"Amusement park" in a building in a city

I was walking down the street of a city. This city was laid out rather like Washington, D.C., but there were a lot more high-rises there. It was more like walking down the streets of NYC or downtown Dallas. The one major difference was that the buildings were all painted and colorful.

Another difference: all these high-rises were connected to each other several stories up. You could go into one building, go up to the 10th floor (that number sounds good), and you could then walk from building to building. This was laid out to replicate the sidewalks and crosswalks in this city.

If you want to see a very close spot on the map, the dream was partially inspired by this point: Go to http://maps.google.com and search for "Constitution Ave NW & 6th St NW, Washington, DC 20004". The only major difference is that right were Constitution meets Pennsylvania directly east from that point, picture a huge, steep hill right there, and the aforementioned connected high-rises all over the place.

Anyway, I was walking with a group of about eight other guys. We were all dressed in slacks, shirts and ties, and we were just walking down the street. Oddly enough, I only knew one guy in the group: Dominic C., from Texas. There were a couple Christendom guys in the group, but I only know them by sight, and not by name.

We were walking mostly together, east-bound along this road, through crowds of men and women dressed in suits and smart dresses (respectively). I suddenly realized that not everyone in this group was actually walking. Some of these people had roller shoes. You know what I mean -- the ones with the wheel in the heel. But I don't mean sneakers. I mean normal dress shoes. Anywhere from $1000's snake-skinned shoes to the shiny military style to the $19.99 Wal-Mart specials. It was very interesting seeing these business people just scooting along on their heels.

Up ahead, there was a small group of men supporting a much older man. He looked to be in his sixties, and the men supporting him were in their thirties to forties. It was obvious that he had never scooted like this before. He seemed to be getting the hang of it, but just like everyone else who has never skated before, he was grabbing onto them and other things for support. He did not have roller shoes. He had gotten roller skates to get used to the feeling first. It looked like he had gotten the cheapest kind on the market, too. They were pink, and had little flowers all over them -- obviously, a little girl's skate. But instead of having the normal rollerskate look, the axles were built into the sole of the shoe, putting the four wheels on the side of the shoe, instead of underneath them. The entire thing was plastic, so it was definitely not a quality ride...

As we continued walking, we approached this very large hill. The sidewalks on this hill were absolutely covered with these skaters. In fact, it seems that at the top of the hill, they disregarded the fact that they were professional men and women. They hopped onto their wheels at the top of the hill, and zoomed in and out of all the people who were just walking. They even had assistance in getting that extra boost of speed at the top of the hill. They would all help each other out by providing a shove to the person up on the top to help them get going as fast as they could. There was quite a line for it, too. I'm not sure if there was a designated pusher, or if the people in the line would just push the man or woman in front of them, and then be pushed in turn by the person behind them.

In any event, anyone and everyone who had wheels was being pushed. This included an old man in a wheelchair. He was minding his own business, when all of a sudden, someone behind him gave him a huge shove and sent him tearing down the hill. In a fright, he doubled over in his seat and covered up his head. I saw it all, and hurried to get to the old man. I stopped directly in his path, and slowed his wheelchair down to a stop. I asked him if he was all right, but he didn't move. He finally uncurled, and started slowly wheeling himself away. I imagined that he was too shocked to speak, and I just let him go. As he uncurled himself a got a look at him: if you've been to Old St. Mary's, he was the bald old African American man who sits in the back of the church. He is usually dressed in brown, and has a brown backpack with him. He also wears a white air filter face mask.

In any case, the guys and I turned north. We headed along this road towards our destination. You recall the title of this post? Well, there were three Six Flags in the city, they were all within a few blocks of each other along this road, and they were all contained within their individual skyscrapers. We were headed to a place called "Six Flags: Enigma", the headquarters of all Six Flags.

We arrived there and went inside. But we had entered the wrong Six Flags. No problem -- they had a subway system as well that connected the buildings, so they put us in a car and shot us towards Six Flags: Enigma. When we arrives, we saw that the employees were all dressed in lab coats, but they greeted us like any ordinary Six Flags employees. As we walked through the first set of doors, they warned us that weird things would happen inside.

And was it ever true! We all started slowly changing shape into animals -- de-evolving if you will. One of us turned into a giant rat. Another changed into a wolf. I turned into a Tyrannosaurus Rex. We were all still perfectly rational, and we all recognized each other. It was as though this is what we had always been.

As we left, we walked outside and saw that we weren't the only ones to have visited this place. There were a lot of other animals walking around outside, mingling and interacting with everyone else. The rat and I gave each other looks of approval, and went out to join the crowd.

At the Opera

Last night, I dreamed that I attended an open-casting call for an opera. Having never sung in an opera before, I was quite nervous.

I got there, and there was a small group of people present. There was a woman and a man who seemed to be in charge, because they were doing all the talking, so I just sat and listened to them. They soon started passing out scripts. I opened it, and it was an opera that I had never seen before (no big surprise there). I tried to figure out the part in my head, but it was all hand-written and there were four flats. It would take me a few minutes to figure out the key, and from then, I had to figure out the rest of it.

Now, I know that there are some of you reading this who will know automatically what key four flats is in. I can usually figure it out (A-flat?), but I don't know it off the top of my head...

In any event, the opera had an interesting plot to it. As I remember, it was divided up into five scenes, but I don't remember for sure about all of them. The main part of the opera was that it was about a woman who was very close to her sixties. Her eldest was a son about close to forty years old, and her youngest was a son who was about twenty-five. The name of the youngest was Marius -- sound familiar?

The woman missed having kids around. Most of her children were married, so she had grandchildren, but she wanted another of her own. The opera was based on her struggle between being content with what she had (a number of well-brought-up sons and daughters and their grandchildren), or attempting to get another child of her own, whether through natural means or adoption. I never actually figured out her motives, whether she feels that the number she provided to the world was insignificant or insufficient, or whether she was lonely without little kids around, but in any case, that was the opera.

I got the role of Marius. Marius was one of the bigger characters in the opera, not as big as his mother, but considering that he had older brothers and sisters, and the father was also involved. In it, Marius was doing his best to convince his mother that she was blessed to have so many children and grandchildren, and that she needed to take care of herself and her husband, and not try to get more children. The rest of the family was surprised at her desire, as well, and expressed similar concerns.

I was a bit weirded out by the content of the opera, as you can imagine, but at the same time, I was really fascinated that an opera was being performed that was saying good things about having big families, instead of promoting the one-and-a-half children families as being ideal.

At the same time, the director was making the poor mother be portrayed as being a bit on the crazy side. Why? I have no idea...

Anyway...

After spending a few minutes flipping through the opera, I wasn't too scared of the role, so I asked them what I needed to do. They asked me if I had my tuxedo. Sure enough, I did. I ran into a back room, changed into it, and came out. They gave me a once-over, and said that I looked all right. By this point, everyone else had changed into their tuxedos and evening gowns, respectively. Almost everyone else had tuxes with tails and white gloves, so I was a bit ... underdressed. Then I remembered I had white gloves, so I whipped them out. In any event, I passed inspection, and we sat down again.

They started giving instructions: "When the crowds get here, they'll want to see a good show, so act the way you learned to, ..." etc. I raised my hand.

"Excuse me, um, crowds?"

"Yes. We're performing this tonight," said the lady.

My eyes bugged out.

"PERFORMING? Um, wait, wait, wait... I'm here for an audition, not for a performance."

"Yeah, I figured as much. That's the same reason I came, too," she replied rather nonchalantly.

My thoughts jumped ahead to the performance. Based on what they were describing, it would be a full house. We would have the sheet music in front of us, so that was a good thing. The performance would be done with those in the scene standing in a row, more like a singing concert than an opera. Everyone else had an operatically trained voice. Not me. I had no vocal training at all, so I would be the odd man out.

I pointed this fact out to the lady, and she just shrugged. I asked about practice, because I'd never seen the music before. She didn't pay attention. I took the music to the back and began to figure it out. After a few minutes, I was switching keys like nobody's business, and, since I do not have perfect pitch, I was rather stuck with trying to figure out the key and praying that I was close...

It suddenly hit me that I had to use the restroom...

And that's how I woke up...

I tried to finish the dream, but I couldn't, so I just got up instead...

Workin' in D.C.

Last night, I dreamed that I had gone to work in D.C. I don't remember what my job was, or where it was, but I was going to it. As I recall, I was leaving work for the day, and who should I see but Paul P. As usual, he was dressed to impress with his feathered hat, his tweed suit, and his overcoat. I went up to him and asked him where he worked. He told me, and I realized that where he worked wasn't too far away from where I worked. I offered to share a ride with him in, because he was driving his truck in every day from Front Royal, and I was driving the Acura. He agreed, and we parted ways.

There was something else cool about this dream, but I really don't remember...

Bits and pieces of a funpark dream

I had this very odd dream. I don't remember all of it, but it went something along these lines...

I was a Russian intern living in a well-furnished attic of someone's house. This someone had a daughter who I thought was pretty, and was kind of interested in. The one scene that I distinctly remember from that part of the dream is that we were both upstairs watching television -- a sitcom, if I recall, but not a regular sitcom: this one had an announcer.

As a Russian intern, I was watching me (the real me, not a Russian intern) on TV.

I switches roles. I became the "real me" that was on television. I remember going to a theme park, like King's Dominion or Six Flags. After having this dream, I remember dreaming about this place before.

The last time I dreamed about it, I was the only guest left in the amusement park. The employees were trying to shut everything down, but they were trying to cater to me as well. The ride that pops into my head is the swinging pirate ship. The employees were cleaning the deck and getting it all locked up when I suddenly walked up, just to see what they were doing. They asked me if I wanted to ride it. I saw they were cleaning it and shutting it down, so I said, "No, that's ok." But they began powering it back up and unlocking everything, insisting that I ride it: "Please, ride it! You'll love it!" I said, "I know. I've ridden it before. Besides, you guys are shutting down for the evening. I only came over here to see what was going on." They continued getting everything powered up, and continued pressuring me, "You gotta ride it. Please! You'll love it!" I declined again and turned to leave, and right then, I woke up.

In this dream, Alex S. and I were on our way to the park. Alex, being the sensible one, looked at his watch.

"Geez, Anthony! They'll close in an hour! We probably shouldn't go."

I insisted that I was going to go, whether he did or not. He thought twice about it, and said that he wasn't going. He's want to ride a lot of the rides, and one hour wasn't enough time. It made sense, but I still wanted to go. I dropped him off at his home (which oddly looked like the attic), and continued on to the park.

David H. and Goeff T. were in line to get into the park. I joined the line, and then noticed that I was in the wrong line...

I got out of line, and went to a different line, the one marked entrance. The entrance line crossed over the other line that I had been a part of, forming a cross intersection. The entrance line had one other person in it, David. Geoff had already gone through the entrance and was in the park. (David had been in the park most of the day, but he had left for a while and had just come back.) David turned to me and said that the entrance to the park was his favorite part. I looked at him funny, and understandably so. He explained that the entrance to the park was the qualifying round. If you could make it through the entrance "test", you were admitted into the park. Those who didn't make it through the test had to stand in the other line.

I looked at the lines. On the other side of the entrance gates was a series of slides. Most of them were relatively steep. In order to make it in, you had to climb up the slides. This would put you a good 100 feet above where the entrance level was.

Dying of curiosity, I looked at the other line. The other line also had a series of slides, but these slides went down. Why wouldn't you want to take these slides? It would be easier! The problem was that these slides took you away from the park, and spilled you onto the highway. You can imagine what that was like. There were a lot of people in that line...

I went into the entrance, wondering if I should even bother or just turn around and leave. I looked at the series of slides, and I saw Geoff scrambling up one of them like there was nothing easier in the world. David, also, had run away and was going up a different slide. As I looked closely, these slides were very polished, and very slick. If you slipped, you'd go all the way down to the bottom...

The thought, "GIVE UP!" kept running though my head...

The sitcom voices droned on, and I got a third-person view of me as the Russian intern watching me faced with this small dilemma. The intern turned to the girl he was sitting with, and asked her what she thought would happen. She looked a him, and said that there was only one way to find out. They both turned back to the television...

But in that second of distraction, they missed it. I was already in the park. Geoff and David had run far ahead and were in their respective rides. As I passed by the pirate ship again, the same guys were there, still asking me to ride it.

Outside the television, once again I assumed the role of the Russian intern, and I got up to leave. Alex suddenly poked his head into the room and asked if there was anything anyone needed, because he was going to the store. No wonder the attic looked familiar...

I remember this dream continuing for a while, but I don't remember what else was said or done. All I really remember was that the girl and I got into a discussion over a current event or something...

Freaky dreams

I've been having this weird semi-recurring dream lately. It's even kind of a nightmare...

I went back to Christendom, as is my usual weekend fare. But the campus has changed. The only thing consistent in the dreams that has changed is that the layout of the campus has changed, and gotten much more expansive with more trees, more hills, more valleys, and bigger buildings.

The last time I had this dream, the weather was beautiful. The hills were so radiantly green, and the sky was as blue as blue could be, with a couple pure white clouds in the sky. Such a day couldn't be enjoyed by oneself, so I went around looking for people. No one was around. None of the guys were in their dorms, and none of the girls seemed to be there. Any. Not even people that I didn't know. The place was there, people's stuff was there -- but there was not a soul on campus. It looked like they were all there, somewhere, but I couldn't figure out where. It looked like all the cars and all the vans were there. Where could they be?

Had the rapture happened?

I don't know. I woke up shortly after giving up the search and lying down on a huge green hill to wait for them to show up...

This time, I started off by going to the gym. The gym was much nicer than the current one. It had three levels, an indoor swimming pool, indoor tennis courts, racquetball courts, indoor basketball courts, enormous weight room, a track, showers, saunas--you name it, the gym had it. A young man was giving me a tour, saying (essentially), "Look at how great we are." He was about 18, Mexican, and had a fluffy, white, stereotypical-gym towel draped over his shoulder. Mike P. went jogging by as we were exploring the lower level. We went into the racquetball courts, and he showed me what they could be used for: in one, there was a group therapy session. In another, Dr. Poterack was conducting Madrigals. In another, a group of students (weird looking students -- weird: think of me, and you'll have an idea of what they look like) were in there smoking all sorts of stuff, from cigarettes to weed to pot. As he saw people, he would go up to them, say their name Italian style ("TONYYYYY!!" for instance), and they'd exchange the brief guy hug (right handshake, bringing the right shoulder in to the chest of the other, pat the other guy on the back twice), and then they'd talk for a minute, he'd introduce me, and then they'd say farewell, and we'd keep going. Tyler McA. was there, bigger then ever, still pumping iron.

Mary W. was there -- yes, the same one that's in CA. What was she doing back? I don't know, but it was very good to see her. Since I haven't seen her since graduation, I wanted to chat with her and figure out how she was doing.

It did not seem weird to me that she was in her interview suit, the black suit with a black, knee-length skirt, and the shirt she always wore with the brooch around the neckpiece. What was it all called? You got me... The shirt wasn't violet, wasn't exactly purple. It seemed a lot redder than violet, and a lot brighter, too. I seem to remember that color quite vividly. The neckpiece looked like an ascot, but I knew it wasn't. It was of the same material, but it looked more like it just came around the front, and was pinned together with the brooch.

In any case, she was singing with the choir as an alto. I could hear a distinct alto line coming from her mouth, and it sounded really good, like I remember. (A bit of context: Based on the way that Mary talks about her singing abilities, she can't sing worth a flip. Maybe I'm just wacko, but I think she has a great voice, and I've heard her sing...)

The song they were singing sounded like, "My Little Buttercup", but instead of such innocent lyrics, the song was called, "Mr. Sedevacantist." But since the title needed to be shortened to fit the melody, the group was singing,
"My Little Sedev-ist,
Sweet little Sedev-ist..."

Ken, and everyone else who considers me a Traddy, eat your heart out...

Mike P. was also singing with them -- even though I just saw him running the opposite direction...

Well, we finished exploring the gym, and I left. I got in my car, and drove to the other side of campus. The weather had now changed, and it was getting really cloudy and windy, as though a big storm was coming. I parked the Acura outside in the parking lot, and I was going to go see the guys. I walked in the direction that the guys dorms were, only they weren't there anymore. It was getting darker, the wind started blowing harder, and I suddenly realized that I was walking into a bit of a forest. The trees were mostly branches, and there were vines all over the place. I circled through the forest, hoping to maybe find where the dorms were, but I was only making a large loop back to the car. I noticed a run-down building in the distance, so I went to investigate. As I approached, I heard familiar voices inside, and suddenly they started singing,
"My Little Sedev-ist,
Sweet little Sedev-ist..."

I walked inside. Emma F. was one of three sopranos. There were no altos -- Mary hadn't shown up yet. There were two tenors, Mike P. and Dr. Davidson. There were no basses. The freakiest thing about this: I heard basses. TRUE basses. I opened the door expecting to see Julian A. or John E., but there neither. I looked at Dr. Poterack, assuming that he had sung the bass line, but he somehow knew what I was thinking and shook his head, smiling in his mysterious/mischievous/impish way...

As I went to greet them, they all huddled together in a football huddle. I looked quizzically at them, expecting something, but they stayed there, talking. As I watched, Emma popped her head out, and, in mockery, winked at me. Then, without smiling, laughing or turning red like she does when I wink at her, she ducked back into the huddle. I checked the time, and saw that it was not getting any earlier, and figured I should leave.

Just then, the choir assumed their places, and began the same song again. Mary burst through the door, as though she had just run from the gym in her nice clothes, already singing the alto line.

As I left, I heard the bass line, in particular, really loud, in perfect balance with everything. The invisible true bass was going lower than any bass I've ever heard. It sounded good, but almost mechanical. It went all the way down to the C below the bass clef, and kept going, at least down to the A -- at least. (My lowest note on a really good day is the E-b -- F on a normal day.)

I headed back to my car. I wasn't going to have any luck finding the guy's dorms. As I walked back to the parking lot, I noticed that it, too, had become overrun with vines. That, and my Acura wasn't there anymore. "What if" thoughts filled my head, and I wondered to myself, "What if it got stolen? What if it got blown away? After all, the wind is blowing really hard now..." I looked around, and saw an abandoned old-fashioned burger stand/joint, also covered in vines. The Acura was nose-first into it. The driver's side door glass had been punched through twice -- the glass was still up, but you could see where the hand went through it. The person who did this tried to open the door like you would in a Lamborghini, and, in the process, had torn the door off it's hinges, and reattached it to the top of the car. I mean "reattached" in the loose sense. They had bent the top of the door, so that it would cling to the top part of the door frame, but upside down. They had also found my toolbox and stolen my radio. The car was still running, the lights were on, and the toolkit was left out, as though in mockery.

As I was standing there, dumbfounded, shocked that my radio had been stolen again, I woke up, realized it was a dream, and fell back asleep.

At this point, I realized that I was hearing my driving music playing, but it was coming from inside my car. I looked carefully at the car, and the interior looked like a hybrid between the Sentra and the Acura. There was indeed a hole where my radio was, but my speakers were still cranking out the tunes. I looked into the hole, and saw what appeared to be a 5.25" disk drive in there, but it was an OLD 5.25" drive. It looked oddly reminiscent of a Mac. I couldn't tell if this new thing had replaced my radio, or not.

I checked my pocket. I still had my keys. The car must have been hot-wired. I didn't check to see if it had. I didn't really want to.

In frustration, I walked away from the car. I wasn't going to abandon it there, I just needed a minute. After all, my alma mater was not being taken care of, my car had been ravaged, my friends could not be found (and when I did find them, they kept singing the same song -- I get the feeling it was being directed at me), and I was --well, generally lost, to be honest. I had no idea where I was. I was at Christendom, but the Christendom I knew didn't have the room to expand like this, so the chances of it being in the same place were slim to none.

I walked back to my car, still buried pathetically into the side of the stand, when I started waking up. I felt reality start to come into focus. The car disappeared, as did my surroundings. I was laying flat on my back, and having a hard time breathing (I've been having asthma problems all day). I checked the time: 03:45. Since I wasn't going back to sleep any time soon, and since I thought that you are all dying to know what else runs through the mind of this weirdo, I thought that I'd post this... It's now 05:31, and I'm about to hit the hay again.

Superman Dream

I was reading the Death and Life of Superman last night before I went to bed. The comic books always made my imagination run wild, and the novel is doing the same...

Guess who I was?

If you said Superman, you're wrong...

If you said Doomsday, you're wrong...

"But, Anthony, you said it was a Superman dream. What gives?"

It was loosely based on the Sueprman novel. I don't remember all the details of the dream, but to put it simply, I was the captain of a Federation Starship (Star Trek). My away crew and I beamed down to earth to discover what the incredible source of energy was that was sending shockwaves into space. Imagine our surprise when we saw Doomsday battling Superman. We discovered them early on in the fight, when both of them had landed several blows on each other, but Doomsday still had his entire mask on, and one arm bound behind his back.

{SIDE NOTE} For those of you sho do not know what Doomsday looks like, here are some pictures...

The first one has Doomsday completely wrapped up, before he began his swath across the planet's surface. The second one is late in his fight with Superman. The third is a picture that is of him completely unbound, just do you can get an idea of about how big he is. He's physically bigger than Superman. If Superman is 6'5", then Doomsday is almost 8', and proportionally that much bigger...

{END SIDE NOTE}

At this point, some of Doomsday's clothes and the cables binding him have been torn off, but he still has the mask.

Now I'm a smart Starship captain. I've read the books. I know how it ends. I know that Metropolis really needs Superman, and that the city will go to pot without him. My first reaction is to shoot Doomsday. Not the best idea, because I might shoot Superman. I know what I'll do! I'll beam him up to a holding cell! That'll work! With all of my Federation technology, I'm sure I can keep him contained.

"Lock on to the figure of Doomsday, and beam him right into a maximum holding cell!"

"Are you sure, Captain? Look at what he's doing to Superman!"

"Of course, I'm sure, you idiot! Beam him up!"

"Give us a couple minutes to configure the holding cell, the force fields, and the transporter. We're not used to holding a being of that size and power."

Sure enough, a couple minutes later, after Doomsday has knocked out Superman for the first time, he's transported up to the ship. Hooray for us, and Federation technology!

"CAPTAIN! GET UP HERE NOW!"

Uh-oh...

We transport back to the ship. Just as my crew had warned me, we weren't used to holding something that big. Sedatives just don't work on a big guy like that either. The entire security team was scrambling, armed to the teeth, to take him out. But I don't think that even the Klingons could have done much to him. (Take any other war race you can think of, the Hunters from the Delta Quadrant, the Jem'Hadar from the Gamma Quadrant. Neither would stand a chance...)

In a few seconds, Doomsday had punched his way out of the maximum confinement cell, and was rampaging through my ship. He tore down every force field that stood in his way, and the phaster blasts were only helping him to get free. If Data and Spock had been there, I'm sure that they would have laughed at the stupidity of their captain...

(At this point, the dream stops making sense. I'll explain why in a minute.)

As Doomsday continued his rampage, I got a brilliant idea: Let's give him a lethal dose of something! Once again, hooray for Federation technology. I filled a large syringe up with whatever drug it was, put a dual needle end on it, and hid near the closest exit that would be logical for Doomsday to take. As he came walking up, I popped out of hiding, ran forward, plunged the thing in his chest, hit the injector end to force the contents into him, and ran away as fast as I could. He just stood there watching me the whole time. He continued walking forward with this thing in his chest when he suddenly faltered. He grabbed the syringe, and yanked it out of his chest, but it was too late. It was empty. He fell to the floor, and didn't move again.

I woke up shortly after this lame ending...

Here's why it didn't make sense. First of all, Doomsday's senses and reflexes are much higher than any normal human being. He would have seen me coming, and crushed me. If he didn't, as soon as I made a gesture to hit him with the syringe, he would have crushed me there. If he was really curious, and allowed me to stab him with the syringe, the needle and the syringe would have broken. His body was too tough for any dinky syringe. Supposing that it did pierce his skin and even get all the way inside, it would have hurt, and he would have crushed me there. Finally, even if I had managed to get the entire contents into him, he would have been easily able to catch up with me. I couldn't outrun him.

Anyway... I was amused by this dream, even if you weren't...

Yet Another Dream...

I had a short weird dream last night. I dreamt that I was in a concentration camp, but it was unlike any concentration camp. In this camp, you could do whatever you wanted to do, go wherever you wanted to go, say whatever you wanted to say -- you had full use of your free will. The thing is, everything was monitored. The soldiers who were the keepers of the camp had somehow tapped into our minds, and they were monitoring everything.

There were a lot of people there (Guess who? Christendomites, of course!). We were all living under the same set of rules. There was one very odd rule that we all had to live by: no action or thought could be incomplete. So, for instance, if I planned to go hiking, and I actually started to go hiking, I couldn't stop until I had arrived at my destination. I could take breaks, and if emergencies came up, I could take care of them (emergencies, i.e., nature called, a disaster struck, take your pick), but the action had to be completed.

I could live with anyone, stay anywhere, eat anything, say anything, even something that would be considered treasonous to the regime -- like I said, complete freedom.

Except to stop myself once I started going...

And that's how I died. It was a criminal offense to have an incomplete thought. And everyone knows that most of my thoughts are incomplete. I survived only a few minutes. I was quickly hunted down, and rounded up for execution.

I don't know how I died, or whether I actually did die. Whatever it was, it was weird...

I wonder if Collateral Damage and/or Taco Bell had anything to do with this dream...

My po' widdle memowy...

I had such an awesome dream last night. I wanted to put it up here, but I just now remembered that I had meant to do so earlier, and I can't remember anything about it. Drat!!!

Sorry, I have nothing to amuse you with now...

Well, maybe I can come up with something, if I think really hard...

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....... {POP!}

Shoot. My slippery mind has popped out. Gotta go fetch it.

.....................

.....................

Have you ever tried to pick up a wet watermelon seed off the floor? It's nearly impossible.

.....................

.....................

That's what this is like. Except my mind is smaller than a watermelon seed, and a whole lot more slippery...

Fr. O'Keilty

I had the awesome-est dream last night. I dreamt that I was at Christendom, talking with Fr. O'Keilty. He started telling me one of his life stories, and as he told it, my surroundings changed to reflect everything that he was saying. He told the story so vividly that I was an observer of the events as they happened.

There was also a new priest at Christendom. He was a larger priest with red hair, and a bushy red beard. The color was not unlike Kelly P., but lighter and brighter, like the McG. twins. Remember Brendan's beard? That color, but all over. He was Irish as Irish can be. I can't recall his name in my dream, but I know a priest who kind of looks like this: Fr. Dennis Smith. This priest was not Fr. Smith, but for the sake of the story, I'll give him that name.

Anyway, like I said before, I was talking with Father O'Keilty, and the new priest joined our conversation. Fr. O'Keilty and Fr. Smith, both being Irish, had a jolly good time reminiscing about the old days. Apparently these two priests knew each other from way back when. I asked them how they first met each other. Fr. O'Keilty's eyes lit up, and he looked off into the distance. Fr. Smith told me under his breath that Fr. O'K told the story much better than he did, and we both turned towards Father O'K.

Suddenly, I was no longer at Christendom. I was a silent observer. I was in the middle of a jungle, and it was night-time. Machine gun fire could be heard everywhere, and flashes lit up the area. I looked around to see where I was and whether I was in danger. I was in no danger: I didn't even exist, except metaphysically. I could see and interact with everything, but nothing could see me or hear me, but they could become aware of my presence if I had desired to make it known.

I looked around to see if there was anyone around me. As I scanned the brush, I saw a thin barrel and a pair of eyes peeping out. I knew the eyes, but I wanted to make sure. As I approached closer, I saw what looked like a younger Fr. O'Keilty in marine BDU's holding a sniper rifle. He wasn't firing at anyone, but he was ready to, when it came time. A few solo soldiers came out of nowhere a few paces ahead, but they did not see Father, and ran right on past. As they disappeared, I caught a glimpse of the insignia on one of them: they were Nazis.

I was seeing WWII.

It was clear that Father was, indeed, a priest, but the situation called for the chaplain to take up arms. There was no one around him, and he was in German territory.

I looked around, knowing that Father had no one watching his back. To Father's left, just outside of his line of vision, I saw a Nazi setting up a heavy weapon, along the lines of a chain gun. His partner carried the ammo. They were silently setting up this gun, and it was obvious that they had seen Father.

I didn't have time to act, and even if I did, I don't know what I could have done. I got in the line of fire, knowing full well that my metaphysical presence would not stop a bullet, especially of that caliber. The heavy weapon mowed down Father's section of the brush. I turned, knowing that I would see what I did not want to see.

But Fr. O'Keilty surprised me yet again. Some force stopped the bullets from hitting him, and as flattering as it would be to think that that force was actually my presence, I seriously doubt it. Instead, I credit it to Father's Guardian Angel.

The Germans began to quickly pack up their weapon, believing Father to be dead. Suddenly, a bright flash exploded somewhere behind the brush, exposing the standing silhouette of Fr. O'Keilty. He just stood there, knowing that these two Germans had seen him. Sure enough, they had, and they drew their pistols.

I looked back at Fr. O'Keilty, who stood straight, strong and unmoving, as though he was challenging them to fire. Whether he was or not, they did so. After emptying their magazines at him, he was still standing. Fear struck the Germans, and they hurried to reload.

The soldier started screaming something in German, and the leader started yelling "Silencio!" over and over.

Father calmly drew his pistol and fired two shots. The assistant and then the leader went down. The leader of the two Germans lost his helmet in the fall, exposing a shock of red hair. I looked in disbelief, knowing that it was Father Smith. The subordinate Nazi was not dead, but he was in no condition to think about firing. Father had known exactly what he was doing when he fired, and had simply disabled both men. Father walked up to both men, and stood over them. The subordinate clutched his wound, and looked up at Father. As Father stood calmly over them, the leader moved quickly towards Father and made a grab towards his left leg. I thought for sure that he was making one final desparate attempt on Father's life, but he proved me wrong. He was, instead, embracing tightly, and saying the only word I had ever heard him say in the story: "Silencio." He rocked himself back and forth in his pain, but he looked imploringly up at Fr. O'Keilty's eyes, and Father looked down at him and his buddy.

Smith was crying as he was embracing Father's leg, believing that he and his buddy were dying. Father assured them that such was not the case. As tears continued to flow from the face of the red-headed German, he begged for forgiveness, because he saw that he had attempted to kill a man of God (I'm sure that by this point, he knew that Fr. was a Catholic priest). Father, of course, forgave him.

I knew that they were both in good hands.

The scene switched suddenly. The days were lighter, and Father was back in his BDU's holding the same sniper rifle. Instinctively, I knew that we were out of WWII, and were in the Vietnam War. Father advanced in this new jungle slowly, eying everything. Father waved his arm, and out came a familiar heavy-weapons soldier, but this time, with he was allied with Fr. O'Keilty. They paused for a moment, enough time for Smith to thank Fr. O'Keilty for his assistance. Father asked him what he intended to do with his life. Smith said that after this, he would be stuck in Poland until 1996, but as soon as he is able, he would enter a seminary, become a priest, and then find Fr. O'Keilty.

The time zipped back to the present. Fr. Smith had fulfilled his promises: he is now a priest, and has found Fr. O'Keilty. One part that he neglected to mention, but that was clear to me was that he didn't intend to let the simple priest who changed his life get away from him. He intended to serve Fr. O'Keilty as long as he could be, to help in the payment of a debt that could never be repaid.

Absolutely nothing...

In an attempt to have another good dream, I ate right before going to bed last night. I had a bacon double cheeseburger, large fries, large lemonade, and stuffed jalapeño poppers. Nothing. I dreamed a perfectly normal dream. So normal, in fact, that the strangest part of it was that Mara V. called me to ask for my help. I heard my phone ringing right before my alarm clock went off. I hit snooze, and tried to resume the dream, but nothing happened. I think she needed help with her computer or something...

Drat...

Oh well. Maybe next time...

But it would have been a great way for me to start off the new year...

Another "guy" dream

This is another post that is not for the faint of heart. Towards the end is when it gets pretty bad, but if you have an active imagination, and you know who the characters are, it may seem very real. Now that you've been warned proceed at your own risk.

Last night and the night before, I had very weird dreams. I can't remember what it was the night before last, but last night was a continuation of a horror dream. Oddly enough, I remember the first one as though I just had it. But it seems more like a movie than a dream. Old Freddy was in it. No, not Freddo. Freddy. Krueger. Old-looking man, shriveled to a crisp, claws that only Wolverine could top -- that guy. No, not the innocent, bearded wonder of Pius Hall. Yes, the dream killer.

Just FYI, if this actually is a movie, then it's movie that I fell asleep in front of and dreamed it while it was happening. But I can't figure out where I would have fallen asleep in front of a movie like this. Maybe you can tell me. But in order to know, you would have to know the dream, wouldn't you?

Anyway, to get this started, I should tell you the first dream, as best as I remember it. A family was in desperate shape. They came to Christendom, asking for students to come and help them. Naturally, me being Mr. Nice Guy (right...), I offered my help, and a few other students came as well.

None of the people had any idea how to decorate a house appropriately for Christmas. We find this out after we've gotten to their house. Desperate shape? Please! But not willing to laugh openly at this family, who apparently believed that this was indeed a dreadful situation, I looked at their house, and got an idea of what needed to be done.

It was an average size, two-story house. The house was already decorated, but poorly, and rather unfestively. There were a few lights on it, and ribbon decorations. I then actually noticed that the lights were all clear, and the ribbon was all black. I have no sense of style, but even I know that solid black ribbons and clear lights don't make for a very festive house. I looked at my fellow volunteers, and we just kind of rolled our eyes. If Niki G. (formerly Niki K.) were here, she could have transformed the place like she did with the gym for Christmas formal my senior year. But she wasn't here, and I was one of the decorators. The house would be a bit more festive than what it was currently, but I couldn't promise much...

We go inside and these people inform us that this project must be finished by nightfall. It absolutely had to be finished then. They didn't explain why, but they acted as though it was a matter of life and death.

The other volunteers and I put together a list of everything that these people needed, and told them to go to the store and pick the stuff up. They took off as fast as they could go, and the volunteers and I got to work stripping the house of all of it's "decorations".

It turns out that the black ribbon was everywhere. It took us hours to unwrap and undecorate the various things. Even though hours passed, the family never showed back up. The sun was setting, and the end of the day was quickly approaching.

It turned out that it was a matter of life and death. Freddy showed up and began freaking us out. Oddly enough, it wasn't in a dream world. After running and screaming for a while, we all caught on to the fact that Freddy was outside his territory and could only scare us, but not kill us.

Now that you get the idea of the first dream, on to the next.

It was a year later. This same family showed up at Christendom again, and made the same request. I knew exactly what was coming up, and I decided to go along anyway. Several students also volunteered their services. There was a much larger group of people going this time. I can only remember one student, Nick O.

For some reason, I'm convinced that sometime on the trip between Christendom and the family's same house, I warned my comrades about the impending doom, and told them the truth about Freddy's limited power.

Once again, the house looked the same as before. Once again, we gave the family the same list of things to buy. I told them to make darn sure they came back, or I would exact the fate that they tried to inflict upon us last time upon them this time. I got in their face about this. The other student's were surprised by my agitation at the family, but I think they understood. The family promised to come back, and sped off.

This time, I wasn't going to waste any time in stripping the house. Instead of carefully unwrapping stuff, I had brought my knife with me this time. I started upstairs in the attic. What came as a mixed surprise to me were the number of bodies just lying there dead. Considering it was Freddy, it didn't surprise me, but considering that he was outside his turf, it did. I didn't understand how that could work, but then I got the hint that things had changed. I knew that I would probably have to at least fight if not kill him.

I placed the bodies elsewhere, to prepare them for appropriate burial. When they had all been cleared out, I went to the window. I noticed that the curtain rod had been wrapped in black ribbon. I looked closely, and it was actually two rods bound together by this black ribbon. The fastest way to get them apart, obviously, was to cut the ribbon. As I looked out the window, I pulled out the knife. Two people who I didn't know approached the house. The knife sliced into the ribbon, between the rods. Freddy zipped on the scene out of nowhere like the Flash, and ran them both through with his claws. My jaw dropped open, as he took off again, leaving them lying on the ground, looking similar to the bodies that I had removed. I looked at what I was doing, and pulled the knife out slightly from the cut I had made. It was coated with blood. But not normal human blood. It was bright red, like strawberry syrup, but clear. But it definitely smelled like blood.

I was a little freaked out by these happenings, but I wasn't going to show any fear at all. I knew that's what he wanted. I hurried to finish stripping the room, and then went downstairs.

No one downstairs gave me any indication that they had seen what had happened, or any bodies. Relieved, I went to work on the garage.

Nick O. was working on the garage already. I suggested that we just whip through it, fixing what was possible to do so quickly, and setting aside what was not. Above all, we had to fix the garage door, because that was a security hazard for the family. The garage door did not close. There was about a foot-and-a-half space underneath it. Anything could sneak in from there and endanger the family.

We looked around and found that the door had jumped the track, or else had been forced off it. I got underneath it and pushed up on it, hopefully to help with the weight of the door on its rails. Nick tried to put it back on, but it was not going anywhere. We got into a brief conversation, in which we asked where the family was. I replied that I wasn't sure, but that they needed to hurry up. We both looked at the ground underneath the garage door, and we saw a vehicle's shadow just sitting there. It had caught my eye as I was under the door, but I had dismissed it as I had *ahem* weightier matters to attend to.

{drum roll, cymbal crash} Thank you!!! {crickets chirp} *cough, cough* OK, that was really bad. I know. I know.
"SHUT UP, SMITHA!"
Ok.
"ON WITH IT!"
All right.

We rolled underneath the garage door. It was the family's Jeep Grand Cherokee. Had they gone and come back already? Nick and I looked at each other, and knew that they had not even left. Inside, the entire family was frozen in a very odd rigor mortis. The father had been slashed through the heart, and the mother, in an attempt to get away from her window, had moved closer to the father, but she was also frozen in death with a hole through her head. This one looked more like an odd bullet or a futuristic laser gun than the work of Freddy. The front windshield had a single hole through it. If you looked straight through the hole, you saw through the hole in the mother's head, and through the hole through their teenager's head, and out the driver's side, back seat window. They moment they were frozen in forever was the moment they opened their mouth to scream. That's why no one in the house heard this.

At this moment, I knew I was dreaming.

{pause}

Has this ever happened to you, when you realize you're dreaming, and you can simply take control?

{continue}

I asked myself, should I keep dreaming and confront Freddy, or should I wake up? There would be one result by my confronting Freddy: I would win. I already knew that. It was my dream, and I was in control. Instead of the confrontation that I wanted deep down inside, I woke up anyway.

Darn all the luck. I wanted an adrenaline rush, too...

Another weird dream

I've had this partially recurring dream a couple of times now. It's such an adrenaline rush that I have to share it with you. If you can't tell, I had the dream again last night. The dream wasn't the same as last time. I can tell you that for sure, because if it was, I'd remember a lot more about it.

What was the same were the conditions, the location and the characters.

What was different was what happened.

Here's the dream, as much as I remember.

I was living in this massive house, along the lines of a mansion. The occupants in the house were the rest of the basement boys from my junior year, and my senior year. And guess what? I was still the RA.

Oh, and yes, I did have the greatest floor ever during those years. Trust me. Don't believe me? Ask them. ;)

Anyway, back to the dream. So there were about 30 of us living in this one house. This was the official basement dorm, and we were still on campus. Somehow. I don't know how. Don't bother asking me to explain it. Let's just say that the campus had quite the different layout in my dream.

Now as I said, this was a large, mansion-like house/dorm. It was simply glorious. I would spend my free time drawing a full replica of this house as best as I remember it just to post it here, but there are two problems: #1, I can't draw, so that's out, and even if I could, #2, free time? I still have that? This blog takes up too much of it already!!! Well, I guess that's ok. It kinda lets out my creative side.

Although I don't know if this is the better (best?) side of me...

Enough tangenting. Back to it.

As I said, the "basement" was magnificent. If you have seen Yours, Mine and Ours, take the house that they all live in, chop off the lighthouse tower, and add a story. This was about the size of the house. I don't remember the profile of the lighthouse, but I don't remember it being too deep. This mansion in my dream was very deep, but not as deep as it was wide. The building was whitewashed stone on the outside, lined with huge marble Corinthian columns (I think -- I looked at architectural columns online, and I think they were Corinthian), gold trim, ivory decorations -- the place wasn't just a mansion. The place was almost a palace.

Yeah, hook me up. :)

I may have even had a silver sports car... ;) Ok, no I didn't, but a silver sports car would have fit in quite nicely there...

Well, this palace was surrounded by huge gardens and forests which were just there. I don't know how, they just were. And if you zoomed out even more, you found that this place was on an island.

Some of you are probably asking, "How is this still the basement of Ben's, and how is this still part of Christendom?" You should know by now that most of my dreams are kind of way out there. My imagination is just running wild at this point. Just let go of reality and nod your head in appreciation of weirdness. :) Even if you don't really appreciate it.

Now if it's on an island, how do you get to it? Well, you could fly. There is a helipad there, of course. Or you could drive. Most people chose this option, as this presented the best challenge. You'll find out why...

Well, the girls decided to come over. I don't know which girls, I just know it was a pack of them. When I say "come over", at this point, I really mean "raid the dorm". I can't blame them. Catherine's, Campion, Margaret's, Theresa's and Augustine's (which is now a guy's dorm -- take that, you crazy womenfolk!!!) don't even hold a candle in comparison. No, a candle is too nice of a comparison. As it stands in reality, those dorms don't hold a candle to Ben's. In comparison to this, I should have said, they don't hold up a match to this dorm. :)

All of a sudden, I somehow sense that a great number of you are very upset by this wording. Just as a reminder, I don't go to school there anymore. Even if you were to raid St. Ben's, it wouldn't affect me. :)

Unless whenever you raid, you put down in big letters, "In loving memory of the great Smitha." Then it would affect me. ;)

But raiding St. Ben's is a can of worms that you don't want to open, right, ladies?

Anyway, the guys all saw that the place was being raided, and we all took off to the girls side. We figured that the best way to deal with this was to strike back immediately. But we all know that the Basement Boys are awesome raiders, so without any planning at all, all the guys hopped into the vehicles that were parked in the underground garages and took off down the road.

As I said, there are two ways off the island, driving or flying. You could boat across, but no one had boat, and besides that would take a while. There are two roads off the island: a quick way and a safe way.

Ken F., Paul P., Peter K., the Bobfather, Bryan S., Alex K., etc. -- like I said, all the guys with vehicles hopped in them and took off. Guys like John J., Michael C., dove into whatever vehicle they could. Both of my cars were in use. I was at the helm of the Acura. I tossed the keys for the Nissan at someone else, and they caught them. All the cars were full of raid-happy guys.

Now, just for clarification, raids are strictly against the rules at Christendom. In real life, I would never have been in the leader of a raid. In fact, I don't think I've never been a participant in a raid while in a position of authority -- another good mark for a clean record. :)

In real life, have I known about raids? Oh yes. What have I done to stop them?
Me: "Guys, you know that raids are against the college's rules, right?"
Them: "Yep."
Me: "You all know that I'll bust you if I catch you?"
Them: "Oh, yeah."
Me: "Good."
That's all that's necessary. :)

This is not how it was in my dream. Picture, if you will, over thirty guys walking out of their rooms and seeing a raid in progress. All eyes turn to me. My subconscious took over. I wasn't about to stop them. They knew that, and within seconds, we were well on our way to returning the favor.

I roared out of the garage, flames shooting out of the back of the fully-modified Acura. Bryan, in his redneck truck, and Alex, in his awesome old-school van with antlers, tore out of their respective garages, Dukes of Hazzard style, with Paul in hot pursuit in his own truck, pipe clenched in his teeth, and his shotgun at the ready. The Bobfather zipped along in his Beemer, tailed closely by Peter's overstuffed car (a Corolla, I think?). Anyway, the rest of the cars all zipped out, as I said, full of raid-happy guys, laughing in eager glee with what they were about to pull off on the girls' dorms. There were many roads around the island, all connecting to each other in a massive web, all connecting to the two ways off the island.

I decided to take the fast way. Some guys were right behind me, others took the safe way.

The safe way was a tunnel leading under the bay back to the mainland.

The fast way was a bridge over the water, but not any normal bridge.

{pause}

Have you heard of the term suspension of disbelief? I hope for your sake, you've already applied this principle. You'll really need it now.

{continue}

Along the lines of a video game, this bridge had a speed limit, but the speed limit was a minimum required-to-make-it speed. This was about 100 mph.

A little bit of physics applies. This is a high-enough bridge to not worry about high water, but not so high that a battleship can pass through. With this in mind, the engineer behind it designed a passage for the extra-large ships that would be passing through, and here's how it worked.

This road was a straight shot out over the bay waters, until about the middle. Just before the middle it zigged hard left, and then zagged even harder right. Then it went zigged back hard left so that the bridge was parallel to the road before the zig-zags, which makes anyone wonder why the zig-zags were there. And then, along the lines of Mr. Freeze at Six Flags over Texas, this road was a straight shot out, until it suddenly went vertical. Straight up. This is why driving 100 MPH was necessary, and faster was recommended. Physics lost all effect as the cars sped up from 100 MPH around the sharp bends, and continued to accelerate well into the vertical roadway. (The Gorillaz 19-2000 music video suddenly pops into my mind as an example.) Well, I already had the car in overdrive, the pedal to the metal, and I was accelerating from about 110 MPH. I hit the curves at 110, got out of them at over 125, and got up to 135 by the time I hit the vertical ramp. Part of physics was in effect, because while my tires were still on the road, I had the potential to accelerate -- it's just that gravity didn't work while my car's tires were on the vertical ramp. When I left the ramp at about 150 MPH, physics and gravity suddenly kicked in.

At this point, the engineer was a pure genius, because how I get out of this seeming predicament was not normal. Not that I'm implying that this predicament was by any means normal... In reality, a car going up a road like that would topple over backwards. Not this time. I shot straight up, and the vehicle began to decelerate, but still go straight up. One wonders what the point is -- I'll simply land on the same road I just took off from. Nope. Like I said the engineer behind this road was a genius. He knew that once my car reached a certain altitude, the winds would take care of the rest. And that's exactly what happened. The winds blew in the exact direction I needed to go. It pushed the nose of my car down and moved my entire car forwards, towards the road on the other side of this ramp. I took the car out of gear and took my foot off the accelerator. Time to save a bit of gas. ;)

By now, all upward motion had stopped and gravity had ahold of me, with all it's terrifying reality. I saw that I was heading exactly towards the road (car landing strip?), and I was very glad, because deep water lay everywhere else. The landing strip was also a bridge, not much wider than the road I had just been on. As I approached the ground, the sunglasses went on, the clutch went down, the car went into gear, and a second before I hit the ground, I popped the clutch and floored it. I hit the ground hard, for all it's worth, but the Acura took it very well, which is good, because less than a hundred feet in front of me was another sharp right, which led directly onto the mainland.

At his point, I had so much adrenaline going through my bloodstream that I woke up feeling like a million bucks. And very thirsty... I got up, got a drink, and tried my hardest to pick up where I had left off, but the furthest I got in it was that after I entered the mainland, I was driving through the forest on the mainland, only to be told by the real Ken F. that it was time to get up for work.

What a way to start the day...

An amazing series of dreams

Well, for me they were amazing. You'll probably be bored to tears by them... ;)

#1
I was driving my new car to the Lilly's house. Now, to everyone who knows the Lillies, everyone knows that you don't have to drive along a steep rugged mountain path lining the coast of a huge body of water to get there. But, in fact, that's what I was doing, and I'm almost certain that my destination has not been misrepresented. Anyway...

Now, the new car is a two-door hatchback, with a manual transmission. The transmission makes it a lot more fun than an automatic, but it's a smaller car than my Sentra, which, also, needless to say, can be a problem for more than two people. Fortunately, it was me and one other person, although I can't remember who.

Anyway, I was on my way along this wide open highway (I'll get there, don't worry) in front of a long line of cars. For some reason, they are all tailgating me, flashing their lights, in an attempt to tell me to hurry up. Well, I'm already doing about 10-15 over the speed limit on this wide-open highway in a wide-open country. They could have passed me but they didn't. Well, A few short miles zip by, and I suddenly find myself decelerating, much to the dismay of everyone behind me, because up ahead...

...the road suddenly becomes a one-lane, one-way-at-a-time road, that is twisted, going sharply uphill, and along a very jagged mountainside. (See?) Now, I said that I decelerated. That's true. I took my foot off the gas, and shifted the car into neutral, so that I would slow down at a much more gradual rate. Everyone else braked hard and started approaching this turn with a lot more caution than I. I zipped along the winding path (car still in neutral) until it really started ascending, at which point, gravity slowed the forward motion of my car. I saw a speed limit sign: it read 2 1/2 MPH. That's right, 2.5, 5/2, 10/4, take it how you will, two-and-one-half miles per hour. Well, I was easily speeding, but gravity was helping slow me down.

And then something blew out the window. I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was something like my hat. (For the sake of continuing the dream, I will say it was my hat.) By now, the car had lost all forward momentum, and had even begun drifting backwards. Well, I let it drift for a little bit, then applied the brakes, stopping right next to where the hat was. Unfortunately, it wasn't right there on the road, it was out a little ways. There was no room to actually get out of my car, but I could open the door and lean wa-a-a-a-ay out ... over the sharp drop ... and sharp rocks ... and deep body of water way below extending as far as the eye can see...

Well, I just barely got my hat in my left hand (my right hand was holding onto the door as an anchor for myself in this endeavor) when I woke up...

It was 3AM, I had been asleep since 10PM, and I needed a drink of water...

When I went back to bed, this is when the better dream occurred:

#2 (I think anyone who reads this one will get the idea of where this dream came from...)

It started out really weird. I was in a dark place, carrying this huge thing on a pole. I didn't know what I was doing or where I was going, but I knew that I absolutely could not put down this pole. I didn't even know what was on top of it, but it was heavy. There was some reason for me to be going fast -- it was like there was something or someone chasing me.

Anyway, I duck in and out of tunnels, stumble in the darkness and recover, all the time seeing this extremely faint light in front of me, the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. In spite of however many turns I took, it was always the right one, or if it was wrong, I somehow always got back to the path.

I finally arrived at the light. I set down the pole upright and exhausted. I leaned the top-heavy pole against the wall in a corner. I took a breather, and that's when I noticed what looked like a ticket booth off to the side. I wondered if this is where I was taking this heavy object.

I walked over to the booth, and asked the person manning it, "Excuse me, is this the place where I'm supposed to be delivering this ... pole?" The person turned and looked at me. A few lights went on in the booth, and I could see it was a woman. She looked at me with some confusion, and asked me, "Delivering?" I told her that I didn't know what the pole was for, but that I was delivering it. If it was for me, why was I so worried about getting it to a destination in time?

The lady smiled at me, and told me to step outside. Something in me told me not to, that I wouldn't like what was out there, and that I would rather stay in the darkness-- after all it was bright out there. But her voice told me that everything was all right, and that I had nothing to fear. I turned in the direction of the light. She called me back. She said, "Don't forget that." And when she said those words, more light from outside shone inside, and I looked at what she was pointing at. The pole that I was carrying had a beautiful crucifix on top.

(Pause -- ok, you all know what a processional cross looks like. Picture that. Ok -- resume.)

The pole was a dark wood material, and the cross was much wider than the pole. The pole was about eight feet tall, maybe two inches diameter. The cross was about five inches wide and two inches thick. The cross was about two feet tall, and a foot wide. The wood was lighter in color than the rest of the pole. The corpus was silver. There were decorations on it, but I can't remember what they were.

Ashamed of my previous thoughts about "the pole", I hoisted the cross on high and proceeded to exit the cave. I was proud to be marching under such a standard.

And then I saw it -- one of the most magnificent sights that any Catholic would ever hope to see on the day of his judgment. I saw a magnificently huge army standing in perfect formation, all bearing their own standards, their own crucifixes.

Freeze -- picture the default Windows XP background: the green, rolling hills underneath a blue sky. Very peaceful. Now, picture that, but lusher, greener, bigger hills, valleys, mountains, stretching as far as the eye can see. More natural than anything you could ever see on a computer. The grass is soft and a couple inches tall. Flowers are shooting up everywhere. The sky is bluer than you've ever seen it. "Oh, no," you say, "I've seen the sky so blue, and the grass so green that..." Blah, blah, blah. Trust me -- you've never seen a sky like this before. Play.

All my family, relatives, friends, and neighbors there. (Not that I'm going to account for all of you reading this.) As well, there is an army (army is an understatement) of legions (still an understatement) of people all waiting to march. I walk out proudly bearing my cross, and I see that everyone has their own, perfectly unique to them. One I saw up ahead, but I couldn't place who the owner was, had a pole six feet tall, with what looked like a 4'x2' crucifix mounted on it. Now, that was bulky, but simply magificent. There were some crucifixes that were gold, some of silver, some of wood. There were tiny crucifixes mounted on top of extremely tall poles, etc. As I approached this body of people, I saw an opening next to Josh K. and in front of Ken F. The position would have put me between Ida F. and Josh. I took up the empty slot and Ida suddenly left and ran forward. I assume that she was commanding this particular regiment.

I woke up shortly after this. It was Ken asking me if I wanted to get up then...

A really weird dream...

Last night, I had a really weird dream. I can't tell you what it's about. But I will tell you that I was played for a fool. And I woke up feeling quite foolish...