Every Easter, my family has a tradition of going camping.  When I say my family, I don’t mean my mom and sister.  I mean every member of the extended family who is alive and capable of camping.

These days it’s actually been taken down a generation for population reasons, but when I was a kid it was camping with family members all the way up to my great grandmother.  I guess normal people would call that a family reunion.

Living in Virginia as I now do, I don’t get to go to Easter as often as I used to so I guess my unconscious mind wants to go.  It was one of these Easter campouts that was the setting for one of the strangest dreams I’ve had in some time.

My immediate family were camping in a cabin in my dream.  The front of the cabin faced a large open area where the rest of the family was camping, while the back opened onto a rather busy highway.  It seemed normal as strange dream things often do.

We looked out the window towards the highway and saw two baby zebras sitting on the side closest to us.  We were immediately concerned about their well-being with the crazy highway in front of them.  Wondering where the parents might be, we looked up and saw two adult zebras across the way.

Then there was commotion.  Across the highway, a little bit down from the zebras, was an elephant charging across the highway.  He headbutted a Jeep, and cars careened all over the place.  As we watched it all unfold we were in awe at the destruction the elephant had caused.

But then the elephant kept running — straight to our cabin.  He headbutted the window and it cracked.  We breathed a sigh of relief; we were safe.  But then creaking and cracking… the tree above the cabin was falling.  Panicked, I grabbed my wife and ran out of the cabin.

The cabin collapsed and I turned back realizing that I did not try to save my sister, niece, stepfather or mom.  I went back to the rubble and crawled in and asked, “Is anyone in here?”

My mom replied, “I am.  But Kenny’s [stepfather] going to come get me.  Don’t worry about it.”

Then there were fireworks and a band.  My cousin Mandy was the lead singer and shouted “Happy New Year!”  My wife looked at her watch and sure enough it was midnight.  I don’t know how Easter ended up being New Year’s Eve.

My family was all ok and then my friend Dave showed up because he had heard about the cabin catastrophe and wanted to fix the toilet for us.  He installed a Ford motor in the toilet tank and then showed us how clean of an engine it was and how wonderfully our toilet would run.  For some reason, the motor itself was yellow.

We went back outside to the festivities and I woke up.

Note to Self #1: never go camping when there are elephants around.

Note to Self #2: Contact Dave for toilet problems.

I don’t post about my dreams all that often because I rarely remember them.  And even when I do, they tend to be inconsequential and boring.

But last night I had the most cinematic dream that I think I’ve ever had.

I had a friend.  I don’t think he was one of my real friends, but in my dream he was as real as they were.  He was an acting agent, but he had no clients.  He obviously wasn’t very good at his job.

He had just bought a beachfront resort with the hope of enticing some actors to join his agency so that they could stay at the resort for free.  I thought it was a crazy idea, but he bought it anyway — without ever having seen it.

Excited about his new prospects, I joined him at a Volcano party (yes, a party at the base of a volcano) where there would be lots of actors that he could mingle with.

I watched him talk to Tom Cruise, Will Smith and various other actors.  They were all super excited because there was another agency which owned a resort so they had joined that other agency.  My friend was fired up about this because that proved that it was the latest craze.

Finally, after an evening of failed contacts my friend talked to and convinced Matthew McConaughey to join his agency.  My friend was stoked until it dawned on him that he had never actually been to the resort he had promised.

So we hopped on a prop plane to go see this resort, and get it ready for his first client.  We were almost there when the plane had engine trouble; the prop stalled.

There was a crash into a river.  The pilot was dead.  It was just me, my friend, and my friend’s assistant, floating down the river hanging on to plane parts just trying to stay alive.

After what seemed like days of floating, the river dumped us out into the ocean.  Looking around, we saw a huge shining golden castle in the distance.

Because it was a dream, it made more sense for us to swim to this castle than the shore and that’s what we did.  But when we got there, we realized there were no doors or windows.  There was no way into the castle.

But then my friend’s assistant got an idea.  She would swim down under the castle and see if there was a way in.  I was hesitant, so I stayed at the surface while my friend and his assistant tried it.

They were gone for 10, 15, 20 minutes as I monitored from the GPS tracking device I magically had with me.  They were directly under the castle, so I had to assume they had found a pocket of air at the very least.

I headed down and was surprised to see an opening leading into a giant ballroom.  The GPS said they were in there so I swam towards it.  As I moved into the ballroom, I passed through a barrier and suddenly I could breath and walk.

I followed the GPS to my friends and found them held captive by merpeople, not unlike the Naga from Warcraft.  They spoke to us only telepathically.

They explained that it was unfortunate that we had found their castle and that although they wished us no harm, they could never let us leave.  If the mainlanders found them, then they would surely be hunted and killed.

Weeks passed as we adjusted to our new home until one day my friend came across a submarine.  It had apparently belonged to people who had found the castle previously.  We both worried about what that meant for our eventual fate.

The three of us finally resolved to steal the submarine and make a break for it, and we did so.  The submarine of my dreams skimmed the top of the water rapidly on its way to the shore.

On the trip to the shore we noticed a huge government installation in the distance and we all silently seemed to agree that the merpeople had been created by the government.

As we closed in on the shore, the submarine began to rumble as it was pulled underwater by an unseen force and dragged back towards the golden castle.  We were scared.

Then it tore at our minds, “WE TOLD YOU NOT TO LEAVE!”  The pain was unbearable as their voices echoed in our skulls.  We had angered them.

And then I woke up.  Anyone wanna produce this as a movie?

In all of my reading and watching of the paranormal, I’m always on the lookout for mundane explanations for extraordinary things.

It’s not that I’m completely unwilling to believe in UFOs and Ghosts, but I require some evidence that can’t be explained away with science.

One of the more recent and interesting scientific explanations for a paranormal encounter is the idea that sleep paralysis is responsible for people believing they have been abducted by aliens.

When your body enters REM sleep, it ‘paralyzes’ your muscles so you don’t get out of bed and try to live through your dreams, ultimately hurting yourself or others. It’s a defense mechanism that is incredibly important.

Occasionally, however, it can happen that your mind awakes from REM but your body doesn’t wake up with it. This leaves your body in this funky state where you’re completely aware but cannot move your body.

This can be slightly terrifying to say the least, but it gets worse with a high chance of hallucination occurring during this time as well. Many people who experience sleep paralysis report seeing strange things in the room with them, and more commonly, figures around the bed.

Another common theme of the hallucinations is the feeling that something is weighing on you, such as someone sitting on your feet or chest.

Since the hallucinations are usually unreasonable and unearthly, most people report bouts of sleep paralysis as a dream, easily chalking up their visions to an overactive dreamstate.

A common theme in alien abductions is waking to aliens standing near your bed and being unable to move, followed by being taken to an alien ship.

Sounds an awful lot like sleep paralysis to me, and so far is one of the most interesting theories for such a widespread phenomenon that I’ve heard.

To my delight, I believe I encountered sleep paralysis last night (or I was abducted by aliens).

I was dreaming about being on vacation at a lakehouse that I’ve never seen before. On the lake there were two piers. I was on one with my wife, and some friends of ours were on the other.

We were yelling across the water at each other, waving and having fun, when a UFO popped out of the water on the other pier and started flying circles around our friends. I had a camera with me and tried to snap a photo when the other pier collapsed, our friends falling into the water.

I awoke, a bit winded and scared. My cats were sleeping on my feet (as they are prone to do). I couldn’t move, and I remember thinking how heavy the cats seemed and how strange it was that their weight was preventing me from moving.

Then I saw someone standing in the doorway of our bedroom. Just a shadowy figure. I couldn’t tell you if it was human or not. I could really only see it out of the bottom of my eyes since I was laying down.

Strangely, I wasn’t scared. I felt one of the cats methodically bathing himself. I thought to myself, “Ok, Lykaon, if there was someone in the bedroom with you, the cats wouldn’t just be bathing themselves. They’d be freaked out.”

I looked again and the figure was gone, and I drifted back to sleep.

I’m not sure how awake I ever really was. The fact that the figure in my doorway didn’t really scare me is a bit odd. I hope I don’t react that way if someone ever really is in my bedroom!

I also now question whether my cats were really on my feet at all. Since one of the symptoms of sleep paralysis can be the feeling of something on your feet, I wonder if I just assumed it was my cats. It was certainly too dark to see.

I’ll never know for sure if I experienced true sleep paralysis, but it was a delightful experience nonetheless, and not nearly as frightening as I would have imagined.

I was supposed to write a Heroes review earlier this week. I didn’t. I could do that now, but instead I’m going to write about Survivor. Sorry, Hemisphire.

So we’re down to six in Survivor: China. Last night saw the exit of James, the workhorse gravedigger who had 2 (TWO!) immunity idols in his possession.

Nonetheless, James was a bit too gullible and trusting for his own good and was blindsided by his ‘friends.’

Word to the wise: never trust a gay Mormon.

So we’re left with:

• Todd (the gay mormon)
• Courtney (the anorexic blonde)
• Amanda (Queen Butt Blur)
• Denise (the stereotypical lunch lady)
• Erik (wait, is he even there?)
• Peih-Gee (the most manic survivor ever)

It’s actually a pretty good final six. All of them mostly deserve to be where they are either by pure strategy or key immunity wins.

I think 3 of them definitely deserve to win, while 3 of them definitely don’t. The three that should have a fair claim at the million are Todd, Courtney, and Amanda — oh look, the first three in my list.

Todd has worked hard to manipulate the game whenever he could. He fancies himself more of a conniver than he’s really turned out to be, but overall he’s earned his keep.

I’ve decided that Amanda is really the brains of the operation. Oh sure, Todd may think he is, but it’s always Amanda who has to talk him down from crazy harebrained schemes. Yet when Amanda says to vote out James, Todd does it.

Then there’s Courtney. I didn’t really like her at first, but she’s grown on me. She’s a little Winona Ryder, and a little bit 5-years old all at the same time.

She’s playing a very strange game of Survivor, but it seems to be working. She’s managed to remain true to her alliance while making them question her loyalty at the same time. Whether intentional or accidental, it’s a ploy that has worked well for her.

Then there’s the last three. Denise hasn’t displayed one iota of independent thought, Erik is a non-entity, and Peih-Gee is borderline psychotic and pretty mean to boot. So none of them should win unless they can get in the final two with each other.

My prediction?

I’m going to go with a dream I had last night. That’s right. I had a dream about Survivor. Yes, it’s a little bit embarassing.

At any rate, my dream was about Courtney. I dreamed that she was actually the daughter of one of the families I go to church with and thus was going to church with me.

The dream wasn’t really any more than that (though I vaguely remember football being involved), but it was enough for me to go ahead and predict Courtney as the winner of Survivor: China.

Todd and Amanda just may cannibalize each other, while Courtney waltzes right into the top spot and wins one million dollars.

So I started a Dreams category some time ago, but only posted to it once. As things are in life, when I decided I would post about my dreams I stopped remembering them.

But finally there is a new dream to unveil.

I was in school — college I think. I had missed a lot of classes and I wasn’t even sure if I had missed my finals.

One of the courses I was taking was Advanced Water Skiing. I’ve never taken such a course, but we did have some wacky kinesiology courses back at Texas A&M, so it’s not that crazy.

Since I had missed pretty much every class we ever had, I wasn’t prepared for our final that day. Being Advanced Water Skiing, however, it wasn’t a written final.

Instead, we were to go to a giant aquarium tank and subdue a shark. No, I’m not sure how that related to water skiing but that was our assignment. Luckily, we got to do the assignment as a class.

Then the class bully and hotshot tried to take control of the situation and he was none other than Draco Malfoy. Well, I guess he’s really the actor that plays Draco Malfoy but whatever.

We all went down to the tank to look at our shark. He was an atypical black & white shark that resembled an orca in coloration.

We all climbed in and I proceeded to watch most of my class get devoured. With every classmate the shark ate, it got bigger and shinier.

After everyone but Malfoy and me had been eaten, the shark jumped out of the water tank and tranformed into a stretch limousine — Transformers style.

One of the limousine’s tires turned into a flipper and beckoned us to come to him. Malfoy and I ran. I woke up.

Then I immediately fell back asleep and was at work. I was relating the dream that I just typed up to my co-workers, and was surprised to find Dave following everything I said and finishing my sentences.

He had had the same dream. Creepy.

Then I really woke up.