The One with the Hostage Situation(s)

The first part of the dream that I remember was that I was having dinner with some people, or at least we were in a place where people were having dinner. A group of hit-men came and threw these long grenade-type missiles at a table that blew up. I remember them being white and spinning around in the air.

These men were either assassins or mobsters that did jobs, and it seemed that I was often in the general area...

As I was running away from the scene, it became clear that somehow, unwittingly, I knew at least one of the hit-men. Someone was either asking me how I knew him or commented on how I got mixed up with the wrong crowd.

Next, I remember being in a bookstore, near the entrance, perhaps in a mall. It was like Borders or Barnes and Noble. The hit-men had followed me or something, but they weren’t chasing me specifically. At this point they all had guns and we all were lying on the floor. I think they were dressed in all black like SWAT guys or something.

A man near me was gathering little pieces of paper and was going to write something on it (on my dictation machine I used to record some dreams I said it said, “I can see it, can you?”) and he was going to try to do something to stop them. Like maybe a gun was going to fall and he was going to grab it. The guy needed a pen, and was going to actually try to get one from one of the gunmen, but I ended up giving him the pen.

But then this younger woman was trying to get money out of the ATM. I think she was one of the assassins’ targets. They knew that she was going to try the ATM, the card wouldn’t work and that’s how they were going to find her and confirm she was the one. She also needed a pen to sign a check that I think she was going to deposit.

All this time, we’re lying on the floor and the other guy with the paper and I were between two tables that books were on, or between two bookshelves, because it felt like a small place but relatively safe. They told her to come with them because her ATM wasn’t working, and I said, “You know, they’re going to shoot that poor woman, but don’t worry about it because we’re going to get through it.”

They started loading us onto the bus/train and I said, “Don’t look, they’re going to do it.” As we were driving away, they shot her by the ATM.

The inside of the train/bus was kind of like school bus - with seats that sat two, maybe three adults, and there was a longer, bench-type seat in the back that went all the way across the width. The train/bus changed shape a couple of times in the dream, however. It went from the bus configuration to more of a freight train car with a big ramp later on.

While it was the bus, I was sitting with an older woman as we were hostages, and I told her to move toward the front, because I had a bad feeling about our situation. It felt like I had the dream before, so I knew a little bit about what was going to happen.

A guy got onto the bus with a dog that was handicapped - it looked like it was missing a foot and was in general bad shape, and the guy looked like he might be homeless or something. But I knew in the dream that they were both faking it (including the dog who was trained to feign injuries) - they just wanted to get on the bus. I think the man was secretly a policeman or SWAT person or something.

As the guy moved to the back (at this point it transitioned to more of a freight train car type of deal with the big ramp... going up to a second level for storage or something), I followed them to the back and got like a greek salad. The salad dressing was like urine mixed with something. One of the hostage takers was like, “What is that?” I replied that it was some sort of ethnic food. But it turned out to just be Greek salad and I offered to give it to him, and he took it and put the dressing on the salad.

Then all of a sudden the train had stopped suddenly because we hit something and I was running forward toward the open front of the train car (the whole front was open). I would have been sliding or flying forward because of the sudden stop, but I was definitely running. I went flying out the front of the car onto the ground.

Something then slammed into the back of the train and the whole thing caught on fire. People started running out, including the hostage-takers. I ran in to try to save some people that were still in there - the old woman from before and another older black woman that reminded me of the older black woman in Speed.

But the old woman that I was talking to before decided to stay in there with her little dog - a little white dog - I think it was a poodle. I think she said something like she had lived long enough. I think the other woman was going to stay with her.

In the dream, I knew ahead of time that the train was going to get hit from behind but that I was going to be ejected just before that happened and that I wasn’t going to be injured. I also knew ahead of time that the woman was going to want to stay in the train.