I was at a family gathering, and I was so sleepy I missed most of it. When I woke up I was in a room, which seemed to be in a huge mansion owned by nana. Closets were full of dozens of pairs of her slippers. As I looked among the clothes I chose a pair of her slippers to have and wear to remember her, when I have a baby. They were dark blue velvet slippers, and new, among many identical pairs in the closet.

I still felt so tired but was afraid I was missing everything.

I got up and tried to find something to wear. I found dresses I used to own in the 80s, which now seemed to belong to my mother. I found many clothes which in the dream reality I used to own. A beautiful and elaborate pale blue corset, looking more like a foundation garment than anything, a shirt laced together in the back which was made of a fabric printed with a glam shot of me in a small oval in a pattern down the front. In the dream I remembered someone gifting that to me. There were some new relatives, a lot of babies, too. One was a woman who was named nina, married to a black lawyer, who had just had her third at age 48. I found my mother and asked her what I missed, and she said nothing.

People were moving into the kitchen, the whole house and grounds was becoming a mall with fast food outlets set up all around the kitchen.

In this dream, I was at Burning Man. My friends were scattered around, but the festival was now inside a huge, enormous convention center. Our cell phones worked, so I could reach people when I wanted to find them. I spent my days wandering around...each day seemed to go by in an hour or so of dream-time.

One day, I found a mother with a five-year-old boy I started playing with and we had some adventures. Another day I discovered that a lot of attendees were having mini-garage sales.

Suddenly, my unconscious mind seemed to embroider on this theme of shopping at Burning Man and more and more booths seemed to appear, many of them carrying gorgeous sample sales and antique furniture which I knew somehow the booth-master would happily handle shipping to me free. I don't know how I knew this, but it was true!

So there I was in this shopping wonderland; vintage coats, gorgeous antiques, handcrafted ironwork, beautiful rich-hippie clothes, all priced reasonably. The futher out I walked the more stalls there seemed to be. A loudspeaker pealed out that it was the "burn" in a few hours, and booths were closing so I had to reach my friends and go back to my camp.

Strangely, as I made my way back I only wandered into more and more sections I had never imagined. A huge outdoor movie theater with velvet curtains and cinema seating. Another area seemed to be a Las-Vegas-style casino, larger than life, with dozens of normally dressed people. I wandered in what seemed to be the right direction and ended up in the hills above the festival. Every time I let my mind slip, I would drop the bag of gorgeous rich-hippie clothes I had already bought. I kept trying to remember not to drop it, somehow in my deluded sleeping state, I believed that I could keep these clothes into reality.

I had picked out a black-embroidered sheer white gypsy blouse and a couple of other things. As I walked around I kept seeing more great clothes. At one point, I just grabbed a vintage jacket without paying. Fuck it! It's a dream and I did believe that I would be putting these clothes into my closet when I woke up, so I guess I figured morality was flexible at the moment.

I ended up flagging down a ride in a car, though I was having a hard time keeping the driver's hands off me. Even with me in the back seat and her in the driver's seat. Well, Burning Man, I figured. Everyone gets wild here. I phoned up Hallie and was answered by some anonymous nerd on a kind of rigged system who said that she would call me back. I tried to call John but that was equally frustrating. We drove in hills above the festival and I could see steam above a huge forest, not smoke. Finally, I insisted we drive back to where I jumped into the car, since we weren't getting anywhere useful.

I got out and entered this enormous shopping mecca again, still searching for my camp when the dream ended. I was thinking to myself as I woke "maybe I SHOULD go to Burning Man again, the shopping is the perfect touch!".