A friend's wedding

I'm at school in North Carolina. It's near graduation and I can't remember if I had a required class that I stopped attending or not.

A friend is getting married extemporaneously. The ceremony will be on the border of North Carolina and Virginia on the coast - a four hour trip. My friend's father is giving several of us a ride in his pick-up truck. I complain that it's a bad idea that my friend is getting married - I say that he can get away with staying in a hotel a few nights and not paying for it, but he won't be able to get away with skipping out on all the bills related to a wedding.

I realize I'm very uncomfortable sitting in the bed of the truck and dread the four hour ride. I have my friends dad stop the truck as we are entering a highway on ramp. He meets me on the driver's side in the middle of the road - there's a cop with it's lights on coming and we're blocking the police car's way. I explain that I don't want to ride all the way in the bed of the truck and am going home and riding my bike up.

Walking back to my house to get my bike, I realize there's no way I can make it to the ceremony in time. I think about stopping by the liquor store.

Inheritance sabotaged

There's a round old oak kitchen table I'm inheriting from my parents. I visit them to find they've cut out bullseye circles from middle. I'm hurt and furious as this is the only piece of furniture I really want to inherit.

Hungry at a party with frozen food

I'm arriving back from vacation with my family. I'm following everyone toward a long case of concrete stairs on a steep hill. My dad has turned around and is hustling up the stairs. He lands wrong and injures his ankle. I help him walk as I scold him for pushing himself too hard.

My extended family is having a part on a big deck. Along the rails are open-top freezers of food as one would find in a grocery store. I'm hungry. My brother walks onto the porch with a small barely warm steak which he says is mine.

A gondola ride along a river

I'm in a stadium carved out of rock with my family. We're under a ceiling of rock - there is no event going on, but jumbo television screens are showing a sports ceremony similar to the Olympics opening or closing ceremony. Suddenly, a security guard to the side of our section starts firing into the crowd. Nobody panics, not even everybody takes notice and those who do don't see it as unusual that the crowd is being fired upon. I leave.

I'm driving down a steep hill in an unfamiliar car. The brakes don't work well and I'm unable to make a turn at the bottom of the hill. I crash through a guard rail into overgrowth. I've had a few beers and don't want to call a tow truck or have the police find out. I fold up the car like a tent and carry it through the woods by the road. The road runs parallel to a river - the area between the road and river is a public park. I walk over a large hill of gravel and see an area of the park beyond a fence which requires a ticket to access. I crawl under the fence, nobody notices.

There is a roller coaster/train/gondola type ride running parallel to the river. There are grapples on cables passing by - passengers/riders are attached to most. I take a place on a line and immediately realize I've gotten on a line intended for small children. I have t6o switch to the adult size quickly as the line is approaching a narrow vertical chute - the child chute isn't large enough for me.

I get off at the end of the line and meet a friend walking toward me on a path through the woods. The dream shifts - my friend and I are the engineers responsible for keeping the ride in working order. My friend wants a cigarette - they are sold in packs of four at concession stands along the route. They're very poor quality and my friend complains. We grumble that if we quit our jobs, the owners would have to pay a lot of money to get someone who could figure out how the contraption works.

End of the world

I have a view of a beach from the sky. The shadow of an alien spaceship creeps across people on the beach and everyone knows the world will end.

I'm running towards a building in a crowd of people; I think everyone is going there to spend the last few minutes of their lives having sex, but another crowd of people is rushing out of the building in the opposite direction. We engage in sort of a reverse tug of war where we try to push the other group back.

Gathering frogs

I'm with my family on vacation. We're packing to go home. I'd brought my frogs along and many have escaped. I'm picking them up all over and am finding more frogs than I had brought along including species I don't keep. I see two or three in the floorboards of my brother's car and tell him it would be easier to get them if he got out of the car. I pick up fistfuls of frogs which are getting quite dry. Before placing them in a vivarium, I run them under watch which is too hot - they all die. There are frogs crawling in the grass - I'm picking them up left and right and running out of places to put them. They are escaping from the buckets and vivariums I'm putting them in, but when I catch them I always get more than have escaped. I think I see a particularly rare frog in a pocket of my niece's back pack, but it ends up being a mouse. I pick up what I think is a frog, but see is a salamander when it pierces its tail deep into my finger.

I'm walking with a woman who is perhaps a friend's mom. We're listening to someone tell a story about how they volunteered as a UN representative's servant in Africa. We walk over railroad tracks - a horse with wings traveling on the tracks almost runs us over. The woman tells a story about a movie she watched about a young rich Indian boy who was very interested in living in nature. The punchline of the story was that she was watching it in Norway and it had the exact same plot as a British movie she had seen in England. We cross the street in front of my high school.

Victim of attempted genocide

My immediate landscape is a series of large rooms. Conservatives are leaving civilization, taking everything useful and killing many people on the way out, planning on returning and rebuilding after liberals die. Most of us left behind are afraid and concentrating on not getting killed; I notice many useful things and things which could be used as weapons have been left behind: long files, knives, shovels. I say we need to not give up but fight back and point out the conservatives have been sloppy in their attempted genocide.

Someone suggests we go live in an abandoned Amish community. It seems like a great idea and I head off with a group.

Won a lottery

I'm in a stadium at half time. There is and Irish-American rights demonstration. I know they're going to kill someone as part of the demonstration. I leave the stadium.

I'm walking with Emily Haines. We stop to make out every once in a while. I feel guilty because I'm dating someone but can't remember who.

I approach a second stadium and get in line for tickets. When you pay to get in, you get a raffle ticket. Mine is blank. I'm told that if you have one of the blank tickets, you've won one of the prizes but won't know what until prizes are drawn. The whole time, I'm trying to have a low profile because I'm not supposed to be there and it's dangerous.

In the President's cabinet, horribly burned

There's a military air operation going on. A plane with a jointed nose is slowly flying towards me, looking for something on the ground. It shoots out a stream of flames and I get seriously burned. I'm taken away in a stretcher along with five others - there are two of each of the six of us and we're hidden from the plane behind a wall because we're in the President's Cabinet.

Table turning and in a flying car

I'm hanging out with coworkers - one is leaving to take Jason DeRusha's job as a reporter at WCCO, who had made the change due to budget cuts. We're in a huge room with many tables which has no ceiling. For some reason, I have to hook several electrical extension cords together so they run from a door to another at they other side of the room. We're sitting at tables waiting for something. I try to perform the "table turning" parlor trick.

I notice a sliver in my chest, driven straight into my flesh. It comes out easily. It has fins like a dart - I realize it was from a sheet of small adhesive labels and fetch a sheet like it so I can show everybody what was in my chest.

I'm flying in some sort of vehicle which is more like a car. I stop to observe a black vortex forming in the clouds, many people are watching it. I take a few pictures. I call the phone company to report it.

Eating at three restaurants in a row

I'm at a restaurant with a girl I've been dating. We're just finishing a meal, getting up to go to a second restaurant to meet my folks for dinner. I guzzle what remains of my beer. At that restaurant - seemingly the Leaning Tower of Pizza, I order what I think will be a grilled tuna sandwich, but I get a loaf of bread torn in half and a little canned tuna spread on top. I think about complaining, but look at the menu again and see what I ordered is called "SOME BREAD WITH A BIT OF CANNED TUNA".

We all drive separately to as third restaurant. I'm walking towards a swinging bridge that leads to the restaurant. There are high school athletes leaving the building after a game. A team of paramedics is going in with a stretcher. I'm worried that it might be for my dad, but it ends up being a player who was injured.

Hiding a baseball

I'm playing in a H.S. baseball game, an umpire makes a controversial call on a home run by the opposing team. Suddenly, I'm in the outfield as the call is being judged; I agree that the ball remained in play, making it a home run for the opposing team. I secretly find and pick up ball in tall grass. It's red and has a dent in it. There is a line of trees and house in outfield, I seems that this home run is some sort of record - seemingly the 400th home run to hit the house or go into the trees - and the ball is valuable.

Everybody is looking for ball, I'm trying to find my friends and avoid a guy I think suspects knows I have the ball.

There's some sort of catastrophe or military attack that causes the school to go into lock-down - nobody can enter or leave the grounds, but it seems to be enforced arbitrarily but with deadly force. I have all my belongings at the school and somehow roll everything up into a rug and can carry the bundle on my bike. There's a wall people are climbing over, I hoist my bike and the bundle over the wall. On the other side, I overhear that "They're only concerned about vehicles with red letters on their plates." My car is in the lot - I look at the plates to see they are red. My bike has black lettered plates.

Late for school

I'm in the Ohio house getting ready for school. I dump a bunch of cigarette butts into the toilet and flush. It becomes a bit clogged. I flush again and it overflows a bit.

I'm in the kitchen fixing a bowl of cereal. There are a lot of insects around and it's difficult to keep them out of my cereal bowl. I'm at the table eating with my parents. I'm late.

We're in a school bus which is also a boat. My dad is driving. There are very steep snow-covered tracks the boat races down. Here and there, there are posts marked "Jew" - a Jew is a very fast boat that has special passing lanes.

A toddler is sitting in my lap. His dad is driving the boat-bus. The child has to pee. His dad asks someone to pass a special container the child pees in to me. He tries to explain how to set it up for the child, but I don't get it right. The dad reaches over to arrange things and I put a had on the wheel to steer. It seems we are entering onto railroad tracks and I try to veer away. The boat-bus plunges into a gully and wedges against a tree. I'm now the only one driving the bus. I realize I must shift into reverse very quickly to get the bus out of the ditch. I successfully do so and notice there was only one lane of train tracks on the street I was trying to avoid.

In a classroom

I'm sitting at a desk in a classroom.

Missed a concert, playing cards with friends

I'm supposed to attend a concert at the fairgrounds with a friend, but he doesn't call me as planned. I go to the fairgrounds at midnight to find the concert is over. I see my friend leaving but don't speak to him. My home is right net to the fairgrounds - I go home and call my friend to tell him my feelings are hurt.

My parents call me before dawn. Both are on the phone and ask me if I have AIDS. I get furious at them and don't answer.

I'm with an ex-girlfriend, we're going home to where we lived. Her friends live next door - one of them comes outside and invites us in to play dice. He goes inside and locks the door. We knock, her other friend comes to the door and lets us in - I notice there's no glass in the door window and I could have reached in and let ourselves in. Our friends are playing a dice game with so many dice they're piled on top of each other. I sit down and suddenly we're playing cards. My friend starts to pack a bowl of marijuana, our friends get up to go to bed. I stop them to ask about a terrarium full of moss. The response is that the moss is so delicate, there's a sugar plantation at the tip of each leaf. I notice there's insects inside. I offer him a frog to keep inside even though it is too hot for it. I ask if I can take a lump home to put in my frog vivariums.

I smoke marijuana out of a long peace pipe with my friend. I'm anxious as I haven't smoked pot in a long time and don't know how it will affect me.

Swallowing goldfish and preparing for a hike with a friend

I'm sleeping in a bed at my brother's apartment. I'm woken by children pulling my sheets off and using them as robes. A dried bat or rodent leg falls from a grilled trap door in the ceiling. I open the door to discover it's a Murphy bed folded into the ceiling. I play piano quietly to myself as children and strangers mull about in adjoining rooms.

I'm walking past a Civil War monument on a college campus. "Southern Rights" advocates are demonstrating in front of the statues and counter protesters in identical dress are counter-demonstrating in front of them, holding hands in a single line facing the statue. I pat the head of the last protester as I ride between the Southern rights demonstrators and protesters.

I'm still on the campus with a friend from high school who attempts to swallow live goldfish. He puts ten or twelve in his mouth, but can't swallow and spits them out on the sidewalk. I see that he was trying to chew them. I tell him "You're not supposed to chew!" and swallow the few that don't have any teethmarks.

I'm back at my brother's apartment - my parents and brother have left for a vacation by the coast - I am to meet them there later. Both my friend and I need to leave at 2:30 for separate destinations. We both miss our trains. I'm bragging about hiking to people in the train station. I wonder if I should extend my vacation and hike in the Appalachians.

Back at my brother's apt, I see it's been sublet to a group of drag queens. A man violently pushes a woman below the floorboards into a hole, I help her get out. I find my brother's backpack.

I'm walking with my friend who is also wearing a backpack. We're carrying no supplies, but our packs are heavy - my friend is struggling. I see that he doesn't have have his hip belt fastened - I explain that one is supposed to carry the weight on the hips, not the shoulders, but he continues to trudge along with the hip belt flapping.

I wonder if I have enough money to buy supplies for the hike.

Fed rotten soup

I'm hungry; a friend gives me an extra-tall - like a 16 oz beer - Campbell's tomato soup can to eat. The lid is recessed into the top so the volume of soup is similar to a regular can. I eat it right out of the can. After several mouthfuls, something seems funny about the soup. I notice it expired in 2006 and had my friend tells me it's been open a few weeks and she got food poisoning when she ate it. There are green and brown chunks in the soup.

I'm in a large, open bathroom trying to make myself throw up. I can't and move from toilet to trashcan to toilet. There are bidets in the room too. Eventually I'm able to vomit a little into a pit with feces and urine sitting in it.

I get in an elevator from the second floor to go to my apartment, which is on the 4th floor. Someone is already in the elevator going to the first floor. The first floor is a mall, I get out. Some sort of event or festival is going on. I visit a record store, but can't find anything I want to buy. There's a section of dinosaur-like plastic toy monsters that have movable tails and horns in fantastic shapes like they were made with a 3-d Spirograph.

Jumping over oncoming cars

I'm in a room with many dogs. Several are very long and yellow and identical.

I'm standing on a highway jumping over cars. I can fly a bit, but not as much as I would like to, just enough to be able to hover and let a car pass below me.

An inadequate buffet

I learn that somebody else has figured out an ActionScript trick or technique and has gotten an award or wrote a book that gained them recognition. I'm upset because I had figured the same thing out years ago.

I'm traveling with a male companion. We pass a pavilion with six or seven rooms, all demonstrating or teaching some sort of yoga or martial art.

I'm walking near the shore of the Lake of the Woods to meet my extended family for a meal. The sun is setting. I stop to take pictures of it. I notice the wind is blowing patterns on the calm water, rippling the surface into different hues and textures of blue. I'm intending to cut the photos into shapes and assemble a picture from them.

I'm late for the dinner. Hardly anything is left: just two hamburger buns and a little bit of sloppy joe meat. One of the buns has a bite taken out of it.

Owed pot, street party

I'm with an acquaintance who in the dream I had given money to to buy marijuana years ago. We go to his house and are sitting in the kitchen. All o0f his roommates have wheelchairs.

I'm alone with one of his roommates who tells me everybody else went to buy pot. When they arrive back, my friend won't give me any pot which I think is unfair. I tell him I'd rather just have the money I gave him anyway. Everyone is smoking pot, I don't want to. I think about asking my friend to just give me a little bit in case I want it later.

There is a commotion outside. Everybody goes out - there is a large party at the neighbors house that has spilled out onto the street. Police are on the opposite side of the street with their guns drawn - everybody that came out of the house shows their hands to the police. I cross my arms and show my hands and want to go back inside, but don't want to move quickly.

One officer shoots someone in the street - immediately after, the rest of the police lob tear gas into the crowd. The teargas doesn't seem to afftect us. We go back into the house.