+ 09.12.08 +

I'm crewing a submarine with a bunch of other students, either as part of a class or training, complete with tough guy instructor yelling orders. Weird thing is, the sub is made up of twin hulls joined by that central dorsal spire ... and I never got the feeling anybody was inside of it, though there could have been more students doing internal work. The majority of us are scampering about the exterior doing stuff, being barked at and holding on. Oh, and nobody is wearing any sort of scuba gear - the teach is in gym shorts and an army drab t-shirt - because the water were floating through represented by a dense, deep sea-colored fog.

Before too long I'm commanded to help pull this protective cover over my hull of the sub (it's black pinstripe?). We get it over and secured, but meanwhile a huge shadow passes under the sub and resolves into a massive shark-shape when it gets farther away. Teach laughs at my concern and agrees it is a big 'un.

We start having engine problems and a propellor stalls. I immediately think it's jammed up with fish grinding through it, but don't speak my mind until we start floating down to park at a gas station apparently at the bottom of the fog. I hop off the sub and start to think about how we cleared this problem in another dream of mine, but then we spot another huge shark shadow, approaching the starboard side. There's much concern over this one, and once the shadow glistens a bit somebody calls out that we've got a shapeshifter on our hands. Like the chesire cat, the things enormously toothy grin appears first, then the rest of the shark resolves in ...

Teach commands a team of us to subdue the beast so repairs can be carried out on the sub. Since I'm off the sub I join the team, which includes a couple dudes and this one chick (who looked not unlike April O' Neil in the new TMNT animated flick, now that I think about it). We're armed with a couple pokey things, a couple rolls of duct tape and some other kind of fastener. The shark-thing - which has resolved into a mottled yellow / green / brown critter, more like a lizard really with buggy eyes and really a huge mouth - settles to the ground about ten feet away and watches us, occasionally breaking into a huge grin. The chick's plan is apparently to lunge forward when it has its lips closed and duct tape the critter's mouth closed, then we'll all slap more duct tape on there and somehow that'll keep it busy until the sub can leave. I clutch my pokey stick as the chick moves in, tape at the ready ...

And the scene radically shifts. Me, the chick, the two dudes and the monster are all inside - asphalt replaced with red carpet, a large glass window front to the left, wall to the right, decorative plants around. The chick is still inching in, the monster staring at her with his yellow eyes ... When in another whirl the monster becomes a collection of furniture (yellow / green / brown striped) and a vending machine. The chick and the team dispurses, as the movie or play or whatever gets out and a flood of people I know - mostly from my last job, actually - come out and carry us along towards the stairs leading to the door out. I apparently have a box of donuts I made (with the chick's help?), which are pretty popular but run out, leaving one loud coworker to complain.