right next to the outer door of the hallway, and they had stuck the two killers directly on the door, represented as two plastic airhockey pucks, red and blue. I started lecturing them about how I understood their horrible crimes, and how I've found out in jail that things can get better by being calm and learning new things. I went on like this for a good while before we got the same announcement about the two new killers on the loose.

Suddenly, I was following the car chase from a helicopter, watching as a small blue car flew down the highway. There were no cops in sight until it reached a sharp hairpin turn, and a giant brick of 12 cop cars careened around and most lost control. The blue car bumped into a large red pickup truck, which I thought would stop it for sure. But the truck instead sped up and started knocking other cars out of the way ahead. So I figured they were partners. I noticed that the truck was now basically ramming any small car it could find, so I though that they should put spikes underneath a stationary car to trick the driver into running over it. Instead, they sent one of their prisoners, an enormous bodybuilder type that looked like Stone Cold Steve Austin, except bigger. He ran up behind the pickup truck and stopped it with his bare hands.

Back in my prison cell, except now I was the bodybuilder. I was relaxing, talking to the woman from the cultural exchange, who was flirting with me. The door opens and I have a new visitor: Angelina Jolie. Apparently, she's my girlfriend, and she comes over to give me a hug. Before that can happen, I'm back in my own body and watching the scene. The man is grotesquely covered in sweat and grease, and I wonder how many steroids he's taken in his life.

2009-07-13T08:06:00.006-05:00

The dream played out as an anime movie about a young kid and his grandfather at home. The kid was about six years old, and his parents were out on an errand late at night. It was stormy weather, and they had been hearing reports about people disappearing that night, supposedly due to an alien. They ran about locking all the doors. After a while, they saw a darting movement through the windows, looking something like the creatures from Alien. The grandfather decided to go out and check out the situation. He grabbed an umbrella and headed out. Almost immediately, I became the little kid, and walked around making sure all the doors were locked and turning off the lights. I began thinking about whether or not I should answer the door if the bell rang, because I had no idea if the alien would be intelligent enough to figure it out. I recognized the place as the home I lived in as a teenager, and after nervously pacing around and waiting, I decided my nerves couldn't take it anymore. I sat down at the computer and booted it up to take my mind off things. As soon as the screen came on, the doorbell rang. Heart pounding, I sneaked up to the main doors, wondering if it was the last thing I would ever do. I moved my head up slowly to the windows... and to my relief it was my (the kid's) parents, who still looked like anime characters. I opened the door and hurried them through, but they were just going about their business. I slammed the door shut and grabbed the chain lock, but it wouldn't reach. I yanked hard, but to no avail. That's when I noticed it was caught on itself in a loop, shortening its reach. In my panicked state, I couldn't unwrap it, and my movements got increasingly frantic. Finaly, I calmed myself for a second and was able to slide the lock into place.

I was watching it as a movie again, as the kid ran to the family room and started blubbering to his parents. He was kneeling at the end of the coffee table, with his mom kneeling to his right and his dad on the couch to his left. As he tried describing what happened to his grandfather, his speech became increasingly chaotic and warped. A blender on the table started whirring, and his mom's hand was in it. Cartoon blood splashed everywhere, and the kid started crying, screaming out questions to his parents. Questions that went unanswered. The screen grew black around him, vortexing in and out. A dark voice called out to him, "become your destiny." The kid screamed no, but in an instant, he transformed into a little purple devil. (It was actually kind of cute.)

Weeks later, he was now a long Asian-style dragon swimming up a river somewhere in Japan, having realized his true demonic potential. Ahead of him in the air was another kid-turned-demon, who appeared like a cubic, 3-D kite made of interconnecting black strings. In voiceover, the dragon wondered what his purpose was. Over weeks of time, the movie showed both the dragon and kite growing ever larger, until they were each many times the size of skyscrapers. Even so, they still had the minds of children. By now, the dragon could fly along with the kite, who rode on the dragon's neck. The strings of the kite could now be seen to be made of human-like figures. As they passed a canal full of boats, they zoomed in on what appeared to be a large fish floating on its side. As it continued to surface, it became clear that it was actually a large human face, muscles only. The kite extended a string down with a pair of scissors, and snipped off the eyeball at the optic nerve, presumably one of the only things large enough to feed the both of them. A passing government helicopter showed two agents talking about what they just witnessed, although they hadn't see the actual dragon itself. Despite his size, from a distance, the dragon didn't arouse any more suspicion than a large commercial airplane. Finally, as they landed on a set of railroad tracks, they both reverted to being little kids, and were arguing over some Power Ranger action figures.

I rarely have non-live action dreams. This was particularly weird because I've only ever watched a small handful of anime, and not for a long time.

2009-05-19T08:56:00.003-05:00

I was living on the top floor of a little run-down old apartment building, in a tiny studio. Although it was past midnight, I was really hungry and decided to head out to Burger King. The elevator was just big enough for one person, and it rattled and shook as it crawled its way down eight flights. I was getting worried that it would fall, even as it slowed down further and further. Just as it was about to hit the first floor, it bounced back up and headed up to the fourth. I quickly hit the button for five, and took the stairs down from there. It turns out I had to crawl through a cramped tunnel in the basement to get outside; looking back at the front door, I saw it was completely blocked by a pile of unhealthy-looking gray powder. I got in my car from the garage to the left, but never made it to Burger King.

Next thing I know, I'm pacing back and forth on a street several blocks away, considering whether to walk home or take a cab (as my car had disappeared). By the time I decided on a taxi, there were several other people already hailing for one. I quickly stepped out and waved my hand as well, but the others kept crowding me out. I felt like I was losing the battle, so I ran back up the street further to catch an early cab. For a while, all the ones that went by had their light off. Finally, a whole crowd of lit cabs came on down, and I hurriedly ran up to the first one and asked if she was free. She said, "if you think you can fit." It was then that I realized that they were little girls in Mickey Mouse hats with a taxi light on top, and that their "cab" was a small glass drum strapped to their backs. I was bewildered, but noticed that it looked like they were part of a parade. I finally decided to just walk home.

Instantly, I was in my bed trying to load up Starcraft on my laptop. There wasn't anyone else on the local network, so I called Toan and Seol, my college buddies who played the game with me back then, and asked if they wanted to move in with me. They appeared immediately with their laptops, all settled in, and I shared my game on the network for them to download. Toan got it right away, but Seol was doing something else, and we were getting impatient with him. I went over to download it for him, but soon our laptops turned into large desktops with 40-inch monitors like we were at a workstation. In fact, we were seated in a row like in an office, and I saw my boss coming over out of the corner of my eye. I quickly exited the game and started up Powerpoint. Unfortunately, that's all she saw, as she left, disappointed in me, before I could load up any data. I was more than a little worried about that. Toan had already gone to his beautiful 3-D display of some chemistry reactions or something like that. With nothing else to do, I sighed and walked down the aisle. It turns out that our stations were all part of a high school science fair, one in which all students' families were to help out. Just to my left was an enormous aquarium that reached to the ceiling and was a couple dozen feet wide and deep. Inside were these huge, fat seahorses swimming around, with thick, cannister-like bodies. I boggled at how much work the family had to do to construct the aquarium, fill it up, and transport the seahorses. Amazing.

2009-05-08T09:23:00.005-05:00

For the first time in a long time, I had a dream continuation. Back at the camp, I was wandering up and down the residence halls, looking for something to do. The end of the hall opened up into a small dance room with a stage, and it was clearly single's night. I left immediately. As I was strolling through the parking lot, I saw that my labmate Katherine had been duct-taped to the hood of a car. I stopped to help, but noticed that the tape near her mouth didn't actually cover it, so she could talk. Seemed suspicious. As I neared, I saw a glimpse of a pair of sandals disappear under the passenger door as it closed. I immediately knew it was an elaborate prank to scare people trying to help. The car suddenly peeled out, with everyone inside and Katherine laughing. I stood there stone-faced, trying to make sure they knew they hadn't "got me." Inside, I saw a bunch of C-list celebrities, and I yelled out "I saw those sandals. I knew it was you, Saget."

Back in my room, I looked over the schedule again and sighed. It had already been almost a week, and the camp didn't end until June 20, another two weeks away. I had been away from my experiments for too long and didn't want to miss any more work. I made up my mind to leave the following night and started to pack up my backpack. The room was much nicer than before, more along the lines of a four-star hotel, with a canopied bed, attached bathroom, and elegant furnishings. Steve and Lynn came in, and I asked them if they were leaving soon too. They said they'd stay another few days and that would be it.

2009-05-07T09:07:00.003-05:00

My parents dropped me off for a week-long summer camp at the local college; I wasn't a little kid though. I went straight to my dorm room, which was a nice clean, white affair with just two beds and a couple desks. Turns out my labmate Steve was my roommate, though he only stopped by to drop off his stuff before he hurried out to the first day's activities. I took out my laptop and booted it up; in the meantime I took out my iPod touch and tried to get wireless. No luck. It was going to be a long week. I took out the schedule sheet, which had talks, fun stuff, and classes, though I have no idea what any of them were anymore. I headed out to the buses up front, which would take us to the various areas.

Next thing I know, I'm sneaking out of the camp along with Steve and Tim to a wedding reception nearby. It was Tyler Jack's (a cancer research bigshot), and the reception was taking place outdoors overlooking a beautifully manicured hill. We saw from the bottom of it that several other big-time researchers were chatting on top of the hill. We soon took our places on metal folding chairs just to the left of the bride and groom's table, and I saw some of my old lab members there as well. By this time, we were in a little church-like area, with two walls that was otherwise open to the air. Tyler gave a little speech thanking everyone, and I was surprised that he knew all of our names. After that, we headed over to the food, which was spread out over four enormous tables containing platter after platter of crispy, soft, buttery danishes of all flavors. I greedily piled my plate full of one of each kind, from raspberry to strawberry to cheese. I even took a bite which melted directly in my mouth. I smiled, even while thinking how awful this was for my cholesterol. As usual though, I didn't get to eat any more than that.

We hurried back to the buses, but missed ours by just a few seconds as it pulled out in front of us. We were stuck for a few more minutes, so I decided to do some window-gazing. The area looked a lot like O'Hare airport, with giant windows and seating areas abutting the bus lanes. My window looked out over a sea or ocean, and I suddenly noticed that scuba divers were coming up in a circle, holding an enourmous rope net. I quickly realized I would be seeing something unusual, and pulled out my iPod (which for some reason had a camera) and started recording. As they pulled up, it seemed that our depot was sinking down, and I could see the fish that were being caught in the net. There were gigantic fish swimming about, and I could even see them on my little camera screen at the same time. We soon reached the sea floor, and I saw an octopus and a manta ray, both larger than me. It was awe-inspiring. In the split second that I turned around to check on the buses, the view outside shot right back up to ground level, which I could tell because it bounced a bit after hitting the final layer. I frantically tried to replay the video, but I just couldn't find it. I guessed that I didn't hit the record button right.

Instead of boarding the next bus, I noticed that people from our camp were crowding around a small, but long booth that sat just to our right. It seemed that the camp leaders were giving a speech, so I squeezed into the crowd somewhere. But that's all I got to do before I woke up.

2009-04-08T03:21:00.005-05:00

I was at my 10 year high school reunion, held in the basement of some large college building. I started in right away on the buffet. At the start of it were two flexible nozzles, the kind that bartenders have for soda. Two buttons on this one let you have warm water or Pepsi. For some reason, I was extremely thirsty, and loaded up on four (wine) glasses of Pepsi. I kept hitting the wrong button and getting water mixed in with my soda. I drank it as I went, but it never seemed like enough. The rest of the food was mainly pastries, and I thought to myself that this is exactly like those kind of buffet dreams I have where I fill up my tray but never get to eat it. I think they call this "foreshadowing." Anyways. I did manage to take a few bites out of some bear claws and danishes, but my two stacked trays brimming with pastries were empty by the end of the line, including my drinks. I sighed, and saw to my relief that there was a Pepsi fountain machine at the end of the line. I quickly poured myself a really tall glass and started in on it. It tasted a little funny, but I was so thirsty I didn't mind.

I walked around with my (empty, but still heavy) trays and drink, looking for a table. There was a really large table filled with people from junior high. I was never that close to them, but I thought it might be fun, so I hovered around a bit looking for a chair. It was totally packed, I couldn't even wedge in a little bit. So I kept going. I finally found my table of close high school buddies (Anirban and Mike were there, but I don't remember who else), and we exchanged some loud greetings. As soon as I sat down though, they got up and followed the rest of the people to some kind of ceremony in a theater. I peered in, and there was a performance on stage. I got the feeling that it was some kind of secret society and didn't feel like going in.

As I stopped by the bathroom on the way out, I saw Toan in there in a tuxedo. I suddenly remembered that I had RSVPed to his wedding that afternoon at 1pm, and that it was around 3 or 4 by now. I said, "Contratulations man! Sorry, I had to go to my 10 year high school reunion." He grabbed me and hugged me and said "It's okay man, just glad you're here." Which is weird because I really did go to his wedding about three years ago. As I stepped outside of the building, I saw a beautiful fenced-in, circular, multi-tiered courtyard area with a monastery in the middle. It was large, and I suddenly remembered that it used to be barren. So I marvelled at the renovation, and literally flew around the place, in and out, to get a better view. It was breathtaking.

Next dream, I was lying on my bed with Merry on the roof of a 40-story building. We were watching World War II. Not a film, it's like we went back in time and watched US and Japanese fighter planes in combat. There were about a dozen of each, and you could tell that the Japanese planes were way out matched. They were more of the wooden/steel WWI-type biplanes while the US planes were modern for WWII. They swirled about each other, without any type of real dogfighting. I watched solemnly as planes spun out of control or dropped suddenly out of the sky. I could only imagine how it felt for the pilots as they plummetted to the ground. Suddenly, I felt Merry pushing me slightly. I was right on the edge of the bed, so I told her to be careful. She kept pushing, and I saw over the edge of the bed that we were right up agains the side of the building, so if I fell, I would go all the way down. I didn't panic, but started yelling louder for her to stop. Next thing, I was falling all the way down, but it only ended up being 3 or 4 stories. I fell on top of my sheets and was all right.

My mom came over and started talking to me. "You know how you have 1400 Indians under your command?"
"Yes"
"I saw them come to your room last night begging for food. Did you yell at them?" I started to say no, but she cut me off. "Because you shouldn't. I saw that you took them to Chinatown for dinner, right?"
"Only some of them."
"Well..."
And then Merry woke me up in real life. She was nudging me slightly, so now I know why I had that dream!

2009-03-21T17:55:00.002-05:00

I received an email from my junior high violin teacher, Mr. Zhou. I had apparently signed up for new lessons with him this past year, and had only gone to one. Still, he was billing me for all the lessons I had missed, about eight or so, for $43 each. He gave me a discout of $125 for being a former student. It took me a while to understand why he would charge me for missed lessons, but I later realized that he had blocked out all those timeslots for me that he couldn't fill with other students. So it made more sense.

I took a cab to work, and who was my driver but Mr. Zhou himself! He was very nice to me, and I told him to wait in the cab downstairs while I filled out his check asap from my lab. As I entered the building, I was struck by the absence of elevators to the left that I usually take, replaced now with an upscale dining club. I kept walking past, on through a large glass atrium containing the lobby (breathtaking, really, now that I think about how different it is from the real one), and on to the elevator there. Now my colleague happened to be coming in at the same time, and suggested I play a bit of a prank. I had a bucket of dry ice and liquid nitrogen in my hand, and he suggested I put a whole glass shaker full of salt in. As soon as he did, it starting smoking and melting, releasing a choking stench into the air. The elevator, then my floor were completely full of this, and everyone was coughing like mad. I didn't think it was such a great joke.

Later, in another dream, the food court was closing and I was in the last open one, apparently my favorite taco place (not in real life). My friend picked up his food, and I hesitated about ordering since I knew they wanted to close up. In my one second of silence, the cashier walked over to me, hit the light switch while staring me dead in the face, and drew down the steel curtain over the counter. I sighed and resolved to be more decisive in the future.

The next night, I dreamed that I took some foreign guests of mine to a food court in Chinatown, that looked suspiciously like the one from the previous night's dream. We wandered about for a while, but they didn't find anything they liked. We next went to a New England seafood food court, where they had both lobster and steak available for less than $10 each. They liked this more, but as we sat down to the highly polished wooden tables, it irked me since it still felt too expensive.

2009-01-03T10:02:00.008-06:00

I was on an airplane with two friends. They were Asian, college age, and don’t exist in real life. Both of them were playing an electronic game on their watches, a 3D flying/shooting game that was overlaid on reality: I could see their fighter planes in crude 80’s-style vector graphics zooming up and down the aisle. One of them offered me his watch to play for a while, and it enlarged into remote control-size. Control consisted mainly of a single flexible switch that would cause the plane to turn and a two-state button that fired the guns. I didn’t bother to learn what the other dozen or so controls did. As the fighter plane turned, so would I, taking me with it. It took only a few seconds to get the hang of it. Our green fighter chased a pink enemy one, which flew directly over the second friend. I shot at it, using lightning-style guns. I couldn’t see the planes anymore, so it looked like I was just shooting the friend Star Wars-style.

Eventually, I got bored and started playing with my iPod. Except in this dream world, it was a large black computer keyboard, with a tiny LCD screen in the top right corner. I showed it to one of my friends, who was unimpressed with the klunky interface. I tried starting up some programs or music, but the second part of my dream started. This part I don’t remember very well. I was on a trip and in a youth hostel, and all I remember is that my stuff was strewn across one of the rooms.

Suddenly, I was at my high school reunion, an outdoor picnic affair. While the grills were starting up, people started to drift off into groups; into the same cliques they were in fifteen years ago. Despite wanting to break some of those old barriers down, I couldn’t bring myself to barge in on any of them; and, in any case, they looked like they were having a good time reminiscing. I wandered off to a set of picnic tables where the keg was. There, I found some greasy, unwashed types who would probably have been the hard-core dungeons and dragons players in high school (unlike my real life high school friends, who were only occasional dungeons an dragons players). I grabbed a beer in a big glass stein, but for some reason it had a layer of sawdust on top. I spent a few minutes trying to brush it off of the ice, but when I had gotten all I could, I couldn’t actually force myself to drink any of it.

Continuing from the high school theme, I was back in the gym locker rooms and heading out to the hallways. Once in the halls, I couldn’t find my way out (yesterday in real life, I had gotten lost in the halls of Brigham and Women’s Hospital with no non-emergency exits in sight). I kept going up and down the same areas. When I got back to where I started, I noticed this time that there were sheets evenly spaced on the floor. I instantly knew that this was a make-shift gross anatomy class, and sure enough, the sheets contained bodies in various states of dissection; most, however, appeared to be nothing more than a pair of legs. I literally flew up and down the halls, trying to avoid looking directly at any sheet. I soon realized that this was a dream, and I closed my eyes tightly, wishing that when I opened them I would be somewhere else.

It worked! I was in a long hallway with blue carpeting and large windows. Sunlight streamed in and I felt such relief. I flew pleasantly to the end of the hallway, where it connected to a mall. In an open bar area, I found Merry and sat down at a round wooden table, carrying a bowl containing a brazil nut, three hazelnuts, and two marbles. I had a large knife in my hand and started playing pool on the tabletop, using the knife as a cue and the marbles and nuts as balls. Merry declined playing and instead ate a couple of the hazelnuts. For some reason, the remaining brazil nut and hazelnut represented the King and Duke from Huckleberry Finn (which I had recently started re-reading in real life). So I put those back in the bowl. Then I woke up.

2008-08-27T22:16:00.003-05:00

I was at a school recital, sitting in the performers’ row with my violin at my side. I felt very nervous, being the first time I’d be playing my own composition. When my name was called (“and here’s Lawrence Kwong…”), I felt a flush of anxiety. Transported instantly on stage, I stuttered out the name of my piece, reading off my own score: “An Ostrich with Warm Meth.” I did a double take at my own title, but kept my eyes on the notes. As I started bowing, the notes on the page huddled together, forming little patterns that looked like cartoon heads. I couldn’t make sense of it after a couple beats, and started to wing it, playing the first few measures of Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1. I couldn’t even get that right, and threw in the towel: “Sorry, this is the puzzle version I made, for people to figure out…” I said, quite lamely.

I trudged slowly down the hallway outside of the auditorium, my head hung in abject shame. I was completely flooded with a sense of disappointment, chastising myself for being so stupid and looking like a fool on stage. Tim, Steve, and Deb came around the corner from the auditorium doors, and I overheard Deb saying, “… and what the hell did an ostrich have to do with meth?” It obviously wasn’t the encouragement I expected to hear. They barely acknowledged me with a glance and short nod, then turned the corner down another hall. I felt even worse.

Just then, a surge of new audience members came in the main door, filing directly into the auditorium. I recognized a bunch as my old high school crew, and shouted happily to Scott, who I hadn’t seen in years. He managed only a brief “hey” before averting his eyes and continuing forward. Happened again with the other guys, so I gave up, feeling really down. When I woke up a short time later, all I felt was relief.

2008-08-03T10:51:00.001-05:00

I went in to work, which was this long steel room lined with computers. There was a long thin row of desks to left center, with both sides being used and a computer at almost every desk. I sat down at mine, which was in the right corner of the room and facing the wall with the door. I started surfing the web, looking at useless sites and wasting time. Right in the middle of it, two uniformed army officers came in, a guy and a girl. Both were young looking, maybe in their late 20s, but were highly decorated with medals. They asked me what I was doing, commenting that it did’t look very productive. I said, "Oh, I’m working in another window, I just stopped momentarily to look something up." So they asked me to show them what I was working on in the other window. It was actually someone else’s work running in the background, something I was unfamiliar with: a bunch of swirling patterns, brightly colored. After a short pause, I admitted that I had no idea.

Both of them said ,”What?” and started to crack up.

I said, “Wait a minute, why are you laughing at me?" They said they were going to report me. During all this time, I was hemming and hawing, trying to cover for myself.

So I finally said, “Ok look, I made a mistake and…” But they cut me off, calling me an idiot and giggling.

The guy said, mockingly, “Oh really, now you realize it? Hah.”

I said, “Hey I’m admitting it… look, I have an excellent track record…” Again they cut me off with derisive laughter. It was getting really annoying. “… and I just made this one mistake. Don’t report me.” They just brushed me off.

I said, “I know you’re both highly decorated, but you must have made mistakes in the past too?” They stood up, still laughing, and said they were going straight to my boss.

After they left, the rest of the room crowded over, about 30 people (none of whom I know in real life). One woman in particular asked me what happened, and I started to say what a bunch of assholes they were. But no one paid attention to me, instead looking off to the left. After a few abortive attempts of mine to keep talking about it, everyone just took off, leaving me standing in an almost empty room. I walked over to the last person, who was a thin black woman sitting on the opposite side of the center row of desks. She had unbuttoned most of her shirt, which was distracting (on purpose, as you’ll see).

She said, “Hey Lawrence, didn’t those two seem like actors?”

To which I replied “I was acting too (trying to get out of it). If those were actors then I’m an actor too.” We repeated the lines again, as though she was trying to get a point across.

Finally she said “Wouldn’t it be crazy if I called a couple actors and asked them to make fun of you?”

I said, “No way, that’s way too elaborate a prank.” I found another coworker, a middle-aged chubby lady, in the hallway, and she asked if I remembered coming over to her place the night before for dinner. I said no. Then I woke up.

The new dream started up with me on the couch watching TV with Merry. I was telling her about what happened, and she had this guilty look on her face.

Finally she said, “Larry, I was in on it. Don’t get mad at me!” I said that there was no way that could be true, and that they definitely weren’t actors. Merry then hit play on the VCR, and the entire thing had been recorded. It showed all my coworkers preparing for the prank, initially milling about the office putting things in place that would subliminally imprint themselves on me. The voiceover said that they were going to influence my dream both before and during and make the whole thing play out. It cut to views of all of my coworkers going to sleep in the office, in special compartments built into the center row of desks. At the top of the rows were a long series of fake bookshelves filled with fake books and computer equipment. It showed them climbing in and shutting them, making them look seamless. The idea was that by sleeping in the same room as me eventually, they could play their parts in my dream. So it showed me walking in looking very tired, almost drunk, and sitting down at my desk. On the way in were the two actors in their uniforms, placed so that their image would imprint on my dream. The video then cut to the day before, where I had gone over to the middle-aged coworker’s apartment for dinner. It showed the two of us, sitting at opposite ends of her dilapidated couch, eating salad and watching TV. It then showed me getting sick from drugs they had put in my food, along with strong alcohol they had given me. (I’m still watching all this on TV, not being there). From an overhead angle, it showed me running into the bedroom and puking on the floor.

Merry said, “Ewww!” But then the puke just looked like a couple big leaves of lettuce, and she said, “Oh, that’s not so bad." The tape continued on, but I realized that “I” had very light, longish hair.

So I said, “Wait, that’s not even me! Rewind the tape. I don’t even have a sweater like that any more.” (It was puke-green argyle). Merry rewound it, but this time around the color shifted so that it looked exactly like me, and a more reasonably-colored sweater. I figured the VCR cassette was just bad. It then showed me stumbling out the door to the elevator. It cut to me back at work, and just about to fall asleep. At that point I couldn’t understand whether they were going to just act it out right in front of me, or whether they were still going for influencing my dream. But then I woke up.

2008-06-21T07:48:00.003-05:00

My boss Lynda asked me to help run her afterschool program for K-12 kids. Today was basketball day, and she told me to find a way to keep the kids interested. So I casually leaned against the wall and thought while about fifty kids poured in and filled the small room. They were in chaos, some shooting the balls, some milling about, but I couldn't think of a good plan. After a couple minutes, when a bunch of kids had left, I told Lynda "Sorry, I guess I failed you, I couldn't think of anything."

Without a word, she got up and left. As soon as she was gone, I thought of a way... I asked the tallest kid in the class to come over. He just barely missed touching the ceiling with the top of his head. I bet him that he couldn't dunk the ball without putting his head through the ceiling tiles. He said "You're on!" and I knew I had people hooked. Unfortunately, there were only about a dozen students left, but I tried my best to be exciting and encouraging. After a while, it broke down a bit when more kids arrived and the room was too packed for sports.

Some of the other staff put on some music, and the kids immediately dropped down into yoga positions and started dancing in unison, waving their arms intricately about. They must have done this many, many times before. I tried to follow along, laughing throughout at how complex the dance was. Debra, Lynda's assistant, came in in the middle and laughed, sitting down next to me. I was relieved, because Debra would surely tell Lynda about the success of the program. The next song that came on was "You are my sunshine," and everyone stopped moving and bowed their heads while singing along. Since I don't know the words in real life besides the chorus, the tape kept skipping and blurring at other verses. Finally, it hit a snag and kept repeating, so it was time to move on.

I called in Chinese takeout, and it arrived instantly, fully set up in the back of the room. There was a beautiful ebony cabinet in the middle filled with rice dishes, while a long set of foldup tables held other dishes just behind. I got there first, just before the line stretched around the corner and into the administrative office. The rice layout was amazing, with 5-6 dishes laid out in lacquered dishes covered with tinfoil. In one case, a three-tiered flower pot held sticky rice in the outer rings surrounding the short plants. I quickly filled my small bowl with each kind of rice, and tried a few delicious spoonfuls here and there. I suddenly felt guilty for being the coordinator yet rushing to eat first, so I put my bowl down at the coordinator's table where my coworker was sitting and dashed off to be a server at the main tables. But there was no food and no line left, just piled empty dishes. While I had been busy filling up on rice, everyone had served themselves, eaten, and left. I grabbed the few bits of shrimp left and popped them in my mouth. All in all, I considered it a successful and fun day for the kids.

2008-05-11T05:36:00.006-05:00

I was at lab, and Steve told me that I had only "21 days" left to mate some mice to save one of my lines. I said "only 21 days?" which for some reason got a laugh from Tim. Anyways, Tim started to help me out, getting together the mice and mating them. However, they were clearly too young, and I said we should probably wean them first. My sister appeared in Tim's place and I said I'd go get some new cages. I couldn't find them anywhere on the floor, and didn't want to ask around since I really should know. So instead I got in the elevator to the mouse facility on the third floor.

In the elevator, even though I hit the 3 button, it went to the first floor. I was upset, but kept hitting the button. I felt something on my leg, as though someone had flicked me. I brushed it off, but started to wonder if the elevator was haunted as it shot up to the 10th floor. By then I had given up going to 3, so my mind wandered. I started to see a vision of the cosmos, a beautifully colored pantheon of planets and galaxies stretching away towards the doors. I said "that's so cool." But a sudden movement to my left distracted me. I saw that two coats had appeared in the corner, so I was sure there was a ghost now. It didn't seem to bother me though; instead of being scared, I was just upset at the delay and kicked the coats.

Then I was at a party at a nice little ranch home which my family owned. Just a few folks, including a large red-haired woman holding her newborn baby. As I ate some chicken wings, I hallucinated that she was stripping the meat off her baby with her teeth. I thought to myself "doesn't the kid need energy? That won't work if she's eating his meat." But then I snapped out of it (still in the dream) and saw the baby was okay.

I went to a bedroom and looked out the window. There were rotting branches or roots extending out from the house, and I could see little black mice running in and out of the roots in the snow. I had no idea they could survive in such temperatures. Then some golden squirrels came over and started eating the mice, head first. I called my sister over, and she watched with me in fascination. A baboon wandered over and broke one of the larger "roots." Several bear cubs came out, and I thought they were going to get killed, but then their mom followed after. Immediately behind her were dozens of wolves flowing out like a stream. They immediately attacked the baboon, who kept getting away despite being bitten all over. A swarm of gorillas followed by lions swept in from the right, clashing with the growing crowd of wolves. I thought "ah, so this is why we never explored our backyard." As the animals were all fighting, there was a sudden stampede from over the hill of bulls and longhorn steer that easily swept over the others. They seemed to be led by our cowboy neighbor. We suddenly realized they weren't going to stop, so we ran out of the room just before the house shook with the impact. We went again only to see another wave coming again (and again we ran). The third time, there was a row of large stuffed animal lions set up, that were knocked over by the stampede, bursting into feathers.

Finally, I dreamt that my cousin Daniel's church gave out fliers with a number on one of the panels. If you called it between 8am and 2:30pm on Saturday, you could make free calls to anywhere in the world. It was mainly used by the predominantly Chinese church crowd to call China for prayers. I recalled my sister mentioning (not in real life) that one time, Daniel needed to make a call and stopped in downtown Chicago to ask a cop for the flier. He did and had made the call for free. So I was finally looking at this flier. It was yellow and Daniel had cut out the little coupon-type card that came with all the info.

2008-05-09T08:07:00.007-05:00

My high school German teacher, Mrs. Betterman, organized a field trip to the moon. Besides her and several crew, I was accompanied by Bryan (from grad school) and one other friend (not from real life). We had one of those Aliens-type robot suits with us. As we were walking along one of the streets on the moon, we saw a stray dog. Apparently, our mission was to rescue it and bring it home. So we hatched a plan. We would draw several crosswalks so we could maintain an even pace towards the dog without alamring it. We'd be inconveniencing several cars, but hopefully it wouldn't take long. Then Bryan offered to play the part of a dog that I would be walking on a leash. He started walking on all fours and panting. As we crossed the streets, he did somersaults and other crazy tumbles as we neared the stray.

Suddenly, my parents called and told me to come to Mars. I was instantly transported and saw that my sister and my uncle's family (including 3 of my cousins) were there too. We entered a big white cave, and I was so excited to be exploring. As we sat down in front of a large inscribed stone notepad, my uncle started talking. He said we should spend our time discussing the similarities and differences between Christianity and Islam, and everyone else agreed enthusiastically. My heart sank, because I wanted to explore. So I sneaked out of the cave, and as I looked back, I saw a sign engraved into the front saying "Church, Inc." I sighed and stepped back a few into the grassy lawn and lay down. The sky, blue as ever, stretched out with rows of little clouds, overlooking a residential area thick with skyscraper-height houses. The one on the closest corner had a gorgeous display on its front, a diorama of sorts with two large trees flanking a golden light.

I realized with a start that the group on the moon didn't know I had left, and would be frantically searching for me... and that eventually they would have to leave thinking I was dead. I was able to find a monitor that showed them working on the moon, with Bryan in the robot suit. But I couldn't tell what they were doing or talk to them.

In a second dream, I was back home with my parents and had just pulled into the garage. I got out of the backseat reading the local sports page, and an article described the latest cut from the Chicago Bear's roster: the "fourth guy who blocks for punts." He was 64-years old and was cut during the season. I went to work at the family business, which was running a souvenier store. The guy who was cut from the team walked in and started complaining. He showed us several documents detailing why he was cut, saying it was so unfair. One sheet said that no one in the organization remembered his name, and that he had never won any awards. He said that's why he was cut, not because he was a bad player. He had white hair and definitely had an older man's body, but he was still pretty much in shape.

We went together across the street to watch the game at a diner. I saw a little of it, and one of the waitresses starts screaming that that's her on the screen. Apparently she and a friend had won a contest letting them be cheerleaders for a day. Suddenly, I was driving home with my parents, who lived in a huge mansion (not in real life!). As we pulled up to our circular driveway, my mom pointed out a big wooden box on a stand that my dad had built. It was divided down the middle; the right side held mail and the left side had a slatted door that held old newspapers. Then I woke up.

2008-05-01T10:15:00.002-05:00

I was high school age and heading to a cafeteria with some of my old church friends (Waiken, Andrew, and Sam, who were also young again). They were standing in line, and I walked ahead to see what they had. It turned into a mall food court and I continued looking at the different stalls. Some were very fancy like a French place (with its own tables) while others were dirt cheap like a fast burrito place. It all looked very familiar as I kept walking; when I got out to the mall area, I realized I was in Minnesota. It was one long, wide aisle with maybe a dozen shops and the food court, with a large Lord and Taylor's at the end (though I think it actually said Lird and Vein's).

As I sat on one of the benches, my dad joined me. He mentioned that he had been there before in 1999 for one of President Clinton's speeches. He said he had done that sort of thing multiple times, picking math conferences just so he could be close to the different presidents. I had no idea he was so political.

We walked outside to join my mom and sister, and we started walking back to our hotel. It turns out we're in Sweden for vacation. My parents start walking ahead really fast, so I joined my sister who was going slower. As we crossed a bridge, two police cars came up and stopped at either end, one right next to my parents. I panicked, wondering if we had lost our IDs or something worse. But after a word from a policeman to my parents, they kept on going. I was curious. He talked to me next, saying, "The humming is getting louder." That's when I finally noticed a deafening hum coming from the river below, straight up through the bridge. As I continued on, all the ground became a dark asphalt.

I suddenly realized I couldn't see my parents anymore, so I dashed ahead of my sister and just barely stopped at the edge of an asphalt cliff. I looked over the edge and saw only more asphalt deep below, and it appeared to be billowing. I backed away slowly, then faster as the cliff's edge started billowing as well. I knew I'd die if I didn't keep running, but it overtook me in no time. I fell with the ground, knowing it was over. But then I started floating in it, in the big chunks of asphalt mixing around like water. It was so bouyant that other people and cars were floating around me. I blacked out with relief.

I woke up in a small locked room with maybe 20 other tourists. No one said a word, so I assumed we were locked up by the Swedish authorities for our own safety. It was bright through the window. An amazing-looking girl next to me drew my attention, but I didn't look for more than a few seconds when an older woman said, "That's Barbie." What? I looked at the girl's shirt, and there it was embroidered, pink on pink, "Barbie." Hmm.

I was suddenly in a different cell, and I guessed we were being shuffled around. No good-looking girls in this one. Some people had their laptops out while others were passing the time idly. As "entertainment," the authorities were passing around a phone containing a recording of an army captain's story about his brother bleeding or something. I quickly passed the phone on. Everyone else was sitting or lying on the floor, so I stood up and examined the room. There was a pair of keys hanging on a hook, so I surreptitiously slid them into my pocket. I saw two keyholes on the door, but they didn't seem to fit. I didn't want to arouse too much suspicion in case they were monitoring us, so I sat back down. Then I woke up.

2008-02-01T08:46:00.000-06:00

I was a small robotic pterodactly in the far future, where we were used as messengers, transportation, and spies. Spying was my job here, and I was behind enemy lines trying to rescue Bill Clinton, who had been kidnapped by terrorists. I was hiding out in a little grocery store on one of the circular platform-cities (kind of like in Empire Strikes Back) and waiting for it to open for the day. I had to huddle down with my head bent, as if I had been switched off for the night. My design was a little different from the enemy pterodactyls, so I had to avoid close inspection and be as unassuming as possible. I was there because one of the employees - I didn't know which one just yet - was a suspected terrorist and the job was her front.

I kept trying to get a good vantage point of the cashiers' area without drawing attention to myself, as I saw a few other guard pterodactyls in the area. Very stressful, but exciting. As the lights came on and people flooded the area, I could make out a long-haired blonde with pink highlights that acted surreptitiously and seemed to have an accent. I followed her slowly, and as she exited the store rather abruptly, I radioed in to headquarters that she was making a move. I followed her out near the fruit stands, but soon lost sight of her. I took off flying and could see my own wings, metallic and shining in the sun, and I knew I had special bullet-proof skin. I could see other pterodactyls gliding around, some of the larger ones with a rider (I was only about half the size of a human), and it looked like a fantastic painting.

When I finally arrived to meet up with my teammates, I was human again. As we walked through a tall metal structure with stairs, landings, and elevators - but seemingly nothing else - one of my teammates asked me if I knew where I was leading them. I said, "Don't worry, I'm lucid dreaming so I'm in full control." Damned if I didn't wake up right after that.

2007-09-18T09:13:00.003-05:00

I was biking to work, and it started off sunny and easy. Abruptly, the weather changed to a deep, dark winter's night with thick snow all over the ground, which appeared to be vast expanses of fields. I could feel myself slow down, especially when I was forced off the road by cars and onto the grass. Then I could feel myself work really hard to slog through, and I even thought to myself what a great workout it was.

As I rounded the bend that led into town, I could see the border was marked off by a large row of trees perpendicular to the road, so that the only gap was for the road. Once I crossed over, the town itself was snow-free, but still dark. I couldn't decide in my head whether I was biking to work in Boston or in Madison, so I lost my way. I found myself in Roxbury, which is a more run-down town just outside of Boston. As I tried to get back on the main road, I found myself going full-speed through an empty children's playground, directly at the brick wall of the school. Instead of stopping and turning fully, I let myself bounce off the wall at an angle and correct myself off the bounce. It felt pretty cool. But then I was stuck at a dead end railing. Fortunately, there was a gap under the railing, and I slid my bike through, then myself, and resumed.

When I got back on the big road, it was sunny again. I was once more run off the road by cars and had to stick to the lefthand sidewalk. A truck suddenly smashed into the wall right in front of me, putting me hard on the brakes. I looked to see if the driver was okay. He appeared to be drunk, but in full command of the truck (which was painted a sickly green and blue, and appeared to be assembled in irregular chunks). He backed up and smashed again into the wall, a few feet closer to me. I quickly backed away and found that the traffic had died down. Instead, a bike race came through, straight down the middle. In the lead were several race organizers, all but one on foot. The one on the bike had a traffic cone which he used to mark off the actual race leader. I couldn't figure out why the organizers were faster than the racers, but I guess they could have been waiting ahead and only just started running (and the racers looked tired by this point). In any case, I followed them slowly and drowsily before waking up.

Fragments

2007-09-06T20:53:00.002-05:00

Fragments

"The plan for the western front is closed, sir," the clown said violently, his claws gripping my face and shoving me toward the door. "I have taken 18-pound punches, I have taken on anyone who thought they were strong. Do not question my ability to deliver, pound for pound, the best punches I have to offer. You eat when I say you eat: the day after next, two weeks, whenever."

"You look 99% like my cousin, even your mannerisms. Hey Ben, you've met my cousin Justin before, right?"
"No."

"Punch! One more for the revolution!" Brian stood up, thrusting his fist in the air.
"Oh," she said, "It's one of those."

Mary rushed out theatrically. It didn't seem to have anything to do with the senator's rally across the street.

A waitress played tug-of-war with the burnt doll's body, its head buried in a waiter's anus. I wondered who would get paid to do such things.

"Just one." He showed me to my booth, stuffing patrons unwillingly along the 2-seaters by the side.

A twinkling thought meandered through my head.

Giant burgers with a toasted bun. Just my style.

"I want my burger."
"Your wants are what destroy you," said the clown.

2007-08-16T15:39:00.000-05:00

I was on a one-day excursion to

Japan

with some friends. I wanted to get some film developed and downloaded before I left, so my friends took me to a tropical-appearing kiosk that was surrounded by a lake. At regular intervals around the kiosk area were short piers with small boats and jetskis in between. I wanted to ride one, and had an inkling that I had already rented one, but couldn’t find it.

As I was looking at the ice cream treats, my friend showed me that at the corner of the kiosk, they have a real-time PCR machine. You drop off your samples, and then come back later to pick up your results. For some reason, the samples I handed over took the form of American coins, with quarters as the controls. I took note of the place and how to get back, then we left for a night on the town, which didn’t actually take place in the dream. Instead, it skipped forward to my friends and I driving to the airport that night. I couldn’t help but think how short the trip was and how long the flight was going to be (which I thought would only be 6-7 hours for some reason). I didn’t want to leave just yet.

Suddenly, we got run off the road by a large truck. We pulled into a small area that had these giant, arching orange shells, kind of like hollowed out cantaloupe slices. In the car now were my family. As we got out of the car, the men from the truck surrounded and threatened us if we tried to leave. Somehow, this was all familiar to me, so I didn’t worry about it and just watched things happen. They started to unload a ton of crates and unpacking them. It was clearly an illegal shipment, but we couldn’t quite see the contents because they were stacking them outside of the orange shells. Oddly enough, we could smell it, and it was clearly formaldehyde. When the pile got big enough, I could see that it was bull heads, horns and everything, pale brown and pickled, no containers or anything.

The place became a store and we were headed to the back corner, which towered high with shelves full of melons and squash. The orange shells and bullheads were still there, sectioning off the store and blocking our path. It was still very familiar, like I had lived it before and known we would get out. So I chose this time to tell my parents about my new piercings: four S-shaped metal hooks that I had shoved through my lips at regular intervals. (I put them in right there). Oddly, they seemed okay with it. Somehow, the S-hooks had something to do with the four quarters I had used as controls earlier.

So now I was back at the kiosk looking at my results on Excel. Instead of the expected row of “1”s, I got a row of mostly “0.5”s. I couldn’t figure it out and thought the assay was wrong. I yelled at the kiosk clerk, but he didn’t know what happened. I looked at the machine and tried again. As I put my change in, the machine rung up as $1.50. So the readout had been short on mass because it took some of my samples/coins as payment instead. I spent a lot of time trying to fix the experiment, but everything became fuzzier and fuzzier.

In what was probably a separate dream, I was inside of a kind of bazaar, where there were stands selling all sorts of things. At the moment, I was in the breakfast section, and I walked around looking at each stall: some were really fancy, with decorations and bright lights spotlighting gourmet egg sandwiches and soups; other were mom and pop places with plates of scrambled eggs and sausages. I found one booth particularly intriguing, because it sold a soup using a very Chinese vegetable, whose English name I don’t even know. It’s broad and leafy, like Nappa Cabbage, but greener and thicker. Anyways, it wasn’t run by Chinese folk, and there weren’t any Chinese customers. In any case, I was really hungry, so I scooped out leaf after leaf and piled my bowl high. The soup it came in smelled great. But like all buffet dreams, I never got to eat it.

Instead, I was suddenly in another part of the shop, a much darker area. I had my S-piercings back on, which made me feel more at home in this tougher, more punk crowd. I was at a piercing booth, looking at other ones. I slowly removed the two middle piercings, which wouldn’t have hurt, except I kept trying to take them out through the thick end. Finally, I pulled them through and felt the bumps, which made it hard to talk. I couldn’t feel the other two piercings, so I figured I must have taken them out earlier. Though they had made me feel cool and rebellious, I was glad to have them out now.

As I left the store, which looked like a Walmart on the outside, I realized I was in a really bad part of town. As I walked up and down the aisles of the parking lot, I started panicking. I remembered I had forgotten to put “The Club” on my steering wheel, so now my car must have gotten stolen. I frantically walked everywhere, pushing the lock button on my keyless entry. In the last place I looked, I finally heard the click. But before I could get to my car, it was surrounded by men with guns. So it would get stolen after all!

I overheard someone talking to an “officer,” so I went over and asked the plainclothes man if he was a cop. I then told him about my car, and he brusquely responded that it was his men checking out a car that made suspicious noises… my locking it remotely!

I drove away from the parking lot, careful not to hit any of the numerous trucks, whose drivers looked tough and angry. Suddenly, mu dad was in the passenger seat and we were heading down a winding, snowy mountain path. We were chatting idly when two blonde girls appeared on the road ahead, lying on top of each other in full winter gear on a red blanket. I quickly swerved; the girls looked like they were dead. Unfortunately, the car got wrecked. With nowhere to go, we started talking to the girls, who were alive and stranded. My dad pulled out a large “emergency” flask of soup and tilted the nozzle over the embankment. I rushed to stop the soup from hitting the snow, but he said that’s how it works. It left behind a streak of powder in the flask. We poured water through it (though I didn’t see it happening despite never taking my eyes off it) and there was a cup of thin milky soup afterwards. Then I woke up.

2007-05-06T09:23:00.005-05:00

I was sitting in my room at home, which was a long white rectangular room with my bed on the far side away from the door. A large chute came in from the adjoining, central room of the house, presumably for food. I took pride in keeping my room very clean and pest-free, but I knew now that it was warmer that the mice would start invading the house.

I saw the first one, spotted black and white like a dairy cow, dart in from the chute. It was too fast for me, and a second, much smaller white one was close behind. As I stalked the length of my room, the floor suddenly gave way right at the end of my bed. I looked down to see a dark brown pit of mud soaking through the white carpet and slowly spreading. Just as I was reaching the heights of frustration and despair, my mom and sister decided it was time to go shopping.

In the car, I checked in on my room through a video link to my cell phone. The place was completely overrun with hundreds of mice, and the mud had caved in half of my floor. My mom and sister, realizing that it would affect the entire house if left alone, diverted to the local library to look for advice. I called up an exterminator, who sounded like a typical New York tough guy, and frantically explained the situation. He told me his team could be there by Monday at the earliest. I nearly exploded, saying that this was emergency and that the house would be lost if we waited two days. He told me good luck in finding anyone else who’d do it sooner, and I hung up on him.

I decided to take care of things myself, and I got on the elevator to the car park. Surprisingly, it went horizontally, nearly knocking me over as it sped backwards through the different parking zones. Suddenly, I was back home, and had rigged up a large vacuum device (I’ve been using a small one a lot at work to suck up used-up solutions) hooked up to a large plastic cage. In no time flat, all but two of the mice were sucked through the tiny opening: I could see them flatten out in the tubes and fly, unharmed, into the cage. The only two left were a medium sized black one and a 5-day old mouse (you get to a point where you can tell how old a mouse is as long as they’re under 20 days of age). The cage was absolutely packed, so I decided to pick up the last two with grocery bags. As I lunged for the older one, I felt a squish under my left foot. Of course, I had stepped on the little mouse and now it was stuck to my sock, so I threw out my sock along with it.

My mom suddenly pointed to the cage, and instead of a hundred little mice, there was one giant white one. As we watched it, we realized it had no air left to breathe. We quickly took off the lid, but it was too late. It shriveled as it died, and by the time my sister picked it up, it was a third of its original size. Although the mice were gone, the floor was still ruined by the mud, and I sat down to contemplate what to do next.

Suddenly, Stephen Colbert showed up, and sat down at a table that had appeared. I sat a few feet from him, but watching as if it was a show. The view switched to across the table, where another Colbert sat down (in the real show, he often debates himself by switching camera angles). The first Colbert picked up a plum from a bowlful and took a bite. The second Colbert said “oh, you want a fruit-eating challenge?” and picked one up from a bowl on his side. The camera kept switching from one to the other, dramatically showing each bite. The tension built… and built… and then I woke up.

2006-09-10T10:42:00.000-05:00

I was in the "Goblin's Folly" museum, which paid tribute to the short story that I had MSTed several years ago. Apparently, the original story had won such widespread notoriety that people started to write satirical fanfiction using its characters. Over time, the stories became serious and an entire universe was created to support the characters and plotlines. The museum lobby started with the original story printed on huge posters and hung from free-standing boards, much like at science conferences. After this initial part, you crossed a bridge, and to both sides were life-size replicas of portions of the story world, with a castle on the left and a village on the right. The first floor was one large room, so when you crossed the bridge, you were at another long setup of posters, this time with the early fanfiction. Off in the corners, you could see that the museum was being rented out to biotech companies, as there were ads on the boards and vendor booths to the side. Down the stairs were the latest stories, all very serious and of rather high quality. There was small table displaying a satirical history of the original story, including asking for people to MST it. I was really upset that they had completely left mine out of the museum.

The basement of the museum suddenly became the basement of a good friend (no one in real life), and it was really lavish. He was showing us around, and even the guest bedroom had a giant two-wall aquarium with dozens of fish. The beds were elegant and there was a full entertainment system on the wall in front of them.

As I turned to head back upstairs, I realized that I was in a life-sized video game. Everything looked real, but I knew that I and my friends had superpowers that would come out looking like those old Final Fantasy games from the 80s. The three people in my group were cartoon characters from Doraemon (which I've been watching quite a bit of in real life in Cantonese on YouTube), including Doraemon himself. In a room just off the stairwell was a giant monster that resembled the ogre from Lord of the Rings. We took turns firing our weapons at it and dodging its shots, and it took nearly everything we had to defeat him. After a long rest to recharge, we started up the stairs. From that point, we could see down into the adjacent room, and another ogre was coming down a second set of stairs in the back. So we quickly rushed down and dispatched it, only to see two more ogres headed our way, and we didn't have time to recharge. In any case, we had barely made it out the last two times using everything we had. So Doraemon thought for a long time and suddenly struck on an idea. He took out the flying propellers that you put on your head (it's in the show) and we all started dropping large rocks on the ogres. I have no idea where we got the rocks from, but all of a sudden we were out of the basement and flying through the air above the neighborhood. One of the group was attached to the rope at the bottom under Doraemon, and got flown (comically) into electrical wiring.

Suddenly I was in a bakery in Hong Kong, sitting at the front counter where three young women were rolling dough and selling goods. The shop was square, but the steel counter bent off to the right where a number of flour-covered men in chef hats were busy. As I sat and listened to the girls, I could tell two of them were Americans from the accent in their Cantonese, and later they started speaking in perfect English. So I found out the shop had hired them recently, and I started thinking that I'd like to make a little money while I was there. I asked one of the chefs, a young guy with typical blue collar Hong Kong features, if I could do some odd jobs around the place for the two weeks I would be in the country. It marked the first time I can remember that I spoke in full Cantonese in a dream. I kept asking even though he kept saying no, until I said I'd really be willing to do anything, no matter how small ("sup sup suy suy") just to gain some experience. Then he called over the owner, who laughed and said he had the perfect job for me. The young guy laughed as well when the owner told me I'd be washing everyone's jeans. Somehow I knew that the owner was running an illegal horse racing ring, and that washing the jeans would mean smelling horse manure for hours. So I said come on, I'm on to you. Give me something else.

Then I was driving a large SUV through my old neighborhood in Naperville with the young chef in the passenger seat. I headed straight for one of the houses opposite from mine, and he started yelling that I wasn't going to be able to stop in time. I very calmly hit the brakes as the SUV crunched into the side of the house, leaving a huge dent in it. I then veered off and slammed into my next-door neighbor's house, caving in the front, before doing the same to the side of my family's place. I jumped out and went in to where I had lived ten years ago in real life (though it seemed recent in the dream) and went upstairs. I explained to my sister that I was very tired and just wanted to wake up from this dream already. So I lay down on my old bed, closed my eyes, and did just that.

2006-07-23T09:04:00.000-05:00

I was at a lavish private party on an enormous cruise ship that was owned by a local multi-millionaire and his wife. Thousands of guests in evening attire danced, drank, and ate across the length of the boat. I was running around with superhuman speed and high jumps, covering every inch with seemingly no purpose but to have fun. But something didn't feel right, like I was running from something. The boat rocked a little bit, and then I knew what it was: bombs were going off in the hull. I quickly jumped overboard and clung to floating debris, just in time to watch the entire boat sink slowly into the depths. I was rescued an unknown amount of time later, the only survivor.

Suddenly, I was in a tall, brick-lined university building. Instinctively, I knew I was there as a spy to find out who sabotaged the ship. Avoiding security, I quickly made my way up and down treacherous spiral staircases, looking for the right floor. There was one area that appeared sealed off compared to the rest. I waited for someone to come out the secured door, and I quietly slipped in behind without them knowing.

The room appeared to be mostly empty, with a few couches lying around and a desk off to the side. A man in glasses stood against the wall. Immediately, he activated a stealth shield and turned invisible except for his glasses. I followed them around and karate kicked wherever I thought he was. After landing a number of blows, I was convinced he was out for the count. Just then, my family (parents and sister) came in as the rest of the spy team. Together, we got rid of the unconscious (and still invisible) man, and began searching the place for files. There was one extra room attached that had a fancy computer terminal.

There was a knock at the door, and we all jumped into place. We decided we were going to act like a vacationing family that had walked into the wrong room. Suddenly, the room looked like the living room of a hotel, with thick white carpeting, beautiful furnishings including a plush couch, tasteful bookcases, and several flower vases, and a kitchen sectioned off by a countertop. We opened the door, and it was a maid. We told her we were busy and she could come back later, and she left. Relieved, we decided to slip into disguise before we got truly discovered. We put on our Sunday clothes, and I picked up my special copy of the Bible that held computerized inserts with advanced spy technology.

A blond man walked in, clearly shocked to see us there. After a few moments of hesitation from both sides, my mom finally explained to him who we really were. He assured us that, although he was university staff, his mission was the same as ours: to find the saboteurs. However, since the university wanted to conduct their own investigation, he would have to keep us hidden. Every time from then on that the door opened, we would stand ready either to fight or to play our roles. Buy it was always him, so we spent our time either enjoying the room (including cooking breakfast) or reading files. On one of his visits, we watched a computer simulation of the saboteurs. He was able to hook up his mini-screen "bar" display to the large computer screen and watch it separately. The program played like a CGI movie, with suspenseful music each time a bomb was placed. It even simulated them almost getting caught, but escaping just in time as if they were the heroes.

After what seemed like several hours, we finally decided to leave for church for real. I picked up my special Bible and made sure the inserts were still in it, but I never got to use them. As we walked outside with the helpful man and his kids, we noticed the snow was thick on the ground. We began singing "Happy New Year" to the tune of "Happy Birthday," and the "camera" pulled back to reveal us all gathered around like Christmas carolers. It looked so Hallmark-perfect that I punched the snow in joy. Then I woke up.

2006-05-23T09:14:00.000-05:00

Suppose someone has flown often in his dreams and finally, as soon as he dreams, he is conscious of his power and art of flight as if it were his privilege, also his characteristic and enviable happiness. He believes himself capable of realizing every kind of arc and angle simply with the lightest impulse; he knows the feeling of a certain divine frivolity, an "upward" without tension and constraint, a "downward" without condescension and humiliation--without gravity! How could a human being who had had such dream experiences and dream habits fail to find that the word "happiness" had a different color and definition in his waking life, too? How could he fail to--desire happiness differently? "rising" as described by poets must seem to him, compared with this "flying," too earthbound, muscle-bound, forced, too "grave."

--from Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, by Friedrich Nietzsche; translation by Walter Kaufmann.

2006-03-22T07:28:00.000-06:00

We were walking through Woodfield Mall when I noticed that the Rainforest Cafe had shut down. I was pretty surprised since it had always been packed, at least on the weekends. Several stores nearby had also been covered with white tarps with solid pastel animal logos on them, announcing the coming of a new restaurant with an almost identical theme. So I looked up the Rainforest Cafe website, and it was totally empty except for a small list in the middle of a yellow page: the three CEOs, followed by "were forced to eat," and the names of all 20 vice presidents. But it suddenly pulled back and I was sitting at the conference table during the last Rainforest executive meeting. The "webpage" was now a plaque on the wall, and the "were forced to eat" letters had clearly been stuck on later as a practical joke.

As the other board members lamented the decline in sales and inevitable bankruptcy, I started to draw the outline of a jester's head in an attempt to explain... something. I have no idea anymore. But apparently, they knew exactly what I was talking about. The jester's cap had three prongs, while his "collar" had two. When the smiling jester was turned upside down, he looked like a frowning devil. Supposedly, it had been their business model since the beginning, since it symbolized both the fickle nature of industry and the ability to see the same thing differently from different perspectives. I noticed now that the plaque was also shaped like the jester's head. I thought about how much money they must have sunk into those giant fish tanks they have at every store, and how they could possibly have thought that selling food could make up for it. (I had forgotten about the merchandising.)

This may have been a separate dream, but at the same conference table, the CEOs had turned into my parents. We all ordered a crab dish each, but mine was whole crabs while my parents' were "just the tips." Turns out, it's the same thing except with the main shell hollowed out. My dad asked to trade with one of mine, since his had so little meat. I wasn't hungry, so I switched the whole plate. Then I woke up.

2006-03-16T08:58:00.000-06:00

[Sorry for the purple prose and generally crappy writing. It was a great dream and I had to write it down fast, but I was still trying for drama. I'll clean it up later.]

I was a Shinto swordsman. As I walked into a brand new American home, I saw a basement filled with junk. But not just any junk; I was here for a reason. The gang of men who owned the place looked like construction workers; it was clear they worked together, but whatever they did certainly wasn't constructive. Most of the stuff was stolen.

It was all arranged in this wide, unfinished basement like a house without walls. Entire room setups were interspersed with boxes, workbenches, and the dirt, darkness, and cobwebs of a den of thieves. I was here, so I said, as a policeman to help guard the house while things were set up. They bought it, thinking I was as clueless as anyone. Little did they know I was there to steal from them.

But it soon became clear that not all of them were bad guys; just the few ringleaders. The rest of the twenty or so probably were construction workers, thinking they were hanging out with their rich foreman, drinking beers and playing cards in his new house. It was a dire party: the place alternated between these smoke-heavy bouts of revelry and lounging men with deadly eyes who talked in hushed tones.

Coming out of the elevator, a stray rack in the corner caught my eye. There was something mystical about a certain wooden slat stuck loosely on one side. It was seamless, a fine craftsmanship, yet somehow opened down the middle to reveal a long, thick weapon the shape of a hockey stick. It had an elegant curve and a heavyset swing. I knew it was something special.

Just then, as though in a movie theater, I watched a Japanese archery master descend on an unsuspecting Tokyo village. The lone guard's shield and sword might well have been cloth; the arrows pierced anything. The master let out a long, harsh laugh, with the arrogance of a man whose domination was unquestionable. But suddenly, he broke off with a scowl. Something that had been lost for centuries had just been found: the one bane of his bow and arrow.

Now back in the basement, I just had to figure out how to activate it. As I walked through the throng of ignorant men, my fingers played lightly on the edges of my weapon. I had been trained in so many fighting styles, but had never seen anything like this. How could this bluntly-shaped weapon be a source of fear for one of the greatest samurais? Finally, a small and unnoticeable split down the middle formed the slightest movement of half-against-half. Curious, but it seemed useless to have two parts of a poorly-weighted weapon. Then, moving on its own like a peacock come to life, invisible seams split all along the width and fanned the wood out into the most gorgeous array. Suddenly light and soft, the weapon revealed it strengths: it was both a razor sharp blade and a shield that could block any arrow.

I knew I was in no immediate danger, so I folded it up into my robe; I put the empty case back to avoid suspicion. Then, with the most powerful weapon tucked firmly against me, I walked nonchalantly through the crowd, pausing only to watch a few of the dimly-lit powwows of desperate men. I sat down in the lounge area, where younger kids - college age, maybe - were sprawled across a motley assortment of old couches and recliners watching a game on the television. They ignored me as they poked fun at one another. I looked around for more items to take; somehow, the rack with the case had made its way over here. I knew then that I was not alone down here. Someone wanted it destroyed.

I decided to go undercover, as just myself in modern clothes, and the basement suddenly became a mall. But there was something about it that made my skin crawl. It was a large recessed area, dipping far below a posh lobby like a food court gone mad. It was literally swarming with customers and businesses. I found both myself and my mission lost in the enlivening crowd, caught up in the ebb and flow of their exhilaration. I began to chat idly with people in the various booths, and it seemed as though I had met a few of them before. At one particular place - a restaurant I believe - a girl I apparently knew asked me if I would like to go on a date with either Ann or Jason at the counter. I didn't bother to explain I wasn't interested in men. I looked at Ann, a short, very heavy Asian girl with a protruding lower lip and receding chin. I told them I'd be back later to decide.

I hastily continued my round of the perimeter, and tried to chat up a few cute girls in the their booths, but none were engaging in my conversation. I had strayed far from my swordsman code by now, but it seemed forgotten. I would soon learn that mistake. But first, I had found myself back in the corner restaurant with Ann's friend. She jumped out, excited to see me again, asking if I had made my decision. Ann was gone, but more of her coworkers had come out. I felt the pressure, and I briefly considered lying by saying I had only just ended a relationship. Instead, I said simply that I didn't think I could see her ... and when I saw their mixed anger and dejection, I hastily added "for a few weeks." I practically had to shout over their screams that I would see her the weekend after next. She ran out of the backroom screaming for joy, and jumping up and down with her colleagues. She looked so desperate.

But I had said two weeks, and I knew why I had done so. In two weeks, none of them would still be alive.

The place had turned, it seemed, into hell: a reddened basement crawling with emaciated but vicious humans. The construction workers had become ghouls. Two fellow samurai, ranking higher than myself, shoved me into the elevator to plan our attack. We could hear the strained moans and shrieks as we prepared ourselves mentally for battle. With a flick of his wrist, our leader sliced the doors open and leapt out through the quickly closing gap. The other samurai braced himself against the back wall, then bulleted out straight through the shattering doors with a brazen warcry. I gripped my fan tightly, not opening it yet, feeling the first fear of the epidemic. Our enemy had made his first move, and it was genius. He turned our environment against us, poisoning the unsuspecting Americans with this unrelenting virus. Drawing a deep breath, I rolled out, only to find myself behind a heavy stage curtain. I peered out underneath to see a few of the writhing ghouls, but then I awoke.

2006-02-16T10:18:00.000-06:00

I'd arranged to meet my high school friend Eric in Belgium where I was going for a conference. I flew Northwest and had rented a car for the two days I'd be there. After leaving the airport together, we navigated the highways, a complex twisting set of over- and underpasses with occasional glimpses of the ocean.

It was already the second day, business part over, when we decided to head up to the Netherlands and stop at a random small town. The street we parked on was kind of a main street in a downtown area; oddly, it had the setup of a real Dutch town and the atmosphere of a Hong Kong sidestreet. It was a gorgeous evening, slightly darkened blue with a still but crisp air. We picked a small tech store to wander around in, and spent some time finding interesting files on their showroom computers. One was a mouse icon shaped like an ass, and Eric couldn't stop laughing at it as I browsed the backroom filled with mp3 players. As we left the store and walked further down the street, Eric suddenly decided to go back and download the icon to his laptop.

After he was done, we walked out towards our car and I said that seeing it was around 6pm, we should head back to Belgium and find a hotel. I warned him that I would be driving semi-randomly (for some reason I thought Belgium was southwest) and that no maps were allowed unless we became hopelessly lost. Eric didn't seem to mind. As we passed a large blue-canopied restaurant, Eric excitedly pointed to the cartoon drawings of crawfish that covered the building, though the label read "mini-lobsters." Since he ran straight in without asking first, I followed and decided to check it out.

Suddenly, we were no longer by the road, but rather the restaurant was open-faced and recessed a long ways by means of a large parking lot and outdoor seating area. My cousin Justin joined us at the table, which was in the innermost left corner of the place. They brought us a couple slices of fresh bread as we looked through the menu. I think I decided on squid, but I didn't get a chance to order. Eric was still outside; apparently, there was a problem with where we parked. After settling things down, I went back in only to find that my slice of bread had fallen on the floor. I tried to brush it clean, but I couldn't get rid of all the dirt no matter what I did. Since I knew from real life how amazing Dutch bread was, I decided it was worth trying to cut off the top layer. When I moved to do so, the bread turned into a pack of cards. I thought nothing of it and cut the top edge off of the first couple cards, as if that was going to do it. They were the only pack of cards I'd brought, and as I started to shuffle them (which I equated to eating the bread, apparently) they shrank and I lost control before giving up entirely. I went back outside to check on a commotion that had started up near our car, but it had nothing to do with us. When I got back in, Justin and Eric had switched tables.

The next thing I know, it's 10pm and I'm staring at the bed of my hotel, still in the Netherlands, and thinking about how good it'll be to fall asleep. I also couldn't believe the trip was over so fast; it seemed like it had started only hours ago. As I start changing for the night, I suddenly realized that my flight is early next morning and that we had better head out to Belgium now. I knocked on Eric's door and waited while he got off the phone and out of the shower. He stuck his head out and seemed annoyed that we had to leave right away, but he didn't complain. I waited for him out in the "laptop lounge" of the hotel where my dad happened to be trying to connect to the internet through his own laptop. I checked out the files for a while, but didn't see anything more than some of the popular mouse and arrow icons that were at the store earlier. My dad finally got cnn.com to show up, but at that a moment a girl from the hotel stuck her head around the corner and said that guests weren't meant to be able to connect to the internet. As my dad reluctantly turned off his computer, my advisor's wife Alexandra walked in and asked what time it was.

I waited outside for Eric, and as I stood there, a red-headed girl called me over from the next store over. I recognized her somehow as a girl that Eric had made friends with earlier and who was likely to give us some free stuff before we left. Eric joined me as we arrived at the shop. The girl became Chinese, and was being helped by her sister. Turns out they ran a Chinese bakery, and began loading a paper plate full of dumplings, cakes, and sweets. As they started talking to me in Cantonese, an old Chinese woman who apparently knew us started yelling at them in Cantonese as well, complaining that the recipes weren't traditional. But I woke up before we got to do anything else.

2006-02-14T23:58:00.000-06:00

Since I haven't had a memorable dream in ages, I'll write about one of my recurring childhood dreams. It's one of my favorite, and had it from age 7-10 or so.

It was a mall. The mall of my dreams, with the perfect design and the best shops a kid could want. It was a small two-story building with only a dozen stores, but I didn't ask for much. The entrance was in a corner, so the shops branched out to the sides in a "V" shape when you got in. Straight ahead were a set of escalators, and there was something intangibly awe-inspiring about their placement. The whole place was a pleasant brown - if you can imagine that - with wood paneling and a smooth tiled floor. Sometimes there were plants, but mostly it was the atmosphere: calm and soothing, yet somehow bursting with possibilities.

But the deal-maker was the pie shop. It was usually on the left branch, with a row of swivel-seats lining the counter. My dad would take me over and I would spend minutes staring at the selections. The bubbling anticipation was the best part of it all, and with each new dream I became excited the second I saw where I had started. As for flavors, blueberry was my favorite, but my dreams usually ended before I took a bite. In later iterations, the pie shop was on the second floor, as though my sleeping brain had somehow made that complex leap up in spatial navigation. But more and more, the shop wouldn't be there anymore, or I would spend too long looking for it and woke up before finding it. It would be terribly disappointing each time, but I never lost that initial excitement of seeing the mall.

Towards the last years of these dreams, a girl would show up and be the new focus. She had a blonde ponytail, white t-shirt, and sweatpants, and had the face of a mischievous angel. It was no one I knew in real life, but rather a sort of all-American girl that was both innocent and devious (remember, I was 10). She would always be on another floor, or across a hole in the second floor; one time, I tried to swing across like Tarzan to get to where she was. But I could never talk to her or get her to come over to me. And the peculiar thing is, I don't recall really being interested in girls in real life at the time. But there was just this mystery, this unknown encounter that stood right at the brink of my dreaming psyche. I wonder what I would have said to her.

2005-11-29T13:40:00.000-06:00

I was moving to a new room one floor up in the Regent. I'd already started to live a few days in the new place, but hadn't gotten everything from the old room yet. I realized this after lounging too long in the new place, and ran as fast as I could down a flight of stairs and past a ton of blue-shirted RAs. I arrived totally soaked in sweat and hot as ever. I worried I'd ruin my white T-shirt. I spent a lot of time getting things onto two portable tables, including my stereo, TV, many books, lots of clothes from the dresser, and everything on my bed. It seemed very stressful since I kept receiveing hurry-up notices from one particular RA. She said I would lose all my stuff if I didn't get it out by a certain time, which made it so much worse since I couldn't remember when that was. The RA looked a bit like a girl from college - short, reddish hair, but with a harsher face, the kind you hate immediately.

After I had marginally gotten everything transferred, I went to the communal bathroom down the hall. Asha came in and washed her hands. I asked her what she was doing in the men's room since there was clearly a urinal. She left, but I heard her voice as she came back in behind me. I hurriedly finished and turned to leave. Turns out the voice came from a short, fat white girl (no one in real life) who happened to sound like Asha. She asked me if I'd ever sat on the edge of the bathtub that was there. I said no, and that I'd never even taken a bath in it. She said it was hard to clean.

I then went to class, which happened to be discussing some of my advisor's work that day. The professor was an old friend of Bill's, but I can't recall who, or even if he represented anyone real. One of the undergrad students was proud to have known Bill for a week and started talking about the "TV incident." Apparently Bill had told this story many times, and it had something to do with his daughter's TV and her thinking the student was a thief. I said, "Oh, you're the TV guy," as if I knew. I told everyone I was in Bill's lab, but no one seemed impressed. I was sitting next to a cute blonde girl. There was only one row of seats against the back wall. It was so tightly packed I had no choice but to have my arm against hers, which was no problem for me. But she said, "I like my private space," so I had to move down a seat.

The professor started to demonstrate one of Bill's experiments from the 1980's on Caenorhabditis Elegans, which is odd since Bill never worked on them in real life. The prof gave us all a glass tube - the size of a cardboard tissue paper roll - filled with live worms, and started to "microinject" mutagenized sperm into worms. To do so, he shook out long thin glass tubes which were apparently formed by the males. He then fired the ends of the tubes to get them small enough to inject into the slightly smaller glass tubes that represented the females' uteri. We all tried to follow along with our own tubes. The worms were long and shining brightly, writhing around in fascinating patterns. They began to come through the sides of the glass somehow, and hardened into glass-like projections. It was the coolest feeling as I held the tube aloft.

In a separate dream, I was at Toan's wedding and it was really boring. I began to notice that various preserved brains were hanging in jars from the ceiling. I wanted desperately to wake up, so I concentrated on being back in my bed. I woke up and started walking around my room. I couldn't switch any of the lights on, and I started to panic. Then I woke up for real and felt relieved.

In yet another dream that night, I was at Lake Mendota in Madison taking another lesson on tech dinghys. However, the techs here were like toys, about the size of my hand, and tethered to my wrist. The weather was stormy and windy, and I had to tell the instructor that I couldn't swim very well. He was flabbergasted and asked me to show him the farthest I was able to swim. Amazingly, I swam (still tethered to the "boat") with perfect form. The lake was square and arranged in lanes like a pool. I then swam out really far before getting nervous and turning around.

I was then watching it as an episode of The Simpsons with Lisa in my role. She got Homer and Marge to drive her home, but she was afraid her friends would be suspicious if she got home too quickly. She then made up a story that she got swimming superpowers from a glowing orange subdural hematoma. Suddenly I was in their house (a mansion!) and lingering about the foyer. I opened the front doors when I saw Lisa's "friends" - live action, a girl and two guys - approaching the walkway. The "hematoma" was, oddly enough, a giant glowing orange mass lying just inside the foyer, so I stalled Lisa's friends to prevent them from seeing it. I woke up.

2005-11-16T10:30:00.000-06:00

I was a guest speaker at a "school for the deformed." Most of the students, high school-age, had hand or ear deformities, but none were too bad. I was supposed to lecture on public speaking, but apparently I hadn't prepared in any way and I started off really nervously. I told them about my credentials, and that I had done some judging at Northwestern. That got a cheer from one of the students up front; she was from Evanston, evidently.

Then I remembered something I'd told a friend in real life, and I started to be more assured as I talked about how before any speech, I assume that the audience is going to like it no matter what. That gives you the confidence to speak well even if things aren't going perfectly. Anyways, halfway through that point, I realized I didn't have anything to follow it up with and started panicking. Fortunately, my first point sparked some discussion. Every time someone new would speak up, it bought me time to rack my brains for a new topic. I eventually came up with two good ones, but I don't remember them now.

However, just as I was about to launch into the next part, the fire alarm rang. We all ran up to the roof of the school, where it turns out it was a normal high school with a special class room. By the time things calmed down and I returned to the room though, everyone had started packing up to go home. I and the teacher tried to get them to stay so I could start up again, but too many people, including students from other classes, were now walking through the room on their way to the buses. I gave up, feeling disappointed, and then woke up.

2005-11-15T07:12:00.000-06:00

At a conference, I was in a giant library with suspended landings and a Victorian design. I met Sylvester Stallone who had apparently gone back to grad school. His project was to produce a Bayesian algorithm for winning chess. So far, he had succeeded in creating one that would maximize the chances of "swarming" the enemy. Although real chess players had totally destroyed him in a match, he was going to enter it into a contest against other algorithms.

The entire time I talked to him, I treated it as a real presentation. I could really feel myself thinking of interesting questions, no matter how silly the premise was. After a while, Sly turned into a guy named Ed who used to be in one of my classes. He claimed that he just needed to tweak a few things and he would be able to win the contest. His poster consisted of snapshots of games he had won against a computer by progressively fanning out his pieces in a pseudo-chaotic manner.

Then (and I'm not sure if it was a separate dream) I was with four "friends" (only one of whom is real) trying to summon a demon by drinking green gatorade and eating hot dogs in ketchup. I have no idea. Apparently though, it worked. We were in a small classroom full of college students, so when the demon came, everyone panicked. I think we did it so that we could kill the demon, but I don't remember what happened after that.

2005-10-10T08:00:00.000-05:00

It was the last day of junior year of college and time to move out. I had a small room in a nice 5-room apartment with Seol, Hugo, Peter, and Eric. As I started to pack my stuff up, I thought about how quickly the year had gone. It seemed, in fact, that only yesterday it was October and the entire year of school was ahead of me. Well, I thought, time does fly when you're having fun. As I carried a load of stuff out to the living room, which was partitioned off from the foyer by a ballustrade of sorts, I saw that Eddie and Seol were heading out. I decided to accompany them onto the bus to the airport. We walked over to the bus stop two blocks away on a beautiful Chicago night. After several false starts, our bus finally arrived... only to go straight past us. We started waving around, sticking our thumbs out in the hopes of flagging down the next one. It took about four buses for ours to finally come again and we got on.

Suddenly, I was transported alone by bus to the front of a studio where they were shooting a documentary about slavery. I joined up with four black men who were playing the part of free northerners. We dressed up in period clothing, complete with old-time rifles. The studio itself was a large fenced cage several feet deep in mud. We walked around to the back where construction was still being finished. Out of a rip in the back fence came one of the slave actors with a modern handgun, shooting at us. He missed and ran back inside, so we chased him in for several yards, my coworkers shooting with their own modern handguns. I was shocked to see the pistols, and then I realized I just witnessed a moment of gang warfare. My coworkers ordered the construction workers to patch up the hole, and then started yelling at the guy who first got shot at. They figured he must have done something stupid to anger the other gang.

We started walking around the next corner, and I was transported alone inside the cage. A bunch of "slaves" were either working or sleeping, but they paid no attention to me. I waded to the middle part of the set, which was partitioned off by another fence. I saw a "slave" couple making love in the mud in front of cameras, and I thought they were going pretty far for realism. I got on a small raft with Mae, which is odd because I haven't talked to her in real life for months. We floated silently towards the front of the set, past a house on the left, and then the awkwardness with Mae was so strong that I swam the last few feet. Since I can't really swim in real life, I was surprised I made it to the door without drowning. I exited.

I was in the back seat of a taxi now with Stacey, and we were discussing a picnic we could have that weekend. Asha got in at a later point and she and Stacey started talking about fashion, so I tuned out. We got back to my apartment where the rest of the fellows were sitting around playing poker and waiting for us. Stacey talked excitedly about the picnic, whereupon I blurted out that I had already agreed to go to a barbeque (as I had in real life). All the fellows booed me, and I realized the picnic was meant for all of us (I had thought it was just Stacey, me, and Asha). Now sufficiently guilt-tripped, I agreed to go to the picnic instead.

This might have been a separate dream, but I was now standing in a bookstore looking at the latest "Myth" book by Robert Aspirin and Jody-Lynn Nye. It was a huge, large-print, white-covered book - unlike the others in the series - so I decided to wait for the paperback to come out. I instead picked up a huge, 2000+ page paperback autobiography by Dave Barry. As I flipped rapidly through, I thought I saw the UW-Madison symbol next to a heading saying "How to be a Leader in Madison." I then spent several minutes flipping back and forth to find that page. The index mentioned a later chapter on page 2000 when his family decided to settle in another part of Wisconsin (reminiscent of the biography of Ole Bull). Everything was written Dave Barry-style of course, so the first sentence had a full phonetic pronounciation for "antique furniture" ... it was funnier at the time than it seems now. In any case, I finally found the part about Madison in an earlier page, and it turns out he was just visiting. But during that time he was asked to be a leader of something small, which I now forget.

My sister Roberta showed up in the store and said it was time to leave. Then I woke up.

2005-09-27T10:52:00.000-05:00

Dream 4 of 4

My mom and I were still in China, but now we were attending an official press release by the president, who was a 40-something woman with brown highlights. I don't remember the topic, but it may have been on the construction worker incident. As the speech came to an end, my mom warned me that the next part, a long ritual, could last for an hour. I was the only one in the large auditorium to cut out early, and thankfully no one stopped me, though I did get some odd looks.

As I walked out through the posh foyer in my tuxedo and shiny shoes, I realized the outside was a dangerous place for anyone in my clothes. I started running to the car park, which was about five blocks away. As I ran, two local twenty-something kids started running next to me. I let them pass, as they seemed to be in a race with each other. I started to pull my car keys out as I neared the car park, and immediately regretted it. The bigger of the two guys demanded I turn them over to him, and stopped me dead in my tracks. I wasn't about to give up without a fight, so we started trading strikes. I managed to block all of his punches and hit him really hard with some good body and head blows. For that brief moment, I knew it was a dream, so I didn't feel bad about hitting him. But he was a fat guy and nothing seemed to affect him. I was getting tired and it looked like he was just going to wait me out. I quickly forgot that it was dream.

Luckily, the president arrived just then and the police pulled the thug into her limo. She was nice enough to offer me a ride, and I sat in the back with the boy, who now had turned into a 10-year old white kid. He laughed at us, saying there was no punishment we could give him that would mean anything. The president turned around from the seat ahead of us and said, "Oh, is that right? How about we bring you back to South Africa?" The boy blanched and his past began playing over his face like a movie. It turns out he was born and raised there, and his family was abusive. He promised to be good, and the police said they'd let him off this time with a lesser sentence of being put in an American minimum-security prison.

By this time, our limo had become a helicopter and we landed. Instantaneously, the boy and I were transported to the basement of the prison. He began bragging about his Nintendo skills, and started playing one of the Zelda games on a SNES system. He knew all the tricks, and Scott (a friend from Madison) came in and said, wow, even I don't know that secret! It had to do with obtaining a spell that would grow a lawn that would entangle your enemies. As the boy played, the prison itself became the game, and he was holding his controller as he ran through the levels as the hero. I followed him along to one point where small red rubber balls were flying around the room. He said he hated this part because he had to run really fast through it. He made it past and I tried to follow him in, but suddenly red, yellow, and green balls started falling everywhere. Every time I got hit by a yellow ball, I would lose a life. I was down from nine to one life when the balls stopped falling. Another random hero, a big muscley guy, came in behind and told me that I could regain my lives by touching the green balls. One bounced away towards the exit, but I was lying down at that point and too tired to get up.

The boy finally reached the final boss, and I was now watching the screen again as before. Oddly, the last room resembled the press conference hall where the Chinese president had given her address earlier. Presumably, she was the "evil queen" and he cast his special lawn-growing spell on her. He was able to extract all the objects she held and transferred all her lives to him before finally winning the game.

As I walked back to my dorm room, bringing the dream cycle back to the beginning, it looked like a hotel with a long, off-white corridor with short, patterned carpeting. A room-service cart was sitting in the hallway, and I recognized it as carrying the pizza I had apparently ordered earlier. I was mad that someone had taken my pizza and I kicked the cart down the hallway and into someone's open room. I didn't even care if they got angry at me or not. My room was on the corner of the last block of rooms, facing away from the exit. As I got into bed, I realized I was dreaming again and everything became my room in real life. Except the colors were all overlaid in red and orange. Then I woke up for real and saw my room as it was.

2005-09-27T10:39:00.000-05:00

Dream 3 of 4

My mom and I were watching one week-old news reports about new government offices being built in Beijing. A crowd, including government officials, was gathered around the base of it as about 40 construction workers were harnessed to the sides, bringing up slats on pulleys, hammering, and riveting away. Suddenly, we were in the crowd and watching when an earthquake began to shake the area. The tallest, narrowest tower of the building began to shake violently. My worst fears materialised when a worker fell off the side onto the second-story roof. The crowd gasped in horror as we waited for things to stabilize.

Then, without warning, workers began to jump off the building several at a time. The reporter guessed it was similar to 9/11 where their choices were being crushed to death or falling on their own. However, as they began to jump in concert, it became obvious they were doing it on purpose. One slow-motion, close-up clip showed one worker doing an acrobatic backwards leaping somersault over the railing before falling to his death. Fortunately, none of the impacts could be seen. It somehow became known that it was a pre-organized protest of the blue-collar/white-collar schism of Beijing. All I could think about was how horrific it must be for the workers' families to sacrifice so much for what was unlikely to be major political changes.

I now understood the rumors that were circulating the net that such an incident was suppressed by the Chinese government (not that I read any such rumors in real life). As a dozen workers remained, police began dropping down on them from helicopters to bring them to safety. The workers each transformed into spiderman and began fighting the policemen for their right to martyrdom. A few managed to free themselves and fall, but most were "rescued." As the aerial camera pulled back, it became a news infographic with little animated skeletons representing the impact sites of the fallen workers. I felt sick.

2005-09-27T10:34:00.000-05:00

Dream 2 of 4

We were playing soccer in a tiny classroom (maybe 15x30 feet), and I continually had the ball in my possession. However, every time I dribbled the ball forward with my left foot and went for the big strike with my right, I'd dribble the ball too hard and miss with a big swing. After 3 or 4 times, the crowd, which lined the classroom, began to boo me. It got really frustrating, especially when the goalie kept lining up poorly, leaving wide lanes open for scoring. After what seemd a long time trying, I finally hit it soft enough with my left, but when I went for the big kick, I only barely hit the ball. It bounced off the goalie and came right back at me. I didn't have much time to react, so I again only slightly grazed the ball, and it slowly rolled in behind the shocked goalie for a score. It only went in by about an inch, but I was just glad to have gotten us ahead. I don't think there was anyone there I knew in real life, and they all seemed to be Asian.

2005-09-27T10:27:00.001-05:00

Dream 1 of 4

Our dorm was holding an "engagement party" where people who were getting hitched could come together, have fun, and learn about the legal aspects. As I reached the basement, I saw that Shelley was talking with the information desk (that's the second time I dreamt about her getting married... maybe a hint?). I filled out a few engagement forms as I waited for the festivities to start. Apparently, I had just popped the question to someone I know in real life (no names here!). As I got into line for the sundae buffet, Shelley grabbed my arm and exclaimed her surprise that I was there. I angrily pulled my arm away for some reason, and she started walking away with a "whatever." I immediately apologized, saying it was the stress of the engagement that made me do it. She hesitantly relented and we sat down with our bread pudding/ice cream sundaes. Then, as with all other dreams where I sit down with buffet food, I woke up before taking a single bite.

2005-07-31T10:23:00.000-05:00

My dad was going on a business trip to southern California, and I decided to go out there on vacation as well, for about two weeks. While Dad was at his meeting, I met up with the son of his friend's, who was a white guy about my age. He was nice enough, but didn't talk much. He looked like a student I met in real life at a conference.

As he was driving me around the city, I asked him if he liked baseball or not. I was trying to figure out how many minimum innings are needed for a pitcher to be considered for a win. But he said no, he didn't like baseball and also said no when I asked him if he played. Conversation was one-sided after that, as I told him about how my dad and I were going to pretty much drive around randomly for the next two weeks. At one point along the road (which was green for some reason), he swerved really close to the edge, which was a sheer drop off a cliff with no railing. I said whoa, do you do that all the time? And he said yeah, that's how we do things over here, and that he doesn't even think about it anymore.

We came across a narrow wooden bridge and we got out to cross it on foot. At the end of the bridge were three girls fighting karate-style with each other. To get around them, my guide jumped down really far onto a lower bridge. It was too big a drop for me, so I waited till one girl knocked the other two off into the water. She jumped down to finish her attacks so I crossed the bridge. The footing was tough, but I made it through and I heard the girls saying "Okay that was good practice, let's start from the top."

The guide and I were suddenly in the town's museum, which focused on Egyptian-style ruins. As we walked around looking at things, I realized I'd seen some of it before for some reason, so I said I'd skip it. There was a large Arch de Triomphe-style structure with plaques and names engraved on the sides. At this point, the guide and I were simply trying to pass the time.

The next part of the museum was a late 1800's style, and I met my entire family there inside a restaurant, which was part of the display. Inside were about ten animatronic figures dressed in period clothing and arranged around a kitchen. When introducing us, they all spoke simultaneously and their mouth movement matched up very well with the speech. Soon, individual puppets started giving us individual orders. Mine were to take some green onion and garlic and to swirl them around in hot soup until they became soft.

As we were preparing the food, an invisible man who was part of the show kept trying to come in. I was ready to karate kick him for no particular reason, but I instead threw some half-hearted punches when I finally saw the door open by itself. I didn't actually want to hit him, I guess. He then revealed himself as a pretentious French waiter-type, though he didn't have an accent. He started to serve us food but evangelized to us the entire time. His argument was that only God could have made it such that humans could appreciate the complex taste of the combinations of food which he was now serving us. I pointed out that some people like single types of food, such as roasted green onion. He was stumped for a couple minutes, during which he stammered a lot. Finally I said, "But I guess that's just the exception to the rule," to which he looked very relieved and continued on. Then I woke up.

2005-06-28T11:03:00.000-05:00

A little bit of dementia this time: I couldn't break out of a cycle. I saw an endless list of amino acid positions of Apc (the protein I study) with their corresponding function. I would scroll through the list and would discard uninteresting mutants that would come up every so often that our lab had apparently generated. But it wasn't fully a dream, I was lying there in bed looking at my room, and the list hallucinatorily overlaid everything else. I actually got up and went to the bathroom at one point and told myself over and over again that I needed to ignore the list, that it wasn't real, and that I wasting my time. But when I went back to bed, there it was again. But there's an upside: when I woke up in the morning I realized just how interesting such a list would be. I'll make one today.

Later I dreamt that we lived in a modern house, with a kitchen that had an open counter overlooking the living room. The countertop was black marble, offsetting the white rooms and complementing the black couches. People were gathered around on the couches for some event or other, but I didn't want to stay. I don't remember any more than that.

2005-06-12T08:58:00.000-05:00

The Knapp House was arranged like my college dorm, with rooms off each side of a long hallway and a lounge off the middle. The lounge here, though, was a library, with a long wooden table in the middle and shelves along the outside except for two oblong windows. Fernando was reading at the table when I and a tour guide came in. She explained that it was "Turnover Day." All the books had paper labels looped over the spine; all included the date of 2004. Suddenly, the room came to life as the fellows filled the room and the bookshelves started the automatic turnover. The labels printed out like old dot matrix printers, pushing out the old labels and replacing them with 2005 markings. Then the tour guide started explaining something about the windows, and broke one apart to show us. But I don't remember what was so interesting. Then my cousin, who lives nearby in real life, called me up and said the whole house should come out to dinner with him and his friends. I agreed to ask them but was doubtful anyone could make it on such short notice. I woke up shortly after.

2005-06-11T09:27:00.000-05:00

I lived in an enormous luxury hotel that was over 20 floors high. I lived about 2/3 of the way up and the room looked like a condo. There was a living room partitioned from a kitchen by a bar and my bedroom was right off the living room. The carpet and walls were white, and I had quite a lot of stuff, both furniture and decorations. Later on, there seemed to be a T-shape to the living room, where an extension grew off the left side (from the door) where the bedroom originally was.

I was a week away from graduation and my high school friends (some who really exist in real life and some made-up people) had come to celebrate. We ordered up room service. While we waited, we took a case of MGDs up to the roof to drink them. I took two bottles and just turned them upside-down over my mouth and guzzled them. I never tasted any beer so good in my life as that.

After we ran out of beer we went back down to my room. Then my parents showed up (my friends temporarily disappeared) and they insisted that I started packing everything up right away. My mom wanted to clean all the surfaces over the next hour. Since I was so lazy, I tried to stall them, but to no avail. They started taking all my posters down and moving furniture out. As my dad was hauling some stuff down to the car, my mom and I ate the room service dinner we had ordered. Since I was out of MGD I had ordered an ale which came in a glass mug. I finished my meal and searched everywhere for the beer. We guessed that room service came and took away my beer before I could even have one sip. I tried to call them up, but I couldn't figure out which of the three phones on the wall to use to call up food service. There was a blue, a yellow, and a white phone (for outside calls). Just when I was about to try one, one of the maids came up. She was a cute 20-something German girl who had evidently liked me during my stay and offered to help me out. We got in the elevator without my parents and went down to the basement. On the way down, I could see out of the glass elevator and all the lavish decorations and lighting of the lobby and floors.

When we got downstairs, there was an old grumpy man who was the girl's father. He told us to wait in the old service kitchen while he tried to sort things out. When he was gone, the girl (who turned Asian for the moment) said that she had been promoted and now was able to access secret parts of the hotel. Since she liked me so much, she was willing to take me and friends to a club where she knew some people.

When we all (my friends magically reappeared) entered the club, the girl (now German again) introduced us to a bunch of her friends. I put my arm around one and asked her how she was doing, and she said "I need time!" Confused, I pretended like I was really drunk and tired, and I began walking with my head down and bumping into people. This second girl said, "I don't like people who snooze like that! They just turn out to be slackers." So we quickly exited the club and went back upstairs.

In my room, in the T-offshoot, I had a big tank with a giant crab inside as a pet. It was a "spider crab" and had one big arm extending from it that ended in three pincers instead of two. This gave it a lot of dexterity and it started attacking my friend Tim. I calmed it down and told my friends to be careful as she was possibly the only one of her kind left. Apparently, I had found it during a deep-sea expedition. I noticed she was laying little eggs and I realized it was an exciting moment to watch. All of a sudden, a huge number of medium-sized black crabs popped directly out of the mother and everyone in the room, including the German girl, her father, and my own parents, was celebrating the moment.

The crab then suddenly took on a bizarre anthropomorphic appearance as a stumpy guy in a shirt called Buddy. He had a lumpy human head and the crab's body hidden under the shirt. Everyone slapped it on the back and it smiled and responded in broken English. I wanted to ask it who it had mated with in the wild, or if it was asexual. But as I looked around the room, I saw that the German girl was beckoning me over. Suddenly, the room cleared and it was just me and her talking about my leaving. She was asking me to stay longer because there were so many fun things we could do now that she had been promoted. I felt kind of drunk at that moment and could only explain that it was too bad that I had to leave so soon. She shook her head and left with her father while I was left with a bunch of empty bottles to clean up. Then my dream ended.

A new dream after that had me on a SWAT team checking out an abandoned home where college kids had lived in. We suspected they were a front for some kind of militia or terrorist organization. As our group of six moved down the hall, we saw that it forked and also had a room off to one side. I motioned for us to break into teams of two, and my partner and I went through the door and down some stairs.

It looked like a big storage room for at least one person, and looked as though it had been abandoned for some time. It was dark, dusty, and had cobwebs everywhere. Fortunately, our rifles had mounted flashlights so we could make out tons of boxes and even a washer and dryer. We noticed some boxes of baseball cards off to one side, and both of us started rummaging through them for valuables. I grabbed a bunch of rare cards, then found a full premium basketball card set which had each card in its own paper sleeve. I thought how terrible it was that it was all a dream and that when I woke up I would be disappointed that I didn't have these cards. But I harbored a little hope that it was all real, or that maybe I could take some of it with me to reality. Then I woke up and, not having bought any sports cards for years and years, I wasn't actually disappointed.

2005-01-29T10:30:00.000-06:00

I'm on a bus in Naperville, and I don't know where to get out. However, I see that I had missed a good stop so I get out where I can. It's a small suburb, but as I walk around and into houses, I pass Al Pacino, Jerry Seinfeld, and Dave Foley (I think) running very fast in the other direction. I'm so surprised that when I call my sister to come pick me up, I tell her about that first. I forget what happens until the next sequence, though I suppose it could have been a separate dream.

Now I'm sitting away from home with my friends Ayten and Milda. We are in a kitchen-like area and Milda is cutting up fried chicked on an island and wearing an apron. Ayten is sitting on a barstool to the right of the island, just in front of me and across from Milda (I'm also to the right of the island). They are talking about how life is so unfair and boring. I launch into an exasperated and passionate speech about how lucky we are to be in the Knapp House and how all the intelligence and talent in our lives have enriched it so much. I end it by standing up, raising my arms touchdown-style and saying something about how wonderful it all is. Milda responds that she spent some of her youth in a children's home away from her uncaring parents (which is not true in real life). I say that I know she's had some rough times in life, but that doesn't mean she isn't lucky now. To illustrate my point, I indicate the scene outside the window where the sun is setting over a frozen lake. Isn't that beautiful? The sun is abruptly covered by clouds and Ayten says that the lake looks so dull. There are people skating all over it and I push on about how it's gorgeous even in its grayness. I then exclaim that I should get my skates.

Unfortunately, the window is actually that of a bus and I have once again missed my stop. We've just rounded the cemetary in downtown Naperville and I pull the "stop cord." I get out in a small commercial district which appears to be homes converted to stores. I go into a store run by a group of Italians; it's filled with lots of old people walking around. I believe it's an art store. The place is mostly run-down and winding in a sort of Hong Kong style of narrow corridors. I walk through all of them looking for my sister because I think I hear her voice. I then realize that because I'm dreaming, I'm probably just adding her voice in because it's familiar. However, I quickly forget I'm dreaming again and walk out to the front door to call home. The (yellow) telephone appears not to have any buttons, though, except one labeled "6" in the middle. Then I notice a circle of pre-programmed buttons on the outside including one labeled "taxi" with a sillouhette of a car -- from the front -- on it. I push it many times but get no ringing. I finally notice some small buttons with numbers and try to call my sister. Again no rings.

I decide to ask one of the workers for a phone. He looks like a young Chazz Palminteri, wearing a business suit and talking with a stereotypical mobster accent. He says it's in a bag just above the door inside his private bathroom. I look up and the bag has to be hit once, opened, closed, and opened again to reveal the phone. I call my sister (after first realizing the area code was different), and she says she doesn't feel like picking me up and that I should hail a taxi or take a bus. However, I say that if she at least meets me partway we can go shopping downtown and she agrees. I try to put the phone back into the bag but I can't figure out how to close it. The whole bag falls down and I worry for a second that I lost the phone and now the mob will kill me. However, a guy who looks like a young Steve Van Zandt helps me out. I mention that the guy who lent me the phone seems like a good guy, and this guy laughs cynically and says I don't know what I'm talking about. I feel pretty naive and a little nervous by this time, so I just try to give a compliment. I say that the guy with the phone seems at least to have a lot of honor. The other guy says honor? that guy's got very little. So I finally go to the door to leave and I thank them all "very, very much" so they won't kill me and they thank me very, very much for stopping by. I get my shoes on and leave.

Outside, I turn right and immediately am at the cemetary. It looks at first like I'm just between some small houses, but they're really mauseleums. Since I just want to get away from the mafia and get home, I start running anyways, and find I'm accompanied by a girl and boy in their 20s who are laughing like it's a game. I then realize once again that I'm dreaming and that perhaps I could fly to avoid the graves. So I actually do run/fly about six feet off the ground ala Shaolin Soccer, and I clear the fence. Of course, there's another cemetary across the street. So I start clearing that one too, whereupon I see Kid Rock and his group standing on a row of headstones, apparently shooting his next video.

Everything pulls back and it turns out I'm actually browsing a site about how much Kid Rock sucks. A bulletpoint list goes through all his worst qualities ("a Joe C he's not") including tthe worst of his accessories: "red hat and vest." I scroll further down the page and there's some link about a bunch of angry women. I don't click on it. Further down the page is a figure of the Vrk2-FancL deletion in gcd mice. I wake up.

2004-12-13T00:43:00.000-06:00

I don't remember the context of this dream, but I vividly recall these words, verbatim:

"The most important element in the hierarchy of logic is distinction, that is, the distinction between 'it will' and 'it can.'"

2004-11-30T13:36:00.000-06:00

I was in a college dorm room, and Dave Chapelle was my roommate. He was complaining about not having any weed, so I told him I had some weed substitute and gave him some leaves. I laughed nervously (as he pulled out his pipe) that I didn't even know how to smoke it. He didn't respond. He smoked it from a tinfoil-covered pipe using an acetylene torch to light the leaves. He liked it a lot and blew lots of smoke into the air. I then lay down on my bed and started filling out some forms and eating popcorn. Dave also had to fill out the forms and asked me to help him out. Except now he was someone named James whose English was poor (he seemed to be Asian). I helped him out as best I could. Soon, the RA, who was an African-American girl, came in and accused me of filling out the forms illegally or something. She made me go down to the basement's "discussion room" to have a talk about it.

In the room, we argued for a while, and then she noticed that I had filled in one of the blanks labeled "password" with the entry password to another dorm. She got really angry that I knew it, and I lied by saying that it didn't matter because it was the password from last year. She said it was current, and I said I was sorry and didn't know any better. She calmed down but was still angry. We started talking about some other aspect of the form, when she made some comment about further restricting my building access. By that time a couple other RAs had come in as well. At that point I got really pissed off about the building accusations/punishments for stupid stuff, so I picked up a nearby calculator and angrily threw it down on my chair. I immediately felt remorseful and said I was sorry and that they could kick me out of the dorm now if they wanted.

The Resident Head then came in to have a one-on-one with me, after hearing the commotion. A bunch more RAs also came in to sit at the big discussion table. The RH and I sat down on a couch a short ways away and I talked about how I had been pushed to anger by the RA and that I was just frustrated about the school year in general. He responded (after a lot of emotional cajoling from me) that he understood and had gone through some of the same things as me when he was in college, such as making new friends and finding a girlfriend. The whole time he talked to me, I was unable to open my eyes fully and could never look at him directly. I kept rubbing my eyes, which felt glued together, and trying to open them with my hands, but to no avail. He also showed me a gel, possibly a southern blot, which supposedly represented his slow success in making friends in college.

I walked back to the big table, which by now had 8-9 RAs sitting around it, and said, "Well, it's open season on me now," which was supposed to be a joke. No one laughed. I explained by saying that it didn't mean that I was "hunted" now but that they were welcome to criticize me if they wanted. One of the RAs looked like Laci Peterson, which was kind of creepy. Anyways, the original RA was apparently named Asha, though she didn't look anything like the real-life Asha.

I went back to my room, accompanied by the original RA and the RH, who said hi to "Jimmy." Once they left, I grumbled about them and started to pick up my forms from my desk. I then heard Sheq call out from the hall that they could just make it to lunch if they started running now. I got hungry and wondered if I could get there in time after finally finishing the forms. Then I woke up.

2004-11-15T12:50:00.000-06:00

It began outside a bus. Me, Dave (a college friend), and another guy who I probably don't know in real life were waiting to board. It was somewhere in between a school bus and a tour bus: comfortable and roomy, but noisy and dirty.

As we pulled out of the bus stop, I began to hear about the virus. We were all either immune or had been treated with an antidote. Dave mentioned that 74% of people had died already, but he didn't sound sure. As we left the "bad part of town," I had an aerial view of the bus, and saw a large group of people waiting at the border for the antidote. We passed them, took a left, and on into a large apartment-like complex, which appeared to have been constructed particularly for emergencies like this.

As me and Dave got off the bus, I took one of the two axes and a crowbar which we had with us. Dave got really upset when I didn't give both axes to him. He stomped off angrily after whipping the other axe at my head (it missed and stuck in the wall) and I pulled it out and went to go claim a room. As it seemed like we were one of the first buses there (there were at least 2 parked in front of us), we had our pick of the rooms. I had hardly peeked in to the rooms when I decided to give the axes back to Dave. I found him in a common area watching TV with a bunch of other people. He was ecstatic to have them back and started whirling them around his head. I left.

Outside, I met a friend from real life, who had shrunken to about 4 feet tall and was wearing what appeared to be a giant translucent blue condom. She said it was both protective against the virus and a costume which made her look like "Galooly." Apparently I knew exactly what she was talking about -- some cartoon character -- but of course it makes no sense now.

I ran into some other woman I know, but who I now forget, in the bathroom while I was at the urinal. I guess crises pull people together. Anyways, after some prompting, she began to explain the whole thing. She said terrorists had unleashed this virus on America, and that Dave was right about 3/4 of the nation already dead. The only reason us young people survived is that we had been genetically engineered as babies. Only the antidote gave hope to older people.

After some vague incidents, probably involving Dave and violence, I was arrested and sent off to a different "survivor complex" to serve out my sentence as a waiter. So I was standing in a posh restaurant at the complex in a tux and looking out over the many round tables and buffet arrangements. Somehow I became unruly and they sent security guards after me. The first guard came up and said "You know how I'm gonna show you this is real? I'm gonna pinch you in the head!" Which was the first sign to me that this might be a dream. After he pinched me and punched me in the stomach, I started to fight back with karate. They sent more guards after me, but I kept blocking and taking them down. I tested the hypothesis that this was a dream and started floating as I did my kicks. It worked. I managed to draw out a long float and do an awesome leopard kick. All the time I wished the damn dream would end, as it seemed to have gone on for about 20 hours. Then, it did.

I immediately went to my next dream, where I was sitting at a banquet table at another real-life friend's wedding. I was right next to the groom but couldn't see his face. He seemed to be a Mexican from the back. In any case, my first thought was to see if this was reality or not. I jumped up and down trying to float, and when I couldn't, I concluded that this was reality. So, Shelley's getting married! Cool. Then I woke up for real, amazed that I had really mistaken that last dream for reality.

After going back to sleep, I revisited the virus-world, except a different part of it. I was in a small farming town, where survivors had been gathering at a "butterfly and bird nest" catcher's place. Down the road was an old man and his wife. The man cursed like a sailor and I thought he was the coolest mofo I'd met there.

Me and Kurt (an undergrad in my lab) got into a helicopter and we took off. All the windows were playing a movie, so we were essentially watching a documentary hundreds of feet off the ground with a pilot who couldn't see where he was going. But we didn't notice that till later, when the movie ended (I think it was about the virus) and the words "This is your real view" showed up on the windows over what was, indeed, the real view of the town below us. I pointed this out to the pilot and he said "Oh! Well we don't want to be going that way" as we plunged straight down towards a field. He pulled us up and started flying recklessly. He would come within inches of every tree or house he could, and spent some time on the road flying in between cars. He claimed it was better than using our own road in the sky. He also flew directly into telephone and power lines, and I thought that I should really get my head out of the window or I'd be decapitated. The guy was insane.

After we finally landed, Kurt and I were walking back to the farm. Kurt said "hey is that the corn guy from down the road?" It was the old man and his wife, and he mumbled some curses about time. Then I woke up for good.

2002-02-21T00:24:00.000-06:00

I was standing in the reception area of a five-star restaurant, one that happened to be on the tenth and topmost floor of the hotel I was staying in. Beautiful lights, a polite waiter, and large glass windows with a view, and I had forgotten my wallet. At the elevator on the way down to the carpark, I was accompanied by the elevator operator, a black man, and a fellow guest. The guest asked if I was staying at the hotel, and I replied that my room was on the ninth floor.

The elevator was a special one: it travelled up and down the sides of the twin towers, but also horizontally across the connecting skywalk. So it was a scenic trip down to my car, which I pointed my keyless entry at. The button didn't activate anything, or so it seemed... It was then I noticed that a large van nearby was being unlocked instead! So I pondered the moral dilemma of stealing this new toy, when I noticed someone was still inside. I backed off and sought out my own car, but the softly drifting snow obscured my sight.

I headed back into the hotel, which itself happened to be four-star, and I see someone hiding behind a clump of potted plants in the lobby. Suddenly I flash back to watching what appears to be a heroic man standing in a river. A shot rang out and the hero doubled over; somehow, I know he survived, as though it were a movie. Instinctively, I knew the man behind the plants was the sniper. His dark disheveled hair darted between the leaves, and I caught occaisional flashes of glare on his sunglasses. The excitement and tension built... and then I awoke.