2 For 1: "Awkward, Gatorade Boy" and “Hourglass Dance”

AWKWARD, GATORADE BOY

                Dream me is in a classroom. The room is at least the second floor up and both the weather and the general mood are overcast and grey. The desks in the room are aligned in a clean pattern but are scattered randomly around the room facing the same direction. Today is the first or maybe second day of school as I hardly know anyone, including the teacher. A girl that I know, but not well, is sitting next to me. Some boys sitting near the windows are clearly trouble makers, talking amongst themselves and making crude jokes during class. One other student stands out: an awkward looking boy. He seems to have forsaken haircuts because his hair has grown to almost shoulder length, waving slightly, and is not styled in any particular way. He is wearing a black vest with numerous patches attached to it.

            Because the boy is awkward he sometimes speaks up at the wrong time or says something he probably shouldn’t have. This is bothering the teacher. To make matters worse the delinquents near the window are provoking the vest-wearing boy causing him to act out more often. I don’t remember what happened exactly but finally the boy said something to make the teacher snap. He called the boy out on it, put him down in front of the whole class and them forced him to leave the classroom. Most of the kids in the classroom were laughing. Even the girl sitting near me was smiling about it.

I thought the teacher was incompetent. The boy’s awkward personality and stand out dressing style probably already caused him to have a low self-esteem. To humiliate him in front of all his peers was perhaps one of the least productive things a teacher could do. The teacher was also failing to recognize who was really at fault in the situation because while the boy was the one to speak out, he did so without bad intentions while the kids near the window had been catalysts to the whole scenario for their own amusement.

Class ends and the girl tells me she likes my pencil, though I can’t remember any specific feature of the pencil I had. I tell her what I thought about the vested boy, the teacher, and the kids near the window. She agrees with me and looks guilty for having laughed when the teacher called out the boy. On the way out of the school building the girl and I run into the boy. He had gone up onto the building’s roof for the rest of class. The girl asks him how he is and if he wants her sandwich. The boy says he was fine and shakes his head at the sandwich. He holds up a large bottle of pink Gatorade he had been drinking to show that he’s fine with what he has.

Immediately outside the school is a parking garage. Huge concrete pillars hold up the levels above us, though unlike a normal parking garage there is enough space between any two levels to drive tall vehicles like semi-trucks. The weather is still overcast and cold and the concrete looks kind of frosted. I think to myself that I’d gotten to use to weather in California and scold myself for putting on Birkenstocks because my toes are freezing.

After a little bit of walking I arrive at a house. I know it belongs to Jon Richey, my real world friend from 6^th grade. I step inside. It has hard wood floors. I don’t see John anywhere and I speculate he’s up the staircase directly in front of me. To the left of the stair case is a dining room and my brother is sitting there. I then hear my mom talking to him from the other side of the house. She’s persuading him to let her photograph him. She wants to take a photo of him in his track uniform and she wants to take the picture from a low angle so that the picture will be of him, somewhat silhouetted, from the waist up with only the blue sky as background. She never said this out loud but I knew that it’s the photo she envisions. Eventually the bribe my brother settles for is that he will get to eat out at a restaurant of his choice. However immediately after the conclusion is reached he begins to argue that some of the other bribes that had been discussed were also part of the agreement. I start to wander around the house and wake up.

I roll over in bed and type “Kid put out of class. Laughed at by students. Cold feet parking garage. (kid with long hair and vest with patches) (waited on roof with drink) girl likes my pencil.  Jon Richey’s house, sandals. Mom and Andrew photo of running going out to eat and being even.” on a new word document on my laptop, use the bathroom, and fall back to sleep.

HOURGLASS DANCE

Dream me is alone in a room. Some events have taken place before this but I don’t remember what they are now. The room is a very large play room with chests of toys, a bunk bed, and elaborate mobiles hanging from the high ceiling. The room is part of a small building detached from the rest of a nearby house and as I’m looking at it I realize it belongs to a spoiled kid. I walk across the room and out a door on the left ending up on a porch in between the smaller building and the main house. It’s early morning, slightly foggy and damp. The surrounding landscape is composed of very steep hills that lead down into a large valley. The general area around the house looks more country-like than urban. It is sort of like a town that came about and grew to its current size 80 years ago and hasn’t made any major developments since then.

Ron Weasley steps up onto the porch with me and asks if I remember this place. I tell him I don’t and he seems disappointed in me. I feel bad too for not remembering something important to him. He leads me through a door right next to the one I just came out of. After walking down a short hallway we come into a huge, huge room that leads me to believe the detached building is much bigger than I first thought. The room’s ceiling is at least 4 stories above us and is wide enough to fit many commercial airplanes. Rather than airplanes though the dim room is filled with thousands of arcade machines, air hockey tables, and UFO catchers that make the whole place glow all sorts of colors. The arcade is crowded with many people walking around and playing the different games.

Ron and I run into some boys who are our friends and begin to wander through the giant arcade. We see the latest version of the fighting game we like to play and brag about how we first started playing the game in its earlier versions. Bragging this is easy because if we walk down the aisle just a little bit the earlier versions of the game are all lined up in chronological order.

After walking around for a while we sit down on a circular couch with a small potted tree in the middle. The boy next to me drops a red token into a token slot on a small box next to the couch. I guess he didn’t mean to do this because he then says “oh shoot”. He thinks about it for a moment and then decides to drop 2 more red tokens into the box. The box then spits out a few golden tokens. I ponder for a while why he would exchange tokens for tokens and then come to the conclusion that the machine must have accidently mistook the red tokens for quarters and then given him tokens to use in the arcade. The boy hands me his three remaining red tokens and asks me to watch them while he plays a few games. I hold onto them and wander off on my own.

             A police man standing between two arcade machines sees me fiddling with the red tokens in my hand and comes over to me. He says “You know food and drink aren’t allowed in the arcade?” I then say “Oh, I didn’t know, but I don’t have any.” The police officer then gestures to my red tokens and says “Those are Burger King tokens.” When he says that I remember that if you buy a meal a Burger King they hand you red tokens like these while you wait for your order to cook. Then when you go to get your order you give the red tokens back. I say “These tokens aren’t mine I’m holding them for a friend. I’m not going to turn them in for food.” The officer doesn’t seem to believe me because he repeats “food and drink aren’t allowed in the arcade. You shouldn’t have let me see these.” I say “Look I can put them in my pocket and leave the arcade if you want.” I guess the police officer thought I was talking back and being disrespectful because he points his gun at me and tells me to come with him.

            He walks me out of the arcade and three more police officers meet him immediately outside. Unlike when I met Ron the surroundings are very urban now and I’m under a street light that’s as bright as a spot light so that I can hardly see. I know four guns are pointed at me and I have my arms above my head, red tokens still in hand. I hear a gunshot and instinctively duck. The cops laugh and I decide that they shot to miss on purpose just to startle me. I slowly stand back up. The first cop comes up to me and confiscates the red tokens. He then tells me I’ll probably have to serve 108 hours of community service as a punishment and the cops disband.

I look around and see my dad in the driver’s seat of a limo beckoning me to come over. My whole family is in the limo along with tons and tons of boxes so that the whole limo is full. They were waiting for me to drive off somewhere together.

I tell my parents about the cops and my 108 hours of community service and they don’t seem shocked or disappointed. I guess even in the dream world the whole red token arrest fiasco seems unnecessary and ridiculous. There’s no room for me in the limo so I have to sit on the roof. As I cling to the roof while the limo drives through the city I wonder how I’ll ever manage to perform 108 hours of community service and continue my internship before I have to go back to college.

We leave the city and are now driving through the original scenery I saw on the porch with Ron Weasley. Every time the limo goes down one of the hills it picks up dangerous amounts of speed and I feel like I’m on a rollercoaster. It also occurs to me around this point that the limo isn’t a limo and my dad is actually driving a giant, green, mechanical millipede. We go over the edge of the next slope and it looks even steeper than the last. There are abandoned railroad tracks running perpendicular to us across the slope and the millipede is now going much too fast to control. I hear my mom gasp at my dad’s reckless driving as we bounce over the train tracks. There are just a few moments where the millipede swerves back and forth in slow motion and we all can feel the impending crash. It then begins to tumble and roll the rest of the way down the slope.

I’m lying on the ground after the crash and I sit up. I don’t look around for the millipede or my family because I immediately see a very strange sight across the river next to me. There is a small crowd of people all wearing strange costumes. Some of them are dressed like golden squares or cubes, and the others are dressed like hourglasses. They are all holding rods with decorations on the end such as other hourglasses, stars or hooks. Hanging from the sky above them is A giant pole and at its end some 20 feet above them is a large hourglass that makes jerky 45 degree turns to a rhythm like a giant metronome. Every other time the hourglass turns all the people in the crowd move a little bit and then freeze in place except for one small girl who moves every time the hourglass turns. They are all trying to strike each other with their rods as if they are acting out, step by step, every second of an epic battle. The small girl has a clear advantage over everyone else because she makes two movements for every one they make. The rhythm of the whole spectacle makes it seems a little like a dance and I watch it for a few seconds totally caught in a trance. Then I wake up.

Coyote Film

            Dream me is at the top of a stairway, one with multiple flights. I’m sitting there with a bunch of other people. There’s a large window and out it I can see the weather is very nice, a blue sky with a few clouds. The land outside is red and rocky, dusty and speckled with desert shrubs and cacti. The people I’m with are famous actors and actress, not ones from the real world, they’re dream people but I know they’re famous. I’m going to be a guest actor on their show and I’m meeting with them for the first time in the stairwell…

            …my memory is fuzzy until we’re down and outside the building. We’re gathering in a circular area surrounded by a wooden fence. The ground all around the circular area slopes up gentry so that the fenced off area is the center of a subtle creator. Here and there around us are little rocky towers like red chimneys.

            I need to use the bathroom. One of the boys in the group needs to go too. He’s tan and has curly black hair. He and I walk through a red, metal gate and off behind some of the rocky towers. After using the bathroom we start to head back but I realize there are coyotes. They’re staring us down and slowing stalking towards us. Instinctively I start walking backwards away from them. I’m scared, and when I look quickly around me I see more coyotes closing in from the sides as well. The boy and I turn to run and the coyotes start moving quicker. The boy and I both look back and the coyotes slow down. Out of fear that the coyotes will make a full speed lunge toward us I continue walking backwards rather than run myself. When I face them and walk slowly backwards they slowly stalk me without breaking into a full chase. The boy who’s slightly behind me now turns and runs. The coyotes don’t give chase because I’m still facing them, but I know now that if they start to chase me I’m alone. I panic, turn, and break into a full sprint. I can hear every last coyote break into a sprit as well. I can sense that they’re following me. I’m running downhill over the dusty, rocky, red ground towards the fence. I know if I can make it there I’ll be safe. I can see lots of people there now all gathered near the celebrities. Running as hard as I can, I take comfort that they will help me. As I get closer I start to call out to them, but they don’t do anything. I realize they’re the filming crew. They all have their cameras pointed at me, recording me. They have no intention to help me only to film me run for my life. The coyotes are right at my heels when I make it to the red gate. I jump up and grab a beam hanging above the low red doors. I look back thinking I’m safe, but the coyotes jump up after me and I quickly let go to fall inside the fenced off ring.

            …I certainly don’t remember what happened next and I think my next memory may even be from a different dream... I’m indoors again, inside a very long room with a high ceiling. The room is basically one long ramp that stretches to the other end turns around and comes back to the end I’m at, with one door at the top and one at the bottom. I’m at the bottom with a bald man, but there are many other people in the room. Again there’s a big window, but outside is hurricane like weather and sideways palm trees. I believe that if it weren’t for the storm I would be able to see beach resort outside.

            The bald man is looking at the floor. Running all the way up and down the ramp is a mat with writing on it. The bald man is trying to read it very carefully. The other people in the room seem unsettled and are talking amongst each other in low voices. None of them stand out to me except for a man and women at the end of the ramp directly above me. They both look very rich, the man with a suit and monocle, the lady with a white coat and elaborate fur around her neck. Both of them are watching the bald man closely. The overall mood of everyone in the room is very uneasy.

            Although I don’t remember what happened before this time there are some things I do know about what’s going on. First, I know that something very bad is going to happen soon and everyone knows it. Second, the bald man is trying to convince everyone that there is something that can be done to prevent it but no one believes him. Lastly, the bald man thinks that the writing on the mat is related to preventing the ominous future either as proof that he is correct or as a set of instructions to follow. I have a feeling that there is no higher authority beyond the people already in this room. That there is no government or law that presides over everyone and if enough people become upset with the bald man I fear for his safety. At the same time I’m not sure I trust what he’s doing either.

            I try reading the mat myself. There are defiantly instructions written on it. They are short clear instructions given out in a list though I don’t remember what they said. The bald man must have decided that there were too many of them to remember because he begins tearing the mat of the floor and ripping it into smaller pieces so he can carry it with him to wherever he needs to go to follow the instructions. Everyone in the room begins to stir more, becoming more bothered and unsettled. I think they felt that nothing in the room should be disturbed. The bald man takes the mats up the ramp and out the top door. The rich couple seems resigned to a fate they hope wouldn’t come. They seem to know and understand more than the rest of the people in the room.

            The bald man takes the mats to a strange place. There’s a large tree stump cut in half so that we can see it’s cross-section. We’re bellow ground level because the ground around the stump is also a cross-section in front of us. The stump is huge, big enough to fit 3 or 4 people inside it’s hollow center. But inside the center is a pool of water. Everything is damp and dark. I can tell we’re outside in the hurricane but we’re mostly sheltered because I can’t feel strong winds, only a trickling drip of water from above...

I’m not sure what happened there, but simply recalling the place now sends a chill down my spine and makes me very anxious. Whatever happened there was definitely the most unsettling part of my dream. Some more things I don’t remember took place and eventually I woke up.

Trick Door Wardrobe

            Dream me is walking on a country path, the kind of long path alongside pastures and farm land. It has a stone wall on one side and a low-to-the-ground handmade wooden fence on the other. The path rolls up and down across uneven small hills that spread out in all directions. There are trees here and there too, old but small trees. The path reaches the end of a plot of land and turns 90 degrees to the left. I turn the corner and see Stephanie Gross and another girl whose identity I’ve forgotten. In the real world Stephanie was a senior at my high school when I was a sophomore. She and the girl are sitting on the stone wall wearing black robes that have little yellow stars all over them. Stephanie hops of the wall and we ask each other how we’re doing and catch up with other small talk I don’t remember. Eventually she goes down the path in the other direction and I think to myself that it was a nice pleasant meeting with someone I hadn’t seen in a while. I’m glad she’s doing fine…

            …my memory of the details is a little foggy but I arrive at my dormitory. The hallways are very tall and white. Similar to my real world dorm the rooms are only on one side of the hallway. The other side has doors that access the bathroom, kitchen and stairs, and on the other side of those rooms is another hallway. I go into my room. Again the ceiling is very tall. There are two big beds and a wardrobe but not much else is in the room. It feels like a house that no one has moved into yet. In the real world my roommate freshman year of college was a boy named Timmy Chen. He’s my roommate here as well. At the foot of his bed is a large, folded, black blanket. I recognize it as mine, if I unfolded it, it would have a large Asian dragon on it. In the real world my mom brought it back for me after a trip to Korea. Now, seeing it on his bed I remember that in the dream world I had left the blanket in this room when I went away for a trip one time and Timmy had started using it. I hadn’t asked for it back since then.

            I go to the wardrobe and open the bottom drawer. Inside is a naked, male torso. It completely startles me. The torso slides down so I can see the face. Timmy is grinning up at me from inside the wardrobe drawer. It takes me a moment to realize what was going on. The drawer has no bottom and Timmy had hidden underneath the wardrobe. Somehow I hadn’t notices Timmy’s legs sticking out from under the wardrobe when I had gone to open it. Timmy slides out from under the wardrobe and puts on a shirt.

            I decide to go out into the hallway and I take the black, dragon blanket with me. Across from my room is a hole in the wall. It’s more like a slot that leads to the other hallway. I try climbing through it but the blanket is kind of heavy and it’s hard to bring it through with me. I make it through the slot far enough to stick my head out. There someone I want to talk to walking away from me down the hallway. Rather than pull my blanket the rest of the way through the slot I climb out of it backwards.

            Back in my room I decide to open the wardrobe again. I open one of the middle drawer. This time Jeremy Baetz, my real world best friend from my junior year of high school, is inside the drawer. For some reason this startles me just as much as the time before. Jeremy climbs out of the wardrobe laughing. I say “Dude, I’ve been here for 2 years and this is the second time I got trick…” For some reason I can’t find the next word I want to say. Jeremy tries to finish my sentence or me “trick or treated?” “No, trick wardrobe pranked. The second time I got trick wardrobe pranked today! And the first time was less than an hour ago!” Jeremy and I laugh really hard and then I wake up.

Dirty Rifle

Dream me is younger, or at least I feel younger. I feel that adults are older, or at least that they have authority over me. I think I might be in a boy scout’s uniform or at least I have some responsibility to be a good citizen. I’m in a convince store. It’s the tiny, dirty kind you find downtown in a huge city. The store is very narrow and kind of deep to compensate for the lost space. It’s nighttime outside on the city street. There’s an adult in the store too. I don’t remember what he looks like; just that he’s bigger than me and, like the store, kind of dirty. The checkout counter is in the deep part of the store but the man and I are in the front. There are shelves up high on the same wall as the door to the city street. It’s hard for me to see what’s on the shelves but it looks like rifles. The man wants me to buy one. I’m not sure I want to but I feel I should. I’m worried it will be hard to get off the shelf but it’s not that heavy. The rifle twirls around in my hand like a light metal pipe. I’m really not sure I want to buy it but I do.

            I’m older now, maybe not an adult but I’m more mature. I’m in the same store that I bought the fake metal gun from and I regret that I did. There’s a younger boy in the store trying to get one of the rifles off the shelf. I recommend that he doesn’t buy it. The boy probably feels I have authority over him the same way I used to feel because he doesn’t buy the rifle. I feel better now, like I finally lived up to my good citizen responsibility. It’s still night time when I go outside. The street is lined with very tall buildings but has a scarcity of street lamps. The darkness of the city makes it somewhat void of color. The street is not empty, people are walking around. There are bright flashes and the sound of gunshots off to the right. Most of the people on the street don’t react much. There’s a criminal running around with one of the rifles. He’s another dirty man, but I’m not sure if he’s the same one from before, but like before the man is bigger than me. I try pointing my rifle at him even though I know it’s fake. He tells me it’s fake and goes down the dark street. I feel compelled to try and find him. It doesn’t feel like any of it is a serious deal involving guns, it feels more like a game of hide and seek.

Further down the street there are no more tall building on the lefts side of the street instead there is a park. The lack of building makes it possible to see the sky for the first time... my memory is somewhat fuzzy but somehow in the park I meet Mrs. Thairungroj, the real world mother of Ajjana… I’m not sure what we’re doing but fireworks start going off in the open sky that can be seen above the park. When a red firework goes off everything in the city glows red and when a blue firework goes off everything glows blue. The colors are very bright, in heavy contrast to the colorless darkness of the city earlier…

… More things happen before I wake up but I don’t remember them.

Winter Generosity

                Dream me is inside a cavern, standing on a rocky ledge. The ledge is shaped like a long peninsula sticking out into the center of the cave. I don’t see the floor below me but there’s an opening on the far side of the cavern close to the ceiling. That’s where I’m going. I try to use a rope attached to the ceiling to swing there. Because the opening is at a higher elevation than me, I don’t make it. The rope’s swing slows and ends with me dangling over nothing. I know I have to climb up the rope but I can’t. Somehow I get another rope and try to swing to the opening using it. The new rope doesn’t attach to ceiling and I begin to fall. I realize now that the floor of the cavern is magma and the walls of the cave are glowing red. The rope I’m holding onto now attaches to the ceiling and I begin to swing around above the magma at an uncontrollable speed like I would feel on an amusement park ride in the real world. There are rocky islands sticking out of magma and I make my best acrobatic attempts, swing my legs around and pulling up and down on the rope, to avoiding slamming into the rocks. My arm feels sore and I decide it will be easier to control my swinging if I get rid of stuff in my wallet. I throw out a coupon. Then I immediately realize how dumb I was for throwing it into the magma because I was going to use the coupon once I got to the opening at the top of the cave. My arm is really really sore now and I can’t hold on any longer.

                It occurs to me now that I’m actually only playing a video game and I’m losing. Noel, my real world friend from my university, is watching me play. He thinks I’m good at this game but now that he’s watching me I’m doing very poorly. He’s not actually with me but we’re communicating through a video call or something like that. We decide to play a game together but we can’t decide what to play and even if we could decide we still can’t play because Noel isn’t actually there. I start to wonder if mailing one of the game controllers to him would work but remember that even if I do that it won’t be plugged in.

                I get up and start to walk around my house looking for something. My house strikes me as very unusual. The floors are either wooden or matted with some sort if woven material. The walls and ceiling are all white but where any wall meets the floor, ceiling, or another wall there is a wooden beam. The beams are part of the walls but if they were to stand alone they would have 4 sides like long rectangular prisms. Every doorway in the house is similarly outlined with wooden beams and is low so that I have to stoop to go through. There are no actual doors in the doorways but sometimes there are interior sliding doors and to get to some part of the house I have to turn once and then turn back like a complex maze. The living room has a close to the floor Asian style table. Often times one room has a different elevation than the room before it and I have to go up or down 3 or 4 steps at the entrances / exits to every room. I go to my brother’s room. It’s very small and a wooden bunk bed takes up one of the walls. My mom’s clothes are hanging in the room. They’re hanging on the walls and in front of the doorway so that you have to brush them out of the way to get around. I make my way to the front of the hose. My dad is in the kitchen there. He has a tall metal pot he’s making chocolate malt balls in and he’s collecting together a large bag of candy.

                I go outside still looking for something. It’s nighttime and winter. There are lots of wire-like, leave-less trees. The path from my house is asphalt and it winds around through the trees unnecessarily. Two of the paths go around either side of my house. I can’t see other houses but I know there are many nearby. The asphalt is hurting my feet because I didn’t put shoes on. Also my feet are starting to get cold. I’ve forgot what I’m looking for at this point and start making my way back to my house. I see at least one hobo walking around the asphalt paths as well. Just before going into my house my mom comes outside and places a shoebox full of candy on a charcoal grill in front of my house. This is because it’s the night before a big holiday (though I think that the holiday wasn’t Christmas) and the candy is an act of kindness to the hobos outside.

                Back inside the house my mom says “Oh, looks like the pie’s coming together.” even though my dad’s making chocolate malt balls. I try one of them and it tastes very minty. I decide to go take a bath. The bathroom is very dim and lit by candles. It has tile floors and walls as if the whole room itself is the bath and meant to be wet. There are wooden platforms like you might see in a sauna that form a square pyramid with the bathtub at the top. I wake up.

Opening Event

Recently I was recounting the events of a vivid dream I had, and was convinced to start a blog where I record my dreams. I don’t remember my dreams all the time of course, but when I am awake, I find that a lot of the time, some of the most memorable parts of my dreams are the places. So, I’ll do my best to describe the scenery of my dream world. From now on I’ll try to update the day after I dream but for this first post I’ll record the dream I had on the night of July 12^th:

                Dream me is sitting on a large stone disk about the size of a living room floor. It’s made out of stone bricks shaped into rings, and the edges of the disk are raised to a comfortable level for sitting which is probably why I’m sitting there. The disk is a room of my house but somehow it is suspended in the air and has no walls. There are two smaller stone disks, attached to opposite ends the large one I’m sitting on. One of those two disks has a hole in it, an opening to a spiral stair case that leads down into another part of my house. My mother is somewhere nearby and she’s a yelling at my sister for being late. My sister and I are supposed to go to school…

                …my memory is fuzzy now but somehow we end up at the high school. The school is decorated because it’s the first and last day, serving as a farewell to graduates and an introduction to incoming students. I think I was an incoming student since I’m interested to explore the school…

                …events are a little fuzzy again but I end up exploring a lower part of the school like a basement area. I’m with Ajjana, my college friend in the real world. We come to a room with one glass wall and a door at the end of the glass wall. Inside I can see two people, Alex and another girl whose identity I can’t remember. I think they’re inside an art room with squeezed out acrylic paints and clip boards. Alex and the girl come out of the room and sing the opening theme to a toddler show while dancing around a pillar in the hallway. I don’t remember what song they sang specifically. Afterwards I explain to Ajjana who they were and she tells me “Oh, I’ve heard about them but never met them before.” This is odd because in the real world I met both Alex and (I’m pretty sure) the nameless girl through Ajjana…

                …more fuzzy memory and now I’m in one of the school’s hallways. Ajjana isn’t with me anymore but Lisa and Evan, two of my close friends from real world high school are. The hallway is lined with lockers and the wall on the right side is glass. The hallway is below ground level because just outside I can see a steep slope that goes up 7 or 8 feet to the natural ground level. The decorations in the hallway are mostly streamers across the ceiling and every 5^th, or so, locker has a drinking fountain in its place. However the fountains are shaped very similarly to urinals and haven’t been cleaned very well. Evan and Lisa are planning to leave the school event early. I try to convince them that people have gone through a lot of work to decorate the school and that the whole event is for our benefit, so that we can learn about the school. They don’t listen to me though and leave out a hallway door and go up the steep slope.

                I walk to the end of the hallway and through its double doors into what is probably the school gymnasium. Inside the large room some Asian student association from my real world university is having a party / dance. The gym is mostly dark except for strobe lights and a spot light on the stage where a group of students are putting on a performance. Two girls from the real world Japanese student association, Loren and Satomi are hosting the event. I see Freddy Chen, one of my real world ex-roommates, sitting at a round table. I start leaving but Loren spots me and calls me up on stage. She and Satomi want me to put on a performance but they first wanted me to sign two petitions. I don’t remember what the petitions were for but I had already signed one and someone else had signed the other one where I was supposed to. I know that in the real world that wouldn’t make sense but dream me had to draw a new line on which to sign the petition. Before I perform, I realize I need to use the bathroom and leave the stage.

                I enter the bathroom and inside is a black teenager and his dad. His father is wearing a white military uniform with yellow epaulets. The boy asks his father if he will help him shop for presents for his teachers and the father nods his head. Somehow I’m very touched by the whole scene. When I turn to leave the bathroom I see a small black girl maybe 5 years old. Her brother is standing behind her and glaring at me very defensively. It startles and scares me, a strong emotional swing from the warm feeling I had a moment ago.

I leave the bathroom to find that the gymnasium is now well lit and a band or orchestra in red uniforms is getting ready to play. There are men in military uniforms walking around carrying big blue guns kind of like super soakers. The side of the gymnasium has been opened up and in the distance I can see some of the men wheeling away the stage with Loren and Satomi on it. Somehow I realize that the school has been bought by a new company and that’s why all these changes are being made. I start to head home and one of the soldiers stops me. I’m afraid he won’t let me go home but he only gives me some friendly advice.

I start on the path home. It’s a dirt path that leads up a long incline to a residential subdivision. Walking slowly up the path just ahead of me is a small blond girl, again about 5 or 7 years old. I decide to pass her and walk faster to go around her. As I pass her she yells out “Hey!” when I turn back I can see she’s fallen over. I know I hadn’t touched her and I say “What’d I do?” However I’m still afraid it might have been my fault she fell down so I go to help her up. Despite this she gets up on her own. She starts to chase me up the path. It feels like a game or a race and she’s giggling behind me. As we run I realize that no matter how fast I run she’s always right behind me. I’m in a full sprint by the time we reach the subdivision and the girl is still right behind me. We get to the paved road and she picks up speed by using the rollers on the bottom of her sneakers to skate after me. Somehow I manage to stay ahead of her and I take comfort knowing that to get home I’ll have to leave the paved road and I won’t have to continue racing her while she has skates. She asks me from behind “Where are you going?” I reply “Home” Once I give that answer I know that she’s going to try to follow me the whole way home. Still ahead of her I leave the road back onto a dirt path. This path leads down a very very steep hill into a forest. The steep incline has leveled out plateaus that create a stair like effect. To go down the hill we have to ride in a large woven basket like a sleigh. Inside the basket are two stuffed rabbits, one boy and one girl, they each have one of their ears ripped off. The little girl and I ride the basket down the hill and every time the basket hits one of the plateaus I can tell the impact is hurting her. This part of the dream begins to repeat on a loop. We go down the hill over and over and suddenly I wake up.

The last part of the dream involving the little girl was not scary in the least, but it had a strong unnerving undertone. After waking up I was very anxious and unsettled. It took me quite a while to fall back asleep.