Dream - Studying data formats, then flying to a mall and meeting someone from grade school

On Saturday morning, July 26, 2008, I dreamed I was studying data formats when a practice alert occurred, then afterwards I flew to a mall and met someone from grade school.

In the dream, I was at work in Nevada. The Engineering room was filled with rows of long tables. I was sitting at one near the front near the corner. On the other side of the wall was the short hallway going to the front door.

I was reading books and doing research. The books were about various things, including formats for getting user names and passwords and security stuff. A lot of other stuff too, probably user addresses, but also other information. It seemed a lot of stuff to have to enter into the computer. It also talked about formats of a type of manuscript and for the editing of it. Many other things, too, including natural history type info.

The Engineering boss came over. He was on the other side of the table across from me and down a little ways toward the inside of the room, and animatedly talking to people. He was smiling as he talked, but I felt he was really spying on us, me in particular, checking to see if we were working. I kept on reading the books and I think taking an occasional note. It was something I needed to be doing and was work related. I felt a little uncomfortable anyway, though not much.

A practice alert occurred, a prescheduled one, though I had forgotten it would happen. The others left, some faster than others. I continued to try and read for a little while, to try and finish up some what I had been doing, but finally realized that I had better get going, that I would get in trouble otherwise. I left and wandered around. I don't remember now what I did.

I eventually ended up eating in my car. It was parked along with many other cars in rows in, I guess, a gravel parking lot. It was beyond the buildings out in what in real life would be desert, out in the Elko direction, away from Fallon. Although it was around lunchtime the light was not very bright, like it might be a little cloudy. I think I was still reading while I ate, also looking out the windows and thinking.

I looked at my watch (or a clock on the dash) and saw that it was a little after 1:00 PM. It was almost 11:00 when the practice alert occurred. I had decided to just combine it with lunch. I thought now, though, that the alert was probably only twenty minutes long and now it was getting kind of late and I had better get back. It didn't seem important, the amount of time I was taking, but then it seemed that the time might matter, that some people might be upset. Some other people stopped by and started talking to me. I got out and shut the door. It was an old car, like something from the 1950s. It seems I had another car there, too.

There was some kind of odd locking device on the outside. Sometimes it was on the fender near the passenger door and sometimes it was on the other side of the door around the bottom of the thick roof pillar. A key went in it to turn it. It was a round thing perhaps a couple of inches across with a bar across the middle. Once the key went in I turned the dial around quite a bit, it had a lot of travel. I kept talking about it as I demonstrated it. It seems it also had something to do with the wipers. One person was still there listening, but the others had gone on, going back to work. We had to get started, too.

I went and looked and there was a long way down to the shopping center. Although it was now a shopping center, not the place I worked, it didn't seem to matter or even be noticeable. The shopping center was at a lower level, down in the desert. The desert had occasional brush and plants. There was a broad dirt road that led down there that went to the side and then turned to the left toward it. Someone was still with me, though it didn't seem to be the same person as before, he seemed taller. Though I suppose he could just have changed in the dream, he looked different, too.

I decided to just fly down there, that I could do it. I wanted to show the other person, too. I think I was encouraging him to fly, but he didn't want to and either drove or hurried down on foot. I flew down, low over the landscape. I couldn't get much height.

As I got closer, a bunch of people were coming out and going down the road toward me. Then the man I was with suddenly came out of the tall brush at the right side of the dirt road. As I came down to the ground the people moved past me, talking among themselves. It seemed to be closing time, at least for the shift the people were on.

I went in to the shopping center. The light was dim. There were still people around, though not huge numbers. There seemed to be some military connection, like the shopping center had some military connection or side purpose.

I was still thinking about the user name, password, and user data formats as given in the book. It seemed there was some manual there that also talked about it as part of other things. It talked about something completely different at the front of it, maybe appliances or something like that, like the rest was partially hidden.

I needed to go to the upper level. It seemed the shopping center was very tall (though it didn't seem so when I saw it outside). The upper levels may not all be shopping and I think that some of them may have had more of a military purpose. There was some kind of projecting balcony or landing, maybe with folding stairs, though I think there was also a stairway or elevator somewhere far at the back of it.

I showed the person with me that I didn't need to use the stairs, I was so tall that I could reach up and grab the floor or something around there with my hand and then pull myself up on it. I think I may have originally thought more about flying up, though.

However I did it, I was now up on the walkway and could go toward the next level of the shopping center. The walkway was made of some dark material, metal and maybe old wood. It went into a right angle turn to the left and then I reached the end. There was a bit of a gap between it and the next level of the shopping center, and the next level was slightly higher, maybe a couple of feet, maybe more. The next level had a narrow walkway long the front of it with a thin metal railing. Someone was already there, or got there just as I was reaching it.

I recognised him as a short person I used to go to grade school with. He was still short and looked much the same, just older. He was there now on the walkway beyond the railing. He wanted to know if I recognized him. I said yes, and told him my name just in case he didn't remember it. I was very, very tired now, though, and I didn't get the name out very well. It was soft and blurred and trailed off. I tried again, saying something like "Stlephebim Morgahn." It was not very good, but I was so tired it was very hard to talk. He seemed to understand anyway.

He offered to help me up on the narrow walkway where he stood, there in front of the next level. I took his hand and he pulled me up.

When I got there I saw he was much taller and his face was longer and narrower. He was much taller that I was, maybe a half foot or so taller. I was surprised. He said he shot up a lot after grade school (or I simply supposed that to be the case). There was some other quality about him too, like he had some extra knowledge and/or power and was part of the military aspect of things in some intelligence or security function or knew something about it.