I’m head of security of what appears to be a building on a university campus full of top-secret documents. At day’s end, there’s no way to tell whether papers are walking out with students and others.

I realize one person did walk out with papers. I look around and pursue him into the black of midnight (although it was 5 o’clock only moments ago). Everyone knows he’s wanted.

I suddenly realize I have no weapon, no gun. Anything I was supposed to be guarding should have been secured, people should have been searched on the way out, etc.

I go home and am playing some odd game with food with one of my children. It starts to rain. It pours through the ceiling. I realize my home is part of a restaurant, but when I walk around outside I can’t find it. I see the restaurant furniture and people (dry), but I can’t find where my home begins. I think how I will have to fix the roof before I can sell it.

I’m trying to take a photo of two friends for an annual. They are the last holdouts. I’m using a film camera. I take one, but I always take two in case one doesn’t work. They keep fooling around, playing with each other’s hair, mugging, etc. I get more and more frustrated and annoyed with them, but they won’t stop.

A massive carriage comes along and runs them down, but miraculously they are untouched — the (draft) horses and carriage somehow go over them without touching them. It happens again. Other things come along. They continue to fool around. I get depressed thinking how, sometime soon, I won’t be able to get film developed. It will be obsolete.

I am in a dark underground bar. I am trying to figure out where to go. A man comes down the steps and tosses a long sword and another weapon (pike? lance?) on the steps. I wonder why someone would leave weapons lying around like that. Someone else does something similar. I think it’s dangerous. Soon, there is a mock fight between two different [men] who have picked up the weapons. They’re swinging wildly and laughing, but I know they are going to hurt themselves accidentally.

A powerboat comes out of nowhere and speeds through a glassless window onto grass outside. There is weird dancing. The world seems insane. No one can explain it.

Later, I confirm no English knight would allow girls to dance around during such a serious fight, but a French knight would. Something like this happened during the mock fight, at which of course they did hurt or kill each other, I hear.

The word of the day is “flummox.” Lately words have occurred to me in the early hours and stuck with me until I wake up.

Main Entry: 1flum’ mox
Variant(s): also flum’ mix or flum’ mux flmks, -mks
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): -ed/-ing/-es
Etymology: origin unknown
transitive verb : to throw into perplexity : embarrass greatly : CONFOUND, DISCONCERT
intransitive verb : to fail or give up : COLLAPSE