This dream was heavily influenced by the movie Dark City, which is odd, because it was around the middle of last year that I last saw it.  Despite the influence, however, the dream was also quite unlike the movie.  In the first part of the dream, I'm supposed to be in the movie (or my dream version of it), and I am aware that I am in the movie.

  In this city, there is day and night, but as dusk approaches, anyone who is outside turns into a sort of demon zombie type thing.  They keep their own basic appearance, but their skin sallows and grays a little, and they become slightly more gangly, and sometimes a little deformed, and they "attack" any normal person who goes outside during the night.

  Since I always have some kind of exception to the rules of any given dream, even though I was out at dusk, when the others changed, I did not change.  And as for the attack, I don't know what they would do to anyone caught, because dream knowledge revealed nothing, and no one was actually caught.

  Also, I'm guessing that the next morning, the zombies turn back into normal people.  Dream knowledge didn't reveal the long term effects, but I didn't get the sense that it was permanent.

  I was in the driver's seat of a blue van in the parking lot of a local grocery store.  The dreamed switched a bit, so at another point I'm outside of the van, but I was in some kind of small trouble, though I don't recall exactly what kind, but I seem to remember I was a little injured, somehow, and could not move, though I was standing and not in pain.

  The people in the store saw my predicament, and three girls came out to see what the problem was.  It was almost dusk.  By the way, dusk was different in the dream than in real life.  The sky is still blue, and then in a matter of seconds, it's dark.

  Well, the girls were walking towards me, concerned, and when they got about six feet away, they started quickly changing.  One thing to note is that everyone knows this happens every night, so it's common, and they accept it, so, I'm not sure why these three girls came out, when all the other people knew not to risk it.

  So, I'm being surrounded by about 5 or 6 zombies, when suddenly I pull one of these wake up from the dream routines, except that I'm still in the dream, and I know it.  I wake up, and suddenly I have this major close up view of a gray alien's face, only it's more scary looking, then I wake up again, and I'm in the back of the van across from three gray aliens who are sitting on the floor, huddled together and scared.  I woke up again, but I don't recall what happened that time.

  The next thing I do recall is that I'm in a school bus (with a large sliding side door) with a number of former classmates, and we are riding very slowly on the street in front of the aforementioned parking lot.  I'm talking to one particular classmate named Walter.  I know again that I'm in the movie, but I'm not the least bit troubled by it.

  I don't recall most of the dialogue, but I had told him that we were in the movie, and I think I had added, "the one with Jennifer Connely in it", but he was insisting that she wasn't in it, and he said, "No, Jennifer Connely is in Gutter Angels." You should know that I have never in my life heard of a movie called Gutter Angels.

  So, dusk arrives, the few people outside turn to zombies, though I never really looked at them, because they were unimportant this time.  The primary concern was when a number of dimensional tears opened in the fabric of space, spewing forth a variety of other dimensional creatures, all of which seemed to be cartoons, albeit realistic looking ones... well, the first ones were realistic looking.

  Anyway, I got a look at only two tears.  One was in the street not too far from the open side door of the bus, and the other was in the air above a chain link fence.  These inter-dimensional monsters had intended to invade us, but apparently the tears could be opened only at night, so upon they're arrival, they immediately are met by zombies, and they start to fight.

  Things are unclear from there up until, pretty much all the of monsters and zombies have defeated each other (none are dead, they're just all laying on the ground unconscious), and I go over to this special dimensional doorway that is rectangular, about 10 feet high and 8 feet wide, and it's all blue and white (the dimensional tears were black) and shiny.

  Sitting on the ground beside this door were about 3 or 4 of the other-dimensional creatures, but these were nice, and were very cartoon-like, except for the one who strongly resembled Gary Coleman.  Again, the exact dialogue is unclear, but we were talking about how not all of the other-dimensional creatures were all bad.

  I was also told that to them, our dimension (which they didn't previously know existed) was actually a story the monster parents told their monster children so they would behave.  If they didn't behave, then one of us would go to their dimension, steal the monster child away, and eat it.

  The funny part was what the Gary Coleman looking one said, afterwards, to show is understanding that we're not that bad.  This is not quite his exact words, but it was something close to, "I mean, I've eaten a few myself." The one sitting to his left looked at him curiously.  Apparently cannibalism there is accepted as much as it is here.

  If you're wondering why Gary Coleman had anything to do with this dream, I think it had something to do with the Simpson's.  He was in a Simpson's episode, and at one point, in the dream, there was a giant, slightly badly drawn Nelson creature.  It was quite a ride.