gross and racist?

I had the most weirdly detailed dream the other night. I was planning a trip to New York with my parents (weird in itself), and arranging everything beforehand online. I had arranged for several nights of lodging and several meals, and going back through and rechecking things to be sure everything was taken care of and made sense.

I realized that I had gone a little over budget and decided to pare some meals and just plan on eating them from street vendors. The one planned meal that I was really scrutinizing was a charity thing. It was a meal/presentation that demonstrated all kinds of elements of a program for poor kids in some African country. It was run by a very friendly looking middle-aged couple, and the more I looked at their website the more confused I got. There was a "menu" breaking down the experience into all possible components: actual meal, appetizers, craft session with children, presentation, etc. etc. etc. It was all itemized and I realized that if you went for the whole thing you could end up spending a fortune. Also, I wasn't sure my parents would want all that interaction instead of just a plain meal.

Another very weird thing is that twice lately I've dreamed of being confronted with scarily aggressive young Hispanic guys. I have no idea where this came from, not having had any scary encounters at all lately, much less with young Hispanic guys.

In the first dream I was in a "bad" section of town late at night. I was at a grocery store or something (I don't know how I'd gotten there) and learned while in the store that this part of town was reputed to be full of aggressive young guys and wasn't safe for single females. I more or less shrugged it off and went out a back entrance into an alley, where I was immediately set upon by young Hispanic guys. I don't know if they actually said anything, but they were doing threatening things like staring and fingering knives. It was really rather like a zombie movie in the way they converged out of nowhere.

I guess I made it out of there unscathed, because the next thing I can remember is being in a decrepit large building, something that seemed like an abandoned institution that had been taken over by squatters. I think part of it was a rundown YMCA. There were still some vaguely threatening young men, but there were also non-threatening people around too. One of my coworkers was there, showing me a large room she had bought. It was really interesting: very long and narrow, with some round columns holding up the ceiling, and tiled all over with square tiles of all different colors. She was planning on taking out the columns, and I wondered if that was a good idea, because they might be load-bearing.

In the next room over there was a bathroom, with sinks in one area and showers in another. The sinks had been [sorry, extreme grossness warning] crapped in, for lack of a more delicate term.

Then last night I had a rather confused dream in which I was trapped in an institution. I think it may have been loosely based on a 70s science fiction movie we saw recently. There was also an element of those thrift store dreams I have every so often, with a couple of rooms full of old stuff. I don't think it was a store, more of a giveaway with free old things. I was trying on some clothes when I realized that there were glass windows into an adjacent room and I was being ogled* by a bunch of very short Hispanic guys of varying ages**. I was really annoyed and embarrassed, and hunched down to finish my changing and got out of there quick.

I think part of the reason for the changing of clothes might not have been just an interest in old clothing; there was a subplot involving escaping with a fellow internee, but it's all a blur. It was fairly exciting, though I wish I could remember if we had made it out successfully.


*I mean really ogled--think of the most extreme stereotypical Ogle expression/sound effect, and you'll get the picture.
**What is with this? Am I a closet racist or something?