Luke Crane brought a cat back from the dead

WARNING: My weirdest dreams happen when I’m sick, and I’ve been fighting a cold for the better part of a week now.

I was at Luke’s apartment–actually, it looked a little bit like the house my grandparents lived in when I was young, but in the dream-reality, it was Luke’s apartment. For some reason, we were hurriedly packing to leave, like for a good, long time. Luke was cursing about it, because he didn’t want to leave, but knew that he had to. My stuff was already packed (because I was there visiting), so I was helping Luke pack.

About that point, in real life, one of our cats managed to make its way into the bedroom and jump on top of me. I was curious about the dream and didn’t want to lose it, so I tried to ignore the cat and go back to sleep, but Dash (the cat) proceeded to stroll up and down my back. I grabbed Dash and threw him out of the room, but kept my eyes closed the whole time so I wouldn’t wake up all the way.

When I got back to sleep, I started a different dream. I was walking down the aisles of a warehouse store–like a Sam’s Club. Cal, one of the characters I play in freeform roleplay w/ Kat, pulled me over to show me a new video game system. It was kinda like a Wii, but the controllers for this game were huge anime-style foam-rubber swords and axes. It was a first-person-chopper where threats would come at you and you’d have to chop them down. So, I’m chopping, and one of the threats is a generic-looking cat. I can’t remember which of us chopped the cat, but it collapsed in a bloody heap at Luke’s feet–because suddenly I was back in the first dream. Luke picked up the cat to get rid of it and some of the cat’s blood gets in his mouth! He’s trying to throw the cat down on a bench in the one room, but is having trouble getting it off his hand. I don’t remember exactly how it comes about, but during this struggle, Luke kisses the cat and suddenly the thing is alive and unhurt! Luke’s reaction: “about motherfucking time, I’ve got to pack my fucking life in a fucking duffel bag.”

I have a hazy memory of this cycle (chopping in video game, corpse in real life, struggling to pull onto bench, blood in Luke’s mouth, the unintended kiss, resurrection) repeating itself with the cat being replaced with actor Matt Frewer (who played Max Headroom), but it was just like another loop of the same thing.

Next thing I know, both resurrected cat and Frewer are gone, but Thor Olavsrud is there. He’s trying to calm Luke down, saying it’s not so bad that he’s gotta leave, it will only be for a while, etc. Luke’s not having any of it, and is still mightily pissed. Then Thor notices that in the vicinity of the bench where the resurrections took place, the shadows of knicknacks and stuff are moving. They’re moving in circles as they might if the lamp in the room were on a turntable. But the lamp is rock-solid. Thor tries to draw Luke’s attention to this, but his reaction is like “What? Are you trying to say I broke the world? Get me all creeped out because the shadows are moving? Fuck that. I didn’t break the world. I’ve got to fucking pack. And even if I did break the world, it’s only a computer simulation anyway!”

And that’s where the dream ended. I’m still too close to decipher it, but I do know from past experience that when my subconscious wants to tell me something about my game design, it puts on its Luke Crane mask. I’ve got a new idea that’s so embryonic I haven’t told ANYONE about it yet, lest it shrivel into nothing at the first indifferent or hostile remark. Maybe I’m supposed to stay focused on that, despite distractions, the way Luke stays focused on packing in the dream? I don’t know, but the dream felt particularly important.