Dream: The Alien Education Invasion

Dream 20020901, 7:20 AM:

I’m in a big downtown buiding. The world is being taken over by aliens. I am running from room to room, trying to escape them. I tell an Oriental looking woman at the front desk that I need a set of keys to look for something, and she tosses me a big ring of keys, I think it is her set. She appears hesitant about letting me have them. I walk along flipping through the keys, trying to be nonchalant about it so that I won’t be spotted. The keys have very wide, flat shanks, like safe deposit box keys. Each has a little white label down the shank with a name handwritten on it in pen. There are probably 20 or more keys. I find the one that says “Master Key” on it, and I feel better for finding it. The building is very dark inside, and the walls and floors are sleek and smooth, like a dark granite.

I go into a big room, and there are a bunch of people here, facing a pool of water. There are glowing phosphorescent green aliens coming out of the water, and it seems like there is some control that has been loosed that was supposed to keep them in the water, but now they’re on the loose. Everyone begins running away. I go into a room upstairs, and see the aliens are in a barricaded part of the room; there is a little machine that puts out a laser beam that keeps them from getting out of the room. I think they have been barricaded in here until a solution can be found. There is a display on the machine with little red LED looking letters, and I snicker because it says “SHORT BUT STERN CART.” Someone is talking about how they are set to let people in and out, but keep the aliens in. She demonstrates by leaning over and blowing into the top of the machine, in a pattern of three short puffs of air. I think it hears the sound of her breath, and turns off the laser. A look of horror crosses her face, though, because she realizes that somehow she’s turned off the wrong one, or this one shouldn’t have turned off, and now the aliens will be able to get free.

There are some jumbled scenes of me running through the building. I remember sliding down the rail of a very long escalator. Then, I am at an amphitheater, and I think that there is going to be a big group presentation. I walk toward the front of a line, and realize that it’s all people waiting for the restroom. One woman questions me, and I point to the men’s restroom beyond, where there isn’t a line, and she nods. I go on ahead, and then around the corner in the hall, and it leads around the back of the amphitheater. I walk along, and the back of the amphitheater is open to the outside, sort of like the ones at Sea World. I walk along the outside, and people are talking about how each has a number, and they have sunglasses waiting for them on their seats. I know that I don’t have a number, and I don’t want to get found out.

I go on around the outside, around the area that would be the sides of the stage. There is a big black dog chained to the side of the stage, and he’s barking. I walk around the back of the stage area, and go into the hallways, trying to find an area that I could hide and hear the presentation without being discovered. I go into several rooms, but there are people walking around getting ready for the show. I have to step into a little room and wait for one of them to pass, and then move on. I consider hiding in a cabinet, but decide that is too risky. I finally find a room that doesn’t look like it’s being used, and duck into it, but then a bunch of older women start walking in, and I slip back out. I go outside again, and around the back of the stage area again. It has rained now, and the grass is wet, and I feel a little better that the dogs won’t bark at me because they won’t smell me on the wet grass. The sensation of pulling myself along the grass with my hands is very strong. I go around, and through the back few rows of the amphitheater, looking for an empty seat, but people start asking me what my number is, and where my sunglasses are. I realize that all the seats will be assigned, and hiding in the crowd is impossible. One woman says something about how “He doesn’t like caucasians; as one of the few caucasians out here, I suggest you sit way back, and don’t let him see you.” I notice that a lot of the women in the crowd have darker colored skin. I go on around the side and back of the amphitheater yet again, and into the building, and I think I finally find a place to hide. I hear the presentation beginning, and it becomes clear that all the people in the amphitheater are teachers. The speaker looks Oriental, and I know that he is the head alien, in disguise. He talks about the “granting period” of our higher education institutions, and how they vary in quality and length of program. I think he’s telling them some plan for teacher testing.

My next memory is of being on stage, and doing a show with a cello player dressed in comfortable sloppy Renaissance clothes. I’m playing a cello too, and I get the impression that he’s trying to help me fake it so I won’t get caught. We do some moves that almost look like fencing with our bows, striking them against one another and then back to the fretboard. *end*

Note: although this dream has horrifying content, my sense during the dream itself was more of resolute and active concern. I felt like my life was constantly in danger from the aliens, but didn’t have any sense of dread or panic.