Horror in Marseilles

I had a horrible nightmare last night. Hope I never have another dream like this again.

I was staying with my friend in Marseilles; I was keeping her company on her trip that she was taking because she was in the process of becoming a member of this group/gang/organized crime syndicate. She was in the final stages of being accepted, and this visit should make her a member.

So we went to their headquarters, in a giant, old, creepy, windows matted over with dirt or broken, warehouse. Since we weren't members, in order to get inside we had to climb through a hole in the side of the warehouse and walk/crawl up this slope of dirt in the dark. We were wearing dresses so it was pretty awkward.

Every time in the dream that we wanted to get anywhere it was like this; you'd have to climb through a gap in a fence, then creep through dark and dirt while gang guys watched you do it. If you took the easy way you would be expelled from the gang and maybe killed. If you showed any signs of not wanting to be there you could face being tortured. The gang leader was a crazy paranoid who watched you all the time.

I can't even finish this right now, it was too awful. I'm going to give the bare bones without the details:

The leader tortured this girl to make her tell him something, or maybe just because. He wasn't getting enough of a reaction from her, so he fed her a shitload of acid and tortured her while she was hallucinating.

Then he tortured this other girl by lopping off her fingers with those long-handled, short-bladed pruning shears you use on small tree limbs, I forget what they are called. He would partially remove a finger, and if she got upset about it he would choose another finger and just lop it off.

At one point they took us into another section of the warehouse, and we were sort of walking/crawling across this huge stack of sealed cardboard boxes. The gang leader made a comment, and we realized that the boxes were all filled with bodies, we were crawling cross the dead bodies of all the people he had killed.

I tried to leave but couldn't get out.

My friend did not get into the gang, we were not dedicated enough. He had to gather our stuff and get out, and it took a very long time to get our sweaters, purses, etc together while the gang watched us.

The gang leader took us out, leading us through a big patch of nasturtium instead of through the dark crawlspaces we had traveled through before. He didn't have to warn us not to tell anyone.

We got back to the hotel room in Marseilles and I had a worn paperback with a torn-off front cover in my hand, and it was as if the entire episode had been from a bad novel, but also not, it was real. I wanted to talk to someone about it but I couldn't because I didn't want to betray my friend.

I woke up and cried.

Dream # 2

Dreamed that I had itchy skin. All over. Woke up and it was true, there must have been dog hair in the bed or something. Changed sheets, went back to bed, fretted for a long while that my mattress is slowly poisoning me with random nameless toxins. I liked my other dream much better!

Swimming champion of the world

Swimming underwater in a warm, murky pond at night. I am the best swimmer of them all! They are jealous.

Is this a good dream or a bad dream?

In my dream I was being investigated at my work. There were these IA type people combing through my computer to find any wrongdoings, and in the meantime I was in my office with no computer, so I couldn't really work, and the lights were all dimmed down, and my clothing was inappropriate for the workplace and my hair was just plain bad.

Two of the IA guys were pretty cute, and both were attracted to me. One was a jerk and the other was nice, so of course I had sex with the jerk. The advisability of having sexual relations with a person who is investigating you didn't come up in my dream. And at any rate, the sex was really awkward, he was like you want some of this? and I'm thinking yes, but only because I haven't gotten laid in two years but he didn't really care and said take it or leave it, last chance, so I did. And we were using a condom but afterward I wasn't totally sure that he actually used it.

So I was really wound up because I didn't know if they were going to fire me at any second as soon as the results of the investigation came through, and I kept racking my brains to see what I had done wrong, but all I could think was that I did the best I could at all times to work well and with integrity. Right? Is that enough?

And everyone at work was looking at me because they all knew I was under investigation & could be fired at any moment.

Then the lady who fires people came out to give me the results, and I was going to find out if I was canned or not, but instead of coming straight to the point, we had to walk together to her office. Which was in a different building. So we are walking and walking and walking and we go through this inner-city high school filled with hostile teenagers who were being mean to each other and by the time we got to her office we couldn't go in for some reason.

So the firing lady, who was actually a pretty kind and decent individual, says fuck it, I'll just tell you here in the hallway that you are not fired. The investigation shows that you are a person of deep integrity and honesty. In fact, you are a wonderful person, and now I am supposed to take you out to a fancy dinner to celebrate!

So then we had to go over to her house because her driver was there, but he wasn't ready to drive--in fact, he was using her shower without permission & refused to get out. He was an asshole. So we are waiting, and then I'm talking to the cute, nice IA guy, except he's not totally nice because he makes a comment about "homos" and I tell him that's not ok and I am really uncomfortable with that.

And he thinks it's weird that I take offense, but seems amenable to there being another point of view aside from hating homos, so we continue to talk and fall in love.

Which is awkward because I just had sex with his coworker the day before, and I am trying to work out a good way to tell him and have him still like me. And it turns out that we are actually in his dad's house, and he introduces me to his dad, who is totally cool and plays the fiddle extraordinarily well and is a world-famous polka fiddler.

So he starts playing this Boston song (the band Boston, not the city Boston, though it is true that Boston is from Boston) and we are singing along but I don't really know the words. Then me and the nice guy that I am in love with start dancing, we are dancing and dancing around.

And I still can't figure out how to tell him that I had sex with his friend. And I have to pee, so I go to the bathroom but I can't go in there because the driver is still showering, he has been in there for TWO HOURS and has used shampoo to sculpt his hair into fancy hairstyles.

So I use the other bathroom, which is very cramped. And I look at myself in the mirror because now I am a woman in love. I'm beautiful, but I keep grimacing oddly.

Then I wake up because I actually do have to pee very very badly.

Aaaaaaah...

Deleted all my previous posts. It's like a brand new sparkly clean world.