An over-heated engine

Last night was miserable for sleeping. Most of the time was spent uncomfortably tossing and turning as my system tried to fight off some hellish flu-like bug. The only sleep that came was in twp one-hour segments.

Both of these segments brought very detailed dreams. That which came in the second segment can’t pass through the self-imposed content filter I’ve set for my postings here, so I can’t say very much about it. It wasn’t unpleasant at all, but that’s about all I dare say in its regard.

The dream that came in the first segment was very vivid, too.

In my dream…

…it was like I was looking through my own eyes as I experienced it. On a hot summer day I’d pulled my pickup truck into a filling station to gas up. I was wearing jeans and black socks, but nothing else. For some strange reason I’d kicked off my boots.

As I was filling the tank with gas I noticed the truck’s engine seemed particularly hot. After replacing the hose and nozzle back in the machine and screwing the lad back on my gas tank, I popped open the hood for a look at the engine. To my surprise I saw a strange tank in the engine compartment that I couldn’t identify. And there was a steady little fountain of coolant spurting out of the top of it.

Not sure what the heck was going on, I called over to the mechanics who were working in a nearby service bay and asked if one of them could come over and look at my leak.

While I was waiting for one of the guys to come over,… I woke up.

A strange football assignment

This major episode of insomnia through which I’m currently moving (no sleep for the past 32 hours… and counting) is starting to provide some vivid lucid dreams. The one which passed a few minutes ago was… entertaining.

In my dream…

…which occurred as I was resting in bed, fully aware of my surrounding and situation, I was in a football locker room, being issued my gear by the equipment manager for the upcoming Summer pre-season workouts.

With my arms full of the pads, pants, jerseys, cleats, and helmet, I found my way over to my assigned locker. Before loading the gear into my locker, I set the stuff down on a bench. Picking up my helmet first, it being on top of the stack, I noticed right away the number 24 in decals stuck to the helmet’s backside. 24? 24?! WTF? That’s a halfback’s number! And I’m an interior lineman! My number has always been 64!

Surely the coaches weren’t expecting me to play halfback this season! Were they?! Maybe the equipment manager goofed.

Before I could investigate this mystery, the lucid dream faded.

A 6th Floor?

Last night’s sleep treated me to a number of short, interesting dreams. One of them was set right here in my hotel.

In my dream…

…I walked into our residential foyer from the sidewalk, and waved at the new, uniformed security officer sitting behind a desk. After exchanging pleasantries with him, I headed over to the elevator.

When I stepped into the elevator I was shocked to see that the push-button controls and the present-floor indicator showed six floors! “WTF?!” I exclaimed, holding the elevator door open. This hotel only has five residential floors. How the heck could there now be six?

The security officer came over and asked me what was wrong. He nodded when I asked about the mysterious sixth floor. “That is something new,” he explained, and added, “Would you like to check it out?”

I stepped back as he punched a numerical code into a keyboard newly installed in the elevator wall. “Just look around from the elevator when the door opens up there,” he told me, “and ride back down to your own floor. No one’s allowed up there without a special invitation.”

When the elevator door opened at the sixth floor there were a number of men waiting to ride back down. As they filed in, I noticed that there seemed to be an upscale meet-and-greet kind of affair in progress. There were waiters serving drinks, there was a piano softly playing, and mostly business-suited men were standing in small clusters talking in hushed tones.

The last man in was more casually dressed, wearing a bright blue Polo shirt, and he nodded at me when he stepped in. I punched my floor number on the control panel as the door closed, and the elevator began its descent.