Skyscraper penthouse visit

For what I think is the second time, I had a dream about a really really tall skyscraper, the top stories of which are a place that is familiar to me and which I visit from time to time. In this dream, I think Greg (and maybe Neil) are already hanging out in the penthouse area. My usual route is to take an elevator up to maybe five stories below the top, then climbing/going up stairs for a story or two, then taking a private elevator to the top.

However, this particular time, I was accompanying a few other people whom I didn't know well who were trying to get to the roof. I took them into an auxiliary elevator on the side of the building which went straight to the roof. It was dark out. The roof was pretty spacious, with some variation in elevation, some ramps. The penthouse was placed somewhat atop the roof level (the roof being more like a courtyard or patio), so that you could walk straight in without going downstairs.

Pizza place computer care

At a carry-out pizza place (for some reason), Neil and I were trying to help Greg get his computer working. We were doing something with the hard drive (either backing it up or replacing it), and I noted that since Greg was using Windows 95, the hard drive would be the M: drive in "My Computer".

We had also brought small boxes with toys in them (my intuition tells me they may have been both LEGO and Star Wars-themed). At one point, in the busy, cramped front area of this pizza place, one of the female employees handed one of the boxes to me, as if someone else had told her to give it to me, even though I already knew it was there and that I owned it.

Meanwhile, Greg's computer was no longer there. Not sure where it went.

Running late for the concert; watching, playing...

Finishing up dinner at home with the family, I was getting ready to head out to a late show in the city where Frau Eva (Dave, Vanessa, and Ben) were playing. They were supposed to start around 9:30, but as music shows always start late, I was planning to leave just a little before 9:30. However, when I looked at my watch, it was 9:40 already before I had left. I decided to give Ben a call, but couldn't get through.

In a related dream, I was actually at their show, in a smallish dream venue that I think I've seen before (i.e. in other dreams). But weirdly, my point of view was mixed between watching the show and identifying with myself, who was also on stage, as part of the band, playing some stuff. Lou Black was playing too. I can't recall exactly what kind of tunes we played.

Scenic train ride to the east

Preparing to take a train back east with a bunch of townspeople. Everyone made sure to collect all their belongings and bring them to the train. For me, this included my bike, bike rack, bike lock, bedclothes, hoodie, half-eaten granola bar, backpack, suitcase, etc.

The train conductor noted that our one guard in town was the only guy with a gun and so anyone who wanted to board the train better be on the guard's good side. The guard was flattered and half-chuckled. I was standing near the guard when that was said, so I gave him a little salute.

The train set out -- source was maybe somewhere around Colorado or Wyoming; the route would take us directly east via the Black Hills of South Dakota. Looking out the window, we saw plenty of interesting scenery (and surprisingly little wilderness). The first thing I noted were the giant dandelions which I had first seen in real life in Colorado. At that time, I had only seen the seed stage, but in the dream, I saw some of the flowers too, and they did bear some vague resemblance to dandelions; bigger, less vibrant yellow, more droopy -- but maybe they were dying off.

I got hungry and dug into my suitcase, finding a peanut butter and jelly sandwich whose two halves were, in some ineffable way, shaped like two chicken fingers. Ate it.

Next, we passed through a hilly area, where these very small clouds were floating, quite close to us, and not far from the ground, ranging from eye level to maybe 50 feet up. There were a lot of them, and as close as they were, they zoomed by as quickly as the train zoomed along. I spotted a fleeting space between a group of clouds that looked like China, and I mentioned it. Mom mentioned she saw one that looked like Ireland, but when I looked up to see it, it had already passed. I went and got my Nikon camera to take pictures of the clouds, but by the time I was ready, they had all passed.

My camera had a little glitch, and I had to remove the battery and put it back in to get it running again. It wasn't a simple operation, as there were a few buttons (all of which appeared to be power buttons) to be pressed and a bottom panel that slid up out of the way. When I touched the battery it was kinda hot.. Anyway, I got the camera on again and fiddled with it, when suddenly a magnificent towery-castly-cathedraly thingy whizzed by on the left (with other, less impressive development on either side of it...). I was on the right side of the train so I wouldn't be able to get a very good shot. But I decided to go for it, so, with camera in hand, I leaned backwards and to the side and hit the button. I didn't hear a click, so I figured it hadn't worked, but when I looked at the review screen, I had taken a surprisingly nice picture of the lower half of it.

I wondered how it had worked if the shutter hadn't clicked. I turned it around and took a close picture of my eye, but that time the shutter worked. I was confused. Mentioned it to Greg and Neil, sitting in the seats behind me.

Fancy tech elevators, hopping into the yard, swimming with a drift

I guess I was going through some kind of multi-part technology demonstration. At the beginning of each part there was a sort of spiral elevator thing - a small circular spinning compartment with a green ceiling and grated floor, slowly descending while spinning, along a vertical spiral track. I nimbly hopped out of one of the elevators while it was still moving and ended up outside at dusk, in the side yard of a house. I had to hop over some large trash cans and wade through some holly bushes to get out into the open, where the people who had taken the elevator were coming out the front door of the house and down the porch stairs.

The last elevator, in which we noticed all the writing was in Korean, led to a large swimming pool. We went in (apparently here I was with my dad and Neil and possibly Greg). I decided to practice my overwater swimming technique. I usually have a hard time hitting a groove and breathing correctly, but this time I was doing great, except I couldn't see in front of me because of turning my head side to side, so I ended up drifting left.

Icy hot Ethiopia

I and a few others (I forget who, exactly... Neil? Rachel? Crystal?) were getting ready to set out the next day for a little spot on the Ethiopian border which had apparently been continuously inhabited by humans since forever. The people there looked kind of like Boa Sr of the Bo tribe.

The spot was situated along a small river, on otherwise reddish-rocky, barren looking land. It sat between two sheer rock walls, perpendicular to the river, at least 30 or 40 feet high, and the land at the base of the walls sunk down.

For some weird geological reason, the temperature in that spot could range from normal summer day temperatures (70-80°F) to sudden, short-lasting drops into the -40°F range. In our preparations, we had to make sure we had clothes to cover most of our skin, but didn't chafe, since too much friction or movement when exposed to that temperature could cause serious skin and joint damage.

It was very digestious!

Greg, Neil, and I are in maybe the family room of a house, and I am looking in a large plastic bin under the coffee table, while Greg and Neil are sitting on the couch facing over the table. I see several digital cameras, and I almost think I see the one that died from falling in the Potomac River, but it turns out to be an older (and functioning) one. I check out a few others. Neil has my Nikon DSLR, and is taking various pictures (now we appear to be outside in a parkish area, with iron-fenced off areas and a street). He aims the camera at me, and I close my eyes and start walking towards him. Eventually, we end up just past where Neil was standing, now apparently the third story of a church (with very open architecture, perhaps semi-cathedralesque). We are standing at the top of a staircase, with a balcony overlooking the first floor below. I am humming something and I realize there is an acoustic sweet spot at one particular deep note, and I keep humming up to it (and some big guy on the second-story landing below is doing it too).

I walk down to the second-story landing and I have a clear view of the first floor, which is set up for a wedding. The floor is all tiled black and white like a checkered flag, and at the head of the room there is a rounded, slightly raised platform. And standing there on the platform by herself, in full wedding gown and veil, is Q's assistant, who is apparently getting married to Wolverine (or Ray now?). [Note: for Q's assistant and Wolverine's previous encounter, see the previous dream.] This seems to be the wedding rehearsal. Several people I recognize are standing off to the sides, getting ready to sing something. I recognize at least Heather D and Katie K, both off to the left side. As the song procedes, (in the key of E, although now I can't really remember how it goes), the words seem to slip from whatever they are supposed to be into commentary about the things that happened that day, very movie-musical-like. Katie K looks up to the landing and sings something to her dad about how they all went to the Cheese Shop (a tasty sandwich place in Colonial Williamsburg) earlier. The song switches into a "bridge" of sorts, sung by the dad:

(key of E major, melody notes descending) (A) (B) C# C# C# B A G# F# It was ve-ry di-ges-tious (A) (B) C# C# C# B A G# F# Al-so (ve-ry) di-ves-tive (rhythm of words:) X...x...x...x...X...x...x...x... | | | | | | |

And at that point I woke up.

Q the kidnapper, Wolverine the rescuer?

Q (who had apparently been stripped of his powers temporarily) had kidnapped four or five crew members (or someone?). He was showing "us" over Internet (or something) the screen on his computer as he was manipulating an image of the kidnapped people. He was square-selecting each of their faces, copying them, then going to paste them in a separate image, except each time he went to paste the faces, random objects appeared instead of the faces. We eventually surmised that he was using a multi-slot clipboard and messing with us, but that perhaps the random objects pasted in place of their faces signified something about where we would find the kidnapped people.

Later, Wolverine has gone to intercept a smallish (FedEx-shaped) truck which Q is driving (possibly in NYC), to see if he has the kidnapees there. At first, he stands on the back bumper as Q drives around the city, up hills, through a tunnel, etc. Q finally spots him, and rather than be shaken off the truck, Wolverine goes inside the back storage area. There, Q's assistant, a beautiful young dark-haired white (slightly Asian) woman, sees Wolverine through a side window in the storage area and tells Q what is happening. She goes inside, and Wolverine threatens violence in a few different ways before finally deciding that she isn't interested in fighting (he even tries punching her once, at which point she temporarily transforms into something that looks like a svelte version of the Thing from Fantastic Four, then reverts. Wolverine at this point "reverts" back to a paler, less muscular form, saying "In case I die." -- apparently he wants to be in this form as a corpse, for identification or sentimental reasons. Q starts beating the back door with a hatchet.

- Some background on Q's assistant: Back when Q was at his "home" in the "continuum" -- which, my brothers and I comment, is fully consistent with the way it looked in "the movie" -- the home seemed to be made almost completely out of thin, sheer, empty silky/clothy "puffs", maybe 3'x6' each and each one colored a different pastel color, stitched together in rows to make walls, floors, and ceilings, such that you could see all the way through the house from above into the water below -- the house was over a lake on the edge of the land. Anyway, back when Q was at "home", his wife had some kind of illness and was on the verge of dying. Q, for whatever reason, created the assistant, who was "unobjectionably likeable" (or some such) by all. Q follows his wife home to show her (his wife is going home on a motorcycle).

[forgotten events omitted here]

Somehow, Wolverine and Q's assistant have gotten away, and float ashore on the beach of an ocean coastline at an unknown location. [Note: They get married in the next dream.]

Dad's lost (and rediscovered) Valentine's Day cake

At the Cantilever house, I am in the study, reading or hearing on the radio about holiday traditions and thinking to myself that it would be easier to stay in the United States where tradition is less strict than in Europe (Germany, for example). Meanwhile, Dad had just discovered a cake that he had made for Mom for Valentine's Day 1992, which had gotten lost behind junk in the closet and never given or consumed.

The cake was frosted roughly with a thick, uneven pastel yellow color frosting. On top of the cake was a rust red frosted helicopter, somewhat crude and thin, but large enough that its tail hung off the cake. Next to the cake was an even larger jumbo jet, also covered with frosting. All were sitting on a large grey lego platform. Dad, amazed at his discovery, wanted us to see it, since he was proud of his creation, yet embarrassed that it had gotten lost and never presented. I muttered to myself about hating Valentine's Day and not really caring to see it, but I got up and went into the family room where he was to see it anyway.

Dad asked if I wanted some pizza (there were about eight boxes on the kitchen table, and Neil was unloading some himself).

Prior to that, in the study, I was on the computer playing some mp3s for myself and Greg. Some were ones I had composed and others were random ones that I had recently downloaded. At least one was a song by a female singer-songwriter which I was now second guessing why I had downloaded it in the first place. I was listening carefully to one of the ones I had made and was realizing how derivative it was of another song I knew well. The flow of the melody for the section I was listening to was almost identical (even in the same key), but the chords behind it were different.

Racheem's love

Later dream involved AOL Instant Messenger. I had apparently logged on for the first time in a very long time. A few people started bombarding me with messages, including one whose screen name was "Alyssa" and whose icon was the face of a magenta-haired female night elf from WoW. Apparently we were online friends from when I used to play TFC, and, although it hadn't been obvious to me, she was obsessed with me. She reminded me that her first name was "Racheem" (an image of her popped into my mind -- thin, hispanic or middle eastern, dark medium length hair -- above shoulder --, medium-short height, late teens). Interesting that I could now read all this text when I had seen none during my earlier lucid dream. She went on and on about this and that -- there was one point where she said she "sent my arm to her friend" -- accompanied by an image of me and ?Neil sitting on a couch (in Cantilever Ct. basement?) with a gag-arm hanging next to us. After answering other people's IMs, I had trouble figuring out how to go back to hers (the interface was atypical -- large window with tabs at the top -- new IMs had light blue tab text). When I finally clicked back, she had written four or five paragraph-long messages -- a few glimpses indicated that she was making some kind of emotionally charged confession. However, I saw that she had signed off while I had been clicked away. Then for some reason, her entire tab disappeared and I was annoyed that I couldn't read it. Wondered to myself whether it had been logged somewhere, but couldn't find it.

Indoor campus

Me and Jen and Priss and Colin were hanging out in some dorm on an entirely indoor campus. We were in rooms on the first floor of this dorm, which was on the first floor of the campus. We decided we wanted to get into this dorm if Old Dominion (dorm at W&M) didn't work out. Later we took the elevator to upper levels of campus. Neil was there, too, apparently. He asked if I really liked the name "Kextrii" because he thought maybe I should put the name on a certain souvenir item being sold near the 2nd floor elevator.

Driving + distress

Driving home on the highway from somewhere with my family.. they say to stay in the left lane, our turn is up in 2-8 miles... I see the turn we're headed into but it seems too soon... I almost swerve out but they say it's the right one.. we continue on, ... later we're in the HOV lane... a truck is driving entirely the wrong direction and up ahead and around is a large car pileup... we miss it and continue on.

-

Bus 91 - Ms. Logan driving... leaving school by an alternate bus route on top of the bus tunnel... she pulls some crazy stunt trying for a short-cut... drives off the edge onto road below... minimal shakeage... turns out she injured someone landing... she's kinda freaked but keeps driving... I tell her it looked okay, tell her to concentrate on driving and not to worry.

Popeson

In a church/dining hall (red carpet, small round wood tables) with the Pope's son (looks just like Pope John Paul II, speaks English), dad, and Neil. There's a Jewish woman who hangs around Popeson, prays to clean up every morning (drinker). We had cups of thick chocolate topped with nut slices... I ate the top nut/chocolate - messy.

The table in front of me has some American girls, I catch one's eye, smile, she waves. The Jewish woman comes back with some of her cooking in a Chinese food box.

Snowball fight and restaurant visit

Me and Raymond and Neil. We were in a parking lot having a snowball fight — all of our throws were misses.

We ended up at a restaurant with split levels:

Up = "First(s?)" — I thought to go there, but it was empty.
Down = main — good crowd — we went here.