non-lucid

Still aiming to do the advanced task of the month. I'm only getting partially there, as the train shows up in my dream but I don't become lucid.

I'm on a train. I have an empty seat next to me, and two empty seats facing me with a table in between. The train crew is coming through the car and serving tea. They're dressed in Union Jack uniforms with additional red, white and blue hats. It looks a bit over the top. I would be annoyed, except the crew member serving my tea is all worried about how I'm sitting alone when I'm not traveling alone according to their records. I stand up and look behind me. Dad is on the same train, but he's also sitting by himself in a group of empty seats.

The train arrives at a station and I get off. I end up climbing the stairs to the upper levels of the station, excited to see the sights, before I remember that I haven't met up with Dad. I look over a railing and see that the train is still parked at the platform. I go back to the train. Dad doesn't seem to be anywhere around, and I guess he's doing his sightseeing without me.

I head out of the train station to the local sight, which is some sort of tower. It must have an incredible view since the top seems partially obscured with fog. The building doesn't look very tall from where I'm standing, but I guess the whole area must be at a higher elevation. I pull out my smartphone to do a Foursquare check-in. That's when I realize that I have no clue where I am. I ponder this for a moment and think, "Well, no problem. My phone has GPS, so it will figure it out." Except that when I look at my phone, I see nothing.

I head up to the upper floor of the tower, only to find that access is restricted to ticket holders for some special event. They allow me to stand in the back while the ticketed visitors have access to a grandstand to see the view. Here, I realize that this is not a tower after all. It's some type of sports facility with roller skating on one floor and ice skating on another.

A brief awakening, and then onto the next dream.

I'm building a model of an expressway interchange out of foil and duct tape on the kitchen table. My goal is to figure out how to make cars get through the interchange faster. I'm testing it out by rolling a rubber ball. It's not entirely successful as the ball weights more than the aluminum foil can support. My guess is that making the ramps much longer might make it easier on drivers. To do that, I magically add extra foil onto the end of two ramps.

Dad passes through the kitchen on his way out. He says I should have checked with the road department first to make sure I was allowed to build a model. He tells me he'll be waiting in the car. Funny, I don't remember being told that we're going somewhere. I head for the stairs so I can go upstairs and change my clothes. On my way, I pass by the front window and see Dad driving off. So he didn't even wait for me?

I return to the kitchen. Here, I find that my sister is waiting with a lost cat that she found. I remind her that it can't stay here since Dad is allergic to cats. She tells me she knows, so she got a crate to keep the cat outside. As she puts the cat in the crate, I notice that the car has an extra tail protruding from its abdomen (Uh, seriously? ). I remind her again that Dad's allergy is pretty severe, so we head outside to look for the cat's owner. We seem to have walked into the heart of the city. After passing under a viaduct, I see a bus about to turn onto the street we're on, going on the opposite direction. I hustle my sister across the street to see if we can make it to the bus before it leaves the stop.

But instead of being on a bus, I find myself in a waiting room of some sort. The cat has turned into a crystal, and I am meeting with someone to see if he's the original owner. The scene cuts to a restaurant kitchen with Ali Velshi doing a live news report. He's basically using CNN to tattle on a chef who eats all the shrimp in the kitchen, then serves skimpy seafood entrees with the leftovers. I'm not quite sure how I got into the middle of all this. It turns out that the woman who owns the restaurant was also the original owner of the crystal. She wants me to find a way to mount it on the wall. I pull out a Swiss army knife and find what I think might work as a screwdriver. There's a small toolbox on the counter, and I start searching through it for screws.

Just an aside to note the progress I'm making with visualization and being able to fall asleep quickly. While I did not fall asleep immediately, it still made a huge difference. I'm thinking that I managed to doze off within 20 minutes. I've been visualizing an image of relaxing at the beach. Last night was certainly interesting as random thoughts actually worked their way into the visualization. About 15 minutes into my visualization, a woman in a muumuu showed up on my beach. I pictured her walking away and got back to the original scene. A few minutes later, a naked Joe Manganiello popped up out of the waves. Too bad I fell asleep before it got interesting and he didn't follow me into the dream.

It's the last day of school. Apparently I'm taking my sister and my friend "Tom" to school. Tom is telling us that his schedule will be changing so he can sync up with a boy whose dad drops him off late on Wednesdays. We're getting into Dad's SUV with the fancy entertainment system. I'm disappointed that I have to drive since they're going to be watching "Thundercats" in the back seat. One moment, I'm climbing into the driver's seat. The next thing I know, the car is careening down a street and someone is yelling at me to watch where I'm going. But I can't see oncoming traffic because the driver's seat is blocking my view. Somehow, I'm directing the car from the back seat, though the car is basically driving itself. The car passes Dad, who is walking along the street in the opposite direction, which worries me that he'll think I'm an awful driver. I realize that we're heading in the wrong direction for the school. I rationalize that we can still get there on time if we take the highway on the next left.

The car turns left and immediately comes across a set of train tracks and a slow-moving old-fashioned steam train. I see my sister crossing the tracks in front of the still-moving train. Fortunately, the train comes to a complete stop and I go after her. We find ourselves in this old-fashioned village where we are supposed to be role-playing something from "Game of Thrones." One of the guys in my group is the Skipper, and he wants to visit a shop where his "little buddy Gilligan" works. He thinks Gilligan can give us some information we need. The women in the group nix the idea after seeing the shop window. According to them, the flower display in the window is only appropriate for a "lady of the night" so they are suspicious of who Gilligan is dating.

The group moves on to another shop. The player running the shop breaks character when he realizes we're all "purple" like him. He starts laying on a heavy-handed sales pitch. A woman enters the room and hands me a plate with some lentil curry. The plate is a little greasy and it gets all over my hands. There is a bar top with a stack of cocktail napkins. I set my plate down and grab a napkin, but the grease won't come off my hands. I look over and see my sister is having the same problem. Then my friend Catherine joins us. I whine at her that, "It won't come off my hands!"

I fell out of the dream at this point, did a WBTB and went to sleep 25 minutes later.

A gentleman in uniform is escorting me on the deck of a ship. I ask him to tell me the sad story of Lord M. He takes me into a club and we sit at the bar while he tells me the story. It seems Lord M had finished his tour of duty in the Navy and wanted to immediately propose to his sweetheart back home. But WWII broke out that same day and he realized that his duty was to his country, so he reenlisted. His one true love married someone else and he married another woman after the war ended, but he never loved her. While I'm hearing the story, I notice most of the other bar patrons seem to be superheroes or villains. I leave the bar to find that Skeletor has joined forces with Baron Dark. It's not much of a surprise to me, since it seemed like they would be natural allies. I am captured, but I'm not afraid. I know I have the ability to resist when Baron Dark tries and fails to turn me into a skeleton.

I'm in the kitchen, cleaning up after a party. There's a couple guests that I don't recognize and they are helping me wash dishes. My ex-stepmother is also there. She's not really helping, though. She's decided to rearrange the kitchen to suit her. She decides that the cabinet we use for plates would be better suited for food storage. I ask, "Well, where are we going to put the plates, then?" She chooses to put the plates away on the top shelf that I can't reach. I point out that this is pretty useless for me since I'll never be able to reach that shelf. She ignores me, so I appeal to the guests to understand my problem. They don't respond.

I must have left because now I'm at a pool. There's a mushroom-shaped hut on one side of the pool where the crew of a visiting spacecraft is staying. I come up with a clever idea of using a note to ask one of the crew members to have a drink with me at the poolside snack bar. It works, but he brings his commander with him. I get another girl to join us, but we end up in a booth with me sitting across from the commander and the guy I want sitting across from the other girl. Then they start bringing in other people, and I keep getting pushed further away from the guy I wanted to talk to.

I'm with a couple of investigators who are following a "suspect" as he gets on a train. They think he's skipping town. The guy passes right by me, and I notice that he looks totally non-threatening. In fact, he looks more like Santa Claus.

Haven't been sleeping well this week due to stress, so before bed, I took the time to relax and practice some visualization. The specific image I chose? A lavender field in the south of France. It carried over into my dream -- not that I recognized it at the time.

I'm attending a convention. There's a woman who hands me a folder when I sign in, and she takes time to go over the contents, which seem to be coupons. One of the coupons catches my eye. It's for a gift bag full of products from a bath store. I'm more interested in the bag than the products. The woman admires the bag that I'm carrying, which is pink with yellow ducks. (Ducks? Seriously?) I tell her it's a Vera Bradley. She's never heard of Vera Bradley, which blows my mind. I guess she really doesn't know anything about handbags. There's a vague recollection that I need to keep an eye out for some French lavender, but I dismiss it for now since I'm not going to find it at a convention.

At the convention, I'm awarded a trip to the set of "Game of Thrones." I'm immediately whisked away. I'm impressed that they've even managed to recreate the comet in the daytime sky above the set. But the set visit quickly turns into something else. There's a lake surrounded by sand dunes, and I'm dumped on the far side and told to find my way back. Every time I got close to the lake, large worms with poisonous barbs and monstrous crabs would scuttle out of the sand to chase me off. The worms also shed their barbs and leave them behind in the sand, so I have to be really careful where I step. Eventually, I team up with two others and get to a clear area of lakefront. We find a canoe made out of plywood and packing tape(?). It seats three people, and I get in front very carefully, as the canoe threatens to tip over if the weight in front and back is not carefully balanced.

Eventually, the ordeal ends although it doesn't seem clear what happens after the canoe. I get home and look out the windows into the back yard. It's snowing, and I think that's it's awful that it's snowing in June. But I brush it off. The neighbors in the house behind mine are out in their yard (with the fence mysteriously missing). There's kids playing in the yard next to theirs, and the kids have puppies. Someone tosses a puppy in the air, which seems pretty frightening, but I am distracted by a visitor who asks about my neighbors. I start telling him a story, the details of which are fuzzy to me, but my visitor clearly recognizes it. "Wait, it's that 'The Godfather?'" he asks, and I explain that they inspired the movie. I turn back to watch the neighbors through the window. There's a doorway that looks like it's been cut out a brick wall on their house. I explain to my visitor that it's a secret door that they use to sneak out.

So disappointing to miss some very obvious cues, but after such rough week, I'm glad that I'm just able to sleep.

I'm staying in a hotel. I head back to my room to change my clothes, but getting in seems confusing because I have to go through an extra door to get to the door of my room. Then I see that the connecting door to the next room is open. I don't know the people in the next room, so I go to shut that door. But that doesn't help, because now the wall between the two rooms has disappeared. It's getting confusing to figure out just how big this room is because the walls are lined ceiling-to-floor with mirrors like some kind of funhouse.

I'm in a rather shabby-looking building. It's supposed to be a chemistry lab, though the room I'm in seems to resemble an airport departure gate with a manned desk next to a door that leads to the lab. For some reason, I'm wearing a cropped shirt that gives me a bare midriff (something that would not work with my body type at all). The people at the desk won't let anyone in, but Dad manages to persuade them to let us through so I can see if they'll hire me to work at the lab. We go through the door, down a hallway, and into a room with files. I take out a file folder to look at it… And then we're back in the outer room again at the desk. This time, no matter how Dad tries, they won't let us through for security reasons. While he argues at the desk, I wander down a staircase and find myself in an apartment that resembles my basement. There's a Haitian woman there who is employed as a nanny. She has to punish one of her charges, and I watch as she calls the child's parents. She tells the father that he'll want to speak to her in person rather than hear what happened from his wife.

And then I woke up, made a bathroom run, then went back to sleep.

I'm at my old job, watching another employee trying to process an equal exchange. She can't figure it out and ends up charging the customer an extra $8. Then a customer approaches my register to do an equal exchange. She says that a salesperson named Eugenia had helped her. I'm having trouble entering this in the computer because the keyboard puzzles me. Instead of the standard keyboard, it has the letter alphabetically, but between "E" and "F" is a "Eug" key. I'm not sure if I should use "E" or "Eug" for Eugenia. The customer is getting frustrated and keeps asking why it's taking so long. I'm trying to faster, but I'm so confused. Then I find that the customer did not bring her receipt because she assumes I can easily ring an even exchange for the same item. I try to explain how our register system is complicated and I need the exact discount codes from her receipt, which frustrates her even more.

Followed by a completely separate dream:

I'm on a stakeout with Jethro Gibbs and his team. We're in an old motel room, though it seems to resemble a cabin with separate living room and bedrooms. The idea is that something is left out on a living room table for the suspect to pick up and scan while the team hides in a bedroom. Supposedly, when the bad guy scans the bar code, it will allow NCIS to track his bank account. The plan seems to work, the suspect leaves, and the team starts cleaning up. I'm busy collecting all these long tubes with bar codes. There was only supposed to be one, but they seem to be multiplying. The front door of the cabin is open with just the screen door shut. Through the screen, you can see the parking lot of the motel is starting to fill up with a mob of people carrying baseball bats and other similar objects. Tony and I look at each other and agree that something bad is about to happen. The team needs to get out of here in a hurry. I run into the bedroom to warn Gibbs, but he's in the bathroom. Despite me shouting through the door, he does not seem to realize the danger in time. In the living room, I see someone walk in carrying… a cricket bat? I go back to yell at Gibbs again that we're in trouble, but I can hear banging noises and shouts of pain coming from the bathroom. Gibbs finally comes out, his face covered with abrasions (that don't exactly look fresh, more like they have started to heal, I notice). I assume that Gibbs was probably attacked by members of the bat-wielding mob. I take him out back to a getaway car, but I spot a problem. The car seats five people, and there's already four sitting inside with only space for one more in back. But Gibbs tells me we have no time to wait for another car. He pushes me in back seat ahead of him. Surprisingly, the backseat is a lot roomier than I expected. All four of us in back are able to sit comfortably without feeling crowded. It's like sitting on a really wide bench, actually. The car takes off, and I notice that the front passenger door doesn't seem to be completely closed. As I look closer, I see pieces of the car body around the door are damaged or missing entirely. The car stops at an intersection. To the right, there's a man in a beekeeper outfit waving an object that gives off smoke. I remember how beekeepers use smoke to get bee swarms to leave. I realize those gaps around the door could be a problem if bees come this way. I shout for Ziva in the front seat to hold her door shut tightly. Before she can do anything, two really large bees, larger than a fist, slam into the windows. The driver (Abby, I think) freaks out but hits the accelerator, and the car takes off.

The next thing I know, I'm checking my email and finding a response from "Jay." (Oddly enough, Jay used to play Gibbs in a RPG.) Apparently I had emailed him with my concerns about being left out of the planning stages of a game plot. His response is pretty cold, telling me that it's my fault no one wants to consult with me, and that I'd better get with it and sign into my next activity on time if I don't want to get thrown out. I wake up in a bit of a panic over being late.

Just before bed, I had read a few articles about the problems that the Spanish royal family was going through, and it was amusing how I ended up rehashing all of that in my dream conversation.

I'm in the kitchen trying to talk to Dad while heating up dinner. I'm telling him all about the news stories about the king of Spain accidentally revealing his mistress to the public while the queen was vacationing with her family. Dad isn't really paying attention. He's heating up some naans in the microwave. I continue on, telling Dad about how the king's mistress fled to Monaco while I grab a stack of tortillas. Dad walks out of the kitchen without listening and without taking his naan out of the microwave. I take it out of the microwave, noticing that it looks almost half-eaten. But I don't pay attention to that and stick a plate with a HUGE stack of tortillas into the microwave.

I walk out of the kitchen towards the entrance to the house, but now I'm walking on a concrete pier in Monaco. Prince Albert is walking ahead of me in a pair of swim trunks. His new wife is right behind him -- I get the feeling that she's not letting her husband out of her sight while the Spanish king's mistress was around. People are fishing off of the sides of the pier or, in some spots, they're climbing down ladders into the water so they can swim. (Why didn't I hang around? I loved Monaco but my only visit there was much to brief!)

I move on to riding a motorcycle down a mountain road. There's a tunnel ahead, but it's blocked at the entrance with a detour sign pointing to the right. I watch other bikers looking around with confusion, not sure where to go. For my part, I see what looks like a dirt embankment on the side. I aim for it and find myself riding sideways along the side of the mountain. The others follow me, but we reach a dead end with nowhere else to go.

I'm making my way through a college campus until I get to the library. For some reason, I "own" a section of a bookcase on the second floor as though it's my on-campus apartment, but I'm getting ready to lease it out to a new student. I want to meet with her ahead of time to make sure my books are going to be kept safe. When I meet this woman, I get the feeling that she isn't what she appears to be.

I offer to take her for lunch. There's several different cafeterias to pick from, but most of them are reserved for students only. We pass one labeled "Alumni" that looks more like a fancy restaurant, but it's restricted access. We settle on the general cafeteria that's open to visitors. I leave the woman at the entrance and walk over a few steps to chat with my friend, Paul McCartney. On a hunch, I took her student ID and scan it while I discuss my concerns with Paul. We manage to identify the ID as fake when it comes up as not being attached to a meal plan.

I say good-bye to Paul and head into the cafeteria, where I bump into "Jane," who I haven't seen in a long time. She tells me that her husband "Brad" is on an Air France flight to Paris and that she's waiting to see it take off. There's a long window on the other side of the cafeteria, and outside, you can see planes flying. Jane leaves once she sees the only plane with Air France colors take off.

At this point, I actually woke up because there was sunlight in my face. I checked my watch to see the time (7:30). Then I rolled over, started going over the previous dream in my mind, fell asleep and re-entered the dream.

The view outside changes from airport to ocean. I spot something in the water that looks like a killer whale's dorsal fin. I watch, expecting to see a whale surface for breath, but instead it's a Boeing 737 floating in the water. Other students rush over to the window in time to see three more planes rise to the surface before a large wave crashes over them. It's almost like the planes are surfing the waves like dolphins do. Horrified students head back to their classes or dorms as word is spread that there was no one aboard the planes. A businessman who was on the verge of losing everything sank the planes for the insurance money. Still, people are pretty rattled.

I take the elevator up to the second level, where a few students are gathered around discussing the incident. Shortly afterwards, the elevator doors open again. It's the resident assistant, a pale boy with light blonde hair. He looks even more shocked than the rest of us, and he's accompanied by an older man that looks like his father. I assume the father is there to help him because he looks so overwhelmed.

Apparently we are moving from this house, but no one seems concerned about packing. I am worriedly checking cabinets and getting distressed that there's still stuff in them. I give up on motivating everyone and just pack up my own belongings before checking into a hotel.

At the hotel, I seem to be sharing a room with three other people who are plotting something. Before leaving the room, they pull out some sort of screen to cover up what they were designing on the wall. We leave the hotel room as a group, but from there I go to some kind of auditorium. I sit backstage as a graduation ceremony takes place. I might be watching an episode of "Grey's Anatomy" because I see Chief Webber talking to Meredith and Christina.

I move on from the auditorium. I want to visit a café on a particular street, but the bus routes have changed and I end up two blocks away at a café on DEILD Street. (How could I overlook that one?!?) After spending some time at a table (but did I eat or drink anything? Why else would I I be at a café?) I leave and head down an alley. There's a couple of people playing a game where they toss chunks of veggies into a bowl, trying to get the trajectory so the veggies ricochet out. The winner is the one who gets the food to land farthest from the bowl. I decide to join, except I'm playing with peeled grapes. They don't seem to notice me at all until I make a really good shot and wind up close to the lead.

I woke up at 4 AM and couldn't initially get back to sleep. After tossing and turning for a while, I admitted defeat and figured sleep would elude me. Of course, that's when I actually dozed off...

I woke up to find that Natasha and Brad had arrived to stay for the weekend without warning. They had moved into the guest room while I was sleeping and the laundry I had left on the bed was unceremoniously dumped on the floor. Worse yet, they brought their dog, who was now running around my emptier-than-usual bedroom.

I headed into the bathroom to take a shower to find Natasha napping on the bathmat. I step over her and turn the shower on to let the water warm up. Somehow, the shower head has gone from being a fixed to a hand-held. It ends up spraying Natasha, who wakes up and gets angry at me.

Once I manage to shower and dress, Derek and I head out. We're at a Verizon store on Main Street. I see that someone has said something really nice about my on Twitter, so I show it to Derek. It realize belatedly that I've never shared my Twitter account with Derek. Instead of being proud, he gets angry and says, "So this is what you waste your time on!" He then takes to a store employee to cancel my data plan so I can't get Internet access on my phone. For what it's worth, the employee is on my side and keeps glaring at Derek.

I worry that not having data access on my phone is going to make it difficult to do my job. Sure enough, I quickly get some information that I need to respond to by email. I plead with Derek to let me use his phone to access my email. When that fails, we head to a coffee shop so I can use their wifi. The coffee shop happens to be on the riverfront. I notice there's movement in the water, so I step outside and look over the railing. At first, I wonder if it's a dolphin, but the shape is wrong. Instead, I see penguins and seals. The seals seem to be congregating on a block of Arctic ice -- in the middle of a Midwestern river.

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.