Video game-ish

I was walking Ralph around the neighborhood. I walked him up Century Drive to Centennial Lane without realizing that he didn't even have his leash on him. There was no sidewalk, and Centennial Lane looked like Jefferson Davis Highway, so we were going to have to be super careful. On the corner of Century and Centennial, instead of that large wooden sign with Century on it, there was a really steep grassy hill, with a house on top of it. "Mound" would be a better word than "hill". It was very smooth and round, and the grass on it was very green. Some guy, an old man, came down the hill holding a yellow leash with black and white paw prints on it and offered it to me. I accepted, and he walked with me some of the way, asking me if I was back from school, what my major was, etc. We had to walk single file next to the road, there was no sidewalk and the ground on the other side of the curb was outrageously steep. I was walking faster than he was, and was a few feet ahead of him. He said something about the road we were walking on. I didn't hear him because of the traffic, so I asked him to repeat. He said something like "you young people never listen!" and disappeared. I was concerned because I still had the leash he had lent me.

The hill on the side of the road suddenly turned flat, and the houses were now on level with the street. I turned onto a little road to get off of the highway. There was a blue fence with a hole in it next to the first part of this path, and Ralph went right through the hole in the fence. I followed him into a backyard that looked similar to ours, but the house was very different. Ralph bounded right up the deck and went inside. I was slightly horrified and went after him.

The room we went into looked like the front room of our house, with all of the old lady furniture. There were some ladies in there with other dogs. Ralph greeted the dogs, the women offered me tea. I noticed that all of the other dogs had eyepatches. Ralph had an eyepatch too. He was also limping a little, so I looked at his feet. One of them had a ridiculously huge splinter in it, probably from bounding up the deck, so I removed it.

Then the world sort of reset, like this was a game and someone had turned the console off and on again without saving.

I was back at my house, and decided to walk the dog. Mom went with me this time. The first part of the dream, up to the old man's disappearance, happened again in fast forward, because I knew what I was doing this time. Like it was a game. I listened to what the man said about the road this time, but I can't remember what he said now. But then the road turned into a tube, a tube with an open top like a halfpipe. It was on an incline, and it twisted and turned like a waterslide. Instead of water, it was filled with mud, and it was about as wide as Centennial Lane. We all slid down this thing on our feet, we had to take our shoes off. Ralph was ok, amazingly, but Madeline (who was there now) fell down several times. At the end of the pipe, it turned into a video game. This time I was playing it.

There were train tracks, and I had to line them up correctly, and fit cars together, as they sped by. And if I pressed the wrong combination of buttons the tracks would fall away completely and there would be a horrible crash. All of this was happening in front of me, with real trains, but I was controlling it. Certain cars would win you points and such. Then a little while later, instead of a car I got an L-shaped tetris piece, and was very confused. The track fell away, and then I woke up.