it's just make-believe, you can't believe everything you see

I dreamt last night that I sat in my C.S. Lewis class, only we were in some sort of amphitheatre and the twenty of us were spread about the place, my classmates mere dots from my seat at the upper end. Everyone sat alone---except for me. One boy was next to me but there was a seat in-between us, so we weren't actually sitting together-together, just . . . together. But leaning in toward each other with our books and notes. You could feel the awkwardness. My professor stood at the bottom, rows and rows away from us, and throughout his lecture I was busy popping popcorn. Popping popcorn. In a jar. And the boy kept on looking at me as if to say, "Can't you see I'm trying to learn, here?!" but I kept on, at least until the popcorn grew too much for the little jar and started overflowing. Pop, pop, pop. No matter that it's a jar doing the popping, transformed to a mini microwave with some Potteresque charm. Pop, pop, pop, it went, the kernels now piling up at my feet. I swept it away a bit, but let it be; the boy grew more and more frustrated. Suddenly he grabbed the jar (still pop-pop-popping) and sprinted for the door, where I saw him set the thing in the middle of the quad (now apparently back in some sort of reality---it was the quad that is outside our actual classroom). I was a bit miffed but simply rolled my eyes at him as he settled back into his (one seat away) place.

Except that our professor was having none of this. "Boy!" he yelled from the stage, "What have you done? Now you're going to have to fight for the popcorn!" An angry murmur swept the (all nineteen of us) audience. That's right, my dream-self thought, he'll have to fight. The boy stood slowly, squaring his shoulders in preparation and taking one last look at me before striding back to the doors. And there it was, a great, grey elephant. Guarding the (my) popcorn. Ready to fight.

. . . . . . . . . . .

There's more to the dream, if you'd believe that. Eventually the boy realises he can't face the elephant alone and turns to me for help, after which the elephant shrinks to a wee grey thing and I am able to walk right up to it and practically ask for the popcorn back while stroking his long, wrinkled trunk and grinning teasingly back at Boy. I'm assuming we then lived happily ever after but seriously?Where in the world do I get these things? What could this possibly mean? What part of my subconscious clings to elephants and amphitheatres when I've given thought to neither anytime recently? Aren't dreams just the craziest things?

Truth be told, I love dreams and I love dreaming. But sometimes, you've really got to wonder---and if any of you feel up to Daniel-ing this Nebuchadnezzar's dream, I'd be much obliged.