Strange dream

Now that I have this great medium for sharing my personal life with people I know or don't know (and don't necessarily know which based on comments, other than the ones I know; let me know if you figure out what I've just said, 'cause I might need you to let me know!), I can subject you to the strangeness of my subconscious once in a while (like this post).

Last night I wasn't feeling well (I'm drinking a Diet Mt. Dew this morning to help), and (after spending the evening reclined on the couch) went to bed about 9:22, which is pretty early for me (then again, the previous week's failure to sleep much might have something to do with the tiredness). I'd taken a TheraFlu Night-time ThinStrip (as a side note, which I do too often, I can't take the regular, hot-liquid TheraFlu; once my wife tried to get me to take it, and I said, "I'll throw up!", and she kept insisting, so eventually I started to drink the nasty, yucky, vile stuff and, guess what?, I threw up!). Anyway, about 11:30 or so, when my wife came to bed, I woke up. I don't know if it was her turning on the lamp by the bed (click noise and light), or the motion of the bed when she sat on it, or if I just woke, but I woke. I'd been having this strange dream (to improve the reading experience, I've moved parenthetical notes to the bottom of the narrative, indicated by "*" and so forth):

I was at the church. I had a new car, something cheap like a Kia or Suzuki *, but it looked like an older Subaru wagon. I had the two younger children (both boys) with me. I'd gone to find my wife, and she had rented six movies from Blockbuster, but wanted to go to the bathroom and left them on a table in the foyer of the church. Well, this irritated me, and I grabbed the movies and headed out to the car, which was running, but not well despite its being a new vehicle. I pulled it around to the front of the church, near where my wife was parked, and was talking to someone from the church when the car started rolling down the church parking lot (which was more steeply inclined in the dream than in real life) with the two boys still in it (somehow it had gotten put into gear). The older of the two had jumped in the front seat, and was trying to figure out what to do; I started running after them and told him to press the brake - he hit the clutch first, but eventually the brake - and to pull on the handbrake lever. After hitting some SUV (I think it did, can't recall for sure), the car stopped.

Anyway, by this time my wife was out, and we were going home or something. I was driving the new car, which was still running poorly, and still had the two boys with me. Somehow we got to a place where the road just formed a ramp onto a river-like area - wasn't aware of it, and we sailed through the air onto the water, where the car skimmed along the surface until it slowed and started sinking. The river-like area was something like you'd see at a water park, where you would go down the river with an innertube. Anyway, the boys got out of the car, and I did too, although I was carrying the car along with me (it was light in the water). I told them to stay nearby.

We came to a place where it forked, and ended up taking the left fork, which I realize had probably been a mistake - I think the road went to the right. The left fork really was a water-park ride. By this time I've realized my cell phone is soaked, so I pull it out, shake it off, and try to turn it on (and it was a weirdly-shaped phone). The first couple of times it partly powers up then turns off; eventually it turns on, and I called my wife. I explained where we were, but after a short while the phone died again, so I put it in a Ziploc bag I happened to have on me; I put that inside another bag. I also realized the keyless entry for the car my wife was driving probably wouldn't work (the new car didn't have keyless entry), and also my wallet - and all its contents - were getting soaked. I tried putting my wallet into the larger Ziploc bag, but noticed the corner near the seal was ripped and it would let water in, so I just put the wallet back in my pocket.

Anyway, by this time we've run into some people from the water park ride. The boys have decided to go ahead, even though I had told them to stay with the vehicle, and I'm trying to explain to the people what I'm doing with a car on the water park ride when they leave. Some guy says, "Let's pray for these people" (meaning my boys and me), not realizing the boys have gone ahead while I'm trying to work my way through the crowd with the car. So I slowly, quietly continue to work my way along the edge while he's praying, and when he says, "Amen!" I'm up at the front and get going on down the river/water-slide/whatever.

Eventually I catch up to the boys in a "holding" area where they try to make you buy pictures; I'm trying to scold them, and this guy in a clown suit (I think, or something similar) is pestering us with, "Don't you want to buy your pictures?" Eventually, to shut him up, I agree, selecting one of the packages, and then we're moved into this little booth/room where another guy has the list of available pictures we can put into this package. He has several of me and of the boys, but then he keeps pulling out pictures, and there are pictures of me, my parents, my grandmom, and my aunt from about a year earlier when we'd visited this water park on a vacation **.

And then I woke.

Now, I don't really put much stock in dreams - at least not those I have when sick or on medicine because I'm sick; I've had quite a few whoppers at times like those - but I try to amuse myself when I have strange ones by asking what they mean. My wife suggested, "Don't leave the car running with the boys inside." Ok, at least not without the handbrake engaged. Any more thoughts?

* I've never owned a Kia, although I currently own a 2005 Suzuki SV-650 - the link is to the 06 model since they no longer have the 05 model on their website; it needs a new handlebar and shift lever after I laid it down back on Halloween 07. I've also had a 2007 Forenza - really a GM Daewoo - for about 2 months before it was totalled by vandalism in my front yard (someone threw fireworks inside the car) - that was actually, despite being somewhat low on power, a decent, inexpensive car.

** I've not really been on vacation in a long time; the last was when I went on a cruise with my wife that my parents gave me as a graduation present back in 2004. Other than that, my "vacations" usually are to visit family, although one year we managed to visit some old Navy friends while vacationing to visit family in South Carolina at Christmas.