crocodiles and mobsters cont.

(cont.)

Part 3:

I was now out somewhere with a group of people, including the friend and some random dream characters of a wide range of ages and ethnicities. We were in a big concrete building on an upper floor--it was a very bare, industrial sort of building, all metal and concrete and very Soviet Eastern Europe. We must have been on a guided tour, because we had all entered a rather dodgy-looking restroom (this was part of the tour, not a bathroom break). About that time, I realized that we were being guided in there by Russian mobsters. They did the requisite yelling ("get down! Shut up!" etc.), and I dove into the first available stall. Unfortunately it turned out to not have a door, so my hopes of crouching on the toilet to avoid detection were dashed.

The mobsters singled me out for some reason and yelled something at me. I'm not really clear on what happened next because it was very quick, but I realized that a grenade had been unpinned and it would behoove me to get out of there. I had a very weird sensation of simultaneous extreme fear and complete fearlessness, and for once my dream running was very effective (probably faster and with more coordination than in real life). I ran right past them and out the door to try to get out of range of the grenade.

I dashed out into a hallway and out the door, which led me to a long concrete exterior staircase with no railing (this was probably at about a 5th-floor level). At this point I realized that the bathroom mobsters had let me go knowing that they had companions outside the building who could take me out. I got to the bottom of the stairs and started running across an open space of packed dirt (there were buildings all around similar to the one I'd come out of, all deserted). I knew that there were mobsters around, but I also realized that I had to keep running even though the open space left me vulnerable to being picked off.

At about this point, I think I was caught by one of them, but this is where things got weird. Because when I realized that I was being caught, I also realized that this was a movie dream, and my perspective shifted to outside myself. When it shifted, I saw that I wasn't really me, but a much smaller teenager with long dark hair and bangs. This smaller "me" started belting out a song and I realized, "great, I've gotten myself trapped in a musical". [I'm not a real-life fan of musicals; I find it disconcerting how they burst into song at random times.] I tried to put the movie/dream on fast forward so I wouldn't have to listen to the songs and could get to the end faster, and it worked.

Movie Roles

The other night I dreamed that I was in another Mel Gibson action movie (the odd part of that sentence is the last five words).

When I'm in the movie, I'm both a part of the plot and aware that it's a movie. This was a kind of home invasion movie in which Mel and I had to sneak into the house of the bad people. I was carrying a seriously big and bad-ass machine gun. It was huge and heavy, and I was worried about being able to use it while moving.

Mel and I started outside, where we loaded up our guns and split up. I entered the house through a bedroom on the first floor. I think this one had a woman in it, about my age, and I shot her with the gun. The bullets from the gun seemed to move in slow motion, even though I was trying to move very fast. I don't remember this scene very well, but I remember that the shooting didn't work, or my gun ran out of bullets, because I ended up having to smash her head over and over with a chair or something.

I proceeded on through the house, wondering what Mel was up to. Of course I was surprised by a young guy with a gun. He started shooting at me, and I could see the bullets moving in slow motion toward me. I couldn't feel anything hitting me, but I wondered if I was injured. I was shooting back at him, and I noticed again how heavy the gun was. I was kind of diving behind furniture and trying to keep shooting at him at the same time.

This guy wouldn' die, though. At one point, he was down and I walked over to him and shot directly down into his head and body and, thinking he was dead, I started to walk away. I looked back over my shoulder and saw him propping up on one elbow, trying to shoot me in the back. I had to run back and shoot him some more. I may have used a chair on him too.

I left the bedroom and started to creep quietly up a metal spiral staircase (just like the one at the back door of my apartment). I wasn't sure where this would lead, but I realized that since it was a movie, Mel was probably taking care of things in the other part of the house. I also thought about whether I was injured, but realized since I was in a movie, the injuries wouldn't last too long even if I was in fact injured.

Mel Gibson Movie

I dreamed that I was alternately watching and participating in a Mel Gibson action movie. He was sporting the long-ish mullet from the Lethal Weapon years, pulled back in a "The Patriot" kind of ponytail.

In one of the scenes in which I was *in* the movie, Mel, another person, and I were involved in a boat chase in which our boat either sunk or was blown up. We ended up in the water, diving deep to avoid the bullets shooting into the water from the bad guys' boat.

Later, we were doing some kind of stakeout in a warehouse. We knew that the bad guys would be returning soon so we were disguising our little spot in the loft. I think that there was art smuggling involved. We were going to record their conversation.

One of the bad guys had wispy blond hair. He was the one shooting at us.

At no point was I afraid...somehow I knew it was a movie all along, even though my dream awareness of that came and went.