Dream: Gators and Beholders

Sometimes my dreams have a semi-lucid, fourth wall quality to them. I'll feel like I'm acting out the dream as if I'm making a movie, and all the characters are just actors. This means that I know I can't really be harmed, so I'm not scared no matter how intense things get. On some level I know every monster is just a guy in a suit, like the ending of Altered Beast.

Last night I was in a swamp, holding an alligator on a leash. The dream's "script" said that the gator was supposed to help me, to lead me to some bad guys like a police dog. But the gator kept biting me instead. Gator's gonna gate, I guess. The bites didn't hurt; it felt like he had Nerf teeth. But it was still annoying, and I kept yelling "No!" at it.

Then the gator ran off, and attacked a small child. It didn't hurt the kid either, but I still had to stop it. I jumped on the gator's head (oddly enough, I had played a bit of "Pitfall!" last night before bed) and it released the child. But then I was so angry that I started pounding on the gator like Ralphie fighting the bully in "A Christmas Story". 

That woke me up, but I fell right back asleep. 

The next dream had sort of a "Snakes on a Plane" plot, but the tone felt more like Alien. I was on a cruise ship, and a bunch of Beholders were loose, attacking the passengers. (If you're not a D&D player, a Beholder looks like a floating head with a single large eye, a gaping mouth, and a bunch of smaller eye stalks that can fire different kinds of magical beams).

But these weren't your typical D&D Beholders. One looked like a giant hand, with eyes on the end of each finger. Another looked like a beach ball, with smaller beach balls on its eye stalks. It could fire more beach balls out of its eyes, which would bounce around before exploding. That scene had a "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" vibe to it, with circus music in the background.

Another Beholder looked 8-bit, reminding me of the movie Pixels. It could summon Atari characters to fight for it, like the helicopter from Chopper Command. (Okay, I played more than just Pitfall last night). The helicopter attacked not by firing weapons, but by landing on groups of passengers. Another Beholder had a very human-looking face, giving it an uncanny valley appearance.

I didn't actually see any of these monsters defeated. I mostly spent the dream running around from room to room, running into different Beholders and watching them attack groups of passengers. The dream still had a movie quality to it - I never really felt like I was in danger, I just ran because it was "in the script". 

Even with all that going on, I still had time to stop and casually visit the ship's gift shop.