First in a While

I've been known to have some weird dreams, but haven't had any truly weird ones in quite some time. My dreams lately have been more...what's the word...mundane than usual. Although compared to many people my dreams are never really mundane.

My Fitbit said I got 7 hours of sleep last night, which is pretty good for me. I spent almost 60% of that in light sleep, only 11% in deep sleep, and the rest in REM sleep or awake.

REM sleep, as most of you know, is where you dream the most. And as I suspected, when I woke up this morning, with the dream so vivid in my memory, I woke up straight from REM.

Anyway, the dream started off weird right off the bat. We seemed to be living in almost an alternate universe, and I was living in my grandparent's old condo. It was dark. My mom was there off and on, and James. The kids were there off and on. I was trying to get everyone to go to bed, because we fell asleep watching TV on the couch sleeper sofa. While everyone was asleep, I noticed something strange on the floor--a couple tentacle like tubes waving up from a hole in the carpet, and there was a rather large lump under the carpet that I suspected belonged to the tentacles.

Curious, I got right up to the thing to get a closer look. At the end of the tentacle thing was a mouth like a lamprey. I was a little freaked out. Lamprey's are sorta gross things in real life, and for those of you who don't know, they look like this:

As you can tell by the shocked and annoyed expression on this trout, having a lamprey attached to you isn't very enjoyable:

Anyway, I had no idea what this thing really was, but there were at least two of them in the house. I wanted to set it on fire, but I didn't want to burn the house down...or hear it scream. 

Then, all of a sudden, a cat was there, and I tried to sic the cat on it. The big ole fat cat grabbed a tentacle with its mouth and pulled the thing out of the carpet. Out came a blobby thing that was larger than any parasitic fish should ever be allowed to be in a person's home. 

I snatched a tentacle and flung it outside, then felt the need to take a bath. In the bathroom, I noticed the thing was back, and in the bathroom with me. I decided not to take a bath. 

When I went back into the living room, my younger brother and some other people were in there, oblivious to the "thing" crisis. My brother was attempting to play a very strange-looking guitar with way too much space between the strings. 

I said, "Do you even know how to play that thing?" 

And he said, "Yeah, watch." 

And he played the C chord, over and over. 

I said, "You're just playing C."

He said, "Yep."

I said, "Give me that." He handed me the guitar, and I tried to play G. I was probably going to play Country Roads, which I've been practicing ad nauseum lately in real life, but the strings and frets were so far apart, I couldn't even play a G.

Then I heard music coming from the open rafters, and Taylor Swift was up there with a real guitar, playing "You Belong with Me." I was glad she was there so I didn't have to struggle to play a G, but a little jealous because her guitar was a normal guitar. 

But her song drew a wildlife expert, who knew what was going on with the tentacle thing, and the cat. Apparently, animals were able to be "sent" anywhere, and someone at some time, had sent the tentacle things to my grandparent's house. All we had to do was send them somewhere else. And it didn't have to be a place, you could send them to a person by saying, "Go to (that person's name)." He said if we saw any endangered animals, to send them to "Coptic's Reserve," and they would be protected there. He walked us outside where a bunch of red-headed woodpeckers were in flight, heading to Coptic's Reserve. I thought that was cool. 

One woodpecker stopped to rest in a tree near us, and some kid said, "Go to Mandala," who apparently was some bad-tempered girl. 

The bird started to take off, and I yelled, "No! Go to Coptic's Reserve, Coptic's Reserve!" And it joined the other woodpeckers heading the right way. 

Then we went back inside and I asked the wildlife guy what the tentacle thing was. He plucked one up and said, "It's a Lamprey Man-Thing." 

I thought he said, "Lamp Lamprey," and I repeated that back to him as a question. "Lamp Lamprey?" 

And he laughed and said, "No, a Lamprey Man-Thing." And as I looked at the little blob body, I realized it looked like a shrivelly little gremlin-man. I shuddered. "How do we get rid of it?" 

(I Googled Lamprey Man-Thing, and this was the first result....eeecchhh:)

He replied, "Just send it somewhere." 

A kid said, "Go to Mandala." I didn't argue. 

Then I went into the bedroom, hoping to finally get some sleep. And there was a four year old girl huddled in the corner. Someone had sent the girl to me, like people were sending animals. I rushed over to her and scooped her up, wondering how this happened. I asked if she had a mom and dad, and she shook her head "no." She seemed very sad. 

I didn't know what to do. I wasn't able to care for her, so I just walked with her in my arms. Then I realized I knew a couple who would give this little girl a very good life and cherish her as if she was their own child. I smiled at her and told her we were going to meet someone. 

We knocked at the door of a big, castle-like home. A warm glow emanated from each window. And one of my friends from NSB answered--Adam. He was married to another man, but they are some of the sweetest, kindest, funniest, and warmest people I know. They were also young, and wanted to adopt a child to complete their family, but hadn't had any luck yet. 

So I introduced the little girl, "Matilda," who actually looked a lot like a younger version of the Matilda in the movie, and they all fell immediately in love with each other. There were some tears, and they gave thanks to God for bringing them such a miracle. 

We toured the house, and the guys had a bedroom ready for the little girl or boy they were hoping to adopt, and Matilda squealed with happiness when she found her favorite doll sitting around a play tea table. 

So, with all the crisis's past, I went back home. I saw Taylor Swift's guitar on a stand, and I decided to pick it up and play it. I glanced at her, and she nodded her permission. I noticed the capo on the third fret, and I wanted to play "Awesome God," which doesn't require a capo, so I was going to take the capo off, but discovered it didn't come off--you just slid it to the top of the neck. So I did that, and went to play, but found her guitar was just as weird as the one my brother had tried to play, but a different kind of weird. Her guitar had like 8 strings. What's weirder is that when I Googled "8 string guitar" just now, I found that they're a real thing (and this one made by Taylor):

I thought it couldn't be much different than the 12 string I used to play, but it was. Somehow, I managed to play the chorus (Em, C, G, D, Em, C, G, Am, D, Em), and everyone sang along.

And that's when I woke up at 5:20 am.

Have a good Tuesday, everyone! More New Zealand pics on Thorsday!