sanity is relative

The first part of this dream I've forgotten but it involved Indiana Jones and a good-sized archeological dig party crossing the desert. I was a pretty female character of Arabian or perhaps Indian origin and I'm not sure if I was Indy's love interest or not because after this point where I can remember the dream, he always seemed to be off in the distance. I remember a sandstorm hitting, and someone saying, "Your chances of finding any such storm, much less his storm, are a thousand to one." (I don't remember the exact wording of what the odds would be, but either way for a moment it was like we were chasing the bad guy from The Mummy but this thought came and went as if it was an unimportant or incorrect plot point in the dream.) I remember covering my face with my veil (I was dressed more ethnically than modernly) and waiting out the sandstorm, and when it ended I kept following the dig team as we passed by a cliff that rose about 20 feet in the air before falling again into the dunes further along.

Someone was on top of the cliff keeping a lookout and they called down to us that Indy's archnemesis was going to overtake us. I don't remember the guy's name, but it seemed inevitable that he'd catch us all so I didn't try putting up a fight and acted like I was just there and didn't hold any specific loyalty to the party. I didn't even know this guy personally and I don't think he had any clue who I was. (And as I've forgotten his name we'll call him Arliss and he was sort of Arab-Middle-Eastern looking with short curly hair and vaguely dark skin.) It seems like some of the men in the party fought but that didn't last long.

Next thing I know I'm right by this guy and he's sorta taken things over. He's half trying to get information out of me and half putting moves on me. I ignored his advances but readily gave information on the specific topic he was after: several clues written on parchment paper we'd unearthed at a previous dig site. I told him I'd put them in my pocket and they'd disintegrated but I had the translations written in my notebook. The paper had turned into tiny black sandlike particles (stupid dream logic) and I said he could have all of it as it was still in my pocket. He seemed pleased with this, like his experts could put the thing back together to be sure I hadn't missed anything. He gave me a glass vial that looked like a small test-tube for me to empty the bits into.

I filled the first vial and also found a silver unicorn pendant in my pocket that I'd forgotten about. It seems we'd found it with the original document that had since died in my pocket, but we knew the pendant had to outdate the papers. Like some medieval crusader had been at the site centuries later. There were still more particles in my pocket so I needed another vial. Arliss gave me a bigger one, and this time I spilled some grains onto the sand at my feet. I picked them up quickly, afraid that he might get angry at my sloppiness but he didn't seem to care. (At this point dream logic reared it's head again and there were instantly a bunch of the particles in my mouth for some reason, like I'd been so terribly sloppy as to manage them getting in there (??) but they did actually appear instantly, not "fall in my mouth" gradually or something odd like that. I took them out and put them in the vial as well.) I needed yet another vial and he seemed to be out of them, but he had a jar of sand and seashells that he gave me and said, "Put the rest in there." I asked, "Just on top of everything else?" and he said yes. So I did and that was the end of it finally.

He was packing all this up with some other things he'd confiscated from our stuff and in it was a small american flag. He said something about my someday disliking that symbol or even hating it, and I said something to the effect like I already did. So it would seem he was trying to convert my loyalty to his side (whatever that was, yeah it had a feeling of stereotypical terrorism stuff). Then he kissed me and I remember watching the scene and the girl who had been me was kissing him back... then I thought, hey, that's not right, let's redo that scene... and it backed up to just before the kiss.

Then I woke up.

But that's what I did. I was a guy for this entire dream, very athletic and kinda skinny. This was like, the most intense, biggest race you could ever do, and there were only four contestants. I represented Australia, and my main competitor was American. The other two guys injured or collapsed themselves out of the race. I mean, geez, we ran non-stop for a week. Okay, you could stop if you wanted to, but that only put you in risk of losing... I remember we were allowed to change our shoes once (because we'd literally wear them out from all the running) and I had done it early, 3 days into the race instead of 4 like most people did. But I had put on two pairs of socks, and I knew this would probably help me get through the last bit better than waiting longer to change my shoes (maybe they'd had serious issues faster than I'd anticipated). The thought that the extra pair of socks would make me heavier and possibly lose the race was present in my mind but I decided to do it anyways.

The only scenes I remember from the race were during the daytime. I remember at some point, I think on a quick water-drinking break, I took off my running gloves (something my dream invented, as if they'd be needed for a race this long) and someone tried to put a liner in the right one to make it heavier. I discovered it and pulled it out and ran off amused at their attempts to make me lose. Yeah, obviously weight was a big thing in this race for some reason. Even the weight of a little bit of fabric.

And the other weird thing about this race was that you had to keep track of where you were supposed to run on your own a lot of the time. If you got off the track, you risked not being able to find it again. Sometimes the other runners would take shortcuts (you were allowed to do that if you wanted to risk losing the trail), and the American guy did this towards the end of the race, managing to get ahead of me for a moment. Then we reached a stretch of mowed lawn, and the track was designated by taller grass that hadn't been mowed as far down as the rest, but was still close to the same hight. It was very hard to see the trail, and this is when I decided it was shortcut time. I followed where the twisting, bizarre grass track was going with my eyes, and cut across the rest of the grass to a fence which was open, and I could tell the track went on through there. That led into the homestretch at a stadium, but it wasn't a big, olympic type stadium, it had sort of a converted horse racetrack feel to it. It was also dry and dusty.

I was afraid I might lose the race at this point because the American was so close behind me and I was running out of energy bad. But I put everything into the last stretch, and ran my heart out... and won. I remember just past the finish line all I could do was fall into the arms of my trainer and a friend (both guys) as they congratulated me and cheered. The American came up and offered me membership in his exclusive running club (at least, I think it was a club for runners, but I'm not really sure anymore just what it was for, it was a big honor though) and he wasn't mad at me for winning either, he was impressed. He gave me a bracelet with big gold and black charms on it, that signified my being part of the club he was in. I think the symbols were either stars/plus signs in circles or ships' stearing wheels... or maybe a combination of all those.

Then I woke up.

( dream symbol analysis and thoughts )