Edward Cullen's not the only one who watches you in your sleep...

I had many dreams last night, but I'll mostly just describe the first one. Sound good?

So I dreams I was at a family reunion of sorts, and we were all staying at the massive house my aunts and uncles grew up in. I happened to be given a room that had, unbeknownst to me, a closet-like door in the back near the bed that hid a mini staircase leading downstairs. It's not like it was a secret passage, because apparently my dream aunt used those stairs all the time, but I didn't know about it. At all.

I went to sleep that night ready to have peaceful dreams (so now I was sleeping in my sleep), but something woke me up in the middle of the night. When I opened my eyes, I saw the closet door was open and two old people stood in the doorway staring at me. And they just weren't old; they were creepy and old. The guy had really light eyes that made him look crazy and spaced, and the lady had so many wrinkles she looked like one of those dogs that are made entirely of them. And they were just staring at me.

Naturally, I freaked out, though I quickly assumed I was dreaming (in my dream). But then the man spoke, and he told me all about how he's going to make sure I'm alive all night by waking me up every so often. So yeah, he was crazy.

And he did what he said he would.

This man, Uncle Billie, I believe, woke me up at least every hour, sometimes more often than that. Sometimes his wife (as I discovered she was) was with him, other times she wasn't. One time, the closet door was open, but I didn't see anyone, and when I went to investigate, Billie was hiding in the corner, staring at me still as I just about had a heart attack.

In the morning, I was completely exhausted because I had barely gotten any sleep (at least I was alive), and I went down to my family and immediately started telling my aunt about crazy Uncle Billie and his silent wife. I'm not sure if she believed me or not, but that's when she told me about the staircase.

And I didn't see the man again the rest of the dream.

Because then it changed to my second dream, which involved something like Australia, a slideable waterfall, camping because my grandpa wouldn't let me into the house he was building and my mom thought it would "build character," and taking a Spanish class, even though I always wanted to answer questions in French because I only knew two words of Spanish. Ah, right, and the missionaries were in my dream. A lot of them, actually, because they went to see the waterfall too. With my friend Jhoan and his roommates. Jhoan, by the way, was going to help me with Spanish because he, you know, knows Spanish...

And then I woke up.

The Princess of Narnia

So the best dreams are the ones that start out incredibly normal, and then suddenly change into something completely different and absolutely ridiculous. That's when they get fun, like this one.

Basically, my dream started with planning a party for my roommates. I had offered up the use of my grandparents' cabin (which doesn't really exist) because it was basically the coolest cabin ever. It had a pool, which I could describe in great detail, and a hot tub, though neither had been used for a while. I would definitely have to clean them out a bit before we attempted to get in either of them. Plus, the both the hot tub and pool were built to look like natural ponds, so the rocks at the bottom were all blue and covered in algae. A little gross. 

By the time Stephanie and Jamie arrived, I hadn't yet gone to get stuff for dinner, because I wasn't sure what we would need. Dinner had been my job, so I felt a little bad because Jamie and Steph had gotten everything they were supposed to, but I would make a quick run down the street to get food. (I was going to make enchilada pie, because everyone loves enchilada pie.) Krysta and I (because she was there) went down to get some ingredients, though Krysta would have to pay for it because I didn't bring my wallet.

Suddenly my older brother Andy was the one driving, and we were taking some of Kyle's friends home. In letting one of them into his cardboard box, we disturbed his parents, who were sleeping in the back box on a mattress on the floor, so we decided to hurry and get out of there. I'm not sure why, but at some point my brother decided to drive the van through a river-like area between the parking lot and the road. I thought I was going to die.

Then everything changed.

Before I knew it, I was rushing through the wood section of Home Depot, trying to get away from other world people attempting to capture us. I had traveled back and forth countless times between my world and another (I'm going to call it Narnia, just to make things easier. It wasn't anything like Narnia, though. It's just the name.). Narnians wanted desperately to catch me because I knew so many things about their world and the underground rebellions going on against the princess, who was so completely stupid I was surprised she was still princess at all. (Though she was a princess, not a queen, she was the ruler of Narnia.) We ran as best we could, and I had to shout at one of the group to hurry. He was Wes (I'm not sure if that was really his name), and this was only his second adventure to Narnia. His first had been accidental, when he had followed me in an attempt to be endearing to get me to like him. Though reluctant to go again, he had followed me still while we ran. When I shouted to him, though, I called him Brad. 

Side story!

A few years earlier, Brad, Paul, and I had discovered the Portal, the door to Narnia. We had been going back and forth since then, having adventures and saving the princess and other Narnians. Brad and I were best friends, maybe more, but then the three of us had to go our separate ways. Paul chose to go to school across the country, and Brad had been forced to take over the family business when his dad died. I felt bad about it, but I think I had let Wes follow me because I needed someone to replace my two lost friends.

Back to the main story!

"I'm not Brad!" Wes growled through his teeth, and then he disappeared.

The rest of us found a hiding place in Home Depot, but I knew it was only a matter of time before the soldiers from Narnia caught us. Then I caught a glimpse of the Future Camera, a camera by the portal that showed thirty seconds in the future rather than the present. I saw my little group of people sneaking to the portal with crazy outfits and instruments, and I knew that we needed to find those instruments in order to get into Narnia safely. When there, my friends would get their powers and we'd be able to get away a lot easier. I found the instruments, and then we distributed them: Sasha, a girl with a pink face and short jet black hair, got the flute; Kermit (I don't know his real name), who looks like his name, grabbed maracas that fit well with the sombrero he had found in the costume aisle; at first I grabbed a stand up bass, but I gave that instead to the very large man with us who resembled the devil; I eventually took a cello (though it was a Narnia cello, which meant that it was entirely made out of wood, including the bow and strings). Grabbing some odd sweaters and hats from the costume aisle, we slowly made our way to the portal, knowing if we ran, the soldiers would never buy our disguises. Somehow, despite our poor musical skills when the soldiers guarding the portal asked us to prove we were the band, we made it into Narnia, where we were escorted to the princess's birthday party, where we would definitely get into trouble when the princess refused to admit she hired a band as awful as us. 

But we would deal that when we got there, and I only hoped that Wes would find us again. He was our only hope.

Dates with the Popular Crowd

I had many dreams last night, but these are the two I remember most.

1:
I was in my ward for the last time, talking to one of the guys. Some other stuff happened (sounds exciting, right?), and then when I went back to my jeep, there were a whole bunch of balloons inside (including a balloon-shaped plush). It took me until I got home to realize that something was inside of one of the balloons, and I got really happy because it was an invitation to a date. Yay. I never did see who it was, though I'm pretty sure it was a guy whose name started with an S. And he wasn't too bad, so it could have been a fun date.

Then I started a new dream.

2:
I was in my home ward, and we were having a party. I was in charge of cupcakes. These were no ordinary cupcakes, mind you. They took two boxes of brownie mix and three boxes of something else for a batch of eighteen. I had already made thirty-six cupcakes, but the lady in charge of the party decided we needed six times that. That meant twenty-four more boxes of brownie mix and thirty-six boxes of the other thing.

Then Courtney, who I haven't talked to since high school, invited me to go to a homecoming of someone I never really talked to in high school. Though I wasn't keen to go, seeing as the only people who would be there would be the cheerleaders, dancers, and the annoying popular people. But I go anyway.

We get to the girl's house and are sitting in the backward eating, and I decide to go get a grape. Standing there is Heather (mind you, I know the full names of everyone there), who looks at me in confusion and snobbily asks, "Who are you?" Yeah, great feeling, knowing I was completely anonymous in high school (who knows if that's really true, 'cause this is dream world). Then we go home, though the guy driving gets lost several times, and suddenly I'm riding a bike the rest of the way. I must have gotten sick of riding in the car with those people...

When I reach my house (after an exhausting hill), I find the date balloons from my other dream, and I discover the bike I'm riding is not my bike, because mine has been taken apart to be fixed.

And the one I'm riding doesn't have any brakes.

Are You Smarter Than a Second Grader?

Last night's dream:

My friend Krysta and I went to observe a classroom for school (though neither of us are becoming teachers). The second grader teacher was pretty much awesome because he made class entertaining, but then he got mad at me when I didn't hear his question because Krysta was explaining something to me. Basically, the second graders knew more about World War II than I did...

Aliens, Barbeques, and Pretzels

As epic as my dreams were last night, they're probably going to end  up sounding like a bunch of mush. I'll do my best.

One, as far as I'm aware, started at a ward picnic, though the grills were operated by computers, so we were a little more sophisticated than we probably should have been. (Are there grills run by computers, or is that a new thing my head has created?) Anyway, a cocky man inspired by Captain America (who isn't cocky at all) was there, and though everyone wanted to be his best friend, he pretty much just hung around me. Not entirely sure why.

While we were eating and people played volleyball and all that, my mom showed up. Don't know why.

Then, to get the dream really going, an alien life form determined to rule earth downloaded itself into our grill computers (I watched, as if in a movie, the computer screen become text instead of whatever pictureish thing had been there before. It looked pretty awesome.) and made a clone of our Captain America guy. I'm going to call him Charlie to make things a little easier, because later he reminded me of Charlie from Lost, only taller. Anyway, we were all rather confused by the clone when it came and sat down next to 101 Dalmations (Don't ask.).

Charlie and his clone started arguing back and forth, and I thought it was a cheap trick and bad acting. That's when the clone and it's alien power bent a part of the roof to harness the energy of the sun and start absorbing it. (And this is where we get Green Lantern mixed with X-Men: First Class.) The only way for Charlie to defeat this alien guy was going to be for him to sacrifice himself by using his shield to absorb whatever energy the alien threw at him. Because, you know, the shield absorbs vibrations and all that. It made sense in my head...

Then my alarm went off, and the dream switched completely.

Charlie decided to steal a few girls' apartment, and he got away with it because they hadn't paid their rent yet. We spent a while redecorating, and then Charlie gave me a ridiculous job to do with my brother. I'm still not sure what I had to do, but I did it, including the awesome parts where I drove his ridiculously nice convertible through a sunny field. That was epic. I somehow left my brother behind, though, and I felt bad, but Charlie (who turned into a very nice girl at some point after I returned) and I had to make pretzels. Just don't tell her I dropped the dough on the floor before she could find me some plastic wrap to put it on.

Exceptionally Strange

From the little I remember of last night's dream, it involved playing a board game in which people must be "saved" by planting and growing white bush things made out of Legos. Barbies, Starburst, sand, and kittens were all involved.

Cars, Rivers, and Dancing in the Rain

After a couple of strange dreams throughout the night, I managed to have one worth telling.

First, I started my teaming up in  a campground/business park with a man who really knew how to do business. I was supposed to be at a family reunion, but my cousins' grandma was a little scary, so I was avoiding her. Anyway, this business man was at first a con man in my mind, but really he just knew what he was doing. We ended up selling gold cars to people instead of the dealership selling them, and though our customers paid more, they got a better quality car, and we made more money. By the end of the day, he and I (along with our third partner) were sixteen million dollars richer.

After we celebrated, though I don't remember how we did that exactly, everyone went to bed. I was supposed to be sleeping in my tent, but our third partner, who was apparently my best friend, had died and was now a ghost in the giant bedroom where everyone else was sleeping, and all I wanted to do was to sleep there with her. So I went back to the tent to grab my stuff and my camera.

At one  point, though I'm not sure how this all fits in, I ended up spending a good deal of time with another family at the campground, and they had a ton of the most adorable kids all dressed up in little outfits.

Anyway, when I got to the tent, it started to rain. A lot. Which meant that the river started to rise quickly, and everyone in the campground had to scramble to get their stuff to higher ground before they were swept away. Since everyone in my family was  up at the bedroom, I was the only one who could save our stuff. I spent a lot of time trying to keep the boat and the kayak from washing away, which wasn't exactly easy. I ended up having to deflate the kayak and tie it around a tree, and then hold on to the boat as best I could.

Once morning came with an absolutely amazing sunset (best picture in my head right now), the rest of my family returned, and I looked down the river to see every single family at the campground all dressed up in a different style raincoat per family.

Then, in the strangest part of the dream, I remembered that we were in India, because a whole bunch of people dressed in traditional Indian clothing (very colorful) came out and started doing one of those cool dances they do. I really don't know why, though.

Sinking Down

How's this for a dream?

I was trained to become one of a group of intergalactic peacekeepers who sink through the floor into other dimensions and fight evil. Most of the time I wouldn't remember when I would go into other dimensions, but then a crisis happened. We, and our powers, were discovered by a large alien race called the Dilnar, whose one desire was to take control of the dimensions and rule the universe with terror and pain.

At first we tried to run to keep ourselves safe. We found each other in the several dimensions until we were all in a large group and on the run together.

"We can't keep running!" I said at one point while we were hiding from the Dilnar. "If we just keep going down through the dimensions, they'll only follow us until we sink so low that we can't get back out again."

So we decided to stand and fight.

I'm a little fuzzy on the details of the fight, but I know it wasn't pretty. Most of the dimension sinkers were human or human-like, which meant that most of us were half the size of the Dilnar (who were enormously tall, red-faced aliens that were disgustingly ugly). But eventually we did win the battle, even though only a few of us survived.

The Dilnar defeated, we all returned to our own dimensions changed people, but we could never talk about what had happened to us or what we had done.

Because other people don't notice the dimensions like we did. For them, we never left when we sank down, because time doesn't work the same way in the other dimensions. For them, the entire journey was just a blink of an eye, but I was never going to be the same.

Uh...

Vacuuming up dead bugs is not my idea of a fun dream, but at least I was helpful. I think I've got Cedar on my mind... I just hope I find the head of the giant one that got stuck in the vacuum before someone decides to sit on it. That'd be fun for my dream friends.

Oh, and apparently I know where I can find a whole bunch of rock that looks like the Bloody Baron, blood and all. Too bad I didn't actually get to go see it before I woke up. That could have been cool, and it may be something I use in a story sometime. Talk about a recognizable landmark...

Yeah, I Can Drive

Have you ever seen a cross between a VW Beetle, a minivan, and a bicycle? I have, because I built one last night in my dream.

My dad and I worked on it on and off for most of the dream (not during the family reunion moments and babysitting). Picture this: The body of a minivan but with crooked handlebars in front for steering. The engine of the Beetle, placed without a hood so you can see just how cool my new ride is. Yep. Awesome.

I took it for a test drive just before my alarm went off, and both my brother and sister were impressed. Sara looked kinda funny riding her bike, but that was probably because she was wearing a pale purple wizard hat to go with her light green skirt thing. Maybe they were shorts... Rob was just impressed that I built something that could run at all.

And let me tell you, I'm an awesome babysitter for kids who don't like staying at church. We planned to read, but by the time I found the book, the kid had already fallen asleep. So we both took naps until my mom came home, and she thought it was such a great idea that I really think she thought about joining us. I don't remember who this kid was, but he was pretty genius, and I really hope my child is like that in the future. But I bet dream kids are always just a bit cooler than real kids. That's just the way things work.

Airport Slushies and Disgusting Food (Made Just for You)

In case you're wondering, the airport is not the best place to get dream food. Especially for a kid (which I was last night), getting limp corn dogs and missing the popcorn because you're going through security too quickly does not make for a fun flying adventure. To add to that, since I was part of the kids and not the chaperons, I couldn't get a big cup. I got stuck with a little cup that gave me absolutely no nourishment.

After my alarm went off, I fell back asleep because I hadn't yet figured out how to get a big cup. For the next two hours, I dreamed about the big cups and finally figured it out. I had to be an adult.

I'll remember that next time I dream I'm in the airport.

The Lake

So today (yes, today, not last night) I had this dream about a lake.

I must have dreamed about it before, because we were returning. Apparently. My roommates Kadi and Stephanie joined me on this lovely adventure to the lake, despite the fact that it looked like the dead of winter. At least, it would be at night.

The wolves were doing well, I noticed. The female had gotten a lot bushier than I remembered her being...and a lot more orange. That was okay, though, because we could tell she and her hubby were happy and thriving.

As Steph and Kadi started gathering our stuff to set up camp, I gazed out over the lake, watching the fish jump and the waves roll around--around, not toward shore. None of this normal stuff in my dreams, no. Anyway, I was just pondering about how the water looked more like melted ice cream than anything when I remembered that I had completely forgotten to bring a jacket. Okay, that was a lie. I had a jacket, but it was a nice one, and I definitely didn't want it to smell like campfire, because that would mean I would have to wash it, which would ruin the total softness of this super nice jacket. I also forgot my blanket, which meant that I had nothing to keep me warm when dead of winter struck us once the sun went down. Great. I did, at least, have my sleeping bag and my pillow, despite my lack of sleeping pad. It seemed I had forgotten a lot of things.

That was when Kadi, who was now swimming around in the lake, discovered the whale. The killer whale.

At first, he looked about the size of a large tuna. But as soon as Kadi started to pet this whale and start crooning about how cute he was (just like she did in reality with a stink bug), the whale started to grow. Pretty soon he was full size and only half-submerged because he wasn't a very smart whale--didn't realize, you see, that he merely had to knock Kadi out of the way and swim to deeper water.

That was when my father woke me up to tell me it was time for dinner, and that was the end of that.

Here We Go

Okay, so I'm a dreamer.

And when I say that, I don't mean I have big goals in life (which I do) and secret ambitions (which I definitely have). No, when I say I'm a dreamer, I mean I dream. All the time.

Especially in the summer.

You see, this summer, I don't have a job. My two summer classes have kept me busy a total of three days since I've moved home. I'm rather friendless because all of my friends either have jobs or live elsewhere. I stay up late, wake up late, forget to eat lunch because I had breakfast an hour earlier, and I only shower if I'm actually going to leave the house. Sad, I know, but this lifestyle leaves me plenty of time to dream.

Being a creative writing major, I tend to think about stories whenever I'm not thinking about what is directly around me. Even then, my subconscious is stewing underneath my waking thoughts, always ready to spring something on me when I least expect it.

That's usually when I'm asleep.

And I don't just dream, not like most people. If I wake up in the middle of a dream and fall back asleep, I get that dream going again just because it's an interesting story. Usually it stays along the same path it was on before I woke up. Especially now, when I can sleep in until eleven without worrying about missing something exciting, I keep dreams going for a LONG time.

So that's why this is here.

Many of my dreams are epic stories of daring adventures, rescues, soap operas, and straight up weird. Rare is the dream where something normal happens. Sure, that's how a lot of people dream, but I feel like mine are a tiny bit more exciting.

And I am going to share.

Both for my sake and for yours, I'm going to write up my dreams. This way, I'll remember them better, and you can laugh at how weird I really am inside. It's a win-win situation here.

So welcome to my dreams.