Ghost in the Department Store

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Dream:
I had just gotten a job in a massive department store that had everything from popular clothing styles to home improvement supplies. The team leader was leading me through, section by section to help me familiarize myself and get oriented.

I was led by a bar-covered pit in the floor, with an unfinished staircase descending into the basement. The area covered by the bars was relatively square, about 15 feet across each way. The wooden staircase was little more than a frame. If you are familiar with the anatomy of a staircase this will make more sense to you: the stairs did not have the tread boards in place yet, but only two parallel stringers, and the risers were in place, leaving not much to step on.

I was glad I didn't have to go down there, because not only the sight of an unfinished staircase seemed unsettling, but I knew something was down there... I could feel it.

I was finally put to work, and not very long into my first shift, the boss came back to me and told me I needed to go down into the basement for something. I was nervous, but I did it anyway. I gingerly stepped on the narrow risers where they met with the stringers at a 90 degree angle to maximize the surface area that I was walking on while I climbed down the steps.

Once I was down in the pit, my eyes adjusted and I noticed there was one metal doorway that must have led to the room where the boss had wanted me to go. I notice that he is watching me, looking through the bars that made up my ceiling. It almost felt like I was in a cage or jail cell. There were others gathered around to watch what I would do, as if I were in a miniature colosseum of initiation or hazing for new employees.

I was looking up at the growing number of faces above me, each watching me through the bars. Something wasn't right. I wasn't alone down there. There was someone, or something... immediately to the left of me. I turned to see what it was...

...then I was face to face with a spectre! A colorless face of a woman with scraggly hair was staring at me, inches away from my own face!
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Urban Exploration Adventure

This one takes me back to the days as an urban explorer, but this one's got a strange twist at the end.
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Dream:
I am with a group of friends and acquaintances on a nice cool afternoon. The sky is overcast so everything is dimly lit, and we are crouching through drainpipes and ditches leading up to an old abandoned warehouse. The sides of the shoulder-deep ditches are overgrown with slimy green weeds. We follow the ditch all around the side to the back of the L-shaped building. The whole area is surrounded by tall fences, but we had breached the perimiter through the drains.

There is a soggy pond separating us from the building, but the far right corner of the building looked close enough to jump from the dry land to the doorsteps. There are lots of wild trees growing in the old lot in front of the pond, and through them all I could see that there were some other people on the way... hooligans from the looks of them. We quickened our pace to get into the building before the others might see us.

We got to the door which opened easily for me, and we crept into the darkness. Someone turned on their flashlight and we concentrated on securing the heavy door behind us which didn't take too long. Then we were in and ready to explore, worry-free... but we did keep our voices down just in case.

The hallway we were in was long and dark. The light from our flashlights showed us how rotten the walls and floors had become. This place looked like it had been abandoned from at least 20 years. The doors were blackened with age and corrosion, and each one we tested was locked. At the corner of the hall we made a right turn to more hallway. At the center were some rusted double doors on the left and an opening to the right, which led into the main warehouse storage area.

I tried the double doors but they were locked. There was no imaginable way to get them opened. We decided to check out the open area which seemed to absorb the light from our flashlights, making everything darker. I don't think I carried a flashlight but everyone else did.

Suddenly one of the female acquaintances on our expedition turned around and started running back towards the double doors, and signaled me to go with her. The left door easily swung open for her, and I pulled on the right side door which also opened. Excited, we went in, and I closed the doors behind us.

This area was still furnished and everything seemed to be in far better condition than we would have expected compared to the rest of the building. She found some candles and started lighting them, and set her flashlight on a table and switched it to lantern mode. It was just her and I, and she had other things in mind as she sat down on a large couch.

I was more intent on exploring and finding out why these rooms were more preserved than the others. There was a dining room... a living room... a kitchen! It all looked strangely familiar. Then I realized it. It was the house I grew up in... or a copy of it at least, and the way we had entered, was through the equivalent of my bedroom.

I took a candle off the shelf, and slowly wandered through the dining room, into the kitchen. It was still very dark, even with that one candle. I could not tell if the windows were boarded up or just false windows, because they were just black with darkness. It was a very strange and alienating sensation, being in the shadowy ghost of my childhood home.
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Rocky Relationships

I think this one is a continuation of the "Southwest Minnesota Shindig."
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Dream:
My old group of friends and I were sitting in a circle around the kitchen table, and chatting it up about old times. There was some light bickering and a little arguing, but it was all friendly for the most part.

When we all calmed down someone started to sing the lyrics to "Beautiful Friend" by the Cranes. Before the end of the first verse we were all chiming in,

"I feel those days without end
when we used to be friends
those summer days were spent
in search of hope and happiness"

After that, we all trailed off at once, and we all burst into laughter because nobody could remember the lyrics after that.
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Southern Minnesota Shindig

This dream is pretty straight forward, but I am sure the setting is chock-full of dream symbols that I have overlooked.
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Dream:
I was traveling south from the Twin Cities on Highway 169. The southern Minnesota plains had a light blanket of snow, and the afternoon sun was filtering through thin, hazy clouds. It was just me in the car, not even really sure of where I was going or why.

Finally, when I arrived at the Middle of Nowhere, I was greeted by some of my friends who were also at the Middle of Nowhere. Then we sat around a table inside someone's house to figure out what to do, and then we all began bickering about our options.

[Traditionally, this has been an issue among this group of friends. They sit around, asking,
"What should we do?" but every time someone makes a suggestion, someone shoots down the idea. Ultimately, all the time gets wasted on "deciding" and by the time they come to a consensus there isn't time enough to do it. Personally, I thrive on spontaneity and enjoy the spur of the moment (such as randomly going to southern Minnesota in the winter)]

Someone brought up the idea to go get some liquor and bring it back to where we were and just chill. Another brought up the idea that there is a college town less than 20 miles away and they know someone there and that we should all go party there. Other various ideas were thrown up into the air, and everyone started to get upset at everyone else.

I brought up the idea that we could go back to my house and party there, but I quickly regretted saying that because not only was home more than two hours away, but I had absolutely no means to effectively throw a party there on that much of a whim. Someone disagreed anyway.

So there we were, at someone's house in the Middle of Nowhere in Minnesota during winter. I would have been content with any of those other ideas, but the nay-sayers (all of them) stirred up trouble. Then I started to wonder why I had come so far when I could have assumed it would come to this.
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Reporter Ransom

This one has an intriguing similarity to my episode titled "Captive in Iowa" because I invade someones home and they threaten to cause me harm. It also reminds me of the theme in my dream "Dance Disaster" when I was trying to search out someone who had done something wrong.
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Dream:
The sky is overcast, and it is cold out, perhaps during the time of season immediately before or after winter. There are at least two others with me; we are all reporters. There is some light filtering through the clouds, but it is still the first few minutes after dawn, and we are quickly creeping up to a light blue house on top of a solitary and windswept hill.

We are all on a mission. We must infiltrate the house and find the evidence that we are looking for in order to make our story public. There is someone in that house that we suspect is responsible for something [I do not know what] and we had to sneak in and find out. We split up. One went around the other side of the house to watch the perimeter, and I went in through the unlocked front door.

Whoever was behind me stood in the threshold to make sure that nobody came or left without his knowing. I had made it clear across the living room before the guy we were looking for appeared almost out of nowhere. He had clearly just gotten out of bed and was still wearing his pajamas but when I turned and realized that he was within arms reach of me I shrunk back and asked him not to kill me.

He started checking his pajama pockets for his gun, but luckily and logically he didn't have it with him. A woman leaned over the railing from the second floor to see what was going on. She was still a young woman who I presumed was the man's daughter. She too was in her pajamas. When she saw that there were strangers in her house, a look of fear crossed her face and she ran back into her room.

The man had me sit down on the couch and wait for him to come back. He went into his room and closed the door. The television was on, and I saw that Star Trek was on, and Steve Martin was playing the role of a slightly younger Captain Picard. I didn't watch the television though. I was too fearful that at any moment gunshots would rip through the walls of the bedroom and hit me while I sit on the couch, or that the man would simply open the door and shoot me.

I started to snoop around, sifting through things on the coffee table, lifting couch cushions and inspecting each little thing the couch had eaten...
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Everything after that moment just blends together, but I can remember that I was not shot at or killed in that dream. I almost have the vague impression that when he came back out of the room we were suddenly friends, but I can't even be sure about that.

Dance Disaster

Figure this one out for me!
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Dream:
I was at a dance at my junior high school, but I was there not as a teen student, but rather my current age. [I think] I was there as a chaperone. The dance was held in the cafeteria, and everyone was dressed to the nines, but absolutely nobody was dancing; most of them were sitting at the tables or standing in small groups chatting over the music.

I spotted one of my fellow alumni at one of the nearby tables and walked over.
"We threw a much better party in our day," I said to her, "We would actually dance!"
"Yeah, no kidding!" She replied. I smiled and continued walking towards a small group near the darkened staircase. I could sense something was not right.

I checked up on the group, and everything seemed fine with them, but then one of the students started having a mild seizure and collapsed unconscious. One of the police officers came over to offer assistance. I turned to the other students to have them back off a few steps so that we could help the student, then I heard three gunshots.

I glance over my shoulder to see that the police officer had shot the boy in the stomach, thrice. Angry, I yelled at the officer,
"You didn't have to do that, he would have been all right!" He ran down the dark stairway, and I followed into the darkness. I searched the dark corridor for where he might have gone.

Checking around corners, peering into classrooms, I only have a small keychain flashlight. One of the rooms has a cat in it, and someone else is in there, not a student. He is alone, but he isn't the one I was looking for. I don't know him, but we team up to look for the bad cop, searching classrooms and side halls.

He looks into one of the darkened rooms and steps back out, saying,
"This is your room." I walk inside, and light it up with my flashlight. It is my old bedroom from the house I grew up in. It's a mess, but I know I must dig for answers in there.
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Demonic Dog

I had just fallen asleep face down, and awoke in the dream world, similar to the waking world.

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Dream:
I climbed out of bed to investigate some sounds I was hearing outside of my room. There were several malicious men with weapons creeping about. I ducked back into my room and tried to think of a course of action.

Somewhere I thought I had a gun, but I could not think of where I had put it. Something brushed past me and I spun around to see what it was. There was a white dog in the room with me, sniffing things and bristling at me. I jumped back onto my bed to give it some space, hoping that the dog would leave me alone.

He calmed down some, and the voices of the men were dying down, but I didn't think they had actually left yet. I reached a friendly hand out for the white dog, who came close, snapped at me, and struck me with his front paw. It was at that moment that I realized it was not an ordinary beast, but something more sinister: almost demonic.

The dog begins to act more aggressive, and I try to hide face down on the bed and cover the back of my neck with one arm and my ears with the other. The evil dog tries biting at my arms, so I swing out at it in hopeless defense; it just provokes him further. [I wake up]
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I wake up in the same position I was in the dream, face down. I swing out at the air, but all is quiet. I bolt up and look over my shoulder, there is no dog because I am awake now.