I'd happened across a website called "FDISK", which had a simple type-in-a-string front end (like the Google homepage). It claimed to be some kind of new storage site. Couldn't quite figure out what the nature of it was, but I got an wary feeling that it was something crazy like SpamMimic. There was a companion program running on my machine called something like "AMC" and it involved typing on a screen with movies playing, and as you typed it would lead squares to appear and disappear for some reason.

As I realized more and more that I was in dreamstate, I began to wish to learn more about the nature of these programs and what they were doing. I went to look for a help menu, but there wasn't one. There was some kind of "Read documentation for the editor" menu option on the file menu... yet it brought up a dialogue box that said that hadn't been installed. There was an option to "talk to warrior" (which was someone's user name).

I clicked that, and a chat window opened up. I was greeted by someone who acknowledged me by my waking life name.

warrior: "Sorry but due to various problems it's been delayed."
me: "Please, I need your help."
warrior: "Google calendar 2004 doesn't say anything about whether (some user name) will come along in 2007, and even if it does, it might not work out."
me: "Come on, at least explain to me what this program on this dream computer does."
warrior: "Well look, I'd like to go into this right now, because I was once like you, but I'm really tired right now."

At this point, this guy's life story started coming up in the chat window page by page, with lots of pictures. I had to click enter to get past each one. It was a bunch of tedious stuff, this guy had been born in Sweden, found a bug in Adventure Construction Set, was involved in some Alternate Reality Gaming. I tried to whisk the irrelevant personal history pages away and get to something useful, but instead the tedious stuff kept coming... how he'd been surprised the first time a girl had returned his attentions.

(Note: I was furious and getting ready to type: "You twerp, I don't want to read your life story, I would never do this to anybody." But I've decided to hold back on hostile responses as best I can, when I can. I don't really know what's going on, someone might send me a URL and my chat program loads up a browser... I might be so disoriented that I'm reading the wrong window while they're typing the useful information in a place I'm not even looking.)

There was a part in a dream where I was non-lucid, playing a video game that was some kind of monochrome variant of the video game Cloak and Dagger at an arcade. Every 100,000 points there was some sort of policy that I would win a plastic container full of popcorn, but I had to fill this container myself. I started stressing over the precise policy... like, was it every 100,000 points on a single quarter or was it every full game played for a quarter where the total score exceeded 100,000?

(Note: This was not lucid, and I only report it to give some context.)

After this I was trying to drive a car and it was out of control. I couldn't stop at stop signs and generally I was concerned about navigation because I didn't know where I was. It began to float, and I was somehow on the road hanging onto the car above me... when I decided to just let it go. It went flying into the air like a balloon.

As I stumbled onto the sidewalk, I ran into an older black man. I greeted him and mentioned that it was too hard to hold onto the car, so I just let it go. We embraced, as some men came up the street.

me: "If you help me, you can have the car. Or whatever. I just need information."
men: "We need the keys. We can't take the car without the keys."

Reaching into my pocket, I emptied the contents. I handed over a backpack I was carrying as well. The black man began writing on my hand with a sharpie.

black man: "If you need me, here's my contact information."

As he started to write, he noticed that the word "negative" was written on my hand already.

black man: (raising his brow) "That changes things."

He thought a little, then scratched out what he had written and wrote something else.

me: "Is that some kind of code? How can you be sure you've read everything you need to read? What if it's a... double negative?"

He and a group of people led me to a nearby shack-like structure. They began some kind of process of gently spinning me and carrying me, which kept me in the dream. They seemed good.

me: "Have you ever seen the movie A Scanner Darkly?"
someone: "I think I saw that one, yes."
me: "Well, if you watch it, that's what I feel like. I wonder if I've made some kind of choice, or if I'm involved in some kind of strange project I don't remember getting involved in. Is there hope for what I'm doing here?"
someone: "I'll say what you are doing is something that has definite potential."
me: "I'm going to wake up, and that's going to be the end of this conversation. Unless you have something you can do."

A man with a full bottle of water sprayed it on someone else, it made a big splash. When he sprayed it on me it felt like air.

me: "That looked like water when it was splashed on the other person. When you splashed it on me, it felt like air."
someone: "You're going to have to learn to fail at some things."
someone: "So far you have done very, very well."
me: "What year is it here, where you are?"
someone: "Hope springs eternal."
me: "That's not what I would call a 'time'. Like, the year 2007, or... two o' clock on Easter Sunday. Those are what I would call 'times'."

I remarked that I'd just felt a sudden rush of blood to my hands, then I woke up.

I was in a situation where I was romantically involved with a girl that I know. We were walking to a concert.

me: "What is the significance of us making out in this dream."
her: "Really, it's just simple mind-reading. We're going to eventually, why not now?"
me: "Where is your boyfriend?"
her: "He's with a pretty cool girl right now, who I really like too. She works on marketing and distribution for Chips Ahoy."

By now she had morphed into someone else, and we were walking through a shopping mall.

her: "I see this long list of nears on your forehead."
me: "Nears?"
her: "Nears."
me: "Wait, you mean N-E-A-R-S?"
her: "No, N-E-R-A-S."
me: "Can you explain what the heck those are?"
her: "I think we're going to have to introduce you to someone who can work that out."

(Note: Cursory research on the foreign word root "nera" suggests it relates to "impatience".)

She led me through the crowded mall, which had noisy music playing. I thought the music was going to wake me up... to stay in the dream I started singing my own lyrics to it, it was an unfamiliar song.

We wound up in a dark room with a gathering of people kneeling in a circle, all wearing black jackets and leather gloves, surrounding a leader. I went to gather a jacket and a pair of gloves that was on the floor, which I somehow recognized as my own. One guy pointed at me and spoke in a stern tone.

him: "What are those, legs?!"
me: "Yes, I... I need to put on my jacket."
him: "Well the man doesn't like it."

(Note: The implication I took was that it was a problem that I was still standing, and needed to kneel in the circle around the leader.)

Once I'd knelt in the circle, the girl who had accompanied me to the room made a declaration.

her: "Sheila's not coming back."
someone: "Why not?"

The leader pointed at me.

leader: "This man is the military. And one of the nicest people around. If he had to make a decision, then it was probably the right one."

(Note: I guess there was an accusation that I'd been responsible either directly or indirectly for Sheila's death.)