Fantastic Sunday Dreams
DREAM #1
I was some female deity or avatar (deity in human form) roaming the country, just exploring, I think. The places I traveled were mostly desolate. There were hills and seashores, cliffs and large open fields and rocky plains. I met no one and had only nature’s sounds as company. The colors were dark and primordial, deep reds, dark oranges and burnt yellow. The rocks were black and the sky was more dark grey than blue. Why was I here? What was my purpose? I did not know.
Down by the ocean I found a large open cave that had been carved out in a huge semicircle. I was standing near the middle and could see very large open entrances on either end of the cave several hundred feet in either direction. Ocean waves lapped at the mouths of the caves but deeper in where I stood, the ground was more rocky. In the half-light of the cave, another woman approached in the distance. I had the feeling she had been following me for some time, but I didn’t question it. When she reached me, she handed me a small wooden object that she called an arrowhead, though it didn’t much look like one. The pen-like object was about five or six inches long and ¾ of an inch in diameter with a plain curved design making it thicker on the front end.
I knew this object had a particular name and was a famous ancient relic. Even though I had never seen it in person, I was familiar enough with it from stories or research to know exactly what to do with it. Pulling gently on the protruding tip, I withdrew a thin rod about four inches long and only 1/8th of an inch wide. There was another rod inside too, evidenced by the rattling noise. To extract it, I held the relic above my head and tilted it downward until the tip of the second rod appeared out the end. After removing it, I peered into the original artifact and could see through it out a hole in the opposite end. While looking down the “barrel” I noticed a source of light about halfway down the length. Reexamining the outside, I found a tiny pinhole in the middle. Suddenly the object morphed into its true form. While it retained similar dimensions, the smooth surfaces of these three pieces gained character. Little crests or wings sprouted out of one side of the first rod, while a series of tiny hands sprouted out one side of the other rod. I had known all along that this artifact was a musical instrument, said to be more powerful than any other in all creation. It was said that when a note is played on it, the flute would summon an army of creatures, mostly from the sea, instantly to the player to serve and protect him or her. I knew of this legend, but I doubted it, yet I couldn’t resist giving it a try. I held the two rods on either side of the flute, as was proper, lifted it to my lips and exhaled through the pipe.
At first, I heard nothing, then a sort of dancing harmony in a high upper register. I didn’t have a chance to appreciate the melody because almost as quickly a numberless horde of crustaceans, mollusks, walking fish, floating anemones and the like surged towards me from both cave entrances. They would have run under me and carried me around if I had let them, but the idea unnerved me, so when they had almost reached me I cast a magical spell to keep them a few arm’s length away. The flute’s power was incredible and it startled me. It was every bit as unusual as the legend had said. This creature army had come to do my bidding, but I had no task for them. They followed me as I emerged from the cave and stalked me up the hill, but soon faded away as did the dream.
I awoke, stirred a little, then went back to sleep.
DREAM #2
Marisa and I were driving back home to Muncie from a long trip and we had stopped to get gas in some little town in Ohio. I was at a Shell station and in the dream there was something special about Shell gas stations: they were made to be super convenient and quick-serve, even more than most “pay at the pump” stations. When you pulled into a Shell station, you knew you’d get gas faster than anywhere else. Their pumps were specially designed so that all you had to do was put the nozzle into your tank, press a single button and the gas immediately surged into the car. I did this happily and the pump even assumed the Regular grade that I wanted. However, I only intended to put a little bit of gas in the tank for whatever reason. I quickly scanned the pump for any indication of how to stop it, but there was no handle and the default for these pumps was to fill the tank completely. I did find a button that said slow and pressed it once. The speed of the gas flow slowed slightly. I pressed it again and it slowed some more. I pressed it several more times in succession. The flow slowed down a lot, but then increased again to full speed. Apparently I had passed the slowest speed and cycled back to the top. Also, there was no “off” that I could find, so I gave up and let it fill the tank.
During all this, a man was trying to put gas in his car on the opposite side of the pump. He was a foreigner and did not speak English at all. He kept walking around the pump onto my side to try to read some label that was there. He repeatedly groped at the label and kept speaking in his own language to another man who was with him. This second man kept trying to pull the first man back toward him to help him pump gas into their vehicle. While this was happening, I heard a trombone playing a few licks off behind the pump along with a commotion of voices.
Done pumping gas, I peeked around the pump to see what the fuss was about. I was very surprised to see six members of the Ball State Marching Band. More specifically, these six were all seniors or maybe recent graduates who had all been involved in the schools music programs to a large degree. There were three men and three women. I recognized two or all three of the men and maybe one of the women. I could tell that they were all in a jazz-improv group now and had just come from a performance on The Late Show with David Letterman, as they were all very excited. They recognized us and quickly invited us to join them as they were about to watch footage from the episode they had just filmed. They were traveling in a large trailer pulled by a big pickup truck. To watch the footage, they had gathered on some sort of elevated stairs or ramp not far from the Shell pumps. They were all laying on mass of blankets and sleeping bags. As we approached, I noticed that they were paired up and kind of snuggled into those blankets, so these six people were actually three couples. “Interesting,” I thought, and Marisa and I climbed up to grab a spot on the ramp/stairs thing. I carried along the blankets that I had been sleeping with (i.e., the ones I was actually sleeping with this morning).
I didn’t see much of the footage and it flashed by quickly, but the others were all excited to be watching themselves on TV and were really very happy. They were in a celebrating mood and somehow we all agreed to go to the mall.
When we entered the mall I saw that it was huge, much larger than most with big open spaces and multi-story high ceilings. Just inside the front entrance was a circular stone fountain at least 50 feet in diameter. One of the guys and I were wrestling and knocked each other into the fountain. We hopped out and the whole group took the escalator up to the second level. For some odd reason, we were still carrying all the blankets and sleeping bags with us from earlier and they were still all connected in a big mass mysteriously stuck together. I don’t know how we moved like this, since we were sort of “on” the blankets, but it happened.
We weren’t going into any of the stores and were just walking around. Somewhere on the second level I noticed that every walking area in the mall was covered in 1-2 feet of clear slowly running water. (This was not so when we walked in.) Also, conveniently, our whole group of eight were now clad in bathing suits and our blankets and sleeping bags, still overlapping, became our very odd-looking raft that floated above water.
We floated around quite aimlessly having great fun and propelling ourselves with paddles or by paddling with our hands. It was like a great water fun park. Soon we reached the down escalator, but it was abnormally long and wide. It must have measured over 80’ wide and over 300’ long. I couldn’t make out the movement of the steps underwater, but the fact that it was an escalator was irrelevant; it might as well have been stairs, at least for our purposes. Also, just like everywhere else on our return trip, it was covered in water. A steady flow of water ran down the slope, but it didn’t rush down as you would have expected, just sort of gently cascaded.
We contemplated a ride down to the bottom. We all wanted to do it, but were all hesitant about the risks. For some reason the mall had been fairly vacant since we arrived, so there were no more than one or two people on this “escalator,” making it easy to navigate. Without another thought, we hopped back on our “raft” and let the current pull us over the edge. The descent began gently, but after a few seconds sped up dramatically. Instead of plummeting straight down, we veered off to the left side at about a 45 degree angle. Nevertheless, the speed was incredible. It was more thrilling than any waterslide I’ve ever been on. We were pretty much out of control, but as we reached the left handrail of the escalator, I gave us a carefully timed shove back towards the middle. I could see that the entryway fountain was only a dozen feet or so beyond the bottom of the escalator and knew our momentum would send us crashing right into it, so my shove was an attempt to hit the fountain just right of center so we would keep moving past it, but also slow us down.
The plan was partially successful. We didn’t land in the fountain, but did crash over another side barrier by the left wall and tumbled into a large wall fountain. A bit disoriented and completely soaked, I climbed out of the fountain and looked around. Marisa was okay, but only one of the other couples was with us and the raft was gone. Somehow I knew that everyone was all right. The couple that was with us were smiling but also looking concerned and quite possibly bruised. I was more ecstatic than the others, though reflecting more sincerely, I looked at them and said: “Well, that was extremely fun, but I admit it was very dangerous. I’d like to do it again, but only if we wore padding all over our bodies and helmets too.” They agreed it was worth the risk. I couldn’t wait to go for another run, but that’s when I woke up.
I was some female deity or avatar (deity in human form) roaming the country, just exploring, I think. The places I traveled were mostly desolate. There were hills and seashores, cliffs and large open fields and rocky plains. I met no one and had only nature’s sounds as company. The colors were dark and primordial, deep reds, dark oranges and burnt yellow. The rocks were black and the sky was more dark grey than blue. Why was I here? What was my purpose? I did not know.
Down by the ocean I found a large open cave that had been carved out in a huge semicircle. I was standing near the middle and could see very large open entrances on either end of the cave several hundred feet in either direction. Ocean waves lapped at the mouths of the caves but deeper in where I stood, the ground was more rocky. In the half-light of the cave, another woman approached in the distance. I had the feeling she had been following me for some time, but I didn’t question it. When she reached me, she handed me a small wooden object that she called an arrowhead, though it didn’t much look like one. The pen-like object was about five or six inches long and ¾ of an inch in diameter with a plain curved design making it thicker on the front end.
I knew this object had a particular name and was a famous ancient relic. Even though I had never seen it in person, I was familiar enough with it from stories or research to know exactly what to do with it. Pulling gently on the protruding tip, I withdrew a thin rod about four inches long and only 1/8th of an inch wide. There was another rod inside too, evidenced by the rattling noise. To extract it, I held the relic above my head and tilted it downward until the tip of the second rod appeared out the end. After removing it, I peered into the original artifact and could see through it out a hole in the opposite end. While looking down the “barrel” I noticed a source of light about halfway down the length. Reexamining the outside, I found a tiny pinhole in the middle. Suddenly the object morphed into its true form. While it retained similar dimensions, the smooth surfaces of these three pieces gained character. Little crests or wings sprouted out of one side of the first rod, while a series of tiny hands sprouted out one side of the other rod. I had known all along that this artifact was a musical instrument, said to be more powerful than any other in all creation. It was said that when a note is played on it, the flute would summon an army of creatures, mostly from the sea, instantly to the player to serve and protect him or her. I knew of this legend, but I doubted it, yet I couldn’t resist giving it a try. I held the two rods on either side of the flute, as was proper, lifted it to my lips and exhaled through the pipe.
At first, I heard nothing, then a sort of dancing harmony in a high upper register. I didn’t have a chance to appreciate the melody because almost as quickly a numberless horde of crustaceans, mollusks, walking fish, floating anemones and the like surged towards me from both cave entrances. They would have run under me and carried me around if I had let them, but the idea unnerved me, so when they had almost reached me I cast a magical spell to keep them a few arm’s length away. The flute’s power was incredible and it startled me. It was every bit as unusual as the legend had said. This creature army had come to do my bidding, but I had no task for them. They followed me as I emerged from the cave and stalked me up the hill, but soon faded away as did the dream.
I awoke, stirred a little, then went back to sleep.
DREAM #2
Marisa and I were driving back home to Muncie from a long trip and we had stopped to get gas in some little town in Ohio. I was at a Shell station and in the dream there was something special about Shell gas stations: they were made to be super convenient and quick-serve, even more than most “pay at the pump” stations. When you pulled into a Shell station, you knew you’d get gas faster than anywhere else. Their pumps were specially designed so that all you had to do was put the nozzle into your tank, press a single button and the gas immediately surged into the car. I did this happily and the pump even assumed the Regular grade that I wanted. However, I only intended to put a little bit of gas in the tank for whatever reason. I quickly scanned the pump for any indication of how to stop it, but there was no handle and the default for these pumps was to fill the tank completely. I did find a button that said slow and pressed it once. The speed of the gas flow slowed slightly. I pressed it again and it slowed some more. I pressed it several more times in succession. The flow slowed down a lot, but then increased again to full speed. Apparently I had passed the slowest speed and cycled back to the top. Also, there was no “off” that I could find, so I gave up and let it fill the tank.
During all this, a man was trying to put gas in his car on the opposite side of the pump. He was a foreigner and did not speak English at all. He kept walking around the pump onto my side to try to read some label that was there. He repeatedly groped at the label and kept speaking in his own language to another man who was with him. This second man kept trying to pull the first man back toward him to help him pump gas into their vehicle. While this was happening, I heard a trombone playing a few licks off behind the pump along with a commotion of voices.
Done pumping gas, I peeked around the pump to see what the fuss was about. I was very surprised to see six members of the Ball State Marching Band. More specifically, these six were all seniors or maybe recent graduates who had all been involved in the schools music programs to a large degree. There were three men and three women. I recognized two or all three of the men and maybe one of the women. I could tell that they were all in a jazz-improv group now and had just come from a performance on The Late Show with David Letterman, as they were all very excited. They recognized us and quickly invited us to join them as they were about to watch footage from the episode they had just filmed. They were traveling in a large trailer pulled by a big pickup truck. To watch the footage, they had gathered on some sort of elevated stairs or ramp not far from the Shell pumps. They were all laying on mass of blankets and sleeping bags. As we approached, I noticed that they were paired up and kind of snuggled into those blankets, so these six people were actually three couples. “Interesting,” I thought, and Marisa and I climbed up to grab a spot on the ramp/stairs thing. I carried along the blankets that I had been sleeping with (i.e., the ones I was actually sleeping with this morning).
I didn’t see much of the footage and it flashed by quickly, but the others were all excited to be watching themselves on TV and were really very happy. They were in a celebrating mood and somehow we all agreed to go to the mall.
When we entered the mall I saw that it was huge, much larger than most with big open spaces and multi-story high ceilings. Just inside the front entrance was a circular stone fountain at least 50 feet in diameter. One of the guys and I were wrestling and knocked each other into the fountain. We hopped out and the whole group took the escalator up to the second level. For some odd reason, we were still carrying all the blankets and sleeping bags with us from earlier and they were still all connected in a big mass mysteriously stuck together. I don’t know how we moved like this, since we were sort of “on” the blankets, but it happened.
We weren’t going into any of the stores and were just walking around. Somewhere on the second level I noticed that every walking area in the mall was covered in 1-2 feet of clear slowly running water. (This was not so when we walked in.) Also, conveniently, our whole group of eight were now clad in bathing suits and our blankets and sleeping bags, still overlapping, became our very odd-looking raft that floated above water.
We floated around quite aimlessly having great fun and propelling ourselves with paddles or by paddling with our hands. It was like a great water fun park. Soon we reached the down escalator, but it was abnormally long and wide. It must have measured over 80’ wide and over 300’ long. I couldn’t make out the movement of the steps underwater, but the fact that it was an escalator was irrelevant; it might as well have been stairs, at least for our purposes. Also, just like everywhere else on our return trip, it was covered in water. A steady flow of water ran down the slope, but it didn’t rush down as you would have expected, just sort of gently cascaded.
We contemplated a ride down to the bottom. We all wanted to do it, but were all hesitant about the risks. For some reason the mall had been fairly vacant since we arrived, so there were no more than one or two people on this “escalator,” making it easy to navigate. Without another thought, we hopped back on our “raft” and let the current pull us over the edge. The descent began gently, but after a few seconds sped up dramatically. Instead of plummeting straight down, we veered off to the left side at about a 45 degree angle. Nevertheless, the speed was incredible. It was more thrilling than any waterslide I’ve ever been on. We were pretty much out of control, but as we reached the left handrail of the escalator, I gave us a carefully timed shove back towards the middle. I could see that the entryway fountain was only a dozen feet or so beyond the bottom of the escalator and knew our momentum would send us crashing right into it, so my shove was an attempt to hit the fountain just right of center so we would keep moving past it, but also slow us down.
The plan was partially successful. We didn’t land in the fountain, but did crash over another side barrier by the left wall and tumbled into a large wall fountain. A bit disoriented and completely soaked, I climbed out of the fountain and looked around. Marisa was okay, but only one of the other couples was with us and the raft was gone. Somehow I knew that everyone was all right. The couple that was with us were smiling but also looking concerned and quite possibly bruised. I was more ecstatic than the others, though reflecting more sincerely, I looked at them and said: “Well, that was extremely fun, but I admit it was very dangerous. I’d like to do it again, but only if we wore padding all over our bodies and helmets too.” They agreed it was worth the risk. I couldn’t wait to go for another run, but that’s when I woke up.