I Had a Dream

So, last night I had one of the strangest dreams I've had in my life.

I was back at college with weird, unknown roommates whom I took to be younger than me because we were talking about what to choose as a major and what to do in their lives. I soon realized that I was late for class so I ran out of the room and went for an elevator in the dorm. Once in the elevator I was met by a strange man who recruited me to travel back in time and help people. The time machine was an elevator (the one I was in, in fact). I swiped a newly acquired key card and it launched upwards at tremendous speeds, in another dimension. When I arrived at the past, I was at a party. All I knew was that I was looking for one particular blond boy to whom some traumatic event at this party would cause him to become an evil person in the future. I eventually brought him away from the party to a room in the house in order to counsel him and change the future. But, in that he saw his father cheating with another woman. The boy ran out of the room screaming and I was instantly teleported back to the future. Thus I caused the very thing that I was sent to prevent.

Jump ahead and I'm back in the "elevator" in my dorm room and my parents are there to visit me at school. I really want to tell them what my real work is (apparently the dream has skipped ahead to the point where I've traveled in time frequently now), but I'm not allowed to tell anyone. But, for whatever reason, I decide to show them anyway. I'm about to swipe the keycard and take them on the trip of their lives when a man gets into the elevator. He notices my keycard and says, "Hey, you're in the project too? Where are you headed? Fairfax? (I took Fairfax to mean Fairfax county, VA, so thus, CIA Headquarters). I had never been to the HQ itself since apparently I was still just a time travel trainee. But since I thought I had just been caught attempting to bring unauthorized personnel back in time, I just blankly stared and nodded. Meanwhile I see him take out a more advanced keycard, swipe it, and off we go. Looking out the window I see DC, but it looks like there has been some major catastrophe recently. There is a lot of flooding and several monuments are destroyed or dilapidated. I can make out the Jefferson Memorial in the process of being rebuilt, so clearly there is a recovery effort.

Besides being in shock over what I'm seeing, something about the elevator doesn't feel right. It's moving way too fast and shaking way too much. DC is completely out of view, and I'm really starting to worry. All of a sudden the elevator is out of control and I see that we are headed straight for a huge mountain covered with snow. As the elevator is about to slam into the mountain, it turns into a huge sled. My parents have no idea what is going on, but the guy in the elevator turns to them and says, "Don't worry, I think your son is good at this kind of thing..." and all of a sudden I'm in control of the sled and guiding it down the mountain.

And then...cue synthesizer music from The Legend of Zelda (Yes, seriously!). I see "Legend of Zelda" painted huge on the side of the mountain with a painted Triforce and everything. Under the sign there is an entrance so I ease the sled into it. I'm completely alone now, and all I notice is a single door with no markings. I open it....cue Super Mario music! The entire room looks like a live-action Mario game for the original Nintendo! Immediately before me as I open the door is a little walking mushroom. Naturally I stomped on it. There were blocks everyhwere, power-ups, and so on. I step into the room, and I woke up. Now how that's for anti-climactic?!

So, if you are totally perplexed by this dream, you're probably not alone. But, I think I can actually explain most, if not all, of where these things came from. That night before sleeping, I watched a pretty good movie called Deja Vu with Denzel Washington. It has a sci-fi plot device which utilizes wormholes, time travel, and causality paradoxes. Also, it is the government that uses these wormholes (hence the CIA in my dream). Plus, the film takes place in New Orleans shortly after Hurricane Katrina, hence the flooded DC. After seeing the film, I mentally compared it to other similar things I have seen, particularly a TV show (now cancelled, damn you NBC!) called Journeyman. The premise was based on a man who traveled back in time to save people. And in fact, the beginning of the dream is almost an exact replica of one of the show's episodes! So, that explains that. The elevator can be explained by my repeated watching of a British sci-fi TV show called Doctor Who which has an alien who brings a human on adventures through time and space. In the series it's technically a phone booth, but it moves through time and space exactly the same way the elevator did in my dream. As for the Nintendo adventure at the end...well, I have no idea! I'm just a huge dork, I guess.

I hope you enjoyed reading about one of the most vivid and strange dreams I've ever had.