Dream Interpreter AI™

Running Toward Riley

I dreamed I was a child again, standing in my childhood bedroom. Ray(current friend and roommate) was there with me, but he looked the way he does now. I showed him all my favorite places. He gently helped fix my hair, and while we were moving around the room, I tripped slightly over a ramp that led down beneath the floor television. He asked where it went, and I told him it led to my most favorite place. We followed the ramp downward, and it led to my teenage closet. As I looked at it, everything suddenly glitched and transformed into a massive cinema, teenaged now myself. It was enormous and mostly empty, except for two seats side by side on top of a very tall pillar. I stood instead of sitting and watched the movie. At some point, my shoe slipped off and fell over the side. Someone pointed at me. I found myself both imagining climbing down carefully and also running deeper into the cinema. I chose to run. I went down a long hallway, moving deeper and deeper into the theater. I passed movie after movie, seeing them from behind the projectors instead of from the audience. Eventually, I reached what looked like a mostly empty sauna room. There was one man there with big blue eyes, a knitted cap, and a wide, warm smile. He stayed with me. We ran together and played. He helped me leave, and we moved toward an exit. When I ran outside, I was suddenly an adult. I was in the town where I live now. It was sunny, but only briefly. I was working, and then I left work and saw a hurricane on the horizon. Immediately, I decided to leave. I started running toward my current home. It was a long run, and the rains started and got heavier as I ran. I kept tripping over my feet and cursing at curbs. Cars stopped at every section, and the people inside asked why I was running, why I would want to leave. I felt like I couldn’t look up at their faces. I felt like their faces wouldn't be there if I did. I opened the door to the house, but it led back to the sauna. I was still an adult, and now the room was full of people, shoulder to shoulder. Only one person was familiar, the man with the bright blue eyes and knitted cap. He looked exactly the same as before. He looked sad as people passed through him like he wasn’t solid or real. He asked what had happened to me, where my joy had gone. I told him I was leaving, that I had to run, that there was somewhere to go and someone I had to meet. He didn’t try to stop me. I left, and I woke up as the door closed. I realized somewhere in the realm between awake and asleep, that it was Riley (my fiancé) I was thinking of. That I was running towards. That I had to meet.