Panera Pandemonium

Ever wonder what a gamer chick who loves bread dreams about when she's got a toddler and is eight months pregnant and she finally finds some lost sleep?

I thought so...let me share...

It was dark and musky. My surroundings weren't familiar to me at all and the only light I had to navigate myself was the little bit of light being given off by the shining moon which seemed to only be half visible due to heavy clouds looming in the air.

I was traveling with a friend. I don't recall where we were traveling to, but we reached an enterance to somewhere and we needed to then switch from traveling by foot to traveling by raft. The raft wasn't anything that you'd imagine from a modern day setting. Nothing like this. The raft we climbed on to was old and made of wood and tied together barely by frayed ropes. Something similar to this, however imagine it being much more tattered and degraded.

So there we were, up to our thighs in murky water climbing atop this raft to float down this waterway from the enterance that lead into this cavern of even muskier air and darker sights to see.

Sitting up on the raft made it very unstable so we figured lying down would be the better choice. As I laid there looking up catching a glimpse of our surroundings from time to time, chills would travel up my spine. Wrought iron, immaculately detailed architechture lined the ceiling of this cave. The sound of running water seemed to have an eerie flowing sound to it. The feeling of being in this cave just didn't embrace me as one of warmth and friendliness. It was scary. And it was unknown.

As we continued in further, we reached this iron gate. Again very detailed in design. As we passed underneath the gate and I was able to get a closer look at the details before us, I realized exactly where we were.

The dungeonous waterway that leads to the center of Hell.

I start whispering in a loud and exasperated tone, "We..'re...in...PANERA!"

(Panera? How pathetic is that? In the depth of my dream when I realize I'm in Hell...I start thinking about... B.R.E.A.D? Although I guess anyone who is doing the Atkins diet probably feels bread and Hell are one in the same...I'm definately not one of those people though.)

And from there my dream shifted to being in a small tourist town that, in my dream, was not far from Disneyland. Now it was myself and a couple girlfriends and again we were on an adventure. This time to find all the secret passageways from around town that lead into the Disneyland park. Some shops had small little doors that seemed to open up in discreet ways that had dark pathways leading to what we knew was Disneyland. And again, the streets were lined with several bread stores.

Strange.

At one door, we had decided to travel down the dark pathway and see how dangerous and lengthy the trip was to the inner area of Disneyland. We knew it was secret. We knew it would be risky. But we wanted to anyways. My two girlfriends headed into the small opening in the wall first, and just as I was heading in, another friend of mine showed up calling my name. She had brought a handful of people with her and they were urging me to attend coffee with them.

As it started to rain and the rest of the party headed into the cafe, I told her privately that I was sorry, but I just couldn't make the coffee shop. About twenty minutes had passed by the time I was able to turn and head back to the previous engagement of my friends in the tunnel. When I opened the small, private door, there they were, scrunched and waiting.

We looked at each other back and forth and then looked down the dark passageway and then back at each other. We agreed that maybe we weren't ready to go down that path as it just didn't seem very safe and had the same eerie feeling as the cavern from the earlier part of my dream.

We left with plans of trying it again on another day soon.

And then I woke up with us standing outside that small, secret opening looking around at all the tourist shops, chatting and wondering what we could do instead...