Thena

My goal tonight was to try for the bonus task, but my subconscious had other ideas.

It's raining heavily. My friend Lura and I are walking down a street in my neighborhood when she spots something in the tall grass. She pulls two large tortoises out of the grass. They remind me of the giant tortoises I saw in the Galapagos Islands and I'm at a loss to explain what they're doing in the Midwest. Lura says we should call Sea World to pick them up.

The rain continues, and I duck into a car to write a letter to Sea World about the tortoises. I glance at my reflection in the window and find that I now look like Ellen Pompeo.

Somehow, I've moved on and now my sister and I are checking out an apartment building. This place is very bland-looking, and judging by the age of the residents, it looks more like a nursing home. As we pass one doorway, I point out to my sister that it's a laundry room. There are two older women in the next doorway who overhear me, and they point out that some units have their own laundry hook-ups. They invite us in to take a look. Somehow, I end up sitting down at their kitchen table as one of the women prepares breakfast. She offers me some milk, which I decline. That sends her on a rant about how young people don't drink milk anymore while I struggle to explain that it makes me sick.

After a brief awakening, I go back to sleep while mentally going over the previous dream

I'm back in the apartment building near the office. There are two residents who are arguing over the landlord over the cost of their phone bill. His response is to post some complicated chart with rates. I can't make sense of it, so I move on to find the apartment I was in earlier. But I get lost in the maze of hallways. I can't even remember the number of the apartment. I turn a corner and find myself in a department store. I see a crib for a baby and it reminds me of the bonus task, which helps me remember that I'm dreaming. I try to think of a way to start the bonus task, but instead the dream shifts. Now I find myself on stage with a band. In the audience are members of many of my favorite rock bands. I remember that the advanced task is to perform for an audience, so I decide that my band is going to cover one of my favorite songs. However, the guitar player starts off playing Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze." I panic for a second because I can't remember the lyrics, but after a few bars, I manage to go along with it. I can see the ex-drummer of my favorite band is sitting right up front, and his head is bopping in time to the music. He seems to be enjoying it.

I "wake up" to find that I was sleeping in church. I'm amazed that I managed to stay asleep long enough to accomplish the advanced task, even if that wasn't my original plan. My college roommate is sitting next to me, and she tells me that she's done packing her things. I go outside with her to her car to say good-bye. I'm amused to see that her car has front-end damage and the driver's side door has been ripped away. She never was a good driver. Meanwhile, my car is parked right next to hers and its in perfect condition. I can't remember if I've packed, so I grab a few bags from my trunk and head back inside the "church." Oddly enough, this place looks like my pantry. There's a woman there who reminds me to pack any food that I brought with me when I moved into the dorm, so I start filling my bags with the stuff I find in the pantry: two-liter bottles of soda, jars of marinara, boxes of pasta… There's one package of spaghetti that looks like it's gotten wet, leaving all the noodles limp. It dawns on me that uncooked pasta shouldn't look like this even if the packaging gets wet, and this time I wake up for real.