Thena

I was awake in bed, going over a dream from earlier in the night when I must have dozed off.

I'm in an airport, I think. It's a large indoor space with an escalator leading to another level. There was a moment of confusion because I remembered being in bed and I can still hear someone moving around in the room next to mine. I realized that I must have fallen asleep while still aware, something I usually have trouble with. My first thought was that I'm going to oversleep and I should get up now, but then I thought, "Why not enjoy this for a little bit? I want ice cream since I wasn't able to have some yesterday!"

I rub my hands together, then step onto the escalator and grip the handrail since stabilizing a lucid dream always gives me trouble. On the upper level, I can see the outline of storefronts to my left. One of them has to be an ice cream store, I think. I head in that direction, only to find a concrete barrier blocking access to the storefronts. Ahead of me is a door. I step through it, thinking that it will get me to the drop-off area for the airport. I see a street, but the sun is blinding me. The street fades and I find myself on my patio. There's a table in front of me and a loaf of rye bread. I take the package and reach in, pulling out a slice of bread. This doesn't seem to appetizing on the surface, but I know that it could taste differently in a dream. I bite into the bread and find it tastes like rich chocolate ice cream! Having achieved my goal, I wake up.

I was staying in some sort of group home where most of the residents were teenagers younger than me. There was also an older woman (older than me, at least) who owned the house, and a guy who I thought was her boyfriend. The front hallway had three funny-looking payphones, and I went to get a closer look at them because it had been so long since I'd used one. One of the teen girls joined me. Two guys showed up at the door, explaining that they work for a new burger joint in the area and were giving out samples. The teen girl got a burger, but the only sample they gave me was some kind of small grilled cactus leaf. I felt I was getting gypped. But how do you argue with free samples? They also gave us some fliers, which become important later.

I went to the kitchen where some of the other kids were gathered. The teen girl followed a few minutes later, complaining that the burger guys had called her on the phone and made a whole bunch of nasty comments. I got mad. I went back to the hallway with the payphones to call the burger place using the number on their flier so I could complain. But I was having trouble figuring out the number on the flier. I put a quarter in the slot, then realized that the number on the flier was a toll-free 888 number, so I tried to get my quarter back from the phone. Then I looked a little closer and the flier actually says, "Don't call 1-888-555-5555 because it's a scam." Why would they put that on an advertising flier?

Just as I started to put two and two together, the older woman's boyfriend turned up and distracted me by flirting with me. It was a little confusing, but I was definitely enjoying it! He told me that he never really was going out with the homeowner, and I realize that he really was closer to my age than hers.

I went into the basement to find the older woman. She was busy cleaning and I wanted to ask her if the guy was her boyfriend, but I was too afraid to interrupt her. Eventually, she got irritated. She told me that if I didn't have anything to do, I could go out into the yard and clean out the storage shed. On my way out, I ran into the guy. I told him, "Guess I'm going to get all hot and sticky in the shed. Wanna join me?" We reached the shed and find that it's empty, so with nothing else to do, we started making out!

After a while, we headed back into the house with the intention of spending more time alone together. But there's two teen girls who just came home and I could see that they were upset. We sat down with them and they talked about how scared they are about the future. I told about how I tackled scary things in the past and how I still get scared sometimes before I woke up.

I'm in the passenger seat of a car going down the highway. There's an unfamiliar guy driving, though neither of us seem to know how we got there. The headlights only seem to illuminate the passenger side, making it difficult for the driver to see where he's going. Somehow, I can see things from his side of the car and know what he's thinking. It's pretty strange seeing light on my side but not his, and it's pitch black outside the windshield. There's an exit coming up and I remember that it's the exit for the private school where we used to go. He changes lanes to get out of the left lane ahead of the exit. Things fast-forward (or I don't remember the exit ramp) but we pull into a parking space at a restaurant. We get out and go inside. I wonder how
far it is to this school and how late we're going to be for stopping. The place is dimly lit and we take a seat at a rough, unvarnished wooden table before I wake up.

I'm in a library. At the circulation desk, there's a librarian and then another guy who looks like a former classmate. I chat with him for a few moments, though I can't remember his name. Leaving the library, I go to a small house. A friend is staying there, but she's really sick. I tend to her for a bit and make sure that she's comfortable. Then I head to a grocery store to get some medicine and supplies for her. Oddly enough, I don't pay attention to what store I'm at, which is unlike me. It's raining heavily and I'm just glad to get inside the store so I can dry off. I don't seem to pay attention to the items I need to get for my friend.

From there, I go to a beach cottage with my family. It seems like a nice vacation place, even though the layout seems a little odd with hallways that zig-zag and seem to go nowhere. All the room are on the ground level and it backs up to an area where they have concerts on the beach. This causes some privacy concerns for me, especially since the curtains are so thin and flimsy. I try to shut the curtains in one room, but they don't hide anything. To my horror, a family member is getting undressed right in front of the window, even though I can see people watching on the other side of the curtain. The dream fades before I can do anything about it.

I'm driving through my friend's hometown, making my way to the highway that leads out of town. It's a quiet, tree-lined residential street with a lot of pricey-looking houses (admittedly, not the kind of homes you'd find in my friend's hometown). As I drive by, I see pandas playing on the lawns of these houses. Eventually, I get to a spot where there's a large gap in the road. There's a panda lying in the gap, so I pull over to avoid running it over. Another car stops behind me and blocks traffic so it cannot pass. I grab my camera, intent on taking a picture of this panda, but a goat and a dog turn up. Each time I think I've got a shot of the camera, I find that the dog and the goat are blocking the shot. Eventually, the panda gets up and leaves the road. I get back in my car, but now I'm in an apartment courtyard with no clear path for me to drive out.

I'm looking at a coastline, watching a long boat with a low profile (almost like a submarie) as it sails down the coast near a city. There's a voice-over talking about how a prominent Greek family fell on hard times, and to save money, they bought this houseboat from the Soviets. The boat is called the Valdrosta.