Early night dream: I’m having tea with Scott’s mom. She’s is talking, very animated and happy. She looks young like in some of the pictures Scott’s shown me. Very pretty.
The big dream begins at my Manassas house. Mom and dad are in a camping trailer parked outside the carport. I go outside (but this is my current house isn’t it?) and walk across gravel barefooted to get to the trailer. Inside it’s my Manassas house i’m pretty sure. I want a cup of coffee and i’m getting annoyed looking through the big piles of dishes on the counter trying to find a coffee cup that i can take with me back to the house. All of the coffee cups i find are ones that belong in the trailer and i don’t want to have to bring it back. If i can find one that’s been carried from the house to the trailer i can use it and bring it back into the house where it belongs. Just about the time i find one in the pile mom begins telling me about a place where they help you overcome bad habits like drinking and smoking. After a person is cured they only drink water. I tell her i only like to drink sometimes and it’s not a “problem” but she insists i check it out.
Now i’m in a cul-de-sac in a neighborhood that hasn’t been built yet. The lots are cleared and foundations set but other than that, it’s empty. There’s a big drive-in movie screen sort of to the right as you enter the cul-de-sac and a large 18-wheeler parked in the middle of the circle. William Shatner is standing in front of the truck (it’s got a mural on the side – circus theme?) and talking to a small group of people. I join them and he’s telling them about the movie we are about to see. It’s a preliminary step prior to actual treatment and necessary because it prepares your brain for new ways of thinking.
The movie begins and from the very beginning i get the feeling that i’ve seen it before. The more it plays the more sure i am. The main character is a man in clown-colored clothes with a very large nose. He is walking through a subdivision attempting to interact with the people there but nothing happens. I know that i saw this movie when i was just a little kid and tell William Shatner. He seems surprised that i would’ve seen it so young but tell me to head over to the “camp” so we can get started.
The camp is exactly that. It’s a wooded place with paved sidewalks, like in some of the State Parks my family used to go camping in. First we go into the building that looks like a ranger station. A woman hands to me and to each of the other people in my group a manual. The manual contains maps of the camp and the tests we’ll be faced with. My first task is to find a book in a section of the ranger station (which is actually a mall) called Collections something, or Collectors something. I forget the second word. All the individual stores are tucked away in cubicles (very much like the dream i had a few days ago at the art show with the old Greek ladies). The first place i check has books and the name is partly right, but it’s not the right place so i move on to another section. It’s a gift shop and not the right place either. I tell the group we need to move to another part of the mall completely but they’re looking at the knickknacks in the gift shop so i leave them and walk down through the main aisle of the mall. I come to a wall that has different types of bubbles hanging on metal ‘arms’ that fix into the wall. Like you see in a workshop with tools hanging on it. There are two other girls also looking at the bubbles. The first one i take down is a pink bottle of bubble soap and it comes with a plastic bag with a white plastic tube. It looks kind of like a hot water bottle. According to the instructions you pour the bubbles through the tube into the bag and it makes very fine bubbles. After the bag is full you squeeze the bubbles back out of the tube and they fly around, little teeny weeny bubbles. The other girls and i agree it doesn’t sound very fun so i put it back on the rack. The metal rod keeps coming out but i finally get it all back on the wall right. While i’m doing that, one of the girls has taken down a hot pink bottle that looks like regular bubbles but when she pulls out the wand we can see by its shape it will make an interesting bubble. She blows the bubble and it’s a teddy bear shaped bubble. We all admire the detail of the bubble. I take down another bottle just like the one she has only my bottle is yellow. I pull out the wand and blow the bubble to see what it might be. It’s a monkey. I really like those animal bubbles but think they won’t fly very far or very well and i put the bottle back to look for just “traditional” round bubbles. I find the giant bubble maker that looks like a plastic frying pan, and some special bubble makers. Finally i find the regular bubbles but by then decide i don’t need bubbles and need to keep looking for the book. I return to the first book place i’d been in to try and ask somebody who works there where i would find Collections something. The people at the counter refuse to talk to me but i find one guy putting books on the shelves and ask him. He tries to ignore me and avoid answering me at first but i keep asking and he finally looks at me and points in a direction back up the mall past where the bubbles are.
Now i’m on the test course with William Shatner and he’s explaining to me and my team (there are the two bubble girls and a guy i remember from the movie cul-de-sac) about the course and our objective. The paved sidewalk goes steeply down hill with a sharp turn at the bottom. We begin walking down the path looking for the traps. We find the first one. It looks like a WWII mine but smaller than my fist. It’s bright and shiny brass and i’d like to keep it for a souvenir but we have to make it explode to continue through the test. We make it explode under a flower pot and it’s about the same kind of explosion as an M-80. At the bottom of the hill and around the curve we see a whole bunch of the bombs. The girls and guy and i split up so we can each blow up as many as we can. I push a wheelbarrow past them to get further up the path and end up in the next section of the test. It’s a lily pond with a narrow path that crosses over the pond made of wooden planks. I leave the wheelbarrow and start over the wooden path. There’s a man standing on a bank to my right and he shouts out for me to look out for the ?? and this odd looking animal is coming after me. It’s a guinea pig shaped lizard. I don’t think it’s dangerous and i think it’s just being friendly but i’m not sure because it’s kind of scary looking. I push it away with a broom but it keeps trying to follow me. Then another creature starts coming towards me so i drop the broom and run out of that section to the next test.
William Shatner is waiting for me and is pointing me in the direction of more curvy downhill path and i get fed up and say i’ve done all i’m going to do. I get in a blue car and i’m driving over the paved paths through the trees, passing other ‘contestants’ because it’s really just a big game. I pass the man from the book store and think about asking if he needs a ride but wake up.
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