I had a dream. It was amazing.

We were all fighting zombies. Hordes of them. GreenMan loved his chainsaw, until it ran out of gas. Then he ran off solo to go get more gas. And never came back.

Johnny had a pistol, and was shooting 100% headshots. For whatever reason, he never ran out of ammo, or had to reload. I wanted his pistol.

kaiden, for whatever reason, had a mecha suit similar to Avatar or Matrix Revolutions. He was either swinging for the fences with the arms, kicking zombie field goals with the legs, or stomping zombies with the feet. He was unstoppable. He couldn't stop giggling at the fun he was having.

Scrotor had a double barrel shotgun under one arm, and a machine gun rambo-style under the other arm. He was apparently a master at reloading the shotgun with one hand while still going to town with the machine gun. He got caught up in his decimation of the zombie that he forgot to keep pace with the group. By the time we realized he was separated, and then tried to double back for him, we didn't have enough time and he was brought down by a horde of zombies, just as kaiden and his mecha suit got there. kaiden screamed in agony.

I remember myself killing zombies, but i dont remember actually having a weapon or tool with which to exact my vengeance. I don't remember a specific beginning or ending to the dream, either.

But we should all play Left 4 Dead and write our own.

So I hear somebody in the backyard. I walk out. My cousin and my neighbors appear to be working on a damaged portion of my fence.

Josh: "What's... going on?"
Cousin: "Oh, I was talking with your neighbor. We know each other from way back, and she owes me a bit, so we decided we'd work towards fixing this section of fence. Besides, she's looking to move here sometime soon, and offered to give me a good deal on the house next door."
Josh: "Well. Thanks. How... how did you get to talking with her? And why are you here?"
Cousin: "You don't know? Josh, we talked about this. I'm losing my house. I'm going to have to live with you for a while."
Josh. "What."
Cousin: "Listen. We've got to finish this fence. Go back inside, and talk to your mother."

Confused, I go back inside.

Josh: "What's going on?"
Mom: "What do you mean?"
Josh: "Why is [Cousin] going to be living here? When did this happen? And why have I agreed to none of this so far?"
Mom: "It's the economy, Josh. It's hurting everyone. And it's just temporary, anyhow. You'll see."

Just then, my grandmother walks in the front door. Which is all the more curious, because I never leave it unlocked, and, in fact, don't have keys to it currently.

Grandmother: "Hi Josh. Are you excited?"
Josh: "What? Excited for what?"
Grandmother: "Well, for me staying with you, of course."
Josh: "This is the first time I've heard of this."
Grandmother: "We talked about this, Josh. After the economy turned, and your grandfather made a few bad investments, I ended up having to leave him. I don't have anywhere to stay, and your grandfather is losing his life savings over some venture capital thing he got roped into."
Josh: "What... Ok. I'm... Going to go figure this out. You can stay here for now. Don't touch anything."

I get in my car and drive. I remember vaguely hearing about my grandfather's latest scheme. I look up the location of the place he's trying to start, and drive.

I arrive to find a meeting going on, at what looks like a public exhibition to attract further investment. A gregarious, handsome man in a suit gives a presentation on how private nuclear waste disposal is a lucrative, low-risk investment that is a reliable source of income for early investors. I spot my grandfather across the room, but he doesn't notice me. I take a seat in the back. I look further on my phone, only to find that the business had been recently involved in a severe embezzlement scandal, and that it was being investigated for all manner of fraud and tax evasion.

The presenter takes a 5 minute break. While everyone is out enjoying coffee and snacks, I write the URL to the site I'm reading on the whiteboard, and then take my seat again. The presenter doesn't notice the URL on the board until somebody asks about it, but it's too late. People starting asking about the allegations, and the confidence man's momentum is lost. The meeting ends with angry shouts, and I head home.

I find that neither my grandmother or my cousin have taken up residence. The house is quiet.

I wake up, late, at 7:30am.

So, I'm going to a hotel. It's hard to describe. Think Isengard meets Alyeska, on a mountain island in Resurrection Bay.

As I'm waiting to check in, I decided to walk around the hotel. I go to the top floor, which, based on the altitude, I liken to being at the top of a skyscraper.

Then the earthquake starts. The building lurches, glass buckling under extreme angles. The building holds, however. The earthquake stops, long enough for me to stand up and see the tsunami coming at us.

The wave hits the building and sheers it off of its foundation. The building falls backward onto the slope of the mountain. I come to, barely alive in a pool of water and destruction in what's left of the top floor of the hotel.

I stumble out. I happen to notice a number of people calling out from the top of the chairlift building a few hundred yards up the mountain.

I find my sister among the survivors. She is trying to contact our parents on her phone. There is no response.

I think about the trajectory of the wave. The direction it was going, there's no way it could have worked its way up to Anchorage, or at least, not without losing considerable energy after bouncing off the shoreline a few times. Had the wave reached Anchorage, it would have been mostly diminished.

I look at the trash scattered around. I notice a soda can, one of the new ones with LCD and cell phone circuitry as part of the packaging. I flashes a message about Pepsi, and social network updates as news of the earthquake hit the rest of the world.

It starts to sink in. I'm trapped on an island. My family, though they no doubt survived the wave, may not have survived structural damage or landslides or crevasses.

"Earthquake Death Toll Numbers in the Thousands" flashes across the red and white label. I disconnect the Pepsi's power source from the packaging. I might need it later to get a message out, if there's anybody listening.

---

4:21am.

I had two dreams last night. That itself is not unremarkable, nor is the fact that they were both nightmares. What puzzles me is that the first nightmare I had, I haven't dreamed that one for years. YEARS. The second one was brand new, which alarms me more.

Generally, while I have new dreams, I repeat my nightmares. It's part of my initial thought process within the dream that I recognize as a nightmare I've had before - "I've lived this dream before, I know I'll wake up, even though this might not end well."

So, it took a while for the second nightmare to build up to the point where I recognized it wasn't a dream, and that it was a nightmare, and that's when I got scared, because I did not remember having it before. I'm serious, the last time I remember having a new nightmare was my freshman year of college.

The first nightmare, we had to break into a military base and steal some sort of medical supplies for which we were getting paid a bounty. In this nightmare, shit goes to hell at the same time, every time. Just as we're leaving the base, agents capture us. The agents beat us, and I wake up every time after I'm handcuffed and getting thrown headfirst into the back seat of a car. I think the last time I dreamed this one was back in college.

The second nightmare, I learned I was the leader of a team hunting what appeared to be a yeti or abominable snowman. My best description of this yeti is basically Chewbacca from Star Wars, except instead of brown fur, it's a white that matches old, packed snow. What made the hunt ridiculous, even though yeti was white, we were hunting him in the summer, so he should have been easy to see. Eventually I start losing members of my team due to various dangers in the woods we're hunting in (falling off waterfalls, or getting caught by wolves, running off snipe-hunting style, whatever, etc). The dream ended when I turned around to check on a teammate, and rather than the teammate i was expecting, the yeti was in mid-lunge, about to tear my head off. Did the whole "wake-up-gasping-and-sitting-up" thing.

So that's how I'm starting my Tuesday. How about you?

So I'm at a Fred Meyer, working as a shoe salesman. This Fred Meyer is located in a mall that is very similar in appearance the the Dimond Center. It's my first day. There are two other dudes that work there, along with the boss, who is an older Asian woman. The shoes we're selling are in a shop, which is set up much like the optical shops that really exist at Fred Meyer.

One of the other workers is training me on this device that measures your body and pressure points, and recommends shoes for you. It is pretty complicated, involving many straps and button/lever manipulation. I am distracted because there is a hockey game in the middle of the mall that is surrounded by much hoopla. I go outside to check out the game, at which 'our' team scores. Everyone is celebrating, and much to my surprise, there is a hobby shop nearby that is handing something out every time 'our' team scores. I run in to discover that the prize is self made Magic: The Gathering booster packs, containing many old school cards that are worth money.

I go back to the shoe shop and get yelled at my Asian boss for leaving, at which point I try to help a black kid find some shoes - he wants the exact kind he has now, but a bigger size. He has size 6's but he needs size 9 because his feet have grown. As I'm (unsuccessfully) trying to find his shoe size, 'our' team scores again, so I rush out of the shoe shop and back to the hobby store to collect my MGT cards, which they are happily handing out to anyone. I dread going back to the shoe store, because the Asian woman had said she would fire me if I left again.

I wake up at Libby yelling at me, asking me why I didn't wake her up (we both overslept).

I remember that I was with a couple people who were supposedly family of mine, though since I have no sisters they were definitely not real family. We went through some sort of spot in a garage, and apparently we had died. We were underground, running from someone in this "afterlife." We had to face our fears, and then we had to do something else that I'm forgetting, and we could return to the living. Once we were out, we had to stop some sort of war, and then we had free access to both the living and non-living realm, until one day someone came out of the portal-esque thing that we used to travel, told us we had to kill the red queen, that it was necessary or we would be pulled back to the afterlife forever, along with some others. It was more difficult getting through the portal, we had to go in headfirst, like a dive, and kind of push through the ground, like it was viscous. We were deciding whether or not to find the queen when I woke up. There were a bunch of other things that happened before we first escaped the underworld place, but I cannot currently remember them. Weird dream.

I dreamed that there was a small scorpion in my bed with me and when I saw the covers moving I lifted them and it fell to the floor. It didn't sting me but I watched it disappear from my bedroom. There was also a worm, at first I thought it was a snake, perhaps it was but a tiny one. Eak.

So.

Part 1

I'm exchanging emails with a strangely literate baby. Not sure what about, but the conversation is heated.

Part 2

I'm hunting a moose, or trying to at least. A bear ambushes us. I fire my automatic shotgun, emptying it into the bear's head. There isn't much left when I'm done.

Part 3

I'm walking around an addition to our cabin. It appears to be a garage of some sort, but it appears to only house what appears to be a few tool chests and a poker table. I notice a plaque on one wall: "Built with funds awarded to Josh Rhoades and his contributions to Internationalism."

Part 4

I'm being forced to sell my house and move. Talking with my real estate agent, I find that my house is valued at about 1/5th of what it should be. I am dismayed.

Part 5

Josh: "___, get the hell out of there, what are you doing!?"
___: "I'm fine, it feels great."
Josh: "It's the middle of winter and you're wading around in open water in a yellow skirt, you are not fine!" (jumps into the water)
___: "What are you doing?"
Josh: "I'm getting you out of here." (throws ___ onto shoulder, fireman carry, and gets out of the water."

Part 6

I'm watching the dumbest race ever. Somehow, people are racing floating BMWs (with nothing but the spinning wheels for propulsion, and the driver using a paddle to steer).

---

I hadn't been drinking the night before. Or doing drugs. Or anything that would explain why I had dreamt at least six times, and remembered most of all of them. Maybe the AC unit was making me cold. Or something.

So, I'm playing D&D.

The DM tells me "You see a shimmering pool through a hole in the floor below."

I think briefly. "I jump through the floor, and into the pool."

"And everyone else?" the DM asks.

The rest of the party agrees to follow. There is, after all, nowhere else to go.

"Ah ha! The pool is cursed!" the DM says, triumphantly. I knew I should have rolled a perception check.

I'm then plummeting into the pool, myself, not the character. Apparently, the DM has a flair for the dramatic. Indeed the pool is cursed: every second under the water is a year of pure agony, like bathing in acid. I try to come up for air, only to be pulled immediately back down by some unknown force.

Somehow I make it out of the pool. I then realize that everyone else is still in the pool, and drowning. I'm able to get two people out, but not the others.

For a while, we lay there, coughing up the corrosive water.

Then I wake up.

So I'm exploring what seems to be left of my parents' friends' cabin. It's been trashed.

It's dark, and the electricity appears to be about. I try to check upstairs while my friend stays downstairs.

I can't see anything. I find a row of light switches. It smells like feces.

I start flipping on each switch to see if anything responds. The first one... nothing. The second one... nothing. The third one... I feel a hum inside my head. I swing around with my flashlight to see a hundred tiny eyes hidden amongst the detritus. And they start to run towards me.

I make it downstairs to find that I've come between my friend and a rabid deer with sharp, jagged, gnashing teeth.

I scream, "It's a DEEEEEEEEEEEE--"

And I wake up, screaming, "--EEEEEEEEEERRRR!" with my mouth closed. It's 3:40am.

So, I show up to a party. I'm wearing a bright green turtleneck. Lots of people are already there.

Josh: "Hey everyone, I brought the taco stuff!"
Erik: "...Well... How old is the taco meat?"
Josh: "Uh, I got it yesterday."
Erik: "...I guess that it'll be alright."

Somewhat later, as the taco stuff is heating back up, we're playing a Call-of-Duty-esque game. Somebody puts the game mode to "Swords."

Josh: "They have swords in this game? I thought this was a war game?"
John: "Yeah."

I proceed to go 0 and 25, absolutely slaughtered. I am agitated. I can't figure out what's going on, and I can barely see what's happening on the screen.

John: "I see you play Swords about as well as you make tacos."
Josh: "Alright. Fuck all of you."

And I storm out.

It seems like every year I have one or two nights where I have some sort of horrifying and graphic nightmare that involves hostages, shooting, hiding, running, and general mass violence and killing. And they never ever make logical sense. Like when I was little I had a dream where my aunt and mom and I were in a jewish ghetto during WWII and were trying to escape the Nazi's. I mean, seriously, wtf? Lucky me, last night was one of my nights. I got to enjoy having a dream about Arab terrorists taking over Washington, DC (at least I think it was DC, it definitely could have been NYC too...). They had the city on lock down and where going through building by building shooting people and taking hostages. So somewhere along the lines Dan and I get ourselves armed with a load of firearms and run around with our friends (yes, we apparently had a group of friends with us) as we ran into a building and locked it down to keep the crazies out. Insanely graphic, insanely bloody, and really just insane. I really wonder wtf is wrong with my brain sometimes...

I sweated a lot last night.. in bed. I believe due to my dreams.. I just don't exactly remember what they were. But waking up in bed sweat is nasty.

So I'm being kidnapped, but not necessarily against my will. I'm in the back of a van with a row what looks like white waterproof sleeping bags, standing on end from floor to ceiling, packed with nothing that looks like bodies.

We stop, someone tells me to get out. They hand me a bag, telling me "file this under Ilvan," and push me up a flight of stairs. The bag feels like it's light enough to have been packed full of cotton, but I'm careful with it nonetheless.

At the top of the stairs, the door opens to what looks like a penthouse suite, except on the second floor in a nondescript warehouse building. What an interior decorator might do if they had too much space and too much money.

I walk around, trying to find a filing system, or a door, or some sort of receptacle for my strange cargo. I walk by a single filing cabinet, seemingly out of place amongst everything else. It's labeled "I" at the top. I open it, and lo and behold, it has folders in it. I decide to open up my sleeping bag.

It's contents are a single map, relatively new by the quality of the paper, with a slight red mark circled towards its center, a small, unmarked back of shiny metal gears and cogs, and a piece of wood with what looks like an intricate circuit diagram.

"What do you think those are?" a woman's voice asks. I turn around to find a hard, impatient stare.

"I don't know. Looks like the pieces of a broken kid's toy."

"You're very wrong. Look again. I'll be back later."

I pore over the map, the gears, the wood. The map is some place I've never been, never even heard of. I place it aside. The gears are more interesting. They're of a metal like nothing I've ever seen before.

The most interesting is the inscribed piece of wood. Upon closer inspection, it's not a diagram for electricity, but instead a complex web of ideas and relationships that seem to indicate a different level of meaning from each point you start from. I can just about gather the meaning of one aspect, when I sense the woman brooding behind me again.

"Do you understand it?"

"I understand how it works, I think. Whoever drew this was amazing."

"The Ilvans have been trying to send us a message for years, but it's been falling on deaf ears. If you can translate what they're telling us, then you're on the team."

"If I can't?"

"Then your services are no longer required."

I'm left with a cold feeling amongst warm woods and colors and dead silence. I start back in on the diagram.

Then it hits me. They aren't gears and cogs. They're all similar in shape, but they all have different radii, teeth, color, etc. Those are the Ilvans themselves, those that carved the wood like this.

Then I wake up. Cold. Hung over.

So, I was in a dungeon. Or perhaps a catacomb. Or sepulcher.

And I was hunting evil bees. With a tennis racket. My companions suggested more practical weaponry, like a sword, or mace. I told them I had the best weapon suited to our foe.

Lately my dreams have been insanely vivid and lucid, more than likely due to my recreation of choice this summer.

Two nights ago, I was rally racing my bed against highschool friends and rivals in an unknown terrain. Upon crashing I had a long and interesting conversation with Aaron about him calling me a Homo (sic?) because of my facebook profile picture. I do not recall how the dream ended only that it was awesome.

The entirety of the dream was very action packed, I'm very suprised that I didn't have pillows and sheets everywhere when I woke up; and if you need a point of reference of what a rally bed/car is think of that old cartoon movie Nemo ( or whatever) how he rode around in his dreams on his bed. Except make your bed look like a suped up rally car still in a normal bed frame... yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaah!!(/sunglasseson)