This was a crazy long dream, one that I actually sat up and wrote down as soon as I woke from it (which I should really be doing EVERY dream, but this one caught my attention big time.)

I was at a bar with some acquaintances, and one of my friends was working there. I hung out with them for a time, until the first major thing in the dream happened. I can't remember all the specifics of exactly what happened, but at some point it was announced that the volcano had started to erupt, and that everyone had to escape the city as fast as possible. Outside it was dark, and there were clouds around the volcano with massive webs of lightning arcing through the clouds. I was very scared, but I knew that my mom would be escaping by a certain route, so I tried to head in that direction, hoping that I would catch her and flag her down so she could drive me out of the city.

As I moved forward though, I realized that she was probably going to make it out before I could get to her route out of the city, so I pulled out my phone and tried calling her. For some reason I was having a very hard time finding her number in the phone. As I was walking, trying to dial the number, a lady with a baby started following me. She asked if I had a ride out of the city, and I said that I did and that she and her baby could come along. I just had to get a hold of my mom.

I struggled with the phone for some minutes before finally finding her number and calling...but I realized soon after I called that I had forgotten to set the option that would show my information and let her know it was me calling. The phone kept ringing and she didn't answer. I remember getting to the intersection where I was going to wait for her, and seeing a car that I thought was hers already pulling away. I knew that if I could call her quickly there would still be time for her to turn around and pick me up. I tried calling her again, but once again the number was very difficult to find.

We took shelter in a building, and at some point a man had joined us; I don't know if it was before or after we took shelter. As I was frantically trying to call my mom, I had the sense that I should stop trying and prepare myself for death. I struggled against this feeling, until a few moments later the lady gently told me to stop struggling, that it was too late; we were going to die. I didn't believe her at first, but then I looked outside and saw that lava had started flowing in rivers from the volcano, and that there was no way to escape it. I gave up and sat down on the bench next to the lady, waiting for the lava to take us. As the lava flowed into the building, I remember having a stream flow over parts of me. I tried to stay present for the moment of death, but couldn't seem to manage any kind of focus. There was no pain. After a few seconds I looked at the lady for advice; she handed me a sandwich with lava on it and told me to eat it. I did, and everything flashed white; I was dead.

I was aware of being dead, being a charred corpse. But I could also move. I got up and went outside, and saw a bunch of other charred corpses walking around. No one really seemed to be panicking or shocked in any way. Most of them seemed to be moving in a single direction, so I joined that flow. As I walked along, everyone started to look like they had in life. I started recognizing a lot of my acquaintances and friends from past and present. Some of the people were gathering in groups on the side of the road, hanging out or having a barbeque. When I saw groups with people I knew, I tried to join them, but I was either ignored and passively blocked or met with hostile, if indirect, rejection. At one gathering, I was not addressed directly but one person started talking very negatively about me. In fact, as I walked along, I met with a lot of criticism about my life, some of which stung, and some of which truly surprised me.

But at the group where they were especially hostile, there was a girl sitting on the edge of a group; still a part of it, but not around the table everyone else was around. She defended me, and when I heard her defending me I stop and turned to look at her. She met my gaze, and I smiled at her in thanks. She smiled back.

I continued walking with the flow since no one would let me stop and join their group, and eventually we came to a doorway in a wall at the edge of the city. Going through the door, I remember making a passage through a hallway and ending up in a small room that had three doors I could go through. One directly in front, and one to each side. They all opened into similar looking rooms, that had something like an air filter with honeycomb-shaped things behind it. The one in front was lighted and seemed "active," the two to the side were quiet except for a strange wind blowing through them. These two side doors scared me, and I tried asking what they were, but there was no answer. (I was alone at this point.) Deciding that curiosity would probably not serve me well here, I went into the door in front of me, which I knew everyone else had gone through too.

I ended up in a movie theater with stadium-style seating. I knew that this is where people viewed their life and would analyze it. As I walked through it more and more people showed up. I remember being surprised when one women brought up the name of a character from an anime...Light from Death Note (I had just recently read a post about that anime in a forum in waking life, so that probably explains the origin of that). She was expecting him to be judged and harshly punished for his life. I never sat down in the theater...instead I walked through and went through a door in the back of it, ending up in another hallway. I was met by a middle-aged woman who began walking with me. I knew she was a figure of authority, and she started answering questions that I had had.

I got the sense that the goal of incarnating was to reach enlightenment, to "wake up," and you kept on reincarnating until you made it, changing certain initial parameters every time until you found a mix that worked. The woman led me to a room with a harness hanging from the middle of the ceiling, and I intuited that there was a control booth somewhere. This was where people created or adjusted their avatars, the forms their incarnations took. It was here that I had the realization that I would have to live my life again, and felt a sort of impatient despair, wondering how much longer it was going to take before I would reach enlightenment.

I asked the woman if she would change any starting parameters if she were me. She looked me directly in the eye and recommended that I change nothing, and trust in luck; maybe this time I would survive the volcano and be able to continue my life. Then she told me that she would be inserting me at December 27th, 2008. I was surprised that I didn't have to start from birth, and she said that I could if I wanted to, but it wasn't necessary. I was relieved; this would save me years of doing the same things over again! Then she started saying that some things had been changed to make it easier for me, which was another surprise because I thought she was implying that everything would be the same.

She said that I would live in a Confederacy of 12 nations, and to try not to be too shocked by the new history, because it was very bloody. I asked her if I would be instantly acclimated to the new history, and she said that it would take some time to adjust. I was happy to hear this, because it seemed to imply that I would retain some sense of what had been before. She led me to a room where I would be incarnated, and another flash of white happened. In the dream I sensed a dog barking; then I woke up.

Definitely a very interesting dream!