Fragments of Nonsensical Plots

It's like channel-flipping! Some caught my attention more than others. This is what happens when you wait too long.

*****

I was talking with Seth, a little kid from my church. I don't remember exactly what was going on, but I do remember that I was able to build the perfect set of abs by doing push-ups, somehow.

*****

I was with my family when a tornado touched down. Of course, I decided to bolt for what was supposed to be the basement. It's funny how you see places in your dreams that are supposed to be from real life, except they look nothing like the real thing. Apparently my house had a cellar rather than a normal basement. I hid in a little corner, waiting for the tornado to pass. It didn't take long, though, for my subconscious to decide that the tornado was no longer a threat. It was much more important to watch my 6'5" cousin climb up a wall Mission Impossible style as my grandparents cheered him on.

*****

Dreams put together facts in the oddest ways. My brother and I were, for some reason, on some sort of trip with Phil Keith, Cornerstone's athletic trainer. At a stop in the middle of our journey to some important event, Phil got a call. A GRTS van had gotten in an accident while carrying 12 students/faculty members. One of the passengers, Katy Beachy (who is neither a seminary student nor a friend of mine--in all actuality, I only know her name), was in critical condition. With her life hanging on the line, they decided the best thing to do was to get the athletic trainer for life-saving medical treatment. As he headed back (apparently with no vehicle), he allowed me to use his motorcycle to get to my incredibly important meeting (though I still have no idea what it was about). I think my subconscious needs to learn some common sense. If it's going break the laws of physics and logic, it could at least let me fly for once.

*****

Random campground scene

*****

My friend Nate and I were at Best Buy. We had just decided that we were going to pool our money to buy an XBox 360, because our first one had broken. We were never able to buy it.

*****

Back to the tornado. Different tornado. My house again. Wrong house, again. My brother, sister, mother, and I were staring out the window at the coming storm. I noticed an odd patch of cloudless, green sky. I instantly knew that that must indicate a tornado, so I bolted downstairs. This introduces another dream law.

Dream Law #2: When the dreamer knows that something will happen, it will happen. This is called the Cause & Effect law when partnered with Law #1 (previously mentioned). Basically, any time a thought enters the dreamer's mind, that thought becomes a cause which produces whatever the thought visualized (the effect). This usually happens when a possibility would be harmful to the user.

Well, once I got downstairs, I realized I needed to help my family downstairs. So I rushed back upstairs to find that they were completely capable of walking downstairs themselves. And down we went. We huddled in our respective corners as we watched the tornado touch down and pass us by. Just when we thought we were safe, the main tornado shot out a second tornado toward our house (which was completely open at the back, meaning we were exposed to the tornado--yet another lapse in logic). It almost sucked our dog in, but I grabbed her by the leg and pulled her to me as a helicopter was dragged into the vortex.

After the tornado passed, we discovered that the whole first floor of our house was wiped out. This meant that we had to seek food and shelter elsewhere (more dream logic). So out we went. Apparently, Stevens had also been affected by the tornado and was in search of shelter. Finally, we arrived at the shelter, which was slightly reminiscent of the Super Dome after Katrina.

*****

Woah, double rainbow all the way! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI There were three, four, eight, then seventeen rainbows in the sky. As we all stood in wonder, we noticed that the actual rainbows were but ten feet away from the bridge on which we were standing. As we stared in awe at the rainbow, it dematerialized before our eyes. It turned into a sort of metal structure shaped somewhat like chicken wire. Then it crumbled. It was pretty trippy.

*****

Lebron James had just won the championship, which made our little knick-knack even more valuable. It was a guitar case autographed by the King himself. Inside it was a French Horn (???) used by Lebron James when he was a kid. Also inside the case was a Consumers Energy bill and some other papers.

*****

It was a an odd baseball game. I wasn't very good at baseball. But the bases were loaded and I was up. I knew I was up because I batted right after the 70-year-old woman, who was right after the 70-year-old man. They were both better than me. I spent the next five to ten minutes looking for the right bat. The strange thing was that every bat was curved, bent, or twisted in odd ways. I settled for a bat that had a pretty significant curve. I never got to bat, though.

*****

Too bad these are just fragments. They all would have been so... boring.

Mountains, Mercenaries, and Maniacs

I was all by myself on a mountain in the middle of nowhere. Then I heard some disturbing news. What it was, I don't remember. It was something along the lines of "All flights are canceled from now on." However cloudy the issue was, the complication it caused me was crystal clear: I was stranded on the mountain. Somewhere in the back of my mind I heard a voice (either from the past or present) inform me rather ominously that no one had ever survived that mountain without whatever it was that I lost. I was likely going to die.

But I decided to be an exception. I was going to make it down the mountain and live. So I walked to the edge of the cliff that represented the quickest escape and began to rappel down the face of the cliff. Of course, this was done with gear that randomly materialized. My rappelling technique (though it somehow worked) was definitely backwards... literally. I faced away from the face of the cliff and hopped down like some kind of moon bunny. It worked.

At the bottom of the cliff was a stream about six or seven feet wide. The voice in my head spoke again, reminding me that the most common cause of death on this mountain was hypothermia due to the harsh cold. Therefore, I had to do my best not to get wet. I prepared myself, sprinted, and leaped over the narrow band of water. It wasn't too far a jump, but just as I reached the other side the edge crumbled away in the current. I landed on the edge of the stream off-balanced and my dream-legs kicked in. Moving at a snail's pace, my lethargic efforts managed to propel me, completely dry, onto the other edge of the stream. Yet another obstacle overcome.

My next thought was that there shouldn't be anyone else on the mountain (because of the earlier dilemma). Dream law states that when a dreamer thinks that something could not happen, it will happen. I heard the sound of other men talking. I knew that since no law-abiding person would be on the mountain any more (why I thought this, I'm not sure ), I thought that theses must be mercenaries and outlaws. I was wrong.

Then things took an unusual turn. Instead of being greeted by mercenaries and outlaws, I was met by odd creatures with spears (I don't remember if they were human, but they appeared to sentient). As would be expected of large alien bipeds, they attacked me with their giant spears. Possessed by some Bourne-like martial arts skill, I snatched a spear from one of them and fought the group off.

From there, my dream jumped ahead to some building, where I was in some ventilation ducts with some unknown person, about to confront some evil overlord. The next thing I remember is attacking one of his minions, a little, flower-like thing that appeared to be made of some sort of foam. I had the distinct feeling that this overlord was not as powerful as I had been led to believe.

...and then I woke up. I never reached the bottom of the mountain, never figured out why I was in such peril, and never discovered the scheme of the maniacal genius. A rather anticlimactic to an especially odd dream. I feel my subconscious could do better.

Z12 - Alligator Sam

I was with all the Zs once again. We were having a great time, although we were starting to get on each other's nerves (Ben shot an arrow at Josiah through a blow gun). We were laying around on some hill, when Yolanda decided it was time to go. (Where we were going, I don't know. They never tell you these things in dreams.) We hopped in our vehicle (I think it was a Jeep) and starting driving away as I looked at the beach we were leaving. We were driving along a dirt road, and ahead there was this dip that had collected a fair amount of water. (This was definitely a cameo by the same water-filled dip in Bourne Identity.) Well, as we were driving toward it, I noticed what appeared to be a stick floating in the water. However, I thought it looked suspiciously like an alligator ridge. (This was a direct violation of Dreaming Rule #1: Never imagine. The moment you imagine that something could happen, it happens.) Of course, we drove through the water with a little bit of a BUMP. After we passed, I looked out the back window, and sure enough, an angry alligator had risen out of the water. This, however, was no ordinary alligator. It was a dream alligator. It was about 10-12 feet long and 3-4 feet wide. It had a massive snout and a jaw that could crush a person in an instant. But the worst part was that it was freaking fast. After we passed his water hole, the alligator sped after us like a jackrabbit. No one else seemed alarmed, for some reason. But of course, no else had seen it yet. But soon, they did, and started yelling at Yolanda to drive faster. She floored it, but it was right on our tail. Of course, as often happens in dreams, complications came immediately. The path started veering right and left, and Yolanda tried her best to keep the Jeep on course, but it was too much for her - she flew off the path. More dream logic - there was another shore directly in front of us. So, with the alligator in hot pursuit, we careened over the beach and into the water (which, suspiciously, was immediately deep). The alligator followed us into the water. The last thing I remember is thinking that we were screwed either way, because I had seen the Mythbusters where they tested this. We were either going to drown or be eaten...

...and then I woke up. It turns out there was no alligator, no water, no Jeep, and no Zs (unfortunately). I must have been scared out of my pants, because my heart was beating erratically. It was beating well above its normal rate, and every time it did it hurt from the pressure. This lasted for at least five minutes while I tried to regain control of my breathing and heart rate. Let's do it again...