Reality Serum at the Rent-A-Mansion

Some elements in this dream are obvious reflections of real life situations:

• I’m preparing to have a gathering at my place this weekend.
• Last weekend a friend and I were going to take a tour of a mansion but found that it was too expensive.
• I stayed at a hotel with this same friend where the pool was closed due to an “incident” with a child (involving something that resembled - but was not - mud).
• I’ve recently joined the YMCA, of which two of my favorite aspects are the pool and hot tub.

[07-25-2010]

A large mansion in town is set up similar to a YMCA, where visitors can work out, swim in indoor or outdoor pools, and hang out in hot tubs of various sizes. I’m heading over to one of the indoor pools, but the room is flooded and I have to swim to the edge of the pool. Somehow, although level with the floor, the “shallow” end of the pool is less deep than the flooded water around it. I wade over to a group of teenagers and preteens, including my friend’s daughter Jasmine, playing Frisbee across the pool. I can tell that Jasmine has a crush on one of the teenage boys, but he seems to be flirting with me instead, making me feel a bit uncomfortable.

I swim over to one of the large hot tubs, but find that the walls are smeared with mud. Nervous that someone might think I made the mess, I quickly resort to one of the smaller hot tubs. My Mom joins me, asking if I would mind taking a survey about the “club.” [Apparently she plays the role of a staff member.] She asks me several questions, taking notes on a clipboard. I mention that I’m planning to have a party there that evening, so she takes me on a tour of the areas of the mansion that we will have access to. We’re outside arranging chairs on the patio when we notice a wedding party on the top floor getting rowdy. The bride is leaning out a large open window, as if she might fall out, laughing and obviously intoxicated. Her father is near us on the ground, but somehow he is able to reach up and gently lift her through the window (as if the building briefly shrinks down to a single level, then back up again).

Later, guests are arriving and lounging around throughout the mansion as I continue to arrange furniture and make sure everything is ready. A shy teenage girl [who I recently met at the YMCA] shocks me by insisting on access to the bedrooms upstairs, “just in case.” (Implying sexual activity.) She is relaxing in a reclining chair on the patio as it begins to rain. A leak in the patio roof pours right on her and she doesn’t seem to notice. I ask her, “Why don’t you move out from under that leak?” “Oh, you’re right!” she says, seeming surprised, as if suddenly realizing that she’s getting wet, and moves her chair over.

My friend James notices that I’m still arranging things and tells me that I need to relax. He shows me a drink that he brought and insists that I try it. “It’s called Reality Serum,” he boasts, “It’ll make you see the truth.” I eyed the liquid, which looked like some sort of magical potion in a small glass bottle, and said, “I’m not too sure about that.” He urges me on, saying that I won’t regret it, and leads me to a comfortable, black padded chair. I sigh and give in, relaxing in the chair as he pulls a dropper from the bottle. He squeezes one single drop onto my tongue and I allow my eyes to close. I feel myself relaxing deeper and deeper… then I awaken, realizing that “the truth” is that it was all a dream. ^_^

Role Reversals

First, allow me to explain a few recurring dream themes and their significance prior to appearing in this dream:

• I have “high school” dreams all the time, but I’m usually a teenager in school, not visiting as an adult.
• I have “searching for a restroom” dreams quite often, which usually end in confusion as I’m unable to find a functioning restroom or one that is not occupied.
• Occasionally, I have “lost object” dreams where I’m searching for something throughout the dream, usually to no avail.

The fact that I am an adult and help others with these situations seems to be a significant moral in this dream, and I awoke feeling confident and fulfilled.

[07-24-2010]

A group of teenagers are rehearsing a play in a high school auditorium. I’m there observing along with several other adults in the audience. The acting is terrible and several of the teens are speaking in bad foreign accents, making the production even worse. The director (a teacher at the high school) takes a break, but never returns. After a while, the teens realize that they are unsupervised and gradually start to leave in small groups, some talking about “getting wasted” as they stroll off.

Cassandra [my “BFF” from high school] has been watching beside me and asks if I know where a restroom is in the school. Assuring her that it couldn’t be too difficult to locate, I lead her inside and we find a girl’s locker room just around the corner. The front half of the room consisted of lockers and changing areas and seemed to be in decent condition. The back half of the room, however, appeared to have once been a restroom but had been utterly destroyed – toilets broken into pieces, stalls leaning on each other or laying on the floor, and excrement and menstrual blood everywhere (on broken toilets, on the floors and smeared on the walls). We carefully maneuvered around the mess, trying to find just one working stall, and eventually gave up and left.

Late that night, we’re wondering around downtown and hanging out in an abandoned building with a group of friends. We leave to see if any bars or clubs are still open and my friend Pamela says that she’s lost her umbrella. I offer to go look for it, as I need to use the restroom anyway. I go back to the abandoned building and find that there does not seem to be any way to get upstairs to the restrooms. I have a strangely pseudo-lucid moment and decide to use a large cloth bag to teleport upstairs (simply by believing it will work). Standing in the center of the bag, I lift the sides around me and over my head. I squeeze my eyes closed briefly, and then drop the bag to find that I am indeed upstairs. Happy with myself, I strut to the restroom, take a quick leak and teleport myself back downstairs through the bag. 

[Note: Using the restroom in my dreams is a major accomplishment.] 

Before I leave the building, I happen upon Pamela’s tall red umbrella and take it back to the group with me. One of our friends met up with someone who worked at a mall and managed to get everyone “after hours passes” to hang out inside. I teasingly tell Pamela that I’ll trade her umbrella for one of the passes, and she hands me one of the round white buttons, which I pin to my shirt. The dream fades into a “happily ever after” ending with us strutting off to the mall.

White That Glows in the Night

I’m driving to my mom’s house late at night to borrow her truck (for an unknown reason), although I’m afraid I may be visiting too late, as she may already be asleep. On my way through her rural neighborhood, I slow down several times thinking I see deer in the woods near the road. At first, all I see is eye shine, then a few of the deer draw closer and I see that they are covered in bright white fur that seems to glow in the moonlight. I stop to allow a few deer to cross, noticing that their fur is even brighter when they pass in front of the headlights; A dark skinned man follows after them, dressed in a suit and top hat that is the same bright white shade as the deer’s fur. He pauses in the road to smile eerily at me, holding his thumb and index finger up to his left eye in the shape of an “L.” This gives me chills, even more so when I realize there are several others just like him (along with the white deer) along the left side of the road. The men seem to be going door to door like salesmen, and as I continue towards my mom’s place, I notice several people standing in the entryways of their homes in a trance-like state, staring at a man in white.

I hurry to my mom’s, hoping that the men haven’t made it to her house, spotting other strange creatures in the woods at the end of her road; Some appeared to be large owls with huge, crooked eyes. Pulling up to my mom’s, I find that I’m unable to park in the driveway because her hot tub is on a trailer in the middle of the driveway [she doesn’t actually own one in real life]. I carefully drive around it and park in the yard, noticing that most of the lights in the house are still on. The front door is slightly ajar, so I walk in to find my mom and sister, Kim, in the kitchen cooking dozens of batches of cookies. My mom greets me happily and asks if I would like some cookies. She explains that they have several types, “Chocolate chip, macadamia nut, peanut butter, raisin… and Kimberly even made pot cookies!” Confused that my Sunday-school-teaching mother would be amused at pot cookies, I examine said cookies to find that they have balls of what appears to be fried batter cooked into them. I instead take one of the chocolate chip cookies.

[Note: "Pot Cookies" reference directly related to a conversation a friend had with her sister yesterday about pot cookies you can apparently get in California.]

I ask why the hot tub is on a trailer in the driveway and Mom says that a man is coming to pick it up later. She doesn’t mention whether or not someone bought it, which leads me to believe that the men in white have already visited, causing this strange behavior. I ask if Dad knows about this [apparently they are still married in my dream] and she calmly says, “He’s in bed sleeping.” Kim adds crossly, “With his Sensei.” I immediately recognize Dad’s “Sensei” to be his karate teacher [which he doesn’t actually have] whom he idolizes. Peaking into Mom’s bedroom, I see Dad sleeping on one side of their king size bed and a muscular guy with a shaved head sleeping on the other side. Mom asks me to get something from the bedroom floor, so I tip-toe inside, but still manage to wake up my Dad. He asks what I’m doing and I angrily ask what HE’s doing letting that man sleep in my mother’s bed. I wake before he has a chance to defend himself.

Comic Vision

A friend is working on a comic book and asks me to look over the final draft to make any organizational edits before it “goes live.” He hands me a print that has interactive pages, like a touch screen device, and I go through making minor adjustments to the layout and alignment. I hand it back to him, he looks over the changes and says “Great!” He hands the comic back to me, just as my name is materializing on the cover, to the right of the two co-creator’s names. I gasp with delight, saying “I didn't know that got me on the cover!” and wake with my heart pounding.