Fried food festival and giant lizard attack
Last night I dreamt I was driving a minivan on a brick street through a crowded festival. Part of the festival was outdoors, and part of it was inside of a mall-like facility. The outdoor portion looked sort of like the UNC campus. I was looking for my friends, and I spotted Mary, Orin, Eric, and someone else (maybe Julia) along the road. I asked them if they wanted a ride, but they didn’t get into the van. I had to drive so slowly due to all the pedestrians that I eventually gave up trying to drive and pulled the van up onto the curb so that it was half on the grass and half on the street. I found my friends sitting at a table, and I believe Eric was eating a burrito or some kind of wrap. I decided I wanted to get something to eat. I started eating a turkey and bacon sandwich that I had brought from home, but I wanted some fries to go with it. I started looking for booths that sold fries. I walked over to a food court restaurant where the mall portion of the festival began, and I was looking at their menu. Mary walked up and asked the cashier for a small order of something called re-fried or double-fried potato chips. The cashier opened a bag of Lays potato chips, dumped them into a deep-fryer until they were about eighty percent translucent and glistening with grease, and then the cashier served a small portion of the chips to Mary. They looked kind of good, but I still wanted fries. I saw that they had fries on the menu, but the picture showed that they were the thick kind, and I wanted shoestring fries. I walked over to another booth to see if they had shoestring fries, but they either didn’t have fries or didn’t have that kind. I decided I would just get an order of the re-fried potato chips, but it was getting close to five o’clock, and the festival started closing down before I could make it back to that restaurant. My friends and I migrated back over where I had parked the van, and we decided to go on a hike.
We arrived at the parking lot of a trail to a waterfall called Backbone Falls (but it was apparently not the one at Backbone Rock). Mary and Orin were still there, but Eric and maybe-Julia may have been replaced by two different people. The trailhead was at the bottom of an indoor staircase that looked like the stairs to a finished basement in a house. The hike was a five or six mile round trip, and I was skeptical that we could do it before it got dark. My friends said we should go as far as we could, and we would turn back if it started getting late. At the bottom of the stairs, we turned left and emerged through a doorway into the woods. We followed the trail along a wooded hillside for a mile or so until we came to a fork. The main trail continued up along a cliff, and the fork to the left was a short side-trail than went along the bottom of the cliff. We took the side trail and came to a clearing that may have had a picnic table and a small pile of lumber or building materials. The clearing overlooked a meadow that had a couple of carnival rides. I decided to get back to the main trail and continue to the waterfall, but I apparently forgot to tell my friends where I was going. When I got back to the intersection with the main trail, I decided to make an arrow out of fern leaves so that my friends would know which direction I had gone. I also had a manila folder in my backpack with my name on it, so I decided to put it next to the ferns so my friends would know the arrow was mine. Just as I got finished, I looked up and saw Mary and Orin approaching. Mary announced that Orin had been bitten by a snake. We were trying to decide if we should continue to the waterfall or go back to the car. I asked if they knew what kind of snake it was, and they said yes, but they didn’t specify the type of snake or whether it was venomous. I asked if they took a picture of it in case a doctor needed to identify it to use the correct antivenin. Orin said he had taken a picture, and he got out his phone and started swiping through photos. I was picturing a mean-looking black snake with white stripes under its chin. The moment Orin found the picture, we looked up and saw a large snake crawling toward us. I asked if that was the snake, and they said yes. It was gray and about the size of a basset hound. It stopped next to the trail, and when I looked at it from the side, I could see that it had legs. I told Mary and Orin that it was actually a giant lizard, not a snake. I didn’t know what kind of lizard got that big, and I suggested it might be a Gila monster. Mary said that was possible. The lizard stood up in an attack stance and started scurrying toward Orin. Right before it reached him, it changed its mind and went after Mary instead. Mary or Orin had been carrying a black golf club earlier, which they had put down on the trail when they first returned after the supposed snake bite. I tried to approach the golf club while Mary had the lizard distracted, but it apparently sensed my plan, as it was intentionally staying close enough to the golf club that I wouldn’t be able to get there first. I think the three of us took turns trying to lure the lizard away from the club while someone else tried to grab the club, but we were never successful. That’s all I remember.
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Several elements of this dream came from watching TV last night. The UNC-looking setting for the festival was probably from a news blurb about how the UNC campus looked deserted due to the snow (although the desertion was actually probably because spring break is this week). The potential snake bite probably came from trying to watch an episode of Rescue 911 over the air where a man was bitten by a snake while walking along a creek, but the reception was bad due to the snow, so all I heard was the announcer say, “Today on Rescue 911: a deadly snake attack!” Also, I watched an episode of X-Files where Mulder was being harassed by flying drones, and he whacked one of them with a golf club. Later in the episode, Mulder and Scully were pursued by a crawling robot that sort of looked like the lizard in the dream. At the beginning of the episode, Scully got into a driverless car, and Mulder stood at the door but did not get in with her.
We arrived at the parking lot of a trail to a waterfall called Backbone Falls (but it was apparently not the one at Backbone Rock). Mary and Orin were still there, but Eric and maybe-Julia may have been replaced by two different people. The trailhead was at the bottom of an indoor staircase that looked like the stairs to a finished basement in a house. The hike was a five or six mile round trip, and I was skeptical that we could do it before it got dark. My friends said we should go as far as we could, and we would turn back if it started getting late. At the bottom of the stairs, we turned left and emerged through a doorway into the woods. We followed the trail along a wooded hillside for a mile or so until we came to a fork. The main trail continued up along a cliff, and the fork to the left was a short side-trail than went along the bottom of the cliff. We took the side trail and came to a clearing that may have had a picnic table and a small pile of lumber or building materials. The clearing overlooked a meadow that had a couple of carnival rides. I decided to get back to the main trail and continue to the waterfall, but I apparently forgot to tell my friends where I was going. When I got back to the intersection with the main trail, I decided to make an arrow out of fern leaves so that my friends would know which direction I had gone. I also had a manila folder in my backpack with my name on it, so I decided to put it next to the ferns so my friends would know the arrow was mine. Just as I got finished, I looked up and saw Mary and Orin approaching. Mary announced that Orin had been bitten by a snake. We were trying to decide if we should continue to the waterfall or go back to the car. I asked if they knew what kind of snake it was, and they said yes, but they didn’t specify the type of snake or whether it was venomous. I asked if they took a picture of it in case a doctor needed to identify it to use the correct antivenin. Orin said he had taken a picture, and he got out his phone and started swiping through photos. I was picturing a mean-looking black snake with white stripes under its chin. The moment Orin found the picture, we looked up and saw a large snake crawling toward us. I asked if that was the snake, and they said yes. It was gray and about the size of a basset hound. It stopped next to the trail, and when I looked at it from the side, I could see that it had legs. I told Mary and Orin that it was actually a giant lizard, not a snake. I didn’t know what kind of lizard got that big, and I suggested it might be a Gila monster. Mary said that was possible. The lizard stood up in an attack stance and started scurrying toward Orin. Right before it reached him, it changed its mind and went after Mary instead. Mary or Orin had been carrying a black golf club earlier, which they had put down on the trail when they first returned after the supposed snake bite. I tried to approach the golf club while Mary had the lizard distracted, but it apparently sensed my plan, as it was intentionally staying close enough to the golf club that I wouldn’t be able to get there first. I think the three of us took turns trying to lure the lizard away from the club while someone else tried to grab the club, but we were never successful. That’s all I remember.
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Several elements of this dream came from watching TV last night. The UNC-looking setting for the festival was probably from a news blurb about how the UNC campus looked deserted due to the snow (although the desertion was actually probably because spring break is this week). The potential snake bite probably came from trying to watch an episode of Rescue 911 over the air where a man was bitten by a snake while walking along a creek, but the reception was bad due to the snow, so all I heard was the announcer say, “Today on Rescue 911: a deadly snake attack!” Also, I watched an episode of X-Files where Mulder was being harassed by flying drones, and he whacked one of them with a golf club. Later in the episode, Mulder and Scully were pursued by a crawling robot that sort of looked like the lizard in the dream. At the beginning of the episode, Scully got into a driverless car, and Mulder stood at the door but did not get in with her.