[Dream Report] The Mass Produced Fast Food Restaurant and the Baseball Bat Harvest

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It's strange how many of my dreams involve driving through the desert when in waking life, I detest the desert and even moreso long drives through it (such as through arid Eastern Oregon). However that's what I found myself doing in this dream.

I was in a convertible cadillac powered by compressed air. Don't ask, I don't know what to tell you. Vehicles in my dreams are always powered by some sort of novelty bullshit technology that's impractical in the waking world. I think because of my lifelong interest in pipe dreams like that.

The air tank was big enough that the trunk lid had been removed to make room for it. It looked like a mid size propane tank. The engine still made familiar engine sounds but the gauge in the instrument cluster measured remaining power in PSI instead of gallons of gas.

"We'll need to stop for air soon" the woman next to me said. I didn't recognize her. She wore a floppy sun hat and plain white summer dress with a blue sash. "There's an air station coming up on the right." Dream me seemed unbothered, as if I'd known this woman for a long time.

I pulled into the station. It looked like a gas station but the underground tank was for compressed air and there were two massive compressors for refilling it, as well as a field of solar panels behind it. "That's a big tank on your car"the attendant remarked. "You must get pretty good range."

I realized at this point that in fact it was impossible to get "good range" from compressed air and began to doubt the dream. This is usually where lucid dreaming begins for me but I didn't quite cross the threshold this time. Instead I noticed a stack of prefabricated fast food restaurants outside a warehouse next door.

"What are those for?" I asked as the air refill nozzle was secured to the port on my car, with a slight hiss. "They just mass manufacture 'em as prefabs, then tow them to where they will be installed." That didn't make sense to me. Why wouldn't they instead ship the materials to the site and construct it there?

"It's more efficient this way." Is it really, I wondered. Again, I began to doubt the dream. But again, I fell just short of breaking into lucidity. Instead I accepted it for what it was, paid the man, and resumed driving.

Some miles later I spotted a massive vehicle on caterpillar treads with a pair of hydraulic arms, placing one of the prefab restaurants. Workers underneath the dangling structure were busy hooking it up to utilities as the structure descended into place.

"It really is more efficient that way" the woman remarked. I began to argue with her, but resigned myself to the conclusion that I didn't know for sure either way and should accept appearances as reality.

I looked at the gauge. We'd consumed only a small fraction of the refilled tank. It struck me as impossible. When I brought it up, the woman in the sun hat again argued with me that compressed air works fine for cars and always has.

I knew that to be false. But I was looking at proof to the contrary (not realizing it was a dream). It baffled and frustrated me. Who was this woman, seemingly placed here to convince me of falsehoods? Was she the part of my brain that wishes to remain immersed in dreams? The barrier to lucid dreaming which is so difficult to overcome?

Come to think of it, I had a dream with one of these prefab restaurants in the desert before and wrote about it on here. Maybe it represents a desire to explore outside of my comfort zone, with the restaurant representing the hope that I will find an oasis of comfort and familiarity out there to vindicate my leap of faith.

I don't really know. That's another recurring theme in this dream. Acceptance of uncertainty, and willingness to take apparent reality at face value rather than be paralyzed by my inability to resolve the truth or falsehood of a matter.

There was also this portion of the dream where we came upon a field of dry, yellow grass and got out to collect various types of baseball bat people had left in the field. I protested that it made no sense but the woman again rebuked me. "Of course it makes sense. People come out here to play pickup baseball games but forget their bats, which become lost in the grass."

There were hollow brightly colored plastic softball bats. There were metal bats, wooden regulation bats, cricket paddles and more. It became some sort of game to see who could collect the most, and the widest variety. "Why do we even need all these bats" I asked.

She explained that the crazy people would rise up out of the grass to kill us soon, and we needed the bats to defend ourselves. Accepting this at face value for no obvious reason, as if it were perfectly logical, I then asked why we needed so many bats each.

She explained that baseball bats are single-use items which always break after a single strike. Another "fact" I knew to be wrong, but which I did not challenge because I didn't want an argument. Especially not with crazy people getting ready to attack us.

They began to rise from the grass as if they'd been laying down there, hidden, waiting for someone to come after the bats. Were the bats simply bait? They looked like regular people but naked and with bloodshot eyes, and a bit of blood trickling from their eyes like tears.

"What's the matter?" one asked. "You're looking at me strangely." They kept talking like this, as if it wasn't unusual to be naked in a grassy field waiting to attack strangers. Even as we fought them, they kept trying to make calm conversation, pretending no fight was taking place.

This is where it ended. This part of the dream doesn't seem to fit in with the rest and was just weird nonsense, as happens sometimes. Anyway that's all for this time. Stay tuned for subsequent dream reports.

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^{...and Stay Cozy!}