The One True Marker

 I was in a house with other people, and it was late at night.  I think Em may have been there, and possibly other family, but there were also people there that I didn't know.

In the course of talking to these people, someone showed us a "marker" (as in the large coin like item from the John Wick movies) that they had, but they needed to get rid of it because of some trouble it was causing. 

I don't think I specifically volunteered to do anything with it, but at one point I took it to get a closer look or something, but doing so "activated" it somehow, and suddenly I knew that "they" were coming for me to get it.  At this point, it became very much like Lord of the Rings where I needed to keep this thing out of the reach of the ones coming after it, although I wasn't entirely sure what I needed to do with it or how I was going to do it.

Very quickly, I wound up leaving and heading north.  I knew that if I went north quickly enough, I could get to where they couldn't reach me.  I don't remember how I found out what "they" were, but pretty early on I knew that they were like a combination of the Ring Wraiths from LotR and the dementors from Harry Potter.  Oh, I think I found out because when I left, it was still night time, and these things were only active at night, and they were dormant during the day.  I think I got a short way out but had to make my way back to the house or something, and I either spotted them or heard them during that time.

In the morning I left the house (I'm not sure how I was safe at the house during the night) and once again set out for heading north.  With the chasers dormant, I picked up a strange power from the marker, and it made me extremely fast, allowing me to travel hundreds, if not thousands of miles in a day on foot.  I remember the scenery blurring by as I moved.  I also picked up some extra strength from it, although I don't remember using it for anything.  I just knew that during the day I could move faster than the chasers did at night, and as long as I kept going each day, I could outpace them to my goal.

I remember going through a number of wooded areas, and at one point I even came up to the top of this hill or something that overlooked into a valley and the mountains beyond it.  It was late evening at that point, and though I was heading north, the sun was behind me shining down into the valley, although it had that "golden hour" look to it.  I knew I'd have to find shelter for the night so I could get up early and keep going in the morning.

At some point during all the travel, the dream ended before I reached my destination.

Mini Tornados at the Barn

 I was in the "Big Barn" that used to belong to my maternal grandparents, but rather than being dark and run down like it is in real life, it was actually somewhat fixed up, decently lit, and relatively clean.  I was in there with a small group of people, mostly family I think, and for some reason we had our cat, Pumpkin, in there with us.  She had gotten loose so we split up into a couple of groups to try to find her.

After a short period of time, there was some sort of weather alert, and there was a big storm coming.  I knew we had to find Pumpkin fast, so we were moving quickly around the barn looking for her.  I think we eventually found her in a doorway under one of the hay storage areas.

Shortly after that, the wind started to pick up, and a number of us went to the windows to look out and see what was going on.  I saw that the barn was pretty much surrounded by mini tornadoes that were forming within 50 feet of the barn.  Oddly, they weren't really dangerous because they weren't fast moving.  There were maybe three to five of them around, and they were forming and spinning slowly, but I knew that if I wasn't careful, they'd speed up and turn into full blown tornadoes.  

For some reason we thought we'd have a better time dealing with them from the dairy barn instead of the big barn, so we quickly ran from one to the other.  I'm not sure what our reasoning was, but we felt like we could see them better since there were more windows, so that's what we did.

There was something about the tornadoes, and the weather in general, that I knew I had some degree of control over, or at least if I did certain things, it could cause them to get worse or better.  I kind of feel like I knew what those things were within the dream, but I can't remember now what in the world they were.  

I think the dream ended there because Simon, my son, came and woke me up.

Ah! Not the bees!!

 I was in a large building that had a very "back rooms in Portal" feeling to it.  Things seemed to have a lot of reddish and brownish tint to them, and had the feel of an open warehouse layout.

I was talking with a couple of people (no one I recognize or remember) and one of them was commenting about how they were trying to get wasps out of the building.  They were using wasp spray on the nests, but not much luck with it.  They pointed out the nests to me, and they looked almost like they had been manufactured by people rather than built by wasps.  They were kind of an orange-brown color, and they had very obvious sections or layers to them.  The bottom hole was where the wasps were coming in and out, and that was on the narrowest section.  As it went up to the top of the nest, there were maybe 4 or 5 sections total, each a little bigger than the one below it, except for the top one which was smaller than the one below it.  The nests were all aimed at a 45 degree angle, and there was some light inside, as if it were getting in from the outside.

At some point I wound up with the wasp spray, so I inched up within 15 feet or so of one, aimed the can and sprayed.  I got close to the hole in the end, but I wasn't right on it at first.  I quickly adjusted the spray and started spraying all around inside of the nest to kill all the wasps.  It seemed to be going well, but there were a lot in there, and I hand to really keep on them to make sure they didn't escape and start flying around.

Someone said something to me (I don't remember what) and distracted me for just a moment.  I stopped spraying, and it was enough that some of the wasps slowly started coming out and buzzing around sickly.  I started spraying again, thinking that I'd get to those escaped wasps in just a moment, but as soon as I fired into the nest, those six or eight wasps immediately bolted straight at me and attacked the right side of my abdomen.  I jumped and screamed, waking myself up in the process.  I heard my self emitting a mumble, "Mmmmhhh!" instead of an actual scream as I woke up.

Back to Work

[Context: In waking life, we're in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, and work has completely shut down except for those of us that can work remotely.  Starting Monday, 4/27/2020, Trevor returned to the office and warehouse in order to start putting away stock that has been delivered to the Goulets' previously so that we can slowly start getting up and running.]

In the dream, the morning that Trevor went back to work, I was told I could also go in since we would not cross paths, and so I went.  When I got there, it was just Trevor in the warehouse, but shortly after, more people started showing up.

At first I was excited to see the other people as well, but I soon realized that they were all in Trevor's area helping out with the receiving, and they weren't practicing safe social distancing.  Rachel was at the receiving tables within two or three feet of other people.  Drew was walking around talking to everyone from only about three feet away.  Adam, Brandon, Anita, Micah and all sorts of people were there, and no one seemed to care that we could be getting each other sick.  For some reason I was even in the warehouse instead of back in my office away from everyone.

I really wanted to say something to everyone, but I just couldn't get it out, and I think part of it was that I didn't want to seem like the bad guy or stepping out of my place to tell everyone else what to do.  I figured that if Rachel, who is normally very cautious, was ok with it, then it must be ok, but I knew deep down that it really wasn't yet.  The dream ended there.

Cleaning out the Miller Garage

It was night time, and there were a bunch of my family members in the garage at the Miller farm. (my maternal grandparents)  Matthew, Michelle, my mom, Emily and Simon were there, as well as maybe one or two others.  There was lots of light inside the garage, which was unusual because in waking life, I don't think there was any electricity or lights in there.

We were all working on getting the two sides cleared out, but mainly the side where the old pick-up truck and tractor used to be.  As time went on, we got things out and it was looking very nice inside, although it was still very old with the twisted wood and dirt and board floor.  I have no idea where we were putting the stuff that was inside, but it was disappearing anyway.

Eventually it was light outside, and we wound up outside of the garage, on the side that the road was on.  I'm not sure what we were doing out there, but I was there with Simon, who was 4 years old at the time.  We wound up having a run-in with some bees or wasps, which scared Simon.  I think I wound up either taking his hand or just picking him up, and we ran off away from the bees towards the road but staying within the field behind the garage.

Catching COVID-19 The Stupid Way

I was at a giant shopping mall that had a very modern or even futuristic vibe to it.  A number of people seemed panicked and were running around, and there were a number of people with masks.  I realized that it was due to COVID-19, and I quickly realized I had no mask on. 

In all of the chaos, an Asian man came up to me, and I realized it was Patrick, who I worked with at MB in waking life when I lived in Texas and New Jersey.  (But he didn't look like Patrick.  He looked like Mr. Uekusa, a.k.a. "The Naked Comedian", but he was fully dressed.) He started talking to me, asking how I was doing, and he was very concerned about me not having a mask.  While talking to him, I found out that he had it, and the understanding was that he was going to die from it.  He wound up taking off his mask, and giving it to me.  In the back of my mind, I knew that if I put the mask on, I was going to catch it, too, but for some reason I felt like I still needed to do it, so I did so.

Patrick and I went separate ways, and I continued on walking through the mall.  The mask was very thick, and I was having trouble breathing through it.  Eventually I wound up somewhere where it was confirmed that I now had COVID-19, and I wound up falling into a deep sleep.

Eventually I woke up, and the mask was gone, and somehow I knew that it was 500 years later.  I hadn't aged at all due to the type of recuperative sleep I was in, but things looked even more shiny, sleep, metallic, and futuristic.  I got up and was walking around, and I eventually ran into Zippy. (former coworker at GPC in waking life)  She was very old with white hair, but it was her.  I don't know how she had survived so long, but it was definitely her.  We talked briefly before the dream ended, but I don't remember what about.

Harry Potter and the Multiple McGonogalls

In spite of being a grown adult IRL, in this dream I was an 11 year old Harry Potter trying to get to my first year at Hogwarts.  It was night time with a light drizzle.  I had already been to the dormitory to drop off my belongings, and I was told I needed to get to "Hogwarts" for the evening meal and ceremony.  In this case, I think Hogwarts actually meant the Great Hall.

After leaving the dorm, I was walking through the fairly empty streets of a normal muggle city.  I came to a part that had fewer lights and I could see the night sky pretty clearly, and there were tons of stars out.  I realized I had been instructed to follow the stars in order to make it to the Great Hall, but as I was looking at them, they started moving and swirling around.  Some were small groups that moved around each other, and other stars moved across the canvas of the night sky.

I was starting to feel very frightened, both because I knew the stars were not supposed to move, and also because I was going to be late to the Great Hall, and as I looked around, Professor McGonogall showed up.  She looked up at the sky and said something like, "This won't do," and raised her wand, swirled it around her head once and then flicked it at the sky.

All of the stars moved back to their original positions in about 5 seconds time.  I looked around to say thank you to Professor McGonogall, but she was nowhere to be found.  I didn't think much of it, and I kept walking until I finally got to the Great Hall.

When I walked in, Professor McGonogall came up to me and asked me where I'd been, and I told her about the stars and said, "Wasn't that you that came and helped me?"  She said, "It certainly was not!" and acted very huffy about it.  We quickly came to the conclusion that someone out there was pretending to be her, and that in spite of them helping me, it was someone that was dangerous and it was a very bad thing.  She sped off to go deal with it.

A little while later the dinner and ceremony were done, and I was back at the dorm with Ron.  I was in this spot that almost felt like a stone stairwell, but it was also supposed to be my dorm or bunk.  It was very high up, and there was a window looking out into the moonlit yard to my right. I also had the feeling that the part of the dorm I was in was suspended over open air, like it was hanging off the side of a tower. 

Ron was unpacking, I was telling him about what was going on with the imposter.  He thought it was weird, too.

Being "Let Better"

It was early morning, and I had just gotten in to work.  It was still dark outside, and a lot of the lights were off in the building.I was in the process of getting settled when my manager, Sam, came to me and started talking.  He was being weird and snarky (not at all like his IRL persona) and finally he let me know I was being let go.  I was floored!  "What do you mean let go?" 

"We figured you could go work with John at Nabisco making Goldfish crackers.  So don't think of it as being 'let go'.  Call it 'let better', because we think will be a better fit for you."

[John recently left my company IRL under some mysterious circumstances, but to my knowledge, he's certainly not at Nabisco.]

I couldn't figure out where this was coming from.  I said, "What about when you said before that if there was a problem with my performance, there would be plenty of advance notice and we could work on it?"

"We figured you'd forget it if we did, just like everything else," he snarled.

I was heartbroken.  I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on.  I wound up walking around the office, partially because I was supposed to be getting my stuff together, and partially because I didn't know what else to do.  I talked to a few people, but I didn't get any real info about what was going on.

Finally as I was getting my stuff together, Rachel (co-owner) came by and was talking for a bit.  I told her about what was going on, and she laughed and she said, "What?  He didn't mention that it's only for 30 or 45 days?  It's just for while the whole coronavirus thing blows over, and we figured you'd like doing something with your hands in the mean time."  I felt so relieved, but I couldn't figure out why Sam was being so mean about everything. 

A little while later I passed by Rachel again, and I wound up saying something to her about Hannah, which was her daughter that miscarried a few years ago.  I think it was something along the lines of giving her a hug and saying that I know it can be tough when the anniversary comes around.  She smiled and thanked me, and I went back to meandering around the office until the dream ended.