Home Invasion Nightmare

        Last night was a night for nightmares. The one I remember involved a pair of ski mask wearing robbers breaking in. N was propped up in bed from her surgery and I had just stepped out of the shower. Things got violent. Apparently robbers don’t expect naked people to fight back.

        This dream was very much the exception to my normal “guns don’t work for me” theme. I handed the robber N’s jewelry box to distract him from her calling 911. I was able to grab the robber’s gun hand and force him to shoot himself several times until he let go of the gun. Lots of details in this dream, such as, I noticed that robber was left-handed. I was then able to force the other robber to surrender, even though I really just wanted to shoot him, I didn’t think I would be able to get away with that. N was all ready on the phone with the Sheriff’s department. (And I was pretty sure they could hear everything.)

        This was also one of those highly detailed dreams where I could feel the air moving across me, my wet hair hitting my back and shoulders, and I could smell the robber’s body odor despite his antiperspirant. I could feel the weight and texture of N’s jewelry box, (I had tipped it before handing it to the robber so it was off balance, which is how I was able to distract him enough to grab his gun hand.)

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Bruce Bond

        I dreamed I was driving the bat-mobile off of a ferry behind a large group of pedestrians. While most of them managed to find their way to the sidewalk, there was one woman who couldn’t seem to get out of the road. I finally rolled down my window and asked if she needed a lift somewhere.

        “Fourth street,” she said, referring to a piece of official looking paper.

        “I am headed there, myself.” I opened up the passenger door and she walked around the front of the car and got in. “There’s going to be a little bit of a detour, a shortcut, really.”

        I pulled over into a narrow ally and we dropped about 15 feet in just a couple of seconds. I drove through the underground tunnel to where I parked under the Bond building, on Fourth Street.

        “I never knew this was here!”

        “It’s a private driveway.”

        When I got out I realized there was something out of order in my garage and signaled her to stay put. I closed up the car, including the window shields and stepped into the dark garage. Before I could reach the light switch I was attacked by two hooded intruders. I concentrated on protecting myself from their blows as much as possible, while collecting tissue samples for testing later. I was glad they were not armed with guns. They left me bleeding on the floor, seriously cut up and bruised, but alive. They raced out into the morning, satisfied with the damage they’d caused.

        My passenger opened up the car and raced to my side. I didn’t know if she was part of this or not until I realized she was on the phone with the police and trying to get me to tell her the address.

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Scene Construction, Navigating by Eye

        I had two memorable dreams last night. In the first I found myself back at my old work site. The kids were putting on the 15^th “Visions and Voices” and construction was underway on five different shows at once. I decided to make a tour of the sets, just for old times’ sake.

        Unfortunately, some of the scenery wasn’t being put together with performer safety in mind, so I asked to talk to the construction leads and the designers, as the drama teacher wasn’t available. While I was waiting for them a little 2 or three year old with curly red hair jumped up on my lap out of nowhere. We chatted for a little while and she decided that I had to meet her mother. “To find out if you can be my new daddy.”

        This made me chuckle, I tried to explain that it really didn’t work that way, and I might be better suited to be her “grandpa” may be. Her mother turned out to be the prettiest red-haired freckle faced woman I’ve ever seen. The three of us finished touring the set construction with the construction leads, as she was the sort of parent volunteer, as her kid was in one of the plays. She was, in fact, single, and since she knew me all ready, she told her daughter not to rush things, we would think about it.

        I sort of brushed that off and got to the business of making sure the huge upstage wall that was being constructed was properly braced so it wouldn’t fall and crush anyone. I met with the designer and suggested that they might try a lower wall with the door in it, with a batten drop for the upper portion. I grabbed a sheet of paper to illustrate how that would work. The two year old grabbed an oil pastel and helped color it in.

        “You’re really good with her,” the mom observed, “but I should have known you would be.”

        This morning, I dreamed I was laying in my bunk, looking out through the upper dome as we accelerated on our journey into the vast deep of space. I began to try to identify some of the stars through the tens of thousands that were visible. I called up a program to chart the current position of our probes, and to collate some of what they were seeing. We were looking for planets which, if they couldn’t directly support life, they could be mined for materials and energy so that we could continue our search. We had recently made some progress in material composites that would allow us to build another ark, but with nearly one third less mass.

        I watched the computer overly the current position of the probes and the solid line for their previous path and a sort of translucent cone for their future possible courses. Even as I was doing my work, I couldn’t help but think that our first orbital insertion would be overseen by our children, and that the new ark we built, the prototype, anyway, would likely be a retirement colony.

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Bride and Groom, Jungle, Meteorus (Clip Show)

              Bride and Groom, I dreamed Thursday morning of being at a party in a public place where there was also a wedding reception happening. On our way out of our gathering we all poked are heads in and offered a toast to the happiness of the new couple. The bride, with a really cute short blond haircut, was about six inches taller than her groom, and her heals were only an inch or so. She had a delightful smile, just absolutely charming. Then we went on our way, and the dream ended.
              Another dream, another forest, lots of action but no discernible plot other than trying to stay away from the swinging vines that were really snakes and not vines at all.
              Then another dream, this time I was with N on El Norte Parkway, headed for home when we passed a beat up dark blue vehicle with the groom and his bride arguing. Their car sputtered and they pulled over to the side of the road. I asked N to stop, as I felt that we should do something for them. The way the bride smiled when we walked up made me think they were in for a rather long haul as a couple.

              Friday's dreams are lost to the hubbub of an unusually busy day.

              Saturday morning, I woke from a dream where I was Meteorus, patched skin, hand tailored clothing, and gravelly undead voice and all. I was stalking a group of muggers in a gas-lit alleyway. The muggers had been terrorizing the locals for about two weeks, and I had been hired to clear them out. I doubted that they would attack an obviously powerful mage, so had chosen to stalk the alleyway while invisible. Turned out to be a wise choice. When I stepped into the alleyway, they were also invisible, thus placing them in the same phase as myself. I laughed and summoned my stooges (mirror images in the WoW universe.) That made things five on five and the battle was far shorter than I expected. I was shot a couple of times, but, being undead has its perks, one of them being that little bullets don't actually stop you.

Fey Assult on Medical Building.

        I dreamed I was in a recently abandoned medical building. (Went to the dentist yesterday, so I know where that came from.) I was with a small group of people who had sought shelter from the weirdness going on outside. Centaurs and other fey creatures were on a rampage, tossing cars around, chasing people, pulling hair and tripping them.

        We wandered through the building, looking for a good place to set up camp for a bit, someplace where we could barricade the hallways and allow us to defend ourselves if we needed to.

        I tried to explain that the Fey would not come into the building after us, so we really didn’t need to worry that much. One woman took a very vocal opposition to my statement.

        I then explained that I was preventing them from entering. She didn’t believe me, of course, so I asked what it would take to prove it to her. While she was thinking up an angry retort, I stole her clothes, leaving her cute round body in white lacey lingerie that was a nice contrast to her dark hair (which was cut into a little bob with a under flip just below her ears.) I also couldn’t help notice that she had cute full lips and chocolate brown eyes.

        When she finished complaining that there was no such thing as psychic powers I held up her clothes.  The resulting tussle was very exciting and I did make my point. She ended up in a frilly white dress with red polka dots. She also ended up being much more pleasant.

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Library Lady, Old Journals

        This is the second night in a row that I dreamed of the red-haired Library Lady. LL and I were sitting together in the dark library watching a re-run of an old Science Fiction television show, one that I believe has no actual tape available. Still, there we were, snuggled up together, watching very old, very bad television.

        “At least the performers are going at the material with gusto.”

        “They’d have had more luck with a paper shredder,” the LL replied.  I could tell she was enjoying the show, though.

        I opened up another window and discovered that I had new files to review. We’d set up the automated scanner to scan in several of my old journals, and the process had finished, leaving me with several .pdf files and a ton of .xml markups of whatever the OCR software could figure out. I wasn’t expecting much, as I had written in several different styles during the time I had been journaling, sometimes all on the same page.

        I opened up the first file, and although the handwriting was obviously mine, I couldn’t remember a bit of what was written there. There were notes for a video game that seemed to involve a tentacle alien harvesting “love” from the nearby human population in order to refuel its space pod. There were notes about N and our lawyers (I quickly skipped over that part,) and notes about which cats were going where, as we had to find homes for 4 of the cats, as we could each only keep two each.

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Ice Road to KO in a Box

              I dreamed I was driving over to the island where my girlfriend lived. The city was covered with snow and the roads were icy. There were two spans of bridge to cross and the bridge was also covered with ice. The heater in my car didn't work well, and so I was bundled up, but apparently not enough because I was still freezing.
              After the first span of bridge, and sliding a couple of times, I stopped on the first little island and got out to check the chains. They were iced over the iced over tires. I couldn't stand being outside the car for more than a minute at a time, so kept having to hop back in and hold my hands over the heat vent. I managed to break some of the ice off of the chains and then moved the litter buckets around in the back of the car to put more weight over the wheels. I didn't know if it would really help, as the car was a front wheel drive.
              I managed to stay on the second bridge span to make it into the small town where the girlfriend lived. When I got to her apartment, she had a box in the front room. I opened it up and KO, a former HS classmate was tucked inside. She smiled and asked me to help get her out of there as she was pretty stiff.
              I told her she was pretty limber for someone who was fifty, and complimented her on the fact that she looked about thirty. The three of us sat and chatted for quite a bit about our time in high school and it came out that KO's and my first kiss were one and the same. We both had the same reaction, too. It was very startling because there was a definite connection, and at the same time, we felt like we were kissing a relative. It was just so overwhelming and confusing that we never actually dated again. We all pretty much laughed through the rest of the evening, telling other embarrassing tales.
              As I was waking up from the dream I found myself wondering who the heck my “girlfriend” was, as I could not place her as someone I know.

New WoW Character, Uncooked Chicken

        I dreamed I was playing World of Warcraft with my online friends when we ran across a player who was desperate for someone to play the role of his butler. After some typing back and forth, we realized he really needed a “porter” not a butler, but that conversation didn’t really bear much fruit as the other player didn’t really seem to get the concept. (Had never heard the word “porter” before.)

        I often advertised my low level runs as requiring a porter so my friends thought this semi-failed conversation was funny.

        We each decided to re-roll a low level toon and all apply for the position. I created a young Worgen rogue named Monreaux McMacMack (apparently the new version of WoW in the “Dreamlands Edition” adds the surname field to its database for players) and ran him from the starting area over to Stormwind. I sent him over a tuxedo and some 20 slot bags.  I showed up for my interview in the outfit. My friends cried “foul” but I got the job, and asked if he would “hire” my other two friends as a groomsman and maid. I explained that we were sort of a package deal.

While we were preparing for our journey, one of the street lamps exploded and we had to run around stomping out the little fires, and collecting small stones that were cast out from the explosion. The stones looked more like chicken tenders or tater tots. That lead to some rather funny dialog. While the player who’d hired us was more or less ignoring the other players who tried to interact with him, as they weren’t part of his story, it didn’t limit us in the least. The fact that our employer ignored them allowed us to play him off as eccentric and snooty, it was a blast.

        I have to give the other player credit, he ran us around our starting quests and got us up to a level high enough to run our first low level dungeon in less than an hour. By the time three hours had passed we were all around level 19 and had much nice blue gear from Deadmines. (We ran several times in character, which was pretty funny after the third or fourth time.) We spent about an hour in town helping him impress his lady with both his wealth and very polite and helpful “staff.” Then the two of them took us out for a spin along the coast of Westfall where two of us took turns killing quest mobs while the other “served” a romantic dinner to the couple.

        My friends and I decided that we would reserve Sunday afternoons for this trio, and informed our new boss of our availability, we then gave him some reasons he might want to contact our mains in character, as we’d all enjoyed playing with him.

        I fell back to sleep, after N took her ticking abomination of a clock out of the bedroom; we had a four hour power outage. I dreamed I was cooking chicken for my lunch at work. I made my way through most of it, but found two partly un-cooked parts which I had to stand in line at the microwave to re-cook.

I didn’t wake up until the sun was shining into the bedroom, making me an hour late for work.

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Teddy Runs Away, Tour to Small Town Dreamlands.

These are the notes I made to try to remember this convoluted dream:

Teddy Downtown Dancing around and then running away.

Gym is locked up.

Tour guide named N is very cute, and delightfully disappointed that my wife has the same name.

We set up lunch off the bus, see a parade (for a wedding).

The tour guide's house starts on fire and we have the truck from the parade roll over to put it out.

The dream actually started in a downtown disco. The scene was classic 70’s, but I wasn’t. The flashing lights and loud music began to take its toll and I decided that, although I was having fun, it was just a bit too painful on my ears. I managed to round up Teddy, who was a big hit with the women, and we made our way across the dance floor. As soon as he spotted an open door, he launched out of my arms and raced out into the night.

I stepped out after him, Leaving the pulsing violet and orange lights behind. Sadly there was no getting Teddy to come out, not with the loud music behind us, and the women who were trying their best to coax him out of hiding. Finally I had to call a halt to the hunt, knowing that I would be able to come back later after everything was closed. I checked the alleyway for stray dogs, not wanting him to be in any more danger than he was in. Everything looked pretty quiet.

One of the women gave me a lift back over to the gym where my clothing was in the locker room. The gym was locked up.  I had keys, of course, but they were in the locker. As we walked around I spotted another member, and asked him to bring me my stuff, as I knew he wasn’t allowed to open up the gym for me.

I then let myself in and changed quickly out of my angel flights and into my street clothes. I got out of the gym just in time to get on the tour bus. I’d wanted to check one more time on Teddy, but didn’t think he’d be allowed on the tour bus anyway.

On the tour bus we rode out of the city. The tour guide was a really cute little brunette with coal black eyes and bobbed hair. She was giving a good show about the local sights and history. Another guide took her place and she walked down the aisle and sat next to me. We talked for a bit, and I found out her name was N.

She looked very disappointed when I exclaimed “that’s a lovely name, but I’m biased, that’s my wife’s name, too.”

The tour bus arrived in the morning at a small town. There were tables set up alongside the bus station with breakfast foods on them. The main street was cordoned off for a parade. The tour guide invited myself and a couple of others to come over to her house in a half hour or so, and we’d get a good seat for the parade. She offered to let me come over early and share breakfast with her, but I thought it best to stay with the group. We watched the fire trucks roll up the street, preparing for the parade. We ate a few pastries and drank some orange juice. I worried about Teddy.

After a bit I wandered over to the tour guide’s home, enjoying the police and fire trucks lined up ready for the parade. I arrived to find the tour guide outside her home in a panic.

“There’s a fire in my kitchen!”

“Well, there’s fire trucks right there,” I said turning back to the parade route to flag one down.

“It might not be that bad,” she pulled me back towards her house by the elbow.

I saw that there was plywood covering her patio, and there was smoke and flames inside. “I think it is now.”

We ran over to get the fire truck. While they were putting out the fire, the tour guide admitted that she hated her little shack, but didn’t mean to burn it down. She offered to take me back to the city so we could look for Teddy. After we emptied her place of whatever was salvageable, we piled into her car and headed back to the city. I somehow knew she was going to end up at my house.

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Time Lost

              I dreamed that I woke up in a cluttered two bedroom apartment south of Poway. I knew that something was wrong, as I couldn't remember what day it was, or where I worked. I went to find my car, but the only keys I could find had the Plymouth key on it, not the Honda key. I got up and fed the two strange cats. They acted like they knew me, and were very affectionate, but I didn't recognize either of them.
              I brought in the newspaper, and the date was August 24, 1986. The paper itself was new and fresh. I realized that something was very amiss. I drove up to the school district offices, where no one knew me, but a couple of people asked where I'd been, and what I'd been up to. Apparently I hadn't worked for the school district since I'd gone back to school. (Which I, of course had no recollection of doing.)
              Things got fuzzy and things got blurry, and I found myself back on the road, this time not in the Plymouth, and not the Honda either. I pulled over in front of a Seven-Eleven and paid for a paper. The date was still August, 24, but the year was 2010. I drove back over to the school district offices, where they were even more surprised to see me this time. It seems I had died in a boating accident in Wisconsin in 2006 or 7.
              Finding that very awkward, I made my way out to my car, and then realized that I had no idea where I should go. I checked the address on my driver's license and drove home. The problem was, that N wasn't living there any more, and the only familiar thing was a scrawny T-Rex who made his way out of the Juniper Jungle that is in the front of the house to greet me. The current owners came out to ask me what I was doing.
              “Just petting T-Rex, he's the only thing left from when I used to live here.”
              “You used to live here?”
              “N and I, but I don't know what happened. Where are the other cats?”
              “She took them with her, but this one keeps coming back.” They looked at me, suddenly uneasy, “What do you know about an orange toy box in the rafters?”
              “I had one of those when I was a kid. I think there were some badly aged plastic road strips and some other toys, like the old red, white and blue Tupperware building blocks. Probably some of my grade school papers as well.”
              “We thought you were dead. Your wife never came back for that or the suitcases full of D&D stuff.”
              “Do you happen to know where she went?”
              “I think you need to leave now.”
              By this time, T-Rex was quite attached to my neck and purring so loud I'm sure everyone on the block could hear him.
              One of the neighbor 's older boys walked across the street. “Where did you come from? We went to your funeral. Are you D's brother?”
              “No, I think something has come unstuck in time. It's me, but this might not be my time-line.”
              While I was talking to C, the new residents brought out my gaming cases and the orange toy box. They wanted me to take them, and the cat, back to N. I agreed to do so and headed over to a condo address near the college, near our friend J.
              I never got there, but even though the location and time (I presumed) changed, the gaming cases and T-Rex remained with me. I was starting to get very frightened. I didn't want T-Rex to be lost somewhere, but I had no idea what was happening, and how I might have any control of that. The rest of the stuff, I realized, was just stuff, but I didn't want to lose T-Rex as he was my only connection to my right time-line and the possibility of getting back to N. While I was rustling up some cat food and water for T-Rex my cell phone rang. (Not the work phone I currently have, I noted.) The FBI wanted to know where I was currently located, they said I should stay put and they might be able to answer some questions. I told the voice on the phone that I didn't want to go anywhere, especially without my cat.
              The problem was, I didn't know where I was currently located. I was back in the Honda, Little Red, but was parked in a KOA campground with a tarp closed in the windows and stretched out over the back of the hatch and held on the ground by my orange toy box. I had some sort of fold out cot structure that I was using for a bed and the hatch was being propped up by my old costume wizard's staff.
              Out of curiosity I opened up the toy box pushing the tarp up a bit with the lid. The toy chest was full of clothing, including long thick socks and various kilts. There were also a couple of notebooks in the chest. For some reason I found myself describing this as I went through them.
              “Don't read anything!” The voice on the phone warned. “That seems to be what triggers the changes for most people.”
              “You mean this is happening to lots of people?”
              “Not lots, but enough to keep a couple of us busy.”
              “Do you know how to stop this, to get me back to my real home?”
              The voice hesitated, “Uh, we're working on it.”
              I idly flipped open a notebook and immediately recognized the handwriting, it was my own version of the 'Stop' typeface, meticulously lettered around a complex drawing. I felt T-Rex climb into my lap, smelled the cat food on his breath. I flipped a page and read the titles on the next page “Obvious Differences,” and “Similarities,” and written in all caps under neath “D - FILL THIS OUT AS SOON AS YOU/I CAN! IT WILL TRAVEL WITH YOU/ME, IN SOME FORM”
              I saw the words “2012, PDA replaced by paper notebook, Police State! As the last line of the 'Differences' page. And a string of “T-Rex, Orange Toy Box,” under 'Similarities.
              I was about to ask the FBI caller how the Constitution was these days when everything shifted again.
              I was still sitting with T-Rex in my lap, but the world was a gloomy blend of dark purples and deep forest greens. The Journal was my old Leather covered Journal, this time with a thick notebook made of graph paper in it. I quickly penned in some notes for the last place, what little I'd experienced, and the differences I noticed in this place. The Orange Toy Box was not in my range of vision and I knew, somehow, that I would be here a little bit longer. I pulled out my wallet to see where I was living, or at least what was recorded there. I flipped back to the complex drawing, actually several of them, and discovered that the further apart myself, T-Rex and the Orange Toy Box were, the longer I stayed in a place. I found a note page that indicated that when T-Rex was in the box the time in that realm was estimated to be mere seconds. “DO NOT REPEAT THIS EXPERIMENT, ALMOST LOST T-REX!” was written under the illustrations. And “Always keep food and water in the box!”
              It was T-Rex howling that made me realize that we were sitting in the overgrown wreckage of my current home. He was reacting to the presence of another animal. A raccoon was watching us from the thick Wisteria bush. I stood up, frightening the animal off. T-Rex tried to burrow into my armpit. It was chilly, so I looked around for something to throw on. Everything in the place seemed to be covered with a thin layer of dark velvet, mold, I realized, and carefully made our way out into the street. The whole neighborhood was over run with mold. Even the sky seemed tinted by it. I pulled my shirt up over my nose and let T-Rex climb in underneath, using the notebook to give him a place to sit. I started looking for my car, or any way out of this particular place.

Flying Gnome Roadtrip

              I dreamed I was about 2 foot tall and had wings. At first I was running around in a large terminal type area with lots of marble on the floors and walls. Then, suddenly, I was in the back of a station wagon with friends. I looked out of the window and saw a full flight of bat-winged gnomes, like me. I said my goodbyes, and said I was Going to meet everyone there, but I wanted to join the flight to get there.
              I rolled down the back window and unfurled my wings. The movement of the station wagon pulled enough air into my wings to create instant lift. I held on to the luggage rack long enough to get myself stable and then flapped up into the evening sky to join the gnome flight.

Flattop Home

        I dreamed than N and I went out and purchased an old WWII era flattop aircraft carrier to use as a home. Somehow we managed to have it towed to a hillside near Poway. We’d managed to have utility services put in and we nestled the ship into the hillside so it looked like the hill was a giant wave about to engulf the flattop. The elevator was still working and we were using it to put our cars on the deck underneath. The driveway actually had a ramp up to the flight deck.

We’d converted the bridge and ready rooms into computer rooms. Inside we’d opened up a lot of the smaller spaces to make full sized rooms with lots of storage and guest space.

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Hospital, No!

              Last night I dreamed Dad and I were in the hospital. He was having a stroke or a heart attack, and I was there for some tests. I kept trying to get them to take Dad first, as he was the one with the emergency. Somehow argument I tried ended up with a negative result. They switched my appointment with Dad, then tried to get me to sit in a wheelchair to go down to emergency. They canceled my appointment. I finally managed to get the attention of a doctor, and asked him “What's wrong with that man?” without indicating that I even knew him. The doctor immediately recognized that my dad was in trouble and called for an emergency team. The admitting nurse was very angry with me and wouldn't remake my appointment.
              I pulled out my notebook and made a point of looking at her badge and carefully writing down her name. I called the appointment number and asked if there'd been a cancellation and could I get right in, as I was at the hospital to drop off my dad. They scheduled me for my own appointment over the phone.

              This morning I was dreaming away, about what, I have no clue, when I heard N shout my name, followed by “NO!” in that way that means what one is witness to is so heartbreaking that there are no other words, denial, wish and heartbreak in a single sound.
              I leaped out of bed, “What's wrong?”
              “Wake up! You're dreaming!” N's voice, from the other side of the bed rather than down the hall in her office, where I'd have sworn she was.
              At least I didn't make it all the way out into the garage, or outside. I guess I'm going to have to start wearing pajamas to bed.

Waking Up,

        I dreamed that I got up and the refrigerator door was open about 6 inches. The thing that struck me most odd about it wasn’t the smell of rotting food, but the fact that the light wasn’t on. In fact no lights were on, even the little clocks were dark. I could barely see the cats slinking around the edges of my vision, and even then I was thinking they might not be cats.

       

        In another dream I was at work, trying not to let people see me rubbing the crunchies out of my nose.

“Wait, I think I had a dream similar to this recently.”

I looked down to make sure I was wearing pants and shoes.

I really miss dreaming about scantily clad women.

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