Nothing is real

The dream feels like it’s unfolding on two levels. On one level, i’m sitting in the family room watching it on television like it’s a movie and on the other level, it’s happening to me in real time. The setting is a series of rooms – living room, kitchen/dining room, great room, upstairs. It looks like a doll house or a movie set. From my “watching” dreaming perspective, i can see every room at one time and can see the interaction between all characters at once. Also from this perspective, the “movie” has a threatening undertone and i would call it a ‘scary’ drama. Into the dream….

I’m returning home after being away for a long time. My “family” includes a dad, two younger brothers and a younger sister. The ‘sister’ is the eldest of the group. There’s a “mother” presence but i never see her, i only hear her voice from another room occasionally. I enter the house through the place where a door should be but is really just an open space. It’s like a house cut in half sort of. I enter directly into the kitchen dining room. I walk through that room, through the living room and am heading into the great room towards the staircase when giant rocks begin to hurl at me from a catapult in the living room. The rocks are huge – maybe twice the size of a common cinder block. I run back into the kitchen where the ‘kids’ are, freaking out. The youngest boy tells me that ‘dad’ is crazy and keeping them all prisoner in the house. The only way i can get out is to complete the ‘tests’ he’s set up around the house. I see a bunch of wires coming out of the wall. If i connect them properly it will cause the television to come on in the living room, which will be a cue to allow me to enter that room. There are so many wires and i really don’t know what to do with them but i plug one into a large speaker. I hear the speaker crackle a little. Now i focus on the children. I feel special affection for the youngest boy – he’s maybe eight or so. I rumple the hair on his head and a lot of it comes off in my hand. I turn to the other boy, about eleven-ish, and rumple his hair. A big clump of his hair also comes off in my hand. I realize that ‘dad’ is starving them by only letting them eat junk food. The kitchen table is a large, made of unfinished lumber and bare except for empty Doritos bags and plastic pudding containers. I realize i have to get the kids out of there to a restaurant so they can eat nutritious food. We pile into my car. It’s an SUV that is so sunburned the paint is worn off in some places and it’s just primer. Inside, the car is pretty worn out too - coils of wire showing in some of the seats - but it starts right up. We drive up some roads to a town and we go into a ?Roy Roger’s restaurant. It’s got a western feel and fences separating tables covered in red and white checked table cloths. I tell the kids to stay at the table while i get in the line to get food. I’m pretty sure it’s Roy Rogers. When i put the food on the table – bucket of chicken and sides - the kids tear into it. I’m glad they’re eating because i have to take them back to the house and i want them to have enough food in them to keep them full for a while because i don’t know how long it will take me to complete the ‘test’. Now we’re back in the house. I’m holding the large clump of wires in my hand trying to understand how they fit into the puzzle. It seems like there are more wires than “receivers’ so i’m looking at the colors wondering it i need to match them to their plugs that way. As i’m thinking this, the ‘dad’ comes around the open corner of the house outside the kitchen where the kids and i are and taunts me that i’ll never be able to figure it out. He seems like he might be drunk and he’s obviously crazy and mean. It makes me mad and i randomly plug in a green wire and hear the television in the next room come on. I give him a look of triumph and stroll along the open “hall” into the living room.

That’s all i remember. Not a pleasant dream. Poor kids. I was happy to wake up from it.