Sleep, but Never Rest

I remember driving on a highway that was clear of cars. There were two lanes in each direction and this was out in the outskirts of a city with fields on each side.

I saw an ambulance behind me, so I stopped on the right side of the road. There was a cop up ahead to catch speeders. I remember worrying about how fast I was going, but realized I was driving speed limit before stopping.

The ambulance stopped and I thought maybe I was in the way. I pulled up further into the gravel/soft shoulder.

The ambulance still didn’t move.

I looked in the rear view mirror and saw a two-trailer semi-truck with its broad side facing us, taking up the whole street and moving quickly toward us in a strange way. Behind it, there appeared to be a large area of cars “floating” in water. I found out later that it was a tidal wave.

In waking life, if I saw this happening, I’d drive off as fast as I could to avoid the wave (like I did when I was speeding away from a tornado in 2007). However, in this dream, I was like, “Darn. That truck is going to hit me, then push me right into that cop…”

I remember being in a classroom later and on a TV mounted in the room, it showed the wave taking out a roller coaster, but the ride broke in a way that the riders survived. I pointed at it and said to the teacher, “THAT’S why I’m late for class.”

Where to start…?

I remember trying to find information about Charlie*. I tracked him down to some 2 or 3-story brick building in the city. There was a building next door with a garage door or wooden fence with an old painted sign and an arrow that went to the right. There was an old wooden fence that blocked a space between the building.

In the photo I had of the building, it was supposed to have a white stucco side. This building, however, had all brick sides that I could see from the street.

I remember exploring the dream space (maybe I’ve been Second Life a bit too much where I explore unlocked stranger’s homes, but I’d never do this in real life - I don’t need a criminal record) and I parked the big black SUV I was driving on the curb in front of the house at night.

I walked in and went upstairs and there was a guy chilling on the couch watching a movie. He saw me, but didn’t seem to care too much.

I went to a computer set up in the corner of the room and looked up something related to me on the computer. I’m not sure why, but I left it on the page.

I left the building and was going around my car when I heard my name mentioned in anger/disappointment. I turned to find that there was a group of guys hanging out near a truck parked on the driveway next to the house. They were wearing red sports uniforms - like OSU basketball jerseys or baseball shirts. Edward* was there for some reason as well. I hurried to get into the SUV.

I heard Charlie say, “Wait, hold on, I got this.”

He ran over and caught my door before I closed it. This was definitely Observer-Charlie* - he had that weird invasive feeling and looked at me in a way most regular dream characters don’t. He surprisingly had dyed strawberry-blond hair that was a bit too long. Charlie-Alpha* has warm brown hair. I thought this hair didn’t fit him at all.

He asked, “Why were you in my room?”

I said, “Your room? I didn’t go in your room, just your living room.”

He asked, “Why did you mess with my stuff and look on my computer?”

I said (partly lying and avoiding his eye contact), “I just wanted to show you a link…”

I said, “Listen, I’m sorry. I didn’t know what I was doing…”

He said, “Yes, you did.”

And I woke up.

——-

In a later dream, Charlie and I made up and we were hanging out in some apartment. I remember I was wearing my jeans that I finally fit into in real life, but in my dream, they were a size too loose. I also was wearing my red button-up shirt.

There was a show on an old TV with a marathon of a sci-fi show running. I remember one episode ending with a scene about finding a radio signal that is another piece of the puzzle they were trying to solve and it ended with a view of the sky over a flat corn field with a tall radio tower to the right. I remember seeing it before and remembering there were multiple radio signals and they were actually going deeper into the plot.

—-

I remember running from one side of Columbus to another and back on foot with a lot of people. I remember going through poor neighborhoods and having to go around obstacles like trash and laundry piles.

* Names were changed

I remember being at a party where someone received a seat cushion as a gift and there was a square bowl underneath it. She Instagrammed the bowl.

Later, I had some goal to get Matt and Jennifer together (they weren’t a couple yet in the dream) and it involved yellow shoes. I found that I could wear Matt’s shoes better than Jennifer’s, but it didn’t matter because when I threw them down outside of my parked van to put them on, a bunch of tiny ants started crawling on them. I was annoyed and had to keep waving the shoes to get them off.

I opened the back door on the driver’s side and there was a gray cat sitting there watching me.

People were walking back to the cars and Jennifer was one of them. She had short hair and was wearing bright yellow. She got in the driver’s seat of my van and some girl I don’t know got in the passenger seat. Jennifer started the car while I was still hanging halfway out the back door. I yelled to get her to not drive off and to stop, but she pulled out of the parking spot quickly and I almost fell before she did stop.

I remember two dreams about evacuation or displacement.

One was at my parents’ house, but instead of having neighbors and a water treatment area across the street, it was just fields.

I knew a large group of people would be coming - however, they were all black. My parents live in a 95%+ white population and even if it were in Columbus, I just expected more diversity. I let them all into my parents’ house (in the dream, it felt like I owned it) and expected them to find a place to rest upstairs. Instead, they all went to the basement for some reason.

In another dream, I was driving with my mom in the car and we were evacuating a location that was going to be destroyed by something. I remember my dad having to catch up in his Prius since he was asked to help out with his knowledge of electricity and computers.

So I remember driving at night in a city. I think I missed the street to turn on and was almost at a dead end that had train tracks (I remember  the railroad crossing sign). I was at a weird part of the block where the intersections were close, so I moved up and stopped when I heard ambulance sirens. I was on a bridge with a round white guardrail to my right. I was going to turn left down the next street, but waited because I saw the ambulance lights flashing in the windows of the brick buildings there.

I remember getting really drowsy as if I were having a sleep attack, but I forced myself awake.

A car pulled up behind me and I thought the driver would just get impatient and drive in the oncoming lane to go around me - hopefully not when the ambulance was turning. I put the car in park and wondered if I should put my blinkers on.

I heard the driver (and maybe the passenger) get out and saw their silhouettes walking toward my car. I put the car in drive and turned down that road on my left and sped away.

Note: I thought in the dream I was around the D.C. area (I only ever visited the city once, for 6 hours, in waking life) and I found that the guardrails match D.C.’s guardrails: See the image from Google Maps/Streetview.

Later, I had three dreams that I kept waking up from, but not all the way. I thought I was dreaming about the work I did in waking life, but it was really false awakenings and the “work” I was doing was from an internship in the dream. It was something where I had to fill in values in an Excel-like table.

I dreamed I was interning at a crime unit in a police station or something. I was given “IT” work to do, but I remembered listening to them talk about a serial killer.

For some reason, we kept our department lights turned off, so the whole dream was lit by computer and TV screens, blinking lights from the large servers we had in the room, and one projection screen. The large room we were in also was in a larger building that was part of a mall-like place. It was near New Years I think and my friends and I planned to hang out there after my shift.

They found some information about a Sun_____ (can’t remember the brand name) Systems or something like that. One of the agents (or maybe it was another staff) said they recognized the name, but couldn’t remember where. They did that cheesy thing where they tried to calm him down and have him try to remember where the last time he saw that logo. He still couldn’t remember, but thought that it had something to do with cooling.

One girl got on a computer and looked it up and found that the brand/logo is from a heating/cooling company and their air conditioners are found all over the place - usually in server rooms of big corporations.

The guy said, “That’s right!” and told them he remember seeing it when he worked at a office park in an area nearby.

I was bored and went “exploring” the room and found where one of the people involved killed himself. It was so dark, but I remember walking to the spot (that was supposedly cleaned up) and then looked at the TV on the wall.

It was a news report showing security footage of the guy getting up from his chair, putting a gun to his left temple and blowing his head off. It was really gory and I thought, “Wow, they really showed that on TV?” and then showed the same event from another angle. I started to look away thinking, “I REALLY don’t need dreams about people shooting themselves in the head. I might sleepwalk and I hide things like scissors and razors to avoid accidentally doing stupid things like cutting or shaving my head in my sleep. Imagine if I had a gun.” *Shiver* The news changed to war violence.

I sat down in the office chair - it was cold, almost as if it were wet. For some reason I was thinking, “so this is where the guy was and he stood up - I’m not standing up, too lazy - and shot himself.”

I don’t know why, but I pushed the chair away and sat on the floor - it was colder and obviously wet. I thought it was condensation from the A/C units around me cooling the computers and servers. There was a blue? tarp on the table and I was surprised when I grabbed it how liquid dropped down my hand. It was cold, but obviously did not flow like water. I tried to look at it in the light from the screens.

While this was happening, a young female agent with short black hair was going over stuff with a slightly older male agent with brown hair. You could see on her face (lit by the projection screen) a growing suspicion of the male agent.

I finally was able to make out a dark red liquid on my hand and realized I have been sitting in blood that whole time. I got up and was able to make out the Sun____ Systems logo on a A/C unit right next to me. I rushed over to the female agent and whispered (a little too loudly) “WET blood!” I meant to convey someone was killed very recently - this isn’t from the suicidal guy. I said, “WET!” to emphasize the point. She nodded and understood and pointed for me to run away.

I ran out of the room into some other rooms - one was a daycare or something - and the door leading outside had a rubber thing holding the doorknob to keep the doorknob closed. I was able to remove it quickly, but the blood on my hands made it hard to turn the knob. Luckily the female agent came running to help.

Then I woke up.

I don’t remember what I was worried or upset about, but I gave a ride to some guy in a long-sleeve mustard-colored sweater. It was night in a city. He said things to make me feel better about the situation I was in. He asked to be dropped outside of some health center or something. It was surrounded by a fence, so I offered to drive him closer to the door, but he refused.

Later, I remember using an outside gas station restroom. The door was missing for some reason and I could see the area I dropped the guy off. I kept looking at the treeline that was silhouetted by the light from the city. I saw the mustard sweater guy watching me with binoculars. I got creeped out and left as quick as possible, but when I flushed the toilet on the way out, the back tank somehow overflowed.

I drank alcohol last night and ended up sleeping for 10 hours, but not remembering any dreams and did not feel rested at all.

So I went back to sleep and, due to caffeine withdraw and low blood sugar, got a bad headache. I think that’s what caused me to lucid dream.

I wasn’t freaked out like when I normally lucid dream, but a few things kept me from staying in them.

One was dreaming I still lived on Wall Street and walked to my car in my normal legal parking spot. Some weird fog came down Columbus Street and engulfed my car. I realized I was dreaming and made it dissipate by turning on my windshield wipers. I drove down Columbus and got onto High Street just to see what I could do and where I could go in the dream. But then I got this nagging feeling that I needed to quit dreaming about familiar things before I started getting “stuck” in the dream. Before waking up, I remembered there were tall buildings in the background that moved around like a video game.

In another lucid dream, I was living in this apartment, but I had agreed to have Matt move in as a roommate due to some emergency and we split up the tiny place into each of us having a room. He got the living room and designed it nicely. I convinced myself that I was not only dreaming, but I was seeing into the future. I kept asking Matt, who was using his laptop on a small dining room table, “What’s the date? What year is it?” He kept looking at me like I was crazy.

I remember eating some food that was on a table near the kitchen.

Eventually, I went back into my bedroom saying, “Well, I’m going back to the past, now!” And he repeated it, amused at the strangeness.

I remember throughout that dream, I fought to stay in it and keep it going.

In another dream, I can’t remember all the details, but Kara’s cousin, Sarah, told me something she was told in confidence and I couldn’t understand why it was a secret. It was about Betty* “scooping up” Tim*. I pictured her comically picking up Tim like some firefighter. I know it was probably that she (as evil as she is) pounced on Tim when he was single again. I’m sure that happened in another dream a LOOOONG time ago.

In another lucid dream, I tried to focus on details to keep it going. However, all I could remember before I forced myself up to eat, was a glass door with credit card symbols on it, a pay phone, and a black mat on the floor with a curled up edge.

* Names were changed

I remember three parts…

The first part took place on the third floor of a cruise liner. I don’t remember the plot, but my family and my half-sister was there. I had been there before and remember trying to remember the room number.

————————————-

Later, I remember my dad driving me out to some house and property he bought. There was three days before he officially owned it. The back yard had gravel and looked like a small parking lot. My dad wanted to keep it gravel, but when we got out there, they had just paved it in black top. I asked him why they’d do that.

————————————-

I remember leaving late for class - German class, I think - and I remember having a 20-min. commute.

It was a gloomy day and I remember trying to fix my clock and change the radio station, etc. by pressing different buttons in my car.

I was so preoccupied with that, I almost ran a light in front of a cop. Later, I missed my exit and ended up driving toward a park with a decorative iron railing on the right.

I knew if I turned left, I could find my way back to SR 161, but missed that, too. I followed some cars to see where the road went, but it dead ended into a walking trail. I turned around and saw a baby tiger or lion. I parked and got out with my camera.

I got some photos of the baby lion, but it walked away. I pet it like a house cat and it started to roar like an adult lion. It didn’t try to bite me, it just continued walking away slowly. It turned into a baby tiger.

I looked to my right and coming up the trail were two adult tigers. So I left it alone and walked to my car.

I don’t know why, but I threw some headphones (nice ones) across the way and it landed on the other side of the road. I picked them up and brought them back to my van.

When I got to my van, I saw policemen searching through it and one even looked at papers and balled them up and threw them in a bag. I told them they had no right to search my vehicle without my consent. They laughed at me and later got in and drove it away.

I walked to the police station nearby and stood in line to speak with someone there about it.

The three people in front of me were led into glass offices.

One of the office associates came back to help me. It was a dark-skinned lady with a short beard.

She gave me the amount of  the fees/charges - over $300 for just one. I don’t even remember what the charge was. She would then get part way through looking it up and help others. Finally, a hot guy without a shirt came in and helped look up the rest of the information for me. He handed me two drug-test pee cups that had plastic bags around them and didn’t tell me to use them. He gave me the rest of the information and asked me about Columbus this time a year.

I remember later joking about how everyone is so big into the Buckeyes. I remember also talking about how even on top of these charges, it will cost $109 to get my car out of impound.

While this was going on, one of the associates pointed out the dark tornado cloud forming outside. I didn’t hear any sirens, so I didn’t care. I was explaining that I should not have to pay any of the charges because the cops should have never searched my car.

I ended the dream thinking I could speak with local news places so this doesn’t happen with other people. I said, “Yeah, you should never piss off a journalist.”

I remember part of my dream involving walking up in a disheveled bedroom and found out there was a Zombie apocalypse. Gotta love Walking Dead marathons right before going to bed! Honestly, if the zombies in my dreams weren’t as cool looking as the Walking Dead ones, my dreams would be lame. Those zombies are awesome.

Later, I remember watching a comedy making fun of horror stuff and there was a guy on a later hanging up some life-sized cut out of another character and he was holding the cut out upside down. The character the cut out was of walked into frame right behind the cut out and the cut out’s head was blocking where the real guy’s head was. When the real guy moved to the side and into the room, his head was upside down.

Then there was weird 1980s Ghost Buster-y effects showing ooze coming from the wall.

————————————-

In another dream, I woke up in my car and I couldn’t see anything because there was a ton of dust and debris flying around. I turned on the radio and realized I was right next to a tornado.

I some how survived and drove some girl to her car that was literally over the river and through some woods.

I also remember not wanting to go to a class and went anyway.

I don’t remember much, just finding signs at the end of some streets in the Old North Columbus/Clintonville Area that some street artist added to. the signs added to the “No Parking” and Stop signs were funny sayings on other street signs. They were all attached with bolts and overlapping. I thought it was cool, so I drove over to another one, but found out I was going the wrong way on a one way street and did a U-turn to go with traffic. This was all at night.