So the dreams I actually remember last night were lucid -ish and in false awakening loops.
I remember staying at someplace with a bed, but there were glass doors that led to a carpeted hallway (like a hotel or convention center). I was there with a group, but they left and I was supposed to have the place to myself.
The hallway area was dark. I remember picking my nose looking toward the hallway then thought the others might have gotten back early and are watching and laughing from the other side of the windows.
I went into the hallway and flipped on the lights. It lit up (fluorescent lights) the hallway with a small room at one end and a large “ballroom” at the other end. No one was there.
I went to the doorway of the ballroom and people started walking in. They were of different ages and races and many had nice overcoats. They sat in chairs and I went up to the back row where an aisle was open. An older white woman with short white hair and a dress shirt was on my left and a middle-aged black man with a patterned dress shirt was on my right. I thought I might be dreaming and tried to test it. I asked the woman why everyone was here, especially since everyone seemed tired and down.
She had trouble speaking. I took this as a sign that I WAS dreaming, but she was eventually able to speak. I can’t remember her exact dialog anymore. The man spoke up way more easily and said something about they were there because someone wasn’t doing their job or something. I said aloud how interesting my subconscious comes up with this dialog.
I don’t remember the order of the next scenes, but I remember trying to wake up and woke up in the bed in that room with the glass doors. There was a heaviness making it hard to open my eyes (something I’ve had in dreams before). I thought, “See if you’re dreaming! Move something with your mind!” Then thought, “That would be easier if I could actually see anything!” Then I saw, in blurry vision, the door to the room open and a kitten standing there. I made the kitten approach me.
Then, I remember sitting in the same room sans bed. It was redesigned into a high school classroom with posters. I was sitting in a chair, but a large group of people around my age and younger were sitting on the floor and seating on the edges of the room. We were all watching a video on an old TV at the front of the room.
I remember the audio was distorted and couldn’t understand all of it. What was said SOUNDED like it was touching on the stuff I’ve been researching for this dream story, so I was interested. I kept getting frustrated when the audio went weird. They had to rewind a scene.
The scene showed a public bus in a busy city on a very sunny day. The narrator said something like, “The year [can’t remember] gave birth to Dream Tech.” I was so happy to find out this shit really existed that I clapped and shouted, “YES!!” Someone toward the front looked at me weird. I said that I had been researching in that industry for years. She asked, “Industry?” I realized that was the wrong word – there was no Dream Tech industry. I corrected myself and said, I’ve been researching dreaming and using dreams for a story I’m writing for years.
Later, I was walking down the same hall as before to the small room. There was a strange track in the center of the floor. The room was no longer bare. It had shelving along the walls with books and displayed paintings. There was a large window that let sunlight into the room and onto a table that had stacked books in the center and old photos displayed around the edge. I questioned if I was dreaming, but thought the impressionistic paintings and words on all the book spines, etc. were too detailed to be a dream (ironically, all this information and detail was a sign I was dreaming).
I wondered if the pictures were for sale and thought about finding the relatives of those in the photos or maybe sell them on eBay at least. I picked up an old photo that was on the table and looked at the back. I saw 5 2/5 written in that thrift store scribble and read that as 2 for $5 for some reason.