This dream started out with false awakening. A man was standing at the door of the bedroom, and at first I thought he was a delivery man as I am expecting a package. He came over to the side of the bed and was revealed to be a friend of a friend that I had met all of one time at a bar last year. I found it terribly difficult to wake up. I sleep with a blindfold and taking it off seemed a trial in and of itself. I wondered how the man had gotten into my room since I was sure I had locked the door, and in the back of my mind thought that perhaps he had come for sexual favours.
"I made this for you" He said, handing me an envelope. Inside was a drawing he had made of a monetary paper note that was of a currency I have never seen. As I unfolded it, it turned out to be quite a lot larger than a dollar bill, and although the illustration was nice, I couldn't understand why he would give me such a thing.
"Oh, this is really nice!" I said politely.
By now the man had taken up position on the bed to my right. He responded by saying: "Think you could give me ten bucks for it?"
So it was MONEY he was after, and not sex.
I turned to give him back the note when I found he had changed into another man I knew, one who, while obviously interested in me, was never someone I would consider having a relationship with. Often, this person's barely veiled advances put me on edge, and in the dream I suddenly became very upset and worried. His hair was done up in the style that Dennis Hopper's had been in the live-action Super Mario Brother's movie, and there was a great deal of mousse all over it.
He started flirting with me in the most revolting manner. "Oh, you're just so cute!" He said, rubbing his head all over my breasts and getting mousse on my shirt. I extracted myself from his grasp and got out of bed.
"I want you to leave." I said, "I don't know how you got in here but this is my apartment and I want you to leave now."
He got up too, but it didn't look like he was leaving. He just kept smirking at me like I had cracked the world's most high-brow joke. I realized I didn't have my cell phone in my pocket, nor did I know where it was. "I'll call the police if I have to." I meant it to sound threatening, but my voice cracked and squeaked out. At this point I was terrified that I was going to be raped.
"Yeah, good luck getting enough money for THAT." he said sardonically as he brushed passed me to leave. All the sleazy flirtatiousness had gone from his voice. He now sounded serious and mean.
Eventually he DID go of his own volition, but as I turned around I found that there were two more people in my apartment. One was an old acquaintance I had known from middle school who had never been quite what I would consider a "friend". The other was apparently her boyfriend. They were moving furniture into my apartment, setting up a dining room table and chairs against the wall of my bedroom, and I instinctively knew that there was more furniture in the adjoining room. They were moving in.
"What are you doing?" I demanded.
"Setting up the table!" She responded.
Briefly, I thought that perhaps the landlady was mad at me, and had allowed these two newcomers to move into my apartment without any fair warning, forcing me to either live WITH them or move out into an apartment I couldn't afford. "This is MY apartment," I stated. "You don't live here!" She stared blankly back at me, as though she hadn't heard or didn't understand what I was saying. "I want you both OUT NOW!" I was sick of all these intrusions!
It occurred to me that perhaps this was my punishment for not paying my car insurance bill on time, so I left to house to get stamps at the post office. I still could not find my cell phone, but at least I had my keys.
Out in the street there was a great commotion, and I saw that a man had high-jacked what can only be described as a crane and was using it to run down and murder people. Within moments of seeing this destruction I was aware that the man was a wanted killer, who routinely went on rampages like this one, murdering everything in his path. I was also aware of some unspoken connection between the killer and I, as though he was my creation, or maybe that we were two sides of the same person. He also might have been the manifestation of my cathartic side; but perhaps I'm getting too Freudian.
Whoever he was, the dream switched to third-person perspective and I watched in horror as he ran down pedestrians on the sidewalk, smearing the concrete red with their blood. I have done this several times myself while playing Saints Row II, but this dream capitalized on the reality of violent crime, and people died screaming around me as I ran for safety from this dangerous maniac.
Enter the Dogs.
Dogs are often featured in nightmares; which is odd because in real life I am quite fond of dogs, although at the moment I do not own any. These were not the sweet and cuddly kind of dogs, though; nor were they the noble, faithful kind. These dogs were monsters. They were disease-ridden and covered in scabs, sores and blood. They were fiercely aggressive and would attack any moving creature. They traveled in packs of now fewer than six and sought their pray tirelessly. Much like the Uruk-hai of Middle Earth, they did not know pain, they did not know fear and they feasted on man flesh.
These dogs were everywhere. I was attempting to make my escape onto campus, where I figured the killer would find it difficult to manoeuvre his crane, but it seemed that every corner I turned around held another pack of savage, diseased dogs. I could not outrun them. I was stuck in my realistic body which lacks both agility and speed, plugging along for my life while packs of ravenous beasts tore after me.
I came to an area of water that had once held a bridge. The bridge had been destroyed, but pieces of it remained half-submerged in the water. While making my way to the furthest piece, the dogs had found another victim and were tearing him apart just beyond my sight. I didn't care. I was glad it wasn't me. One of the dogs had not followed the others and was swimming in my direction. It would never stop until I was dead. I pulled out the only weapon I had on me, which happened to be an XBOX controlled, and immediately pulled up my weapons screen.
My only weapon was alligators.
I didn't care. I pointed the crosshairs at the one dog still after me and hit the trigger over and over again, determined to kill this dog as dead as possible. I was completely consumed by fear of it. Out of a nearby drain pipe came several large alligators who went over and ate the dog up, piece by piece. Then they hung out there in the water, blocking my path back to dry land. It seemed I had inadvertently marooned myself on this broken piece of bridge. The water below was a turquoise green and mostly clear, but not clear enough. I saw something shadowy beneath the surface, and although it could have been rocks, I wasn't taking any chances.
Somehow, I got back to the road. I recall running down the length of an empty lot toward traffic, and distantly thinking in my mind: "This is a dream. I'm having a nightmare right now." Even so, there has not been one instance in my life where I have been able to lucid dream. Despite knowing that it was my dream, my creation, I also knew there was nothing I could do to control it. I could only try to survive until I woke up.
It was darker now, and cold, and the only thing I wanted in the world was to get in a car and drive, drive, drive as fast as I could away from that horrible place. A man in a semi stopped next to me and got out. I can't remember precisely what he said, but it was clear he was offering me a ride. Just as I was about to get in the cabin, another pack of dogs attacked us. I was all out of alligators. Most of the dogs went after the truck driver. I wheeled around and tried to boost myself into the cabin, but wasn't fast enough. One of the dogs attacked me. It seemed like it leaped a great distance to do so, latching firmly onto my crotch.
I was so totally consumed by terror that I lost my mind and lay there on the floor of the truck kicking and screaming and crying without any ability to save myself or escape.
I passed out for a moment in the dream. When I came to, the dog had gone. Screams echoed in the street. The murderer was still on his rampage, as were the roving packs of dogs. I climbed into the driver's seat and pulled out onto the nearly-ruined highway. The truck cabin had turned into a mini-van, and the weather outside had gone from clear to swirling snow and ice. The entire road ahead of me was coated and no plows were in sight.
I have never been able to execute driving successfully in my dreams. Not once in all of my life, and this was no exception. I felt completely out of control, unable to keep the car in my lane or even going in the right direction. The windshield wipers and turn signals seemed foreign to me. I suddenly became aware that there were other people in the van: a man in the front, and a man, woman and child in the back.
The man in the front turned to me and said: "If you're going over, you better bundle up!"
At first I didn't understand. Then I saw what we were headed for: an immense drop-off that cascaded down the rocky side of cliff into a valley filled with grinding ice. This was some kind of extreme sport and I had neither the equipment nor the knowledge to perform it! At this point I had completely lost control of the car. It was essentially driving itself. I was lucky that they had an extra suit in the back. The man and woman handed it up to me, and I barely got it on in time. The suits were filled with helium pockets, and pulling a string caused them to inflate. This created a cushion of air around the wearer that prevented injury during what would otherwise be a fatal car crash.
We went over the cliff, and I couldn't see much because of the sheer size of my suit, but in the end we all made it down to the valley. The others got out and the little boy who had been in the back said: "Let's go again!"
I was back on the road again, close to the point where I had come across the first pack of dogs. I can't recall what I was doing. I think I may have been looking for other people to travel with since I felt so vulnerable by myself. The excitement of the marauding killer seemed to have died down. There were sirens in the distance but no more screams.
A young woman and her boyfriend approached me, and they were herding a group of toy-sized dogs. It was obvious the dogs suffered the same sickness as the ones that had chased me, for they were bleeding from the noses and covered in festering wounds. However, these dogs were friendly. They scampered up to me and whined for attention. Their tails wagged and their tongues lolled out of their mouths in anticipation of my attention. I stooped down and stroked a particularly happy-looking pug on the head.
"These dogs are sick," I said to the young woman.
"All dogs are sick here," she replied.
At that, the pug sneezed, and blood-streaked sputum shot all over its face and back. I stopped petting it after that.
"These dogs aren't like the other ones," the woman told me. "These dogs are pets. They have somebody to love."
At that point my alarm went off, and I came back to reality, realizing once again that my brain has a terrible time visualizing space and that my bedroom is in no way large enough to accommodate a dining table and chairs.... and also I should probably pay my car insurance now.
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