Woke around 3:30 AM. Knew it was for the long haul, so I turned on the good speakers and pulled up Hulu on the WinXP machine. Caught up on The Daily Show, Colbert Report, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (growing pains, but promising), and Leno. All while working crossword puzzles from accumulated daily newspaers, alternating with periods of lights-out eyes-closed drifting and hoping for sleep. It became light outside. Had some coffee, checked weather, news, etc. online while resisting becoming truly active. Turned off lights and monitors around 9 AM for a nap. The room is dark.
Dreamt I was watching T.V. (big surprise) but I was kind of in control of what was on the screen mentally. Bordered on prurient, but only just.
I was aware I was watching T.V. in a rental condo or something in Lake Tahoe but no visuals of the lake or familiar environs, and all took place in the 'condo'. There was a knock at the door. I looked through the small opening in the door, a 3" x 5" mesh-covered opening with a cover panel I rotated out of the way. "What?" I said. Several people outside; a mid-20's girl said "Hey, What's up?" I mumbled some dismissive response to these strangers. She said "Come on Ken, what's going on?" I opened the door for a better look.
Started chatting and I noticed she and the closest similar girl had small letters all over their faces. Matrix-like. I realized they weren't people but programs wanting to breach my firewall. I stood firm. As they all babbled inquiries and nonsense I noticed this non-descript dude kind of floating toward the open doorway (What happened to the screen door?) and I pushed him back. More babble and he started floating past again. I pushed him out and down and stomped on his balls. They all dispersed.
Next I noticed that the room was full of devices - musical, computational, navigational, that all had little antenna stubs like cell-phones and that they were all connected wirelessly to my computer, and everything was humming and in control. I realized that I was on a four-day weekend and the trip up to Tahoe had eaten one day, I'd screwed around for two, was facing another day's travel back home, and I hadn't done any work beyond sketching on some multi-media presentation I was supposed to do when I got back to school on Monday (as in high school, which was decades ago, pre-computers). I thought I might be able to pull something together anyway.
Looked in the freezer for a can of coffee, and found there were a bunch of them, but they were all full of ice. Dad likes to make a bunch of ice to keep the leftover food cold on the drive home.
At this point I woke up, 10:30 AM, recognizing the 'trip home' and 'need coffee' tropes as signs it was time to wake up. Haven't had the 'wake up' thing happen in dream-state in a long time. It used to be quite common for me to have a dream become about walking, loping, driving, or even flying 'across town' to one of the several places I've called home over the years, when it was time to wake up.
Nice to see that motif return, actually. Probably haven't seen it for years because I've long since simply gotten up (and had coffee) on first coming to lucidity in the morning. I don't have a lot to do or places to be lately, so sleeping-in is a comfortable option.
But I really ought to get up.