Dreams – 12/31

12/31/24: I was driving our Caravan on my way to a motel called “6 Hommes” when I saw a sign next to a business. The sign said “Destroyed” and I saw an abandoned building belonging to “Imperial Insurance”. Driving further, I went past an abandoned school on a hill that was for sale but I noticed it had an exterior gym wall slowly collapsing. When I looked at the road again, I was driving on grass in a residential neighborhood and houses/buildings were all close together, so all turns were 90-degree turns. The houses all looked empty so I got spooked and decided I needed to find a car wash as soon as possible.

12/31/23 #1: I was in my grandparents front room playing a wargame on the floor. The game was about a zombie attack–and then I noticed the map terrain was a different scale (continental) but the landmarks were all spaced out like the map of Keokuk. When I realized Keokuk was under attack, I tried to be quiet but zombies were on the front street. I blinked and was advancing with other people in bounds firing at zombies. We had to get to some woods on top of a hill where we could build a fort. We got there and the fort started building itself automatically out of wood and mud.

12/31/23 #2: I was at the AVCA Convention with coaching friends. I hit on a girl I was sharing a room with (along with other coaches who were there), stripped, but before I got to the bed, someone else was there and I needed a ticket to stand in line. I put clothes on again but was worried I was seen by a woman down the hall wearing a green negligee who was doing laundry. I blinked and I was watching a VB match played inside a plexiglass-windowed area. I got angry because it was “Westchester County” playing the juco title game and they sucked and I was mad because they got to play only because they were from New York. An old guy came up to me and asked if I wanted to watch Iowa State play. He said “It’s in Cincinnati but that’s only a short drive.” I said no because I thought we were in Vegas then I saw the Iowa State players and said “Go State!” and they bowed their heads like monks in prayer. I then walked through an arcade area where the coaches who had been in the bed were now playing a CCG with a vendor and wanted me to join. I didn’t and they started following me, so I dodged in between games and the crowd to lose them. There was a racing/shooting game being played for a commercial by several black actors–I recognized Morgan Freeman and the child-version of Kevin Hart.

12/31/22: I was heading to a job interview but got lost and wound up at Blackburn University which had just declared bankruptcy. I didn’t understand why because it had a ton of cool buildings. I wondered if it was because they were all on one street that was a one-way, so no one could go back the way they came. Then I realized I was driving a police care and I picked up the CB and announced that having only a one-way was dumb and said I needed someone to give me a ‘price-check’ on the college. I got tired, so I closed my eyes and woke up in the athletic director’s office at LLCC.

I stood up and the AD came in wearing ‘nude’ colored t-shirt and swim trunks. He said I had to cover one group of weight-training for Steve (the conditioning coach) because they were playing VB in the swimming pool. I hadn’t realized LLCC had a strength coach. I got nervous because I was scared to meet the VB players–and that I didn’t have swim trunks with me and I didn’t want my clothes smelling like ‘helium’ (presumably chlorine in real life).

12/31/21: I was in a Dodge Challenger drag-racing and got chased by police, but I got away which meant I wound up on a cruise ship. The police attacked the ship and it needed to be evacuated. The passengers were in the main dining area which was set up like a game convention. I was put in charge of reading the evacuation instructions–which started off with me saying that Americans got to leave first, then foreigners. I tried to keep reading but the Americans ignored the rest and started running for the wide staircase heading upstairs to the exit. I interrupted reading the instructions and yelled “Any Americans who take another step will be shot.” They all froze. I then continued with the instructions but added in German “I wouldn’t actually shoot passengers.” Once everyone was leaving in orderly fashion, I grabbed my backpack, then realized someone else grabbed mine by mistake. I asked to exchange packs and the person turned around–it was Mark Gwaltney [someone I went to 7th-9th grades with]. He refused to swap because he insisted I’d said ‘eat’ rather than ‘shoot’ when I was speaking in German.

12/31/14: I was at a college conference on secondary education. My son got kidnapped by an attendee, but I knew who did it. While the police figured out how to make an arrest and get Erick back, I was consoled by Mara DeLeon (someone I knew long ago and who has been dead now for a long time). Mara looked about 30 years old. I had to explain to her she couldn’t be there because she was dead and had been for several years, so that in the end, I spent most of the dream consoling her that it was okay she was dead.

12/31/10: I was coaching LLCC at a club tourney against John A Logan. The benches were fifty feet away from the match so it was a long walk to say anything or make a sub. And it was at a casino, so when I went to the bathroom, I played the slot machines. The ref charged a timeout for that….