Dreams from last night:

Dream #1
While hiking in the forest, I encountered a river. From my approach, the bank of the river was about level with the river itself. There seemed to be quite a volume of water moving along at a good clip. Not like a rushing Alaskan river fed by melting snow, but not like a lazy, meandering plains river, either. Somewhere in between.

The opposite shore of the river was actually a very steep cliff, about 30 to 40 feet in height. Atop the cliff's edge was a row of village buildings parallel with the river. There was a slight man-made extension on the cliff, as a form of overlook and walkway. It was supported by ropes and vines.

I am not sure how I crossed the river, but the dream cut to me walking (and at times crawling) along the edge of the overlook. I remember looking down to see the river below. The overlook wasn't very wide. There was maybe 10 feet of space between the edge of it and the buildings facing the river.

One of those buildings was a breakfast restaurant. It had some egg-based name-- Scrambled or something like that. The name was painted in big yellow letters on the large pane-glass store-front window.

On the door was a little cowbell that jangled when I went inside. The place wasn't very big. Just a few tables and a small window where you placed your order. The place was full. There was a two-seater couch by the door on which you could sit while waiting for a table. Though I recognized no one else in the restaurant, one of my coworkers was sitting on the couch. (I won't name them here.)

They motioned for me to come sit beside them and handed me the menu. Since the couch wasn't very large, we were sitting pretty close together. My coworker was being a bit more friendly than I expected, putting their arm around me and leaning in close. They told me they owned the restaurant and that the food was good. As they handed me the menu to browse, they started touching me a lot, attempting to kiss me. I told them that we were coworkers and it would be inappropriate. Then I woke up.

I wonder if the dream would have continued if I'd not said no...

Dream #2
While putting groceries into (or out of) my car, a van carrying three strange men drove up beside me. Like a kidnapping scene in a movie, the sliding side door of the van opened up, a couple of men jumped out, and then shoved me into the van.

Knowing that putting up a fight against three guys would get me nothing but pain, I stayed calm and offered no resistance. I asked for confirmation of the obvious, "Are you kidnapping me?"

"Yes," one of them answered.

"Are you going to ask my family for ransom?"

They replied, "$50,000. That should support us for month or so."

I thought $50k a month was a pretty big budget. It was obvious that these guys weren't just looking for rent money. Then I begin to wonder where my family would get the cash. I at first thought they'd mortgage their homes, but then I realized they would go to the police. The police would deliver marked bills so the bad guys would be caught. I knew it'd be a dangerous few days for me as all of this played out.

After driving for a bit, we arrived at a gigantic brick mansion. I could see no other buildings or homes around the place. The yard was expansive-- probably 10 acres of rolling lawn surrounded by forest. It had the feeling of one of those religious cult compounds. There were dozens of kids playing outside. When we arrived, they all ran up to greet us. Some feeling of assurance came over me then. I was sure that people who would care for this many kids surely wouldn't hurt me and were simply looking for money.

What happened from here, I am unclear about. I do recall that I had some amount of freedom around the place. They did take my phone, and kept an eye on me, but always from a distance.

After some time, I discovered in the basement of the home a room that appeared to be some kind of science lab. White walls, brightly lit, microscopes and various paraphernalia on the black counters. I could not enter through the locked windowed door, but I saw through it a clear tank full of some kind of fluid, and a large human fetus. It wasn't dead. To the contrary, it had an umbilical cord attached, connecting it to something atop the tank that I couldn't see. They were growing humans.

Still trying to wrap my head around what I'd just discovered, a felt a hand on my shoulder. One of my captors had found me. He didn't seem angry, but he too stood looking into the lab, at the unborn fetus.

"Why do you have me here," I asked.

"$50,000." His clever smile told me that he knew that I didn't believe him.

"You are doing genetic experiments here."

"Yes, but we still need $50,000." He was all nonchalance about revealing his group's intentions. It seemed as if he believed it would all go down as planned, and my knowledge of it would have no negative consequences, but it freaked me out. I'm sure the shock was visible on my face. He just smiled and walked away.

Maybe they were naive; maybe they were stupid; maybe they were crazy. Well... I knew they were crazy.

As soon as I could, I managed to locate my phone and activate the GPS on it, and then attempted to call my family. I was quickly discovered, and my phone confiscated once more, but the damage was done. They knew bad things were coming. They all started preparing, packing things into trucks and vans, gathering up children. It was too late, though. Within minutes, I could hear helicopters and sirens. SWAT vehicles raced down the drive. In the confusion, I began running towards the rescuers. There were about 50 or so kids and adults running around, fleeing the house.

I saw an ambulance-type vehicle. One of my captors, the same one who told me of the genetic experiments, was going back and forth from the house, carrying boxes to pack into the vehicle. While he was in the house gathering more things, I saw in the back of the ambulance three containers-- the ones containing the fetuses. On impulse, I quickly broke open the containers and used a nearby box to destroy the unborn babies.

After putting an end to the mad-science work of the my kidnappers, I continued my escape, running to my family which I saw standing all together behind the rescue vehicles.

Then I woke up.