a hill of beanbags

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was with a group of young adults or teenagers on an enormous stage. The stage may have been part of some game show which may or may not have been televised. The stage seemed to be in some place like a high school gymnasium. The stage, besides being enormous, may have been elevated about two or three times as high as usual above the audience.

An announcer, a young man in a suit and with a kind of showy, sharp hairdo, led us to our next contest. We had to climb, apparently, up some really steep object. At first I may not have been able to discern what the object was. But then I saw that the object was something like a gigantic, cylindrical beanbag. It wasn't standing quite erect, because of the odd clumping and shifting of the stuffing.

I watched a couple of my teammates, probably boys in their late teens, try and fail at climbing up the side of the beanbag. They would get up close to the top, then cling to the top, or as close as they could to the top, and then try to pull themselves up onto the top. But they wouldn't be able to pull themselves up, and they'd fall down.

My view of the gigantic beanbag shifted from the right to the left. I now saw that the beanbag was part of some larger complex, almost a small hill's worth, of beanbags. We had to run up to the top of this whole complex!

It was now my turn. At first I'd been worried. But now I really wasn't. I had the feeling that I knew how to get up the beanbag slope. I just had to get up enough momentum to blast myself up the slope. That way I wouldn't have to pull myself up by my arms. The people before me hadn't done enough running up the slope. I, however, would.

I charged past the announcer, who'd been standing right next to me, and up the slope. As I ran up it, it seemed a lot less steep than it had looked. It also seemed to have slide-like grooves in it. I was running up one of those grooves.

I lost a little of my steam as I reached the top. I was a little afraid at first that I wasn't going to make it. But I got to the top. I now saw the way up the rest of the hill of beanbags.

I kept running. I knew everybody down below was a little amazed, maybe even scared or annoyed. Nobody else had even gotten up the first slope, though I felt like some of my teammates had, somehow, continued along the course. I, however, hadn't just gotten up the first slope: I was making a charge to conquer the entire hill! But even I started to wonder about myself. Was I being too obsessed?

I felt my running speed slacken. I really felt like I was losing momentum. But I found myself at the top of the hill. The top of the hill was a wooden playground. The beanbag hill had been the first part of an obstacle course. This was the second part. But the playground really just seemed to be nothing more than a wooden playground, except that it may have been a few tiers high. It seemed to be more fun than anything else.

I ran around until I found a hole for a covered slide. I could see that the slide was really steep, just a straight shot down. But this was part of the obstacle course: you had to be brave enough to withstand the steep slide.

I was afraid, but I jumped down the hole. But I was kind of surprised to find that the slide, though steep, was made of a plastic that wasn't very slippery. So even though I was going straight down, I was never able to get up very much speed. I was disappointed. I had really wanted to test my courage against a straight drop.

The slide ended in a basement. The basement was like a museum. I was in a narrow hallway. I could tell that somewhere nearby was an exhibit of very colorful ceramic or sculpture of some kind. I could also hear two older women in some room talking about some exhibit, maybe an exhibit having to do with Star Wars or some other kind of science fiction.

I may still have felt like I was on the obstacle course. Regardless, I felt like I needed to hurry somewhere. I didn't feel like running was fast enough. I started to fly in some kind of awkward, almost upright way, and close to the ground.

I flew past some room with an exhibit playing either Star Wars or some other sci-fi movie or maybe news about some kind of missile attack. I flew past the reception desk, which was enormous and opulent, and at which sat a beautiful, young woman speaking on the phone.

I flew into the elevator bank and into one of the elevators, where I landed. The elevator doors closed. I knew the elevator was taking me up to a floor which housed one of the companies I worked for. I was a little worried about what my old boss, BS, would think of me once he saw me there.