Strange Encounters

Friday, May 29, 2021

I have had similar dreams before. It wasn’t the exact same, but the house it took place in was the same. It isn’t uncommon for me to have sequels, but this is, by far, the weirdest sequel to fighting a bear that I have ever had.

It took place at what my dream called an apartment building, but what I would call a mansion connected to another mansion connected to another mansion with three mansions combined into one across the street. This is where my aunt Sally lived. The interior of the building was the same as the interior of the trailer house that the original dream took place in: fake wood paneling lining the walls, a kitchen/dining room as the first room with a hallway connecting the rest of the rooms. The wallpaper above the paneling was a hideous dark green with specks like Captain Underpants’ cape, the kitchen, by far the nicest room in the house, had white tile floors and an off-white wallpaper. I do not remember much of the kitchen other than the fact that it had a round, four-seater table in the middle and a door to the left (when walking into the building. The hall would have been to the right).

My siblings, Ashley and Cera (Sara), stayed in the kitchen with my mom and Karie playing cards. They did this throughout the entire dream.

There was a problem with the sewage system. What that was, I could not tell you, but this is by far my favorite part of the dream. Cheyenne, my older sister, and I were assigned the task of fixing the sewer. Disgusted, we opened the door and went down stairs into the basement, climbed down the ladder at the bottom of the stairs, and dropped into four foot deep sewer water.

“This isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be,” I said, sinking to the bottom and stepping in something slimy and gross. This was one of few times I actually felt something in my dream. I quickly removed my foot from the slimy gunk and continued walking forward.

“Yeah,” Chey agreed, “it doesn’t even smell as bad as I was expecting it to.”

We continued forward, walking through the chamber until we reached a small chamber with a door on both ends. One was open, the other--the one on the far side--was closed. Cheyenne, apparently having an insane amount of knowledge about sewer systems, reached up and pulled down the garage-like door that was open. Immediately, the water in the room we were in began to drain. Once it was drained, we opened the other door and were immediately greeted by a large corridor with a foot of crystal clear water on the floor and one single desk in the center.

The water in this room was the clearest, cleanest water I had ever seen in my life. It sparkled like diamonds and lapped so calmly… if it wasn’t for the sewer that was literal inches away, I would enjoy living here. In the cold, dark, peaceful cavern with a desk in the middle of it.

My manager, Katelyn, walked into the room, sat at the desk, and began looking through the pile of papers. I basically said, “Hey, cool place,” and left.

Cheyenne and I pulled down the door and the room began to fill with sewer water. But I couldn’t get it to close. The lever to close it was on the other side! Holding my breath, I dove under the water, now about three feet deep, and held it tightly to the bottom. Noticing my struggle, Chey yelled “Hey, Katelyn, can you close the door?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” came the reply from the other side. All that I could do was think about how nasty the water on the other side was now.

Once the door was closed, we opened the other door and began swimming back to the apart-sion.

Once back, Cheyenne vanished from existence and I followed Aunt Sally into a room down the hall. The room was completely empty. It had two doors both leading to the hallway. At this point, I knew where the dream was going: I have had it before. A bear is about to come through the door on the right, I am going to wrestle with it, run through the hall on the left and back into the room on the right, we will wrestle some more, and the dream will be over. So I was surprised when a cub came into the room. It was the size of a large cat.

It lunged at me, I pulled on its rear leg and ran through the hall and back into the room. I tackled it, pulled on its leg repeatedly, thinking to myself, “It’s a cub, maybe I can tame it or something.” Then, “Wait a minute… it’s a cub… where’s the mama?”

After that thought, I heard a roar and I saw a bear running down the hall.

“HEEEEEEEECK NAAAAH,” I exclaimed, dodging a swipe, running out of the room, down the hall, into the kitchen, and opening the door in the kitchen and slamming it shut behind me. I went down the stairs and was greeted by another floor.

Isn’t there supposed to be a sewer right here? I asked my sleeping self.

Nah, it replied, That’s one more floor down.

You sure?

Yeah.

Okay.

It was pitch black, as it was midnight, and I began to stumble around the house.

I walked over to a window and a man came up and began slamming on the window. He was blonde with a Tony Stark beard mixed with a Van Dyke. He dressed like the stereotypical redneck: camouflage jacket with a black t-shirt and camouflage cargo pants.

“How much for that sword?” he asked me.

I had no idea what he was talking about, so I just said, “This isn’t my house, go upstairs and ask them.”

“Oh, okay. I just ain’t want that beauty to go to waste,” he said, leaving. I continued to walk through the lower level, flipping random switches to see what they did.

The dream ended when I reached the second kitchen, a much, much nicer room than the upper room. In fact, the whole downstairs looked a whole lot nicer, if you disregard the mess in the living room area. There was a metal refrigerator, I turned on the light, and woke up to my alarm.

“Remember, Caleb,” I said, “This first alarm is only supposed to wake you up. You have five more minutes to sleep,” I said, scrolling through my phone at 4:40.

After checking all of my messages, I put my phone down and closed my eyes. When my second alarm went off a few minutes later, I said, “Screw it, morning shift doesn’t start until Monday. I can sleep a little longer.” And sleep I did. For about an hour and a half. And I had one more dream…

I was in a car. A two door four cylinder older than me: a tan, 1998 Civic. Okay, I just Googled that and, Josiah, I am not even joking… woah… Yeah, I am sending you this dream now. Sorry, Prose fam, I send these to my friends as well, lol. We sat in the car, Josiah and I, listening to his music and talking about concert dates. That was a wholesome dream.

Since you guys won’t get the reference: https://youtu.be/n395WaJuSFs