Getting back from a hiking trip

I'm in a house preparing for a few days hiking in the Appalachians with friends. My hiking companions don't know about hiking and are horsing around.

We're back from the hike and there is a big mess in the room we were preparing in. There's a laundry bag full of my dirty clothes. Someone's mom is watching as I dump out the clothes and find a bunch of food in the bottom. We were supposed to take the food on the hike but it got left behind and rotted.

Dead frogs, meeting John Lennopn and Frank Zappa

I'm hiking in the Appalachians with a hiking partner I don't know. We don't have enough supplies or money, I have 2 $20 bills. I give one to my partner and tell him to say we're both down to our emergency $20. We have to climb vertical escalators clogged with people staying in a fancy hotel. There is some sort of music festival going on, it's my job to film it. I meet Frank Zappa and John Lennon.

I'm to present a film of the concert at work. There was software on the camera that allowed you to search for objects it recognizes. I've put together a really great movie and realize I could make it better by superimposing transparent images from a found film I have. I wonder how or if I should credit the filmmaker of the found film and decide not to even credit myself for the movie asa

I'm coming back from vacation with my girlfriend. My vivariums are all full of junk and a few of my frogs have died. Some of my fruit fly cultures are over producing, so I have a lot of flies to feed the survivors. As I'm feeding them, I discover many dead frogs and discover the windows were open. I think the frogs must have frozen to death, but also find some of my frogs outside in the cool fall weather.

Hiking, unable to communicate in a cafeteria

I'm hiking in the New England mountains by myself early in the morning. I make good time walking down from a peak I had climbed the previous day and stop to take pictures of a valley. It's a rural residential area. I wonder why I came back down the way I came and decide I must have wanted to hitchhike from the road to a more interesting part of the trail.

I'm among many people who seem to be attending a fair. My old band is playing, I'm glad to see friends I haven't seen in a long time. I have to fill out several pages of paperwork for an unknown reason. I drop the paperwork off at a long row of folding tables and sit on a toilet which is one of many in a line parallel to the row of tables. An attractive woman finishes next to me, it takes me a long time to finish and I have to wipe with leaves.

I'm now in a cafeteria beyond the row of tables. I realize I only have $11 and this must last the rest of my hike. Nobody in the cafeteria speaks English. The cafeteria is closing and I'm having difficulty communicating that I need to buy something hardy for little money.

I'm walking outside the cafeteria in a war zone. The narrator is explaining that it's thought the bomber from an ethnic tribe infiltrated a rival ethnic tribe as he shared physical characteristics which could pass as the rival tribe and filled out fraudulant paperwork.

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.

Woody Allen dies, hunting butterflies

I'm preparing to hike the Appalachian Trail with someone who is a friend in my dream. The friend has to first give a presentation in a town near the trail. As the friend's dad is driving us there we discover she hasn't saved any money for the trip. Her dad asks me if I know if she has a credit card - I don't. I think about asking her dad for traveler's checks so I don't end up paying for my friend.

We arrive in the town where she is to give the presentation. In the building I learn that Woody Allen has died and that my friend will be reciting haiku in a group. The leader of the group says they thought about having me perform too but didn't think I'd be very good. I'm asked what stage experience I've had - I say I've done everything. The leader asks if I've shown worms being born and I reply, "Yeah, that was on the Johnny Carson Show - they were black worms," knowing that I had only dreamed of this.

While my friend is performing, I go into a yard next door - we had been planning on collecting six plant or animal specimens each day on the trip - I'm trying to catch one of several butterflies on a wooden fence. The owner of the house comes home, I explain what I'm doing and ask if it's OK. She tells me to leave, but in a very inviting way. As I start to leave she tells me she meant I could stay. The butterflies are gone. Her son tells me he'll check to see if they've gone into the basement. I return to the other side of the yard.

I see something slithering through the grass. I step on it - it's a Canadian goose with a brick and board on its back. I don't try to catch it as I don't like Canadian geese. I catch a butterfly on a woodpile, but it disintegrates when I place it in the bag.

Preparing for a hike

I'm in the Appalachians outfitting myself for a hike with two people who are friends in the dream. We're near the trail and I'm hungry - the small town has an open-air food court with only American food - several burger places, chicken shacks, a rib joint. I'm in the mood for Asian noodles.

We visit an outfitter - my companions don't have the basic hiking equipment. While they're looking for backpacks and sleeping bags, I'm trying on a denim jacket that has eyelets like a shoe. I have difficulty lacing it - I'm using frayed electrical wires.

Skiing in the mountains with no snow

I'm hiking the Appalachian Trail again. A hiking buddy and I decide to take a side trip. We're wearing skis but there's no snow on the ground. We move on for hours, sometimes coming upon roller coaster like slides.

We arrive at our destination - a super steep ride that starts through a chute. I'm a bit apprehensive, but pay the $4 to get on it. I ride it down so quickly I don't remember anything about the ride. At the bottom, buses are leaving which will take us back to the trail, but decide not to pay the $12.95 fare and walk back instead. I'm disoriented and don't know which way to walk. My friend leads, claiming to know the way back. There are many deep gullies with roads on them, I become frustrated that my friend leads us over very steep grass-covered hills which a much harder to navigate than simply staying on a road.

It's late afternoon an we seem to be very near the ride still. I complain to my friend he seems to be taking us in circles and ask him how he knows where we're going. He tells me he knows we left at an elevation much higher than where we were now and that being I'm a bit taller than him he can look at me and know if we're going up or downhill. A stranger tells us our destination is three or four hours away by foot. We decide to go back and ride the bus.

Immediately after paying for our tickets, people start calling our cellphones asking if we'd like to be picked up and driven back.

A game in the parking lot

I've recently moved into a new apartment. I have not gotten my deposit back from my last landlord, but can't remember where I lived so don't know who to go to. It's spirngtime and there's a lot of melting snowbanks full of cinders and sand. I throw handuls of the dirty snow which burst into beautiful patterns when hitting the ground.

There are outside video game like things in the parking lot. There are a group of males playing a particular game which takes two players to play. It's like a squirt gun game at a fair. We play a few times but don't win.

The two guys give up and leave. A girl who I find attractive joins me to play the two player game. I realize the game will accept more than a quarter at a time. I put in a whole lot of change. My co-player is short, I have to hold her up to aim the squirt gun. On the first try we do better than I did with my former teammates. I reach into my pocket for more change and pull out a wedding band I found on the roadside decades ago in waking life while walking the Appalachian Trail which I've since lost. It's very tiny, but I'm able to slide it on my pinkey and exclaim, "I haven't seen this since 1989!"

I put even more change into the game this time. When we look up at the funnel you're supposed to shoot the squirt gun at, it's broken, but we play the game anyway. This time, we win! A door opens up in the game, beyond which is a small tight staircase. I tell my partner to go up into it to get the prize. The dream ends as the perspective follows her up the stair case.

Burrs in my flesh, arrested, drugged, tortured by peanut butter and a felt giant

I'm at an outside bar on a mountain top with college friends drinking a beer. A friend gives me beers in tiny, oddly shaped bottles which I don't like, they taste strongly of molasses.

I'm walking on a path on the mountain and fall into a burr bush, many burrs stick deeply in me. As I pull them out, more burrs lodge into my finger tips. Some of the burrs were still attached to branches and just as I get almost all the burrs out, I fall into the branches I just unattached from me. This happens over and over again, the burrs are very painful to remove and they seem to be getting bigger, the size and general shape of a shark tooth. I fall down the mountain into another burr bush and walk into a neighborhood.

There is a lawn party going on and I'm still removing burrs, my fingers bleeding badly with deep cuts. I think a girl I know lives next door to the party and I want to go use her sink to wash, but I realize she lives several streets down.

A police officer approaches me as I'm removing burrs and begins to arrest me, thinking I'm on drugs. I try to explain I'm just removing burrs and need medical help, but he doesn't believe me. I'm not resisting arrest, but they're being careful with me as if I have violent potential. I tell them that if they arrest me, I'll sue them. I ask one officer to keep one of the burrs as proof I was just pulling burrs out of my body. He condescendingly laughs.

They want to restrain me with handcuffs, but don't as they believe I'm on drugs and may hurt myself. I notice I have burrs under my shirt and take it off. I have several wooden hooks piercing my breast, much like one may see someone put in themselves during a religious ecstasy. As I remove them, this makes the cops even more certain I'm on drugs. A cop draws a line in magic marker under my belly button, indicating where they'll put some sort of special restraining device.

A cop is trying to prick my lip with a toothpick with a drug on it which will knock me out. I push him away, telling him to wait until I get the burrs out, then he can knock me out if they take me to a hospital.

They usher me into some sort of holding cell and insert a huge needle attached to tubing near my belly button and start pumping a drug in me. It doesn't knock me out like it's supposed to, but makes me tingle all over which at first increases the pain on my finger tips, but then is rather soothing and numbing like nitrous oxide.

I have the sudden realization that I can call a lawyer. They just laugh at me. Then I ask them to take a blood sample so I can prove I don't do drugs, and repeat that I'll sue them and they'll lose their jobs. One replies, "We'll take a blood sample all right," and inserts a gigantic syringe into my arm drawing out a pint or more of blood which looks like weak cherry Kool-aid.

They keep acting as though they're having trouble restraining me although I'm not resisting. One cop says, "Let's give him the [mumbled] treatment," and takes a spoonful of peanut butter out of a jar and begins to peel an orange with a knife. I wonder if they're going to squirt citrus juice into my cuts, but they put peanut butter on the roof of my mouth and pantyhose over my head. It's supposed to be like water boarding, but it doesn't work on me.

They say, "Let's introduce him to Benny/Beno." A gigantic H.R. Puffnstuff man with an over-sized head walks towards me and begins jostling me around. He's a prisoner and seems to be preparing to beat me to a pulp. He has orange felt skin on his face ans is wearing a hat like my orange fishing hat. I'm talking to him, saying we can be friends. I'm afraid he'll beat me up. He jumps on my and sort of piggy-backs on my side. He sticks out a grotesquely large and long tongue and starts licking my arm. This is supposed to be torture, but although his tongue is disgusting it actually is soothing as he licks the wounds on my arm.

I wake up to a song.

Astronomy tour and finger shadows in the sky

I'm traveling in a car to somewhere in Georgia with my dad. We're going to something like a guided fishing tour except the guide will give us an astronomy tour.

I'm waking up from a nap in the back seat as we stop to take a break. We're in the mountains and looking at the setting sun through a small natural stone arch. I discover the stone arch allows me to do finger shadows across the entire sky if I get the angle just right - it's difficult because the angle changes along with the setting sun. For a brief moment, my reflection fills up the whole shy but I wonder if it was an illusion caused by a glass pane which covers the whole opening in the stone arch.

I look out over the mountains admiring their beauty - there are lots of people who have come to watch the sun set at this spot we seemed to choose at random. There's a young kid pitching a baseball in a crowded area. He's throwing wild pitches and I make him stop, afraid he'll hurt someone. A grotesquely giant man with no torso from the kid's group stands up and silently intimidates me. I tell him, "So great you're really big. I'm just trying to make sure nobody gets hurt."

The giant seems satisfied and sits back down, but there's a bad feeling coming from the whole group. Someone is throwing baseballs and hitting golf balls at me from somewhere down a mountain path I can't see. None of them hit me and I pretend not to notice. I maliciously kick several golf balls over a cliff.

Walking toward the cliff, I suddenly realize it will be difficult to climb back out. It's suddenly snowy and icy. My dad comes along and I try to warn him to stop because he'll get stuck too if he keeps walking towards me. He slips and I grab him. I try to pull him towards me but he slips even closer to the cliff. I wonder if he's going to go over the cliff and if he'll die.