Dream: The California Hippie Spring Water

Dream 20040522, 6:20 AM:
I’m at a big RenFaire with Deb and the kids. I want to go off by myself to the other side of the Faire; Deb makes a big fuss, and I have to wait for her and the kids. We walk through several amusement-style rides, like at a carnival; I remember actually walking through the rides themselves, which seemed like we were walking in the wrong place. We get to an area that has food, and it’s set up like a huge buffet. I try to find something I can eat, and am excited when I see a long table full of natural fruits, but each bin has a small square slice of toast in it, and there are crumbs everywhere. Finally, I find a table with some meats, and prime rib, and a long steamer tray full of some kind of earthworm dish (labeled as such). I think that it may be gross – but wonder if it’s gluten-free. I talk with a lady behind the island counter about the food.

Then, I am with a group of people, and we are walking through an area that I know in the dream to be northern California, although it’s really nothing like it. There are lots of small waterfalls, and streambeds with cataracts running through them, and it’s very tropical. It seems landscaped. Someone is talking about how many people had wanted to escape, and points upward to a snow-capped mountain, saying that there is a rope up the mountain, and that there is a “Hippie Spring” inside that is so hot it could melt the snowcap. I have an image of drinking from a small glass of brownish water; it is warm, and tastes mineral.

Then, I’m with another man, and I sneak into a small glass-walled office with curtains. I have to break through some security code to get in. He comes in behind me, and something about the lighting makes him nearly invisible; I tell him so. There is a machine, some kind of bomb, that we have to figure out; we sit at a table and work at it. It pushes out a finger, looks like a human finger, and it’s black – I point this out. The machine needs a specific musical note to deactivate it, and there are buttons on the machien. The black finger pushes one of the buttons, and the man pushes the other – it’s not a button, though, it’s a hole, and his finger goes into it and it starts to eat him alive. He doesn’t so much scream as quietly spasm, and the machine is taking him over, bit by bit – it reminds me of Hellraiser, or the scene in Total Recall where Arnold takes off the mechanical head. At the end, he appears fine, but I realize that the machine has just taken over his body. He’s now a blond woman; she walks away, and turns to say, “This isn’t all that bad… but I can tell you I’m not going to put up with all this chemistry.” I know that the machine is referring to the body’s messy chemical processes. She walks to an elevator. I slip out another door. I feel like I’m sneaking away, as if she would attack me if she realized I was one of the infiltrators.