The one where I learn about the economy of Victorian England

I dreamed that I was walking along a sidewalk. The street was to my left and to my right was a park. The street was raised so that the park was below me and street level was near the tops of the park's smaller trees. There was a wrought-iron fence between the sidewalk and the park to (sensibly) prevent people from accidentally falling off the sidewalk.

I walked along the fence looking at the trees and bushes below me in the park. Suddenly my eyes caught a flash of color. I crouched down to get a better look and I could see a TV partially obscured by some tree branches. The TV was on a stand and was pointed up towards the street as if it was meant to be watched by people up on the sidewalk. But over the years the tree nearby had spread its branches and partially obscured it from view. I reached my arms between the bars of the fence and held the branches out of the way so that I could see what show was playing.

It was a documentary on the economics of Victorian England. I learned that there was a large class of poor people. If the poor people's net worth dropped below a certain threshold then those people were sent to a poor house. Every once in a while, wealthy individuals came to the poor house and selected some of the people to come work for them as a sort of indentured servant.

At the time, the big culinary delight of the rich was canned asparagus soup. It was actually made from chunks of Brussels sprouts in a pureed broccoli base, but the wealthy did not really know that or care. It was also usually served cold - straight out of the can.

The real difficulty that the rich had was that they did not know how to operate can openers. They needed to have servants because only the poor knew how to open the cans and serve the soup. The poor also instinctively knew that they needed to remove the largest bits of Brussels spouts from the soup to prevent the rich from having to awkwardly chew them at their fancy dinner parties. So the poor and rich lived together in a symbiotic relationship of sorts. The poor could open the soup cans for the rich, and the rich provided food and shelter for the poor.

It was all very fascinating. But just as I was learning about how the soup was manufactured, I suddenly realized that I was wearing no clothes. I was crouched on the side of the street completely naked and I was holding my car keys in my left hand.

My first thought was that I needed to get home so that I could put some clothes on. But then I realized that the keys in my hand would jingle while I walked. I did not want to have jingling keys attracting any extra attention to me in my current state. So before I walked home, I needed to put my keys in my pocket to prevent them from jingling. But I didn't have any pockets because I had no pants. So before I could put my keys in my pocket I needed to go home and get some clothes. But my keys would jingle while I walked home. So before I went home for clothes I needed to put my keys in my pocket...

My dream got stuck in this cycle for a few minutes before my brain realized that there was no possible solution to this infinite loop and woke me up.

Dreamed on 4/24/2020

The one where we make a quick stop for snacks

I dreamed that I was driving somewhere with my father-in-law Bruce and my son Daniel. I don't remember where we were headed but it doesn't really matter because we never got there. 

We decided that we should stop for snacks, because it is never a bad idea to have snacks no matter where you are going. We pulled into a parking lot at a grocery store and went inside. 

The store was warehouse-style, like Costco. It was also enormous. It was at least four times the size of a regular Costco. 

We quickly grabbed some snacks near the store entrance and got in line to check out. Bruce got in line first. He put his items on the conveyor belt, and then Daniel and I put our items on behind his. 

I had grabbed a hostess cupcake. Daniel had a bottle of mountain dew and two small snacks that looked really good. I asked him what they were and he said that they tasted like a cross between an eclair and a zinger. He said that the store was giving out free samples. 

I was really jealous. They sounded amazing! And with a free sample I could taste one (or two) now and also grab a few for the road. I asked him where he found them and he pointed to the left saying they were just a couple aisles away. 

At this point, the cashier finished pulling Bruce's items off the conveyor belt. My items slowly moved forward but when they got to the front where the sensor should have detected them, they just kept going and went right off the end and fell on the floor. When the items behind ours got to the front the sensor detected them and the conveyor stopped. 

That was strange. I picked our items off the floor. The man behind us in line saw what happened and gave us a look of sympathy. He moved his items back to make room for me to put mine back on the belt. I carefully placed them back on, making sure to put the large bottle of soda on the side where the sensor was. 

It didn't make any difference. The sensor still didn't detect our stuff and they fell onto the floor again. The belt stopped when it detected the items behind ours. I decided to just hold my items until it was time to checkout. 

I kept thinking about Daniel's snacks. I really wanted some. I thought that if I let the guy behind me checkout next then I should have enough time to grab some of those snacks and be back in line before he was done. 

I told the guy behind me that he could go ahead of me because I needed to run and grab something. I placed my items behind his on the belt and I quickly walked towards the back of the line. 

Across from our checkout line there was a large counter where a man was doing a teppanyaki-style cooking demonstration. I really love watching those guys cook, but I reminded myself that I was in a hurry so I turned left and started looking for the snack aisle. 

At the end of the next aisle there was a guy handing out free samples of freshly baked rolls. They looked really delicious, but I again reminded myself to stay focused and I just hurried past. 

As I continued walking past row after row I would glance down each one to see if I spotted anything snack-like. I saw an electronics aisle, one with light fixtures, another with hardware and tools, and then a couple that had computers setup where people could trade stocks. But no snacks. 

I realized that I was running out of time. I glanced up at the signs that were at the end of each aisle to see if one of them sounded promising, but all the words on the signs were blurred out. 

I walked faster, passing several more aisles with no snacks. I could actually see the end of the store at this point and from where I was until the end there was only produce. There was nothing down there that I could possibly want to eat so I turned back. 

At this point I figured that I had just missed the snack aisle somewhere, but I also decided that I was probably out of time. I just needed to get back in line and checkout. 

I hurried back towards where I had left Daniel. When I got back near the hardware aisle I could see the checkout line. It was huge. All the other checkout lines were closed so everyone had gotten into our line. The line was so big it looked like it was Black Friday. 

Daniel was at the front of the line, frantically waving one hand in the air to get my attention, while his other hand held our items which had fallen on the floor again. 

The hordes of people behind him were angrily complaining about "some idiot" who was holding them all up and causing all these problems. 

I tried to inconspicuously sneak back to the front of the line, but it was blatantly obvious that I was the person at fault. As I slowly slunk to the front of the line each person I passed gave me a withering glare. When I was about halfway to the front I couldn't take it anymore and woke up. 

Dreamed on 4/14/2020

The one where I'm a member of the special council on alien relations

I dreamed that Jen and I were elected to the state legislature. It wasn't because we were exceptionally qualified - it was because nobody else wanted to run.

Anyway, we were both assigned to serve on the super secret Special Council on Alien Relations. It was a scientific group who were aware that there were aliens living on Earth and who were tasked with collaborating with them to promote peace, understanding, and technological advancement.

I was taken to a special conference room where the group met. There were six of us on the council: Jen and I, our son Daniel, a young scientist who I understood was there to serve as the brainy yet endearing comic relief, an ideological scientist who served as the alien sympathizer and possible traitor, and an imposing scientist with a beard who was very serious and in charge.

At this point I also came to understand that I was in a movie and that is why there were these various roles assigned to the scientists. My role (as we shall see) was as the inept government liaison.

At our group's first meeting I was told that there was a special emblem that the members of the council used to identify each other. When I asked what it was they said it was called a "valet". Then each of the scientists lifted up their legs to show me their shoes. On the bottom of their shoes they had taken a sharpie and drawn a downwards pointing arrow and written their name in cursive. Jen had already written hers, but she didn't want to ruin her shoes with sharpie, so she drew her arrow and name on her ankle.

I was told that there were two types of aliens that we were in contact with. The main aliens either looked just like us or had replaced some of us like in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". The other type of aliens were called biomorphs and they were bio powered constructs - like living robots. They had the general appearance of being human - with a head, torso, two arms, and two legs - but their bodies were transparent so that you could see inside them, and they looked slightly puffy like they were made of balloon material. Picture Big Hero 6, but transparent. If you looked inside their torso you could see how they were constructed and what type of bio material was powering them.

As part of my new assignment to the council I was given a tour of the alien research facility. While there I saw the (potentially) traitorous scientist working with the aliens on various experiments. There was also another scientist there who I suspected was actually an alien. The two of them glanced at me suspiciously as I walked through the lab.

There was also a biomorph in the lab. I glanced inside it to see what was powering it. Almost all of its torso was filled with a large rice krispy treat and the spaces on the sides were filled in with sliced potatoes and carrots.

Near the end of my tour I looked towards a corner of the lab and I saw what looked like an incubator partially obscured from view by a sheet. When I asked what it was the two scientists said it was nothing important - just an old experiment. Despite their protests, I walked over to it, pulled away the sheet, and saw a large incubator that contained several alien egg sacks. They were roughly the size of a large baked potato and they looked like the egg sacks in the Aliens movies - all slimy and pulsating. Each egg sack would hatch thousands of aliens.

I immediately realized that the aliens were plotting to take over the world. I hurried back to the secret meeting room so I could tell the others about the plot to overthrow the world. When I arrived, I found that Jen and Daniel had moved the large conference table out of the way and laid down mats so that they could practice gymnastics and parkour.

I called everyone together and had them close the doors. I told them that I did not want to cause a panic, but that I had found out that there were alien egg sacks being secretly incubated in the lab and that they were planning to take over the world.

As I told the story about what I saw, random other people would open the door to our secret meeting room and wander through. Whenever someone entered, we would all pretend to be doing nothing or talking about unimportant things. Then when they finally left we would resume our top secret conversation. It never occurred to any of us to lock the doors.

When I had finished, the large imposing scientist told me in very dramatic fashion that we should prepare a response to fight off the alien invasion. He then took me aside and whispered that really everything was OK - it was all part of the plot. The aliens were actually friendly and peaceful, but I had to see the egg sacks and raise the alarm to create some sort of tension for the movie.

At that point I woke up. Hopefully the script writers were able to resolve the conflict without too much violence. I especially worry about what happened to the rice krispy treat biomorph. He seemed particularly friendly.

Dreamed on 4/18/2020