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.
---
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!

I had a dream last night.

I was on a bus going somewhere, or maybe it was a wagon with windows.

Somebody was riding a giant horse, and the horse (really more like elephant sized) put it's nose up against one of the windows and smudged it.

The bus/wagon was going through a field- there were people working the rows to plant seeds, or maybe they were watering baby plants.

Some rows had string going along them, to prevent you from walking across them.

At the end of one row was a man with a big sad lion on a leash.

In the distance and elephant was frolicking with another giant horse.

I am not doing drugs, I swear.

James Bond meets Arrested Development meets Tower Heist

Last night, I had Tower Heist on tv in the background.  If you're not familiar with it, rich guy steals money from workers in the apartment/condo building, and they steal it back.  There's a bunch of sneaking around.

Then, last night, I had a dream where I was James Bond.  I was visiting this pretty fancy estate with some other male friend, who was not as adept at sneaking around and spying as I was.  For some reason, we needed to scope out one particular bedroom before we could rob it/ re-appropriate the belongings/ return things to people they belonged to.

We were ready to sneak back out, and so I just did one of those neat little sneaky rolls across the hallway (assuming no one was there to see, luckily there wasn't anyone).  I got across, and hid behind the door to the super big staircase across the hall.  My accomplice was still in the bedroom, afraid to come out, because now someone was in the hallway, and if he came out, he'd be caught!  He knew there was someone coming because he had the door open a crack and peeked out before getting out.

I ducked back behind the left door to the stairs, and was standing there when Lucille 2 came through the right door.  She was being all Lucille 2-like, and knew that I was there, and needed my help to get down the stairs because she was suffering from another bout of vertigo.

Once I took her arm to escort her down the stairs, my accomplice snuck out of the bedroom we had been scoping out, and went... somewhere else.

I feel like there was a lot more to this dream, but right now this is all I remember of it.  If I suddenly have an epiphany, I'll come back and edit this.

Walking to Disney, via. Seattle

A couple weeks ago, back when I posted a whole bunch of dreams on the same night, I had another one.... (gotta find a better way to start these things off.. 'I had a dream' durrr, of course I did, that's the point of the blog).  But at the time, I was tired of typing them up, and decided to save this one for later, and now it is later, so here it is:

A whole bunch of people at Georgia Tech decided that it would be a good idea to walk to Disney World.  This was a perfectly sane idea, it was kind of like we were all just walking to the football stadium on the other side of campus or something...

However, my geography was messed up again, as it tends to be in my dreams.  In order to get to Disney (the one in Florida), we had to go through Seattle.... Yes, the Seattle that is in the complete opposite corner of the country.  But.... whatever.  It's a dream, let's just roll with it.

So I was in a crowd of people, walking.  Didn't really know anyone around me, although eventually I think I did meet up with Sydney.

We arrived in Seattle, and went to a hotel, one of those big rooms you can rent out, and where they'll put out fruit platters and other crappy, typical finger foods.  We went in one of those rooms, where we met up with my family, and a bunch of other people.  I guess this was supposed to be kind of a meet and greet thing?  Not sure.  Everyone was eventually planning on going to Disney though.  It was late afternoon/early evening by this point. (No idea how long we had been walking for though.)  Most people decided that they would just go on to Disney (which was somehow just a mile or two away on the other side of downtown Seattle, but also in Florida, and also I'm like 99% sure the Seattle in my head is 0% identical to the real one) the next day, but Sydney and I and some other random guy we were hanging out with all decided that we'd just continue on that night since it was still light out, and since it wasn't that bad of a neighborhood.

So we left the hotel, and walked down the street.  Let me attempt to make a map for you.

It is a crappy map, because I spent like three minutes on it.  But basically, we just had to walk down a street surrounded on either side by really tall, grey, slightly eerie buildings. 

You would think that the most trouble we'd have would be getting mugged, right?  Or maybe shot?  Creepy street in a strange city?  Nope.

Not at all.

For some reason, we decided it would make so much more sense to go in one of the buildings and go halfway up to get to Disney.

So we found ourselves probably like 15 floors up in a building on the right side of the street.  

Then, suddenly, like as happens often in dreams, the stairs we just came up were suddenly not there, just a big empty tower of air, so we would pretty much die if we went back that way.

We decided to keep going up... and got up to the roof.  Turns out, this building was a rectangle, not a square shape when viewed from the top.  Also, the two buildings on either side of it were much taller, like probably another 10-20 floors taller.

This building, or at least the roof, was only like, 30 feet along the short edge (Who builds something like that?  Really?).  It was also really windy.  And looked like it was about to start raining.

Somewhere along the way, the guy we were with disappeared, I think he went to explore one of the floors in the building or something.  But me & Sydney were the only ones up there, and we were high enough that people on the ground wouldn't hear us shouting for help, and there weren't any windows in the sides of the adjacent buildings, and the other side of the street was really far away...

So, we were basically stuck, because of course, the door on to the roof was no longer there.

Sydney immediately gave up all hope of ever being rescued, and sat down, opened the can of spaghetti-o's she had with her (why, Sydney, why??), and ate it.  Even though it was the only food we had.  Just ate it all right then.  She went a bit crazy, and was all, 'look, I can use the lid as a picture frame for this picture of my boyfriend!'  (It was not the best picture frame ever made).

There was a rope hanging down from the roof of one of the adjacent buildings, and I figured that if we could get the rope down, it would be long enough for us to each rappel down over opposite sides of the building, and then one of us would just have to walk along the street on the other side of the building (which didn't have street lights, was really creepy, and probably did not lead to Disney).  (Couldn't just go around the building back to the street we were originally on because there wasn't room to walk between the buildings.)   But I couldn't figure out how to get the rope down, so that didn't happen.

I feel like then there were groups of really mean, jerky guys (you know the type, the assholes of high school) standing on the roofs of the adjacent buildings making fun of us being stuck, and not helping us get up/down/off the roof/into the building, but if that really happened, it was just for a bit at the end of the dream before I woke up.

Moving Again

I seem to have a lot of dreams where I worry about moving, or freak out about something related to moving, etc.

In this dream, my closet exploded, and I had SO MANY CLOTHES.  They were everywhere.  Didn't help that instead of just packing them all up, I decided to sort them out as to what I wanted to keep & what I wanted to donate.  This led to even more of a mess, since now they weren't even folded.

Bunny wandered in to the doorway with a piece of parsley in his mouth, and looked at me, all confused about what the commotion was about.

Eventually I got things packed up all neatly into rubbermaids, and it was kind of ok.. Except for the whole moving thing.  That always sucks.

The Trouble with Tribbles

I was exploring in a forest with some people, when we came upon a field.  There was a wooden fence running through part of it (the kind with two railings... you know, typical wooden fence).  Scattered throughout the field were little fuzzy blobs.  One of the guys that was with me picked one of them up, and it started vibrating.  We were all really excited/confused, etc. about the vibrating fuzzy things, and were talking to each other more than we were paying attention to the vibrating fuzzball.

Then the guy who picked up the fuzzball kind of focused more on the fuzzball rather than the rest of us, and was able to 'open his mind' corny as that sounds.  Turns out the fuzzballs communicated telepathically when they vibrated!  And they were all just full of happy thoughts and happiness and they were awesome!  But they were just sitting around in a field in the middle of a forest.

Later, we got back and looked up on a map, and it turned out that the land we found them on belonged to the government, and that logically, the fuzzballs (that kind of looked like tribbles, but not quite as rotund) were a government experiment.  There was some other government owned land near where we found the fuzzballs, and we planned to explore it some other time to see if there were more fuzzballs.