Loan Shark Murder, Otherworldly Ocean, and Roller Blades

While Keegan is the one who sparked the idea of starting the blog back up, he's only partially responsible. The real reason it's started back up is the dream(s) I had last night. I woke up twice from the adrenaline, and decided enough's enough. Blog is coming back from the dead. Plus, I think I remember almost everything from the dream(s), so it's a pretty good time to start.

I was walking home with a man who was my boyfriend in the dream, but who is not Jake. Boyfriend owed a loan shark about $40k, and we were coming back from somewhere having just obtained the last $10k. Since he was about to pay off the debt, we were in a rather jubilant mood.
As we approached Boyfriend's house*, we noticed a carriage/truck (like that van that Jasper and Horace have in 101 Dalmatians, but maroon) outside.

*The house was one story, stucco, in suburbs that looked like they belong in England more than the US. There was a bay window that looked in on the kitchen, and the kitchen light was on. There were red curtains (open), and the house was yellow-tan. There was a wrought iron fence out front, adjacent to the sidewalk and only a few feet from the front of the house. Between the house and the fence were some holly bushes. There was a small gate opening on the walkway to the front door, which was on the left side of the house. Neighboring houses were set apart, so there were small yards, separated by the same wrought iron fences.

As we reached the gate to walk in, a rather large man walked out from behind the truck. He was probably 6'4'' and built like an ox. He was also unfortunately the loan shark.
"I hope you've got my money"
"I've got $10k here and the rest is inside." *hands over the $10k*
The three of us walked inside.
"I don't understand, it was right here."
Loan shark laughs, turns to walk out.
"Maybe you shouldn't keep $30k laying on the kitchen table. Someone might take it. I expect to have the balance tomorrow."
Boyfriend's face turns angry as he realizes the loan shark had broken in earlier and taken the $30k, and was still expecting Boyfriend to hand over all $40k at once.  ((Loan shark is a total sleazy, dirty rotten bastard, but what else would you expect from a loan shark? I really can't convey enough how awful this guy was.))
Boyfriend is rather slim, and is maybe half the size of loan shark, but $40k is a lot of money, and he's angry. I had never seen this side of him before, so I back away as I'm currently between the two of them.
Boyfriend flies into a rage and attacks Loan Shark. Loan Shark starts to beat the shit out of Boyfriend, he turns and runs out the door, down the street. Loan Shark follows at a slower pace. He's not one to give up on a fight he's winning. I (for whatever insane reason) follow them. Probably a misguided hope to break up the fight and come up with a solution.
Boyfriend turns a corner into an alley where a dog is sleeping on one of those industrial sized recycling bins behind a fence. One of his front paws is sticking through a hole in the fence. Boyfriend pauses to stroke the paw and the dog wakes up. That brief pause was enough for Loan Shark to catch up to Boyfriend. Loan Shark has Boyfriend cornered now (apparently it's a dead end alley, Boyfriend should know that, he lives in this neighborhood). Loan Shark starts taunting Boyfriend, they both know this is going to end with Boyfriend dead and beat to a pulp. Dog starts growling.
Turns out Dog loves Boyfriend, but can be vicious when provoked.
Growling increases as Loan Shark moves toward Boyfriend.
Dog launches himself at Loan Shark and brutally rips him to pieces. Blood everywhere.
I've had enough. I don't know who Boyfriend is, I don't know where this dog came from or what it's really like, I just saw a guy ripped to shreds, I am out of there.
Boyfriend doesn't notice I leave, don't even know if he knows I saw what happened.
I run toward town. Wasn't my problem, don't know how I let myself get wrapped up in it, and I certainly don't want to deal with the aftermath.
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Dream cuts to me run/walking (running is exhausting) through downtown, some play/musical is letting out so there are people walking home/ hailing taxis. There is a couple that I am acquainted with, and they catch sight of me. He doesn't say much and is really there as more of a prop than a personality. The woman is that character from movies who is always encouraging the protagonist to follow her and she'll help them out, but she's really just a terrible influence-- think Cruella ((I swear I haven't seen 101 Dalmatians lately, it's just such a perfect reference to help describe what this dream was like.)). Let's just call this lady Cruella, even though she wasn't her. Cruella begs me to get in the car with them. She's a bit drunk so I'm sure she's not even going to remember seeing me. I do the polite thing and tell her I'm just on my way to somewhere and it was so nice to see her.

I turn the corner at the end of the street and I'm in front of a large 3 story Victorian house with a massive yard.

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That's where the first dream ends. I have a suspicion that the second dream is a continuation of the first, but since I don't know how I got from out front of the Victorian house to the ocean, I'm breaking them into two.
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At the start of the second dream, I'm sitting with a group of friends, all guys, none of them are real-life people. We're sitting on the ground, looking at pamphlets describing all the nature trails that are nearby. The ground is paved with those 8" square paving stones, it's perfectly flat and goes on forever out toward the ocean. The whole area has an otherworldly feel, the sky isn't quite the right color and the ocean is too calm. There are people out by the edge looking over the railing watching the water. More to the right and away from the coastline are some gardens that transition into forest farther back.
The area where we're sitting is gazebo-esque- it has a roof, but it's larger than a gazebo- pavilion maybe? It's also made of stone.
I flip through the pamphlet and decide I'm going to go look at the succulent forest. I let the guys know and they're a bit concerned- how will you get there, you can't go by yourself. It's only a quarter mile away, and I don't really want to keep hanging out with these guys. I'm feeling on edge and like I need to keep moving. I end up convincing them to let me go on my own, and wander off.
I think part of the uneasy feeling is because the whole place feels unnatural and I don't really know how I got there.
I wandered off toward the ocean to see how far the paved area goes, and it looks like it goes a pretty long way down the coast. I turn more inland and take the trail to the succulent forest. It was pretty quick to get to, and was really pretty. The trees overarced each other and made a small enclosed garden-like area with succulents tucked in everywhere.

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That's pretty much all I remember from that dream. There were two more last night, but I don't remember enough of them to make them worth writing up in much detail, but here's what I've got:

Number 3 involved being asked to prom by yet another dream person. I was really excited and had a dress that wasn't really a prom dress.

Number 4- Roller blades were a legit way to get around. I was walking somewhere and somebody had roller blades on. The next day after work Coworker#1 had rocket powered roller blades that they used to get to their car. Made sense, since the parking lot was full when they got there that morning so they had to park down the street in an empty lot. I was walking out to my car with Coworker#2 and he told me that Coworker#1 might lose his job since he hadn't been very interested in what was going on at work lately. I came to Coworker#1's defense since we were friends and said that he probably just had a lot going on at home and couldn't focus, but that just because someone's going through a tough time that's not an excuse to fire them. I was sure Coworker#1 would get back to normal soon enough. Dream-me made a mental note to give Coworker#1 a heads-up when I could- if Coworker#2 was talking about it, there was a decent chance that it might be true and I'd hate for Coworker#1 to lose their job.

And that's everything! Pretty good day to start back up on.
(Or bad, since I woke up from the dreams twice and felt emotionally drained most of the day, but I guess watching a brutal dog mauling/murder will do that to you.)

Hello again blog!

I feel like for most people, dreams are special occurances that happen maybe once a month or so, and that in most cases people wake up and forget the dream and very rarely remember it when they wake up. Probably even fewer people can still remember their dream by the time they get out of the shower and eat breakfast.
So when most people look at the date on my last entry they probably think it's totally realistic for a dream blog to not update on a regular basis, and maybe I haven't had any dreams to update with, and even if I did have a dream, maybe I forgot it.

Well, if you're thinking that, you are wrong.
I did stop having dreams for a little while, but I also got some not-very-enthusiastic feedback.  Apparently telling people about a dream they were in can be creepy. So the blog kind of died for a while.

The past 2-3 months I have been having extremely vivid dreams almost every night, and it's actually starting to get rather old.  I was telling Keegan this, and he said that he actually enjoyed reading about my dreams. I figure if at least one person got a kick out of the stuff my brain comes up with I might as well take advantage of the insane dream streak I've been on lately and start this back up.  (Plus it's entertaining for me to go back and re-read dreams, because 90% of the time I don't remember them at all after a month, and then I get to feel how everyone else must feel when they read them- WTF Amanda's brain!)


Rules for those who have never visited:
One.
I (as in, real-life Amanda) am not responsible for what my brain comes up with. Maybe you died in a dream I have. That does not mean I have a desire to murder you in real life. Try and remember that when something happens and you feel creeped out. Totally not doing it on purpose.

Two.
Last time 'round I was tagging people in dreams and calling them out by name. I plan on continuing that as follows: If I am friends with you on Facebook, you will get called out by name. If I don't have a way of letting you know you're on the blog, I'll call you 'Coworker#1' or something equally exciting.  If you have a problem with being called out on the blog, let me know and I will change your name to something vague.

Three.
There is no set update schedule. Sometimes I don't dream. Sometimes I forget my dream(s). Sometimes I won't have time to write it up.


Welcome back to my brain!