The strangest dream

It's been a while since I gave you folks a good glimpse into my psyche, so I'd like to give you something new to analyze - last night's dream. What's particularly strange about it is that it had absolutely nothing to do with the book I was reading into the wee small hours - more on that later. This post may not hold much interest for most of you but I wanted to record this one for posterity since it's unique in several ways.

Chapter 1: Disney World
The dream opened with Emie, Dad and me at Disney World together. We passed by a colorful plaza and into a restaurant. I'm guessing that it was the Brown Derby, one of Dad's favorites, since there was a definite Hollywood atmosphere. The dream skipped ahead a bit to when we had been waiting a very long time for our food and we had been given some cookies to compensate for the wait. I decided to go enjoy Disney World since the food showed no signs of coming. As I left the restaurant, I noticed a sign board where you could order pizza by writing down your order and placing it on the board. I did so, thinking that it might be faster than the Brown Derby. Abruptly, the dream cut away from Disney World to . . .

Chapter 2: The Creamery
I worked at the old BYU Creamery for a semester shortly before it was torn down. In my dream, the old place was brought back to life and filled with nostalgic memorabilia, like a shiny pre-credit card cash register that looked like a miniature pipe organ - the whole place looked like an old fashioned malt shop, as though the clock had been turned back almost a century The place was strangely empty so I wandered around for a moment looking at everything. My old boss, Brian (incidentally, Facebook suggested him to me as a friend last night - there is no love lost between us, however, and I declined) showed up and told me breathlessly that all of his workers had called in sick and he needed my help. We negotiated my temporary wage and I told him that I had somewhere to be right now but that I would return once I was done. The somewhere I needed to be turned out to be . . .

Chapter 3: Jane Austen meets Charles Dickens
I dreamed that I (when I say I here, I mean it somewhat loosely, as I was apparently inhabiting a female host - the first time I've portrayed a woman in my dreams) was entering the garden of a lavish Victorian manor house where a man whose circumstances had prematurely aged him (he reminded me of Ebeneezer Scrooge but not as old in reality) sat outside grumpily. He had come outside to look at his flowers and the colorful pigeons (and I mean colorful - red, blue, green, etc.) for whom he had left a feeder. The pigeons, however, had become aggressive and were pecking at the miser and eating his flowers. I devised a solution to his problem (the dream kinda skipped over the details) and we entered the manor to figure out a solution to his other problem . . .

Chapter 4: The "Haunted" House
The old man had begun hearing odd sounds in his house at night and was convinced that the place was haunted. I agreed to spend the night in the fellow's room (on the floor while he took the bed) to observe. (The inside of his manor house looked like the inside of my church building in Santa Barbara. After a while, we began to hear the noises and I arose to investigate. As I turned a corner, I nearly collided with a kid whose arms were laden with the man's possessions. I looked through the lighted doorway beyond and saw a woman who I presumed to be the boy's mother also looting the man's home. I clamped a firm hand on the boy's shoulder and pulled out my anachronistic cell phone to call the police as the boy's parents fled.

Chapter 4.5: The Austenian Ending
The scene cut away and I found that I was reading the book in which the events of chapters 3 and 4 took place and had reached the ending, in which the man's youth and heath were restored by the woman's actions and she declared her love for him. "I don't even know your last name but it doesn't matter - I know your heart and I love you." I closed the book and found myself . . .

Chapter 5: Back at the Creamery
I was in the creamery's back room where I found bright red and blue uniforms, again reminiscent of years gone by, as well as another employee Brian had managed to locate. I was again female so moved to the appropriate section of uniforms/costumes and selected one. As I began slipping it on . . .

Chapter 6: Return to Disney World - the Circle is Complete
I found myself walking across the same colorful square toward the restaurant. As I passed, a fellow at the pizza sign board called my name and said that my pizza was ready. I told him to wait a moment while I fetched my family and I hurried to the restaurant. I found my father and wife still waiting for their food, sitting together with a fellow who looked like Groucho Marx except that he had Harpo's hair. I told them that pizza was available outside and they began to rise.

Epilogue: Waking up is Hard to do
I awoke in my old room in Santa Barbara and opened my door as my wife opened the door across the way. I told her "I had a (I hesitated for a moment as I decided not to call it weird) great dream last night, and you were in it." "Was it about a cookie?" "Actually, there WERE cookies involved." As she smiled . . .

I really woke up. I came out of the bedroom and saw Emie on the couch. I told her "I had a (I hesitated for a moment as I decided not to call it weird) great dream last night and you were in it." "Was it about a cookie?" "Actually, there WERE cookies involved. And we had the exact same conversation in my dream."

Time travel, Deja Vu, gender bending, meta-fiction . . . quite the dream, eh?