Dreams: Office Romance and Diablos

This dream was pretty segmented, in at least three parts, so I'm going to share it in its segmented form. It happens that each segment gets better than the last:

PART I: The Roll Bar
I'm driving a Jeep Cherokee-esque vehicle down I-15 in Utah at night. My old roommate Darl is riding shotgun, and other old roommate Isaac is in the back seat. We're going about 65 mph when a rather unexpected sharp turn seemingly leaps in front of the car! I quickly try to follow the sudden curve, but the car careens off the road and rolls multiple times at high speed, stopping in an upright position.

I shake my head a couple times as I gather my bearings. I'm now in the back seat with Isaac, but other than being a little startled, I'm perfectly alright. Darl and Isaac are fine, too, and as I crawl back into the driver's seat I comment, "Wow, thank heavens we have a roll bar on this Jeep!" I return the keys to the ignition and am about to turn it when I realize that we've ended up at some sort of house party, and the ground surrounding us is covered in snow. I flag down some random drunk guy to lock the hubs on my front tires, then I pop the Jeep into four wheel drive and get back on the road as if nothing has happened.


PART II: Love in a Cube
I'm chilling at work when a female coworker of mine (who shall go unnamed) comes over and begins talking to me. Before I know it, we're kissing! It's just simple kissing and cuddling, but it becomes a major distraction because, while all this is going on, I'm trying to format and distribute a press release that needs to go out before I can go home. By the time her hormones are calming down a bit, she comments on how this is the second time she's become involved in an office romance, and the first time (which was at a former workplace) ended really awkwardly. She seems a bit apprehensive about pursuing a similar relationship based on this past experience.

The next thing I know, she's taking me to a bar for a date. Odd thing is, meeting us at the front door is her OLD office flame, some dark-complexioned schmo with a buzzed head and mustache. It's become apparent to me that she wanted to take us both out at the same time so she could compare and choose who she'd rather date. At first this sets me off a bit, but as we enter the bar my more conscious self pipes in and I realize that I don't even have real romantic feelings for this coworker, so why on earth should I be concerned? With this new mindset, I still feel a little awkward being on such an unconventional date, but I'm much more at ease.

We enter the spacious tavern and walk toward the back of it to find a table. Female Coworker selects one, and as I sit down I look up to find that Darl is already seated at the same table, goofy grin in place, beginning to laugh in his very Darl way (hearty chuckles and convulsions that cause his entire upper body to bounce up and down) in reaction to my surprised facial expressions. The odds of the date are now three to one.

Female Coworker and Third Wheel each order some food and some super-fancy alcoholic mixes that involve a lot of kiwis and little umbrellas. Darl and I ask for water. I'm still mulling over the weirdness of the whole situation when I look to one side of the room and see a busboy in a baseball cap sweeping the floor with his back to me. He works his way backwards, so that with each sweep he is a foot or so closer, until eventually he's right behind me. He then turns around and looks up just enough for me to see his face under the bill of his hat: it's my friend David, a fellow Seattle-ite who is now living in New York City. He winks at me, smiles, and reassuringly whispers, "Don't worry, Mark. I've got your back covered!" and at that he puts his head back down and begins sweeping again. (Sidenote: David is one of my only friends who can get away with calling me by my given name, as he's known me since I was 2 years old, before my nickname existed.)

At this point I give into hysterical laughter. I'm able to recognize the random humor that a friend from NYC came down to DC, undercover as a busboy, to protect me during my awkward circumstances. I erupt into further roaring as I notice another familiar figure on the OTHER side of the room, ALSO posing as a busboy in a baseball cap: my brother, Cabeza, who is likewise sweeping the floor systematically, glancing up every few seconds to keep an eye out for danger.

Somewhere in there I also notice JKC, another old roommate, present in the bar, laughing about something. It seems that I'm at the center of an elaborate scheme. But there's no time to see how it plays out, because the next thing I remember, the dream changes to...


PART III: Abstraction of a Theory
For the second time in recent dream memory, I find myself a character in a medieval video game. I'm in a team with four or five other protagonists, and we're storming a cursed castle. As we walk down the stone hallways, blanketed in blues and blacks broken only by the orange of dying torches every ten yards or so, I take note of the various monsters standing guard at various doorways and on patrol. Some are large, fat and white, others are dark, hairy, horned and on all fours.

Without warning, my team is attacked! I unsheathe a dagger and begin hacking away. Other teammates respond a little more slowly, but soon everyone is in a fight for their lives as more and more monsters come rushing at us. One by one, the monsters tear down an opponent. We are managing to take out quite a few beasts in the chaos, but they outnumber us greatly. I'm soon the only survivor, and after a few cleverly-placed traps that freeze all my attackers for a few seconds, I take off running down to the dungeon level of the castle in a last-ditch effort to survive.

Upon reaching the dungeon, I throw myself into a room without bothering to see what it is, hoping to evade my pursuers. I'm startled by deep, echoing cackles. I turn to find a giant minotaur-like creature staring at me from the other end of a large ballroom. I turn again to find the doors I just passed through closing on me! I've unwittingly stumbled upon the final boss of the castle, without any teammates for backup!

Fearing for my life, and in perhaps the most abstract moment my imagination has ever taken me to, my conscious psyche literally picks up my avatar and throws him out the doors just before it's too late. The representation of my consciousness is now safe outside the danger zone, but my psyche is still in the presence of a mythical demon, and I sense great risk.

The great beast begins to charge my awareness, and the only way I can think to avoid certain destruction is to suddenly find myself taking physical form as myself once more (NOT simply an avatar from the game), ripping open my shirt and punching in a sequence of numbers on a touch pad located on my chest. As soon as I enter the final digit, a white door with an exit sign above appears on the wall. I rush to the door, taking note of the bright daylight coming in through its window, and quickly escape the castle.

Now back in a non-video game state, I find that the other side of the door is a bus station. But something's not right -- it's somehow inhuman. I climb the wall of a nearby brick building in an effort to hide, and soon a bus pulls up -- full of red-skinned demons!

Sensing that I need to act before they have a chance to gain the upper hand, I pounce from my perch onto the top of the bus. I swing from the front so that I am dangling in front of the windshield, staring the bus driver in the face. He's a slightly chunkier demon, with a bald spot and glasses. He doesn't look very threatening at all, in fact. Realizing that I'm not about to get into another battle, I hop down to the ground again and find a golf cart approaching me. As it pulls up, I see its occupants are three demons who, in an oddly-natural morph, change into smiling Mexicans. They're super-friendly guys and we talk for a bit in Spanish.

Then I wake up, and the first thing I do is smile and laugh at the thought of David and my brother posing as busboys in an undercover operation to rescue me from an awkward date.

Analysis:

• I honestly don't get the whole pseudo-romance with my coworker (and, if you happen to be a coworker who is reading this, no -- it's not you), as I am not attracted to her like that at all. We've been g-chatting lately at work just to keep each other from getting too bored, so I'm guessing that our friendship has caused her to take a role in this dream of mine.
• The video game aspects must stem from some of my final thoughts I had last night before going to bed. As I was doing some book reading, I thought a bit to myself about how I haven't really played online for the past couple weeks, and that I'm a little bored with the game.
• I really find it interesting that my psyche separated from my avatar and protected it. If you have ever studied video game theory, you'll understand where I'm coming from. The avatar is essentially the embodiment of your persona when playing a video game, and, especially when the point of view is directly behind or in-the-eyes-of the avatar, some video game theories state that the player's consciousness extends to the avatar. Super meta stuff going on in this dream here.
• I think the demonic bus station is influenced by all the "Hellboy II" advertising I've been seeing lately. The demons looked a lot like they could have jumped right out of the movie. It's funny because I've never seen the first "Hellboy," nor am I really all that interested in doing so. Effective advertising?

Conclusion:
Medieval fantasy dreams aren't nearly as fun as superhero dreams.