Twice A Dream

I had a dream the other night that I remember having a few years ago. Shot for shot, it was pretty much the same thing. Try and follow along. This is how it went.

I am at a mall by myself. It’s one of those big malls with multiple floors, long escalators, and, “You are here” maps every 50 feet. For some reason, I am there to see a movie that I have already seen before – both in real life, as well as the first time I had this dream.

Sorry to say: as soon as I woke up, I couldn’t remember what the movie was.

The “movie theatre” is on the far end of the mall, so I have to walk passed everything to get there, including the food court, which is the last thing between me and the theatre.

I let the odours tickle my nostrils and tempt my appetite, but don’t get anything.

Now, I am inside the movie theatre, sitting in my seat. It’s not your traditional theatre setup. The room is a long rectangle. The right wall is a window with blinds that aren’t shut all the way. People outside press their face against the window and jump back when they realize there are people inside.

It’s quite comical.

The seats are not set up in rows, like you’re used to. They are back to back, but on an angle. I’m going to describe this by using a 12-hour clock.

The front of the room is 12 o’clock. One chair is facing 10 o’clock. The other chair is facing 4 o’clock. They are back to back. Get it? And that’s how each pair is set up throughout the room. It’s like pods, but in a movie theatre.

Oh yes, the screen at the front. It’s not normal, either.

The screen is one of those projector screens that you pull up from a stand. It is in the front right corner of the room, facing us at an angle.

Whoever is sitting in the 10 o’clock chair needs to turn their head to the right, while people in the 4 o’clock chair need to turn their head to the left (pretty much over their shoulder) in order to see the screen at the front. Somehow, I ended up sitting in a 4 o’clock chair.

The door to leave is at the front left corner of the room and it leads directly into the mall. As soon as you open the door, the food court is right there.

I’m quite the architect, aren’t I?

So, the movie plays and is about half finished, when all of a sudden it cuts out.

Myself and a few others know what this means (which I’ll get to in a minute), and immediately get up to leave. A disgruntled lady is ahead of me and is the first one to start cutting across the food court.

I am about 10 feet out the door when someone yells to me, “It’s back!”

I then yell across the food court to the disgruntled lady, “It’s back! It’s back!”

We all go back in the theatre, sit in our 10-4 seats, and continue watching the movie.

And then it cuts out again. This time, it never comes back.

What is the consequence of the movie cutting out, you ask? Well, it means that everyone watching the movie is stranded. None of us can get home on our own. Yes, you read that correctly.

We must all take a bus home. The same bus. Together.

This is why when the movie cut out the first time, myself and a few others got up to leave. We were heading to the bus to get a good seat because we had experienced this before.

Don’t ask me why we couldn’t all go home the same way we got to the mall. It didn’t matter. This was our fate, as soon as the movie cut out.

The bus is like 3/4 the length of a school bus, but with individual seats. There is no bus driver onboard. Whoever was in the theatre must drive the bus. We took turns.

All of a sudden, there are six of us left on the bus. We all go around saying where we’re from, to determine who’s getting dropped off next. And wouldn’t you know, we’re from six separate places. In my head, our locations made the shape of a giant hexagon.

Don’t ask me how we all converged on the same movie theatre.

When the last person said their location, we were all defeated and dreading how much longer this bus ride was going to be. Someone yelled, “Ugh, they live in the boonies!” In other words, they live in the middle of nowhere.

That was my cue to wake up, apparently. I was done with the bus ride.

The End.

If someone wants to tell me what that dreams means, I am all ears.

The dream was sort of pieced together like a movie.

For example, when I left the theatre the first time and then went back in, I didn’t walk back in the theatre. All of a sudden, I’m just back in my seat. It was like a cut scene.

Again, when we “went to the bus”. The part where we walk through the mall and board the bus was cut out. All of a sudden, we’re dropping people off.

It was as if I was editing my dream in real time, so it was concise.

Also, I fully expect you to say the movie theatre setup was weird. It was. However, in the dream, it felt normal. The screen, the 10-4 chairs, the window, the easy access to the mall food court – none of it seemed questionable.

As I was having the dream, from the moment I found myself in the mall, I knew I had had this dream before. That’s how I knew to exit the theatre and go to the bus. It was like a lucid dream, but a notch above because not only did I know I was dreaming, I knew how it played out.

The parts of the dream that were “normal” – the mall, the movie, the food court – were abnormal to me upon waking up. In real life, I wouldn’t go to a mall movie theatre by myself to watch a movie I had already seen (!?!?), while completely ignoring my urge to get something at the food court.

The exact opposite of that is what would happen.

The weird thing is, I fully expect to have this dream again someday. I don’t know why. It’s just a feeling. If I do, I’ll try and remember what the movie was and come back here to let you know.

This may happen tomorrow, this may happen in six years, or this may never happen.

Stay tuned?

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