“This is a dream? I just thought you wrote this!”

My best friend says that a lot. He thinks that my dreams make too much sense. I think that my dreams can be weird. I mean, Harley Quinn chasing me around in circles on a dock, my nephew turning into a cat, and three instances in which the future was told to me in cryptic ways (if I can find those, I will post them. I wrote them down). Now it is time I publish some of my dreams. Then we will see how truly strange and bizarre they are.

I had a mini-series of dreams (two dreams to be precise) that occurred in the same “universe.” I find these dreams interesting because the first recreated the plot of The Quiet Place long before I knew what the movie was about. It was when I had the second dream that I realized that the creators of the movie had somehow gained access to my dreams and stolen one of them, creating a movie out of it.

But enough about me and this book, you guys are here for dreams.

I had a dream. It was a strange dream, too strange to keep to myself, though I will only explore the first half of the dream, as the second half has nothing to do with the first.

I was at work. I work at a chicken restaurant, and I worked with all my favorite people. At first, I was the guy battering and frying chicken, then, so the story could happen, my boss told me that I needed to be on front counter.

I stood up front, staring into the empty lobby, and I remembered a text conversation I had had early that day. Winter, A.K.A. @Toebeans, was going to arrive. I will be referring to Toebeans as Winter because that is how Toebeans appeared in my dream.

After a few minutes, a young blonde girl (about the age of sixteen if I had to guess) walked through the front door. “Hi, welcome to [Restaurant], may I take your order?”

“Yeah. Can I have…”

As she ordered, another customer entered. She was a little girl around the age of 6 with dirty blonde hair and big brown eyes. Remember that.

I turned to the girl ordering and asked, “Winter?”

“Yeah,” she replied, smiling. Her blue eyes sparkled as she realized who she had been talking to.

After taking her payment, I walked out from behind the counter and hugged her. “So great to finally meet you!”

“Yeah,” she replied, stepping out of the hug. She looked away. Her eyes lost their happy glow and became wet and sad. I looked in the direction she was looking and saw her father walking towards the front door.

He was tall, with brown hair and stubble on his face. Had he not been scowling as he entered the door, you would never have known that he was abusive. Apparently, Winter and I talked all the time, because her sister is the reason that I recognized her, and I knew that her father was abusive. I don’t know where else I could have gotten this information.

“Did you order already?” he asked venomously, menacingly approaching Winter.

“Y-yes, sir.”

At that moment, I thought to myself, I will not let anything happen to Winter.

I didn’t hear the rest of the conversation. But when I finally snapped out of my trance-like thoughts, I was staring down the barrel of a pistol.

“What? You think your friend is going to save you? Ha!”

BANG!

I fell to the ground, blood spilling out of my skull and puddling quickly on the floor.

I didn’t hear the rest of the conversation. But when I finally snapped out of my trance-like thoughts, I was staring down the barrel of a pistol.

“What? You think your friend is going to save you? Ha!”

WHAM!

He had hit me on the head with his gun, and I fell to the floor. I lay on the ground unmoving as he yelled at Winter.

With a gun involved, I knew it would be best if I just continued to lie on the ground and act as if I had fallen unconscious.

He began yelling at Winter, though Winter stayed silent. When he had finally finished yelling, he hit Winter on the side of the head with his gun. She fell to the floor next to me, and we shared a knowing glance.

He and Winter’s younger brother (remember when I told you to remember those details about Winter’s sibling? Yeah. You don’t have to anymore) left the building.

Winter attempted to stand up. “Not yet. Wait ’til he leaves,” I said, watching her father climb into his beat up, old, red truck.

Once he had finally left, I helped Winter get to her feet.

Next time, I’ll be prepared, I thought to myself.

We both got to work (because apparently she works here now), though I don’t remember much of what I did as some Inception stuff was happening. I was day-dreaming about twenty years in the future. It was the middle of the night, and I had gotten out of bed.

I knew where my gun was, and Winter was lying in bed, asleep. In my day-dream that was within my dream, I was day-dreaming (at night) about her father breaking and entering (because, y’know, that’s a thing abusive parents do). It was this thought, in my day-dream, that kept me awake.

“Hey, Caleb, I need you to go back up front,” my manager said.

I snapped out of my day dream, walked to the front counter, and began working again, next to Winter. Slowly, the scene changed. I left work, and went across the street to my competitor’s business (non-existent in real life). This led to a less interesting dream in which I search for the employer that will pay me the most.

When I woke up and processed this, all I could say was “What the heck.”

Why did I just have a dream about marrying a Prose user I barely know? That was bizarre.

I was in my sister's car, she was taking me to work. I had rushed out of the house because I was late, and it completely slipped my mind to shower and change. "Dang it. I forgot my socks," I said, looking at the socks on my feet.

I was drenched in sweat, wearing my running clothes and my work boots when we finally arrived at work. Ah, jeez. I just realized how much I dream about work…

"Sorry that you're late," my sister said. "Traffic kinda sucked."

I looked at the clock. It read 2:50. I was almost four hours late! I got out of the car, thanked her for the ride, and rushed inside. I rushed to the bathroom to change with the bag of clothes that appeared in my hands. When I got inside, I realized that I had forgotten a shirt and a hat.

Wearing jeans and my running shirt, I left the bathroom in search of a manager. Luckily, she was waiting right outside of the bathroom door. "Sorry I'm late. I forgot a shirt and a hat… are there any here that I can have?" I asked, knowing that we had extra shirts and hats. "We got stuck in traffic… that's why I am late."

She ignored me and continued doing whatever it is she was doing. There was a cupboard--one, single kitchen cupboard--on the floor against the wall that she and a coworker were talking over.

"Hey, can I get a shirt and hat?" I asked.

"No," she told me, then returned to conversation.

The stress of showing up four hours late and not having my full uniform made me begin to tear up. I rushed to the bathroom, locked the door behind me, and cried on the floor. While in there, I could hear her asking about me. Where was I? Why was I not working?

I rubbed my eyes, took a deep breath, and left the bathroom. I was surprised to find that my manager was no longer right outside of the door. "Where's Amanda at?" I asked my coworker, who was now cleaning the top of the cupboard.

"She's in the office," she told me.

I walked through the dining room, behind the counter, through the kitchen, past Brad (whenever I have a dream about work, you better bet he is in it), and into the office. "Yo, can I have a shirt and hat so that I can work?"

"No, Caleb," Amanda said angrily. "Just go home."

I began tearing up again. Apparently I was ultra sensitive in this dream. I sped through the kitchen and stopped by Brad. "What's up?" he asked.

"They're sending me home. I got stuck in traffic, and now I'm over three hours late. I forgot my work shirt and hat at home, it was 2:50 when I got here…"

"What? It's only 12:50."

I looked at my watch. "...the heck? When I looked at my watch and the clock in Chey's car, it was 2:50!" I exclaimed. Distraught and confused, I fled the building and ran across the Wal-Mart sized parking lot.

When I reached the end of the parking lot, I pulled out my phone to call my dad to tell him that I was getting sent home and needed a ride. I looked up and, much to my surprise, there he was! Next to a van straight from 2002, setting my year-old nephew on the ground of the parking lot. I ran up to him, we made eye contact, and he hopped into the vehicle. Instinctively, I picked up my nephew as Dad closed the sliding door in my face and the driver took off. So there I was, holding my nephew, watching my dad and whoever he was with leave.

Everything faded to darkness. I was running down the road I start all of my runs on. It was dark outside. "The dawn was breaking, it was early morn,'" and I saw cop lights in the distance. Not again… I thought to myself. Luckily, he turned. Then he was followed by three paramedic vehicles and a fire truck.

Confused, I sped up to see what was going on. When three more cops began racing down the street, I stepped off of the road and further into the darkness to hide myself. In the process, I ran into (figuratively) about ten men wearing red shirts. "What's going on?" I asked, looking into the darkness everyone seemed to be fixated on, then back at one of the men in red.

"Someone drove into that lake over there," he said, pointing. I looked back at the lake, and everything was clear. It went from being three in the morning to seven.

There was a cop car and a crane parked on the lake. Yes, on. All of a sudden, I was on the edge of the lake, and the headlights of the car could be seen below. The man who had been in the car was floating on his back, spitting water out of his mouth like a cartoon character.

The crane pushed the car towards the shore. The best way to describe the lake is this: imagine an underground pool that is only ten feet deep all the way around, yet is built to look like it belongs in nature. That is what this lake was. A giant pool, with sand on the bottom, seaweed, even some fish, yet there was no gentle slope from the shore to a drop off: the entire thing was a drop off.

The man in the red shirt I had been talking to dove into the water, grabbed the car by the sunroof, and pulled the car to the surface. He told my brother-in-law to help the man inside of the car to get out by keeping the sunroof open (I have no idea how he ended up inside of the car again). Rather than holding the sun roof open, he jumped into the water and held onto the open portion of the sunroof in order to keep the car floating, which was unnecessary as the man in red, who was standing on the hood of the car, seemed to be keeping it afloat well enough.

Knowing my brother-in-law was not going to realize his mistake, I jumped onto the car, opened the sunroof, the man swam out, and we all emerged dry.

Friday, May 29, 2021

I have had similar dreams before. It wasn’t the exact same, but the house it took place in was the same. It isn’t uncommon for me to have sequels, but this is, by far, the weirdest sequel to fighting a bear that I have ever had.

It took place at what my dream called an apartment building, but what I would call a mansion connected to another mansion connected to another mansion with three mansions combined into one across the street. This is where my aunt Sally lived. The interior of the building was the same as the interior of the trailer house that the original dream took place in: fake wood paneling lining the walls, a kitchen/dining room as the first room with a hallway connecting the rest of the rooms. The wallpaper above the paneling was a hideous dark green with specks like Captain Underpants’ cape, the kitchen, by far the nicest room in the house, had white tile floors and an off-white wallpaper. I do not remember much of the kitchen other than the fact that it had a round, four-seater table in the middle and a door to the left (when walking into the building. The hall would have been to the right).

My siblings, Ashley and Cera (Sara), stayed in the kitchen with my mom and Karie playing cards. They did this throughout the entire dream.

There was a problem with the sewage system. What that was, I could not tell you, but this is by far my favorite part of the dream. Cheyenne, my older sister, and I were assigned the task of fixing the sewer. Disgusted, we opened the door and went down stairs into the basement, climbed down the ladder at the bottom of the stairs, and dropped into four foot deep sewer water.

“This isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be,” I said, sinking to the bottom and stepping in something slimy and gross. This was one of few times I actually felt something in my dream. I quickly removed my foot from the slimy gunk and continued walking forward.

“Yeah,” Chey agreed, “it doesn’t even smell as bad as I was expecting it to.”

We continued forward, walking through the chamber until we reached a small chamber with a door on both ends. One was open, the other--the one on the far side--was closed. Cheyenne, apparently having an insane amount of knowledge about sewer systems, reached up and pulled down the garage-like door that was open. Immediately, the water in the room we were in began to drain. Once it was drained, we opened the other door and were immediately greeted by a large corridor with a foot of crystal clear water on the floor and one single desk in the center.

The water in this room was the clearest, cleanest water I had ever seen in my life. It sparkled like diamonds and lapped so calmly… if it wasn’t for the sewer that was literal inches away, I would enjoy living here. In the cold, dark, peaceful cavern with a desk in the middle of it.

My manager, Katelyn, walked into the room, sat at the desk, and began looking through the pile of papers. I basically said, “Hey, cool place,” and left.

Cheyenne and I pulled down the door and the room began to fill with sewer water. But I couldn’t get it to close. The lever to close it was on the other side! Holding my breath, I dove under the water, now about three feet deep, and held it tightly to the bottom. Noticing my struggle, Chey yelled “Hey, Katelyn, can you close the door?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” came the reply from the other side. All that I could do was think about how nasty the water on the other side was now.

Once the door was closed, we opened the other door and began swimming back to the apart-sion.

Once back, Cheyenne vanished from existence and I followed Aunt Sally into a room down the hall. The room was completely empty. It had two doors both leading to the hallway. At this point, I knew where the dream was going: I have had it before. A bear is about to come through the door on the right, I am going to wrestle with it, run through the hall on the left and back into the room on the right, we will wrestle some more, and the dream will be over. So I was surprised when a cub came into the room. It was the size of a large cat.

It lunged at me, I pulled on its rear leg and ran through the hall and back into the room. I tackled it, pulled on its leg repeatedly, thinking to myself, “It’s a cub, maybe I can tame it or something.” Then, “Wait a minute… it’s a cub… where’s the mama?”

After that thought, I heard a roar and I saw a bear running down the hall.

“HEEEEEEEECK NAAAAH,” I exclaimed, dodging a swipe, running out of the room, down the hall, into the kitchen, and opening the door in the kitchen and slamming it shut behind me. I went down the stairs and was greeted by another floor.

Isn’t there supposed to be a sewer right here? I asked my sleeping self.

Nah, it replied, That’s one more floor down.

You sure?

Yeah.

Okay.

It was pitch black, as it was midnight, and I began to stumble around the house.

I walked over to a window and a man came up and began slamming on the window. He was blonde with a Tony Stark beard mixed with a Van Dyke. He dressed like the stereotypical redneck: camouflage jacket with a black t-shirt and camouflage cargo pants.

“How much for that sword?” he asked me.

I had no idea what he was talking about, so I just said, “This isn’t my house, go upstairs and ask them.”

“Oh, okay. I just ain’t want that beauty to go to waste,” he said, leaving. I continued to walk through the lower level, flipping random switches to see what they did.

The dream ended when I reached the second kitchen, a much, much nicer room than the upper room. In fact, the whole downstairs looked a whole lot nicer, if you disregard the mess in the living room area. There was a metal refrigerator, I turned on the light, and woke up to my alarm.

“Remember, Caleb,” I said, “This first alarm is only supposed to wake you up. You have five more minutes to sleep,” I said, scrolling through my phone at 4:40.

After checking all of my messages, I put my phone down and closed my eyes. When my second alarm went off a few minutes later, I said, “Screw it, morning shift doesn’t start until Monday. I can sleep a little longer.” And sleep I did. For about an hour and a half. And I had one more dream…

I was in a car. A two door four cylinder older than me: a tan, 1998 Civic. Okay, I just Googled that and, Josiah, I am not even joking… woah… Yeah, I am sending you this dream now. Sorry, Prose fam, I send these to my friends as well, lol. We sat in the car, Josiah and I, listening to his music and talking about concert dates. That was a wholesome dream.

Since you guys won’t get the reference: https://youtu.be/n395WaJuSFs