Outside the dorm/studio was a large brick building... almost like a gym or small factory in size. I was working on the top level [maybe the equivalent of the 2ond or 3rd story]... painting huge letters on the bricks different colors [though, that kept changing too... first, on the bricks then, on huge plastic letters]. I remember it was some sort of statement that ran along the top of the building... but the only word I could see from the windows of the hallway [which is where I watched the action of me painting in the dream] was the word "BASKETBALL."

There were perhaps ten different colors that I was supposed to use randomly to paint the letters in with. I had painted all the letters except for maybe 5 or 6, but didn't know what colors they wanted me to use for them. So, I went inside and found my supervisor in the upstairs dorm/studio lobby. The supervisor was TM... my fine arts advisor in waking life.

Once I was inside, I kept slipping and sliding [mostly on purpose] on the wooden floors... I looked down and saw that I had socks on and no shoes. The floor was really slippery and I had fun sliding across them.

I asked TM what colors he wanted the remaining letters to be. We went to the hallway and looked out at the sign... we kept talking, but I don't remember what he ended up saying. As we were talking, I remember looking around and seeing a couple other people I have seen hanging around the art department here on campus. I don't know most of their names, but I've seen them around.

After we talked, I walked into my room [the door was already open... I'd never leave my door open in waking life]. There, on the floor in front of me, was a huge spider... about three inches in diameter. I froze as it crawled along. I took a step, and it crawled toward where my foot landed... then, I took another step with my other foot, and it crawled toward where that foot landed... following the vibrations. It was really freaking me out, so I tried to squish it [I suddenly had my heavy black boots on]. Suddenly, I couldn't move very fast... dream speed... and kept missing. Each time I would miss, it would turn towards that foot and jump into the air at my legs. It landed once and I brushed it off quickly as I shuddered. I hate spiders!!

About then, three black women came in... all college-aged, except for one in her mid 30s. The logical side of me was disappointed that this wasn't entirely my room... but, the dream side of me insisted that it was [there was only one bed in the room].

I knew the three women and, the feeling I got at seeing them was one of reserved friendship. I pointed at the spider [which was crawling towards my foot again] and they all freaked out. They told me to squish it. Trust me... I was trying!

Finally, I asked if anyone had a can of Raid or something. The older one pointed at some clothes on the floor. "Under there." I walked over [with an eye on the still-approaching spider] grabbed the can, uncapped it, and sprayed. It jumped up and startled me and I sprayed it again. It ran over to the right side of the bed and I chased after it but, when I got there, there was a cat sitting there... and the spider was next to it.

Scene jump. The spider disappeared and only the cat remained.

The cat made me very uneasy and it had almost a cartoony evil grin and a glint in its eyes as it stared back at me. Everything in me told me it was dangerous. I held out the Raid can and sprayed and sprayed and sprayed and sprayed... covering it with a thick foam. The foam filled its mouth and ears and eyes and I still kept spraying. Finally, the cat started looking very weak and tried to run away.

I felt a tinge of sadness... that I had to kill a cat... I like cats... but that one was dangerous. I wondered how painful it would be.... I walked back out of the room [noticing that everyone was gone] thinking how I'm gonna have to clean up the spider mess and cat mess later... and was not looking forward to it.

I walked back out to the lobby and again had seemed to loose my shoes... thus sliding across the wooden floors. *whee!!*

TM called me over to the studio entrance. As I approached, another girl he had been speaking to left. He was starting a new project.... [Bare with me... this is a dream, remember?] The point was to lie straight on the floor [on your stomach] and trace around yourself. Then, you would paint yourself in the resulting outline as a... zombie. Yeah. It was a cool idea in the dream. He called them "zombie-forms." After everyone had done one, the entire floor would be covered in some sort of clear glaze-like stuff so that people could walk on the floor and not mess up all the zombie-forms.

Anyway.

For some reason, he couldn't lie on the floor... and wanted me to lay down for his outline. I kept thinking that our shapes weren't even close to being the same, but he said that he just needed the basic idea, and then he would make it thinner and shorter, etc. as he filled it in. Oooookaaaay....

So I lay down and he sketched around me. This took a while to do and images of my pillow kept flashing so I think I was only semi-asleep at this point [hence the requirement that I lay on my stomach... I was laying on my stomach on my pillow in waking life].

When he was done, I stood up and he started working on his zombie-form. He stopped and told me that he'd trace another one of me if I wanted to start my zombie-form then. I said that it was too much detail for me to handle right then and that, if I started, "...it'd be more of a caricature than anything else." He told me again that I could start my zombie-form. I told him maybe later... that I had some other stuff to do first.

I started walking back to my room and I heard some guys coming up the stairs. I looked down and noticed that my shirt was covered in paint and the black charcoal pencil TM had used to trace my outline. I ran into a closet next to my room [which suddenly turned into my school's dorm closet] and changed shirts.

I then walked into my room [the door was still wide open... bugs me now, but not in the dream] where two of the black women were waiting for me. It was suddenly very dark... like night, and one of them had a [disturbingly weak] flashlight. I asked them if there were more spiders? Yes. They closed the door a bit so I could look behind it.... There was a huge fucking monstrous spider web that pulled out a bit when the door exposed it... and there, sitting at eye level to me... in the middle of the flashlight's circle of light, was another huge spider. I freaked, grabbed the can of Raid, and sprayed it. It jumped at me and I panicked as I ran further into my room trying to get it off of me.

It was then that I saw another spider. I yelled "There!" and the flashlight found it. I sprayed it and it ran away. Another spider moved off in my peripheral vision and I turned and sprayed it too. It was about then that I remembered the cat, so I went into the bathroom... where the light was on.

The cat was sitting on a stool in front of the sink and trying to clean its face off. It really wasn't doing so well and I knew it was going to die if I didn't do something. I suddenly felt very sorry that I had tried to poison it. The cat looked at me for help and the dream jumped... it was the older black woman from before. I turned on the water in the sink so it could drink and wash its mouth out. The cat/lady [it kept flashing back and forth] started lapping up water and I did my best to wash the foam out of its eyes.

I then left it to keep cleaning itself up and went back out into the dark room... where the other two women were trying to kill the spiders. Something was said, but I don't remember what.

Then I went back into the bathroom and caught the cat/lady drinking a bottle of some chemical. I grabbed it and told her to stop... that I didn't want her to die... that I was so sorry I had sprayed her. She smiled and said that it was okay... the chemical would help remove the poisons from her body. Oh. Okay. I gave her the bottle and she lapped up a little more.

It was here that I broke down and, on the verge of tears, told her over and over and over how sorry I was... that I hadn't known.... She kept patting my head and saying that it was okay... she forgave me. I couldn't allow myself to believe it... I had tried to kill her! I couldn't believe I was forgiven, but I accepted her reply all the same.

The other two women were having a hard time killing the rest of the spiders, so I excused myself and went to help them.

We all tried to squish as many as we could [I had my boots on again] but it was hard with only one flashlight [why we never thought to turn the lights on....] We each had a can of Raid and we sprayed everywhere. Die, spider! Die!!

I saw the last one [don't know how, but we all knew it was the last one] and walked towards it. It was starting to get a little lighter outside by this time and I could see it without the flashlight. I stomped it and squished it into the ground cheering. The other two women were cheering too and, as I lifted my foot up, I started dancing around a little bit singing, "Let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the flooooooooooooor!" They all laughed and danced around a little too. When I watched them this time, I got the impression that these people were my good friends.

Then I woke up... with Drowning Pool stuck in my head. *chuckles*