What a fascinating and wonderful dream I had today.  I can already tell you that it was largely influenced by having watched the newer movie version of The Time Machine a couple of days ago, but nothing specific from the movie was in the dream.

  The dream started in what appeared to be an empty factory.  It was not the kind of factory that had huge machines and conveyer belts, though.  It was a single building with some different rooms that were now empty, except for leftover debris, like pieces of paper.

  I was a different person, in the dream.  The whole thing had a movie quality, and I had the point of view of the lead character, including some of his personality.

  The overall story line was illogical, but the details of that will be explained.

  A man had sent me back in time.  Though no dates were ever distinguished by anything in the dream or even dream knowledge, I can guess that I was sent back about ten to twelve or so years from whatever my "present" was.  The present didn't seem to be very far from the actual present, but to give a sort of idea, I'd say the whole thing took place somewhere between the dates of 1985 and 2005, leaving room to move.

  In this otherwise empty factory is some sort of time device.  I hesitate to call it a machine, because it seemed to have a more mystical quality.

  My job is to get to the device and do something to it, though I'm not sure if I'm turning it on, off, or just adjusting it.  I'm in a long room or hallway, and through open doors can be seen two other rooms, which contain much more debris strewn on the floor.

  Suddenly, the long wall to my right starts pulling apart from the middle.  It was actually just a huge door, and it opened to reveal a larger room behind it.  When that wall finished, the far wall, on the other side of the larger room began to pull up into the ceiling.  It was also a large door of sorts.

  Behind that wall was a room or hallway just like the one I was in, except that inside that room was a small creature.  The creature was about two and a half feet tall.  It was spherical and had a single, large eye above a large mouth.

  At this point, I need to tell you that I had the first section of the dream twice, though a little differently each time.  With the first time, I somehow "defeated" the creature, and then moved on through that far room's side door.

  That door lead to a room that seemed rather futuristic, and definitely not a normal part of the building, though the walls and what I think was, a single bench in the room, were made of stone or cement.  Also, I can't say for sure if it was entirely due to the lighting, or if some of, or even all of, it was the coloring of the stone, but the room had an icy, blue tint to it.

  The far end of that room had a doorway, and the door was actually two stone "panels".  This will require further explanation.

  If you looked at the doors from the top, they would look like slightly elongated diamond shapes.  They had a bar, or whatever, down their centers, from ceiling to floor, and the doors swiveled open and closed.  The sides of the diamond shapes fit along themselves and the specially shaped door-sides.  All of the sides over-lapped to form a flat, solid wall.

  These doors continuously opened and closed.  It took about three seconds to fully open, they would stay open for about one second, and then take about three seconds to close, and then stay closed for about one second, and then repeat.

  I made my way through those doors to another small, bluish, stone room that had a flat wall.  My memory is a little fuzzy for this one, but I touch part of the wall, or some parts of the wall, and something happens.  The blue "light" intensifies a little, the room gets a little colder, and then either the wall opens somehow, or I'm teleported to a third small, bluish, stone room.  I do not recall exactly how I got from one room to the other.

  This room was basically just like the second one, except the far wall of it had a depiction of some humanoid creature.  The picture was made by part of the stone being recessed from the rest.  I forget the technical name for that style of art.

  The picture on the wall is either the "machine" or just a control panel for the "machine", but I touch, I think the eye of the picture, and it causes something to happen.

  One thing to know is that whenever I touched the particular parts of the stone walls, the area of the stone just around my fingertip would sort of glow, but the glow was more like an electronic glow, as if the stone were a touch-sensitive computer screen.

  The glow beneath the fingertip was not just a single glow, either.  There was a tight glow just beneath the fingertip, a minute dark outline, and then a hard-line circle, about one centimeter thick, forming a basic outline of the fingertip, and then another minute dark outline, and then a larger surrounding glow.  All of it totaled about an inch and a half wide.

  I do not know what the "machine" actually achieved.  It seemed to turn on, but I can't really say that it was not already on, and that I didn't just change a setting, or something.  All I do know is that the "light" in the room intensified a little, and the room grew very cold for about fifteen seconds- colder and longer than the previous room.

  After the temperature went back to normal, the next thing I recall happening, in the dream, was me being back where I started.  I was going to have to redo the whole thing, but it was a little different, this time.

  When the first wall was opened, I suddenly found that a female was near me.  I'm not exactly sure why she was there, but the man "in charge" had put her there.  She was from a little bit further back, perhaps about three years, in the past, and she somehow informed me that she used to work there back when it was a candle factory.

  The female was in her early twenties, about a foot and a half shorter than "me", and had black hair.  Her hair was cut in a sort of layered bob, as far as I know of names of hairstyles, and it seemed to have a thickness.

  She was fair-skinned, had a full face, and was lean- not muscular, but not skinny.  She smiled a lot, was very pleasant, and seemed to possess a sort of child-like innocence, though she was not limited to a child's intelligence.

  I found her very attractive, and I desired to be with her, but I knew that I could not, because she was just put there to serve some purpose, though I did not know what purpose.  She knew what was going on and why she was there, but she did not "inform" me of anything else other than her former relation to the factory.

  The second wall in the factory pulled up into the ceiling, and the spherical creature was revealed, again.  I was expecting it that time, though I had no memory of how I had "defeated it.  I was close to it, and then it started extending its tongue towards me.

  I started running backwards, maintaining a distance between myself and the tongue, which was actually almost black and which looked a lot like a thick tree limb, and it was hollow, and the tip was open.

  The creature seemed to have a happy expression, but in my mind, at the time, it was trying to harm me.  When I was near the wall opposite the creature, it seemed the tongue could extend no further, so I stopped and grabbed it.

  My plan was to hold the tongue and swing the creature around, eventually smashing it into a wall a few times, but I had difficulty doing that, because the creature started bouncing towards me.  I tried moving from side to side to get some tension on the tongue, but the creature kept it just loose enough for me to accomplish nothing.

  I started to get worried, so I moved around the room, trying to stay away from it.  I think I may have released the tongue at that point.  I noticed that the female walked calmly and happily around and near the creature.  Dream knowledge told me that the creature was aware of her, but that it had no interest in her.

  I'm not sure exactly how I came to realize it, except in part due to the fact that the creature never actually attacked me, but the creature was a friendly one, and it was just sort of saying hello to me, like a very friendly dog.

  For some reason, my goal had changed.  I was not sure exactly what I was supposed to be trying to accomplish, but I did know what I was supposed to be doing to accomplish it.  It was sort of like having a map but not know where it leads.

  In the factory, there were a few, or possibly just one, dream knowledge did not seem to deem it important, time and space "doorway".  These "doorways" could be in actual doorways, or they could exist along implied thresholds between rooms with no separating doors.

  The portals, if you will, occasionally appeared to be a thin and sort of shimmering, though otherwise clear, wall, but they were usually unseen.  If the portal leads to some other location, as well as time, then you would be able to see that location through the portal.  It would appear to be a well-defined connection of mismatched locales.

  I may possibly have been to more locales than I will recount, but if I did, I do not recall them in any way.

  Also, in each of the other locales, there was more than one portal.  What I was supposed to do was go through specific portals in a specific order.  This would send me skipping chronologically forward in time to wherever I was supposed to go.

  My first stop was a very quick one to a place that seemed like a cross between a bookstore and a library, though I don't distinctly recall seeing any books.  The room was large and one "store" in a block of businesses within a town, and I don't mean a mall or shopping center.

  There were tall wooden shelves along the walls, and at least one very thick one in the middle of the room.  The back of the shelf faced the front, and the front of the shelf was placed along the edge of a single step, which lead to a lower section of the room.  You could walk around either side of the shelf.

  There was a movable staircase in front of the right side of that shelf, parallel to the shelf, and it seemed to be leading to some sort of metal catwalk along the side of the room, though I never looked directly at it to know for sure.

  I was suddenly with a male friend who, at that point, had remained unidentified.  I had no knowledge of any purpose for him being there other than possibly merely a traveling companion.

  Events were unclear, but I believe we passed a male employee, who was on the stairs, and we went onto the catwalk.  I suddenly found myself a few steps up from the base of a wooden staircase leading up to an enormous loft floor inside someone's house.

  A man had run out from around a corner and was leaning over the railing, shouting angrily towards the first floor.  He had a very small towel wrapped around his waist and had something on his head.  He was behaving as if he had just gotten out of the shower, but part of the time, he looked like he had just gotten out of a swimming pool.  Part of the time, he seemed to be wearing goggles on his head and had on a Speedo under the partially open towel.

  Both the loft and the first floor of the house were empty, because he had just moved in, a day or two ago.  At first, it seemed he was angry with us for intruding, though he had never actually looked at us, and by the time he was yelling over the railing, my companion and I were already on the loft level.

  In fact, my companion, who now was some unreal version of my best friend from my school days, was standing on the other side of him.  We were both in other, unknown people's bodies.

  A little later, some movers began carrying in some furniture, though all I saw was one mover holding up his end of a small bookcase as he began to enter the first-floor room from the foyer.

  The floors of the first and second floor were a light colored hardwood, and the stairs, banister, and railing of the loft were the same color wood.  The house had an incredibly new and clean both feel and look to it.

  I do not recall where I was supposed to go at that point, and the actual going was a little fuzzy, but I went through another portal and found myself on the first floor of the house, possibly five to eight years in the future.  I don't recall any of the "how", but I knew that I had gone through the wrong portal and messed up my "path", and I could not backtrack.

  I should have gone to a completely different location as well as a different time, but I had traveled only through time, though I did technically end up at a different location within the house.

  I would have to draw a floor plan to give a better idea of how the house looked and where things happened, and I probably will, but sufficed to say that the staircase was near the foyer, and the foyer stuck out inside the house, but the walls of the foyer were glass with etched and frosted designs- nothing too intricate.  The edges of the foyer were dark wood.

  I was alone, now, and standing in a sort of archway, looking towards the side of the foyer.  There were a number of people entering the house, home from dining out.

  For part of this, I was an unnoticed observer inside the foyer, and there I saw and, with the help of dream knowledge, knew that entering were the family who lived there, and a family who may have been their friends or possibly the family of a sibling.

  Basically, there were two married couples, and there may have been a third couple that was not yet married.  One important thing to note was that one of the married females was a the black-haired female from the candle factory, except she was about ten years older, and while still pleasant, had a more mature and adult personality.

  Her hair was essentially the same, though not as full looking.

  When they entered into the main portion of the house, the dream switched a little to me being an unexpected guest who was a friend of one of them, though I don't know which one.  I sort of switched into this new role, and I greeted them by waving them all in.  I don't recall what I actually said, but I was beckoning them to come in and we would start having some fun time.

  There was another quick switch- possibly another time jump, though I don't know for sure -to a whole lot of family members being in the house.  They were not my family, but instead, there were grandparents, in-laws, cousins, nieces and nephews of the couple who lived there.

  The house was heavily decorated with general home accoutrements, but the place and the gathering made it seem almost like it was Christmas, though nothing specifically signified that it was Christmas.  It was just a family gathering for no apparent reason other than to be with each other and enjoy each other's company.

  There were people in the kitchen and in the living room, and I talked to a number of people on one topic or another- nothing terribly important, but the one person who did grab my particular interest was one of the grandfathers.

  He was about a head shorter than me, though it seemed more at times, and he had a bit of a belly on him.  He had a glass of some kind of drink in one hand, and he put his other hand on my back to guide me over a little so he could show me something on a tall side-table.

  I never got a clear look at what was on the table, but he was also showing me the back of his head and telling me how he used his wife's (now deceased) hair to put sort of extensions on his own.

  Just so you'll know, the hair was cut from her while she was still alive and healthy.  She had hair about just past her shoulders, she wanted to cut it much shorter, and they kept the length that was cut off.

  Her hair was black and peppered with white, and it was basically the same color and type as his.  He wore a sort of headband that either kept the hair to his head or just covered where her hair was attached to his.  Either way, he wore her hair down to his neckline at the back of his head.

  To him, it served to both have more hair and to help keep her with him.  It was romantic in a weird sort of way.

  A little while after that, there was an event with me sitting next to a baby that wanted some milk, but all the bottles in the vicinity were either empty or almost empty, and no one else in the room seemed to be paying attention.

  A little after that event, I walked into what was the kitchen area, but then seemed to be just an open room.  Two adult females, relation unknown, were reliving some game they played together, when they were kids.  It involved two open, aluminum ladders lying sideways on the floor, and the two females were pretending to fly an airplane.

  As I walked passed them, they seemed to grow increasingly younger until they were actually small children again.

  The room phased again into a number of family members sitting in small chairs in a virtually undecorated room.  They were watching as a small boy exhibited his rather large toy airplane.

  I am not sure what all he used to make the plane, but it was a crafts project that included, among other things, paint, cardboard, glue, and possibly even fabric.  The plane was a nearly three-foot-high double-winged propeller plane model of one his father had flown in the military.  Given the relative dates, go figure how that works out.

  For what it's worth, the plane was painted dark blue with dark red trim.  The boy, about eight to ten years old, was proud of his work, and the plane did look impressive, but the boy's father saw that a detail about the plane was off.

  I do not recall exact dialogue, but the father was essentially saying that the model was a failure, and he was somewhat angry.  He was continuing to speak, and though I did nothing directly, my dream-self seemed to slightly mentally guide things until, the father, who had gotten up and walked around to the other side of the room, was now quiet and seeing himself still in his seat, complaining about the model.

  In seeing his own behavior, he reached an epiphany and decided that he should change.

  I was going to leave through another portal, and I exited that room and went, with much spatial illogic, into a dining room.  In there was a small oval table with some people eating a very nice dinner.  I passed them and was headed somewhere, though I have no idea where, when someone at the table stopped me.

  I looked back, and there was a slightly plump, older black man sitting in the middle along the wall.  People sat on only one side, and there were about four or five people, all senior citizens, total.

  He was a gleeful man, and he told me- again, not recalling exact dialogue -that he was very pleased with my work.  With a little help from dream knowledge, I was also told that even though I had messed up my original "job", which I still did not know anything about, I had made a significant change for the better for the boy and his father.

  Incidentally, that man was not the man "in charge", from the beginning of the dream.

  I was told that for what I had done, I was being rewarded.  I thought that was wonderful, and then I turned again to go through a portal that was apparently on the implied threshold between the dining room and the area just before the side of the foyer.  Just as I turned the man told me to wait, so I turned back around.  He pulled a black, plastic clothes hanger out of his inside jacket pocket and handed it to me as he told me to walk through carrying it.

  I had, and have, no idea what bearing the hanger had on anything, but I took it and went.  I passed through the portal, and suddenly some more people are coming out of the foyer.  I sort of phase back into standing in the kitchen, and I'm watching the people come in, some carrying groceries.  I look at them, and I notice that half of the people are the same ones as some that had been there before, but the other half were ones that I'd never seen.  Also, there were fewer in all.

  Dream knowledge told me that the new people were "my" relatives.  While the house had previously belonged to the black-haired woman and her husband (not the same guy from when the house was empty, by the way), it was now "me" who was married to her.

  I was rather excited, and I went through the living room and down a hallway, looking into rooms to try to find her.  While in the kitchen and going through the house, I took note of the decor.  The kitchen and living room were heavily decorated with things that you could get from catalogues.  It was as if every object in the house was mail-ordered and entirely unoriginal, but the place was immaculately clean and virtually new looking.

  I eventually found her in our bedroom.  She had recently finished showering and was lying on the bed, though I am not sure what else she was doing.  She was awake and seemed to be on her stomach, possibly reading a magazine.

  She was wearing a kimono that was mostly blue with almost flower-petal-like bits of yellow and green.  She had her hair up in a net, which held dried potpourri to her hair.  She did this to scent her hair.

  I rushed to her and guided her to turning over to face me.  To her, life had lead normally up to this point, and she knew nothing of portals and such.  She was pleased to see me, and I moved my face closer to hers and was about to speak.  I had previously been eating, so she pushed me back a bit to avoid my food breath, but said nothing of it and, though the smile had diminished slightly, she was still happy to see me.

  I don't recall if I actually did say anything.  The next thing I distinctly recall was guiding her to lie back on the bed.  This exposed her bare stomach, and then I lowered my head to lay it on her stomach to feel the expanse of the flesh against my cheek.  The back of my right hand was cold, and I then slipped it between my cheek and her stomach- the cold, back of my hand against her stomach.  She did not noticeably enjoy it, but neither did she dislike it.

  She was smiling and I was smiling and then, for lack of a better phrase, faded into being awake.  It was the first time I had ever awakened like that from a dream.

  The whole scene seemed to fade to a solid white and then into the reality of awakening, and it felt like I had been released from the dream.  It was like, the dream is complete, so you may now awaken, and it was done so pleasantly.

  A few things to note are that while the real me would not have found the decor of the house visually distasteful, I am not a person who is inclined to decorate a dwelling entirely in mass-produced items bought from catalogues, and I would definitely not have anywhere near so many items.

  Also, the real me does not like the kimono she wore, and I definitely would not appreciate scenting ones hair, though I do find the concept of doing it with dried potpourri quite interesting.  I'm not a fan of potpourri, though.  Do recall that "I" was someone else, in the dream, and not myself.