haunted house
I've dreamt about this before. I think it's just a manifestation of all the adventure games I used to play on my computer as a kid.
anyway, so there's this haunted house in this abandoned part of town. for some reason, I imagine it's some part of L.A. that is very rarely traveled, near the ocean. perhaps something off of an abandoned routing of old US 66, or one of those abandoned freeways in L.A. of course, this place I'm imagining doesn't actually exist, although I dream incessantly of a partially built x15 that deposits you in the middle of some hills. but anyway.
everyone knows about this haunted house. In fact, it's become a game of sorts. so me, my brother, my sister, and my dad go into this house, and explore, level by level. We already know that if you try going back out the front door, you won't be able to leave. We already know that the only way out is through a hidden grating, across a lawn, and over the fence, which has a gate, but it is locked, and the lock has fused. we get to the 4th level of the house(!) and I open one of the doors to find a wolfman sitting in a room, sleeping. I don't mention this to anyone else, and we head up to the 5th level, into the inner sanctum, where the final confrontation awaits. This is where it gets very game like. so there are two wolfmen whom accost us to do battle. it gets very Final Fantasy like, and suddenly there are several German Shepherds on our side. after a while, though, I remember that we can't defeat these guys—the actual objective of the game is to run away, out the grating, aacross the lawn, and over a fence. so we beat a hasty retreat. the wolfman on the 4th level is awake and now giving chase. we struggle with the grating, try to crawl across the lawn (because there are sentinels that would sight us otherwise) but the guys from the 5th level get to us and massacre us. after that, we end up in the atrium of the house again, locked in a loop until we can get out.
strangely, I have access to the Internet, and everyone knows about this "game." this is, apparently, where I learned the strategy to escape this place. and there are some false memes floating around too, like how if you just hit each of the wolfmen on the 5th floor 100 times each, they'll die. This is refuted by people who actually tried it and failed. also, we are required to have dinners every so often with the host of the house, who is a ghost. he appears and disappears a la Q on Star Trek, giving us useless, sarcastic advice. he also provides weapons. every so often, on the lawn, questers can receive one item from him. these items are whatever was left behind by people who get massacred by the wolfmen.
also bizarre is the fact that while literally millions of people are playing this game, you never really run into them a the house, except during the item exchange on the lawn, and at the mandatory dinners. when you actually ascend into the house, you can only bring your original party with you.
anyway, the dream somehow segues into me alone gaining my freedom, and I'm wandering the very altered streets of L.A. (the L.A. of my dreams where there is an Interstate 21 that starts at Adams Blvd. south of Mid-Wilshire and goes all the way down to San Pedro) most of the layout, though, is grossly intact. the noteable additions are that there is a significant light-rail system in place (as I mentioned in a previous dream), K-Town is even more significant than it is (like, there are even bigger buildings, it is more gentrified, and Korean businesses aren't the only ones thriving.) I eventually head up Elysian Blvd, which doesn't exist in L.A. (although there is an Elysian Park.) on a clear day, you can actually see the ocean from Elysian Blvd., but as in real life, clear days are rare in L.A. I eventually get on a freeway that I thought was the 101, except that it intersects the 101. this freeway has some exits that have San Jose street names. in any case, my objective is the haunted house, which I imagine is that solitary house you can see when you come down from the southbound end of the Glendale Freeway.
anyway. geography. undoubtedly it is a manifestation of the fact that I don't know where I'm going to be three months from now.