Mt. Rainier Erupts: Film at 11

I've been lax recording my dreams. I need to do it first thing in the AM, when they're fresh, but usually I want to get busy on other things and so it doesn't happen. I just have so many of them! Last night I had several that involved Mt. Rainier erupting, which is interesting since at around 5:30 PM today Mt. St. Helens started spewing huge plumes of ash (not really a fresh eruption, just an increase of the activity that started last October).

1. This started with some Middle Earth stuff...can't remember exactly but Gandalf had something for me to do and we were riding around on horses. Then I was working on another movie with the guys who played Hobbits and we kept referring back to LOTR.

2. I'm now in Seattle, getting ready to go on or just getting back from a cruise. Or maybe it was a hotel instead of a ship (sorry). The usual confusion about not being able to find my room, and then struggling to pack my belongings. At some point we (Gordon, my mom, and my brother) made it to the car park and load into my Volvo station wagon (haven't had that car since '89, but it was a GREAT car!). Night is falling and when I look over the city I see that Mt. Rainier is beginning to erupt! In reality this wouldn't have much, if any, direct impact on Seattle, but in my dream it was crisis time! I do my best to round up family and get them moving out of town. I phone my sister, who is in an office somewhere, and tell her to drop everything and get out before the panic sets in and the city becomes gridlocked.

Then we're driving down the road. I'm in the front passenger seat and Mom is driving, but I look over and she's reclined asleep with a blanket over her! Up a hill to our right lava is beginning to sluice down toward the road: we need to swerve to avoid it but Mom is oblivious. I try to wake her but she is too sleepy, so I grab the wheel and put my foot on the accelerator. We begin to skid and I don't know how we're going to get out of this...I've got to get on a different road...! Then a cat woke me wanting to come in...

3. It's back to sleep...and Mt. Rainier is still erupting, of course. My subconscious is nothing if not persistent! Now it's daylight and Gordon, Rod (an adult, for once) and I are in downtown Seattle, trying to organize mobs of people into order and generally get the heck out of there. The mountain is erupting in an ILM-worthy fashion, with rivulets of Hawaiian-style lava and explosions of gas-powered flame. Suddenly white-hot streaks begin "popping" off the glowing slopes leaving comet-like trails: huge flaming boulders burning like magnesium are exploding from the mountain and heading in several directions. One or two of them arc toward Elliot Bay, and hit the water with explosive force, sending gouts of superheated water/steam pluming skyward. I watch, transfixed, as this monumental "spray" jets into the sky. "Duck! Cover your head!" I holler, running as a glob of hot mud plasters itself to my leg. We dart into the deep doorway of a nearby office building as the fallout splats around us. A sulfury drop splashes onto my glasses and I hastily try to wipe it off; of course it just smears. I worry that the acid content will ruin the lenses. We push on, and head toward Pike Place Market and its relative shelter... The dream degenerates into the usual exploration of various vintage clothing shops, which I delight in until I wake up and realize I can't "take it with me".