Inside a Dream

Inside a Dream (a dream remembrance by Michael Hillerman)
I step out of my car and walk down Genesee Avenue toward Santa Monica Boulevard. It is a pleasant day with some clouds overhead and not too hot for a summer afternoon. I pass by one apartment building where an old friend Debbie lived that I haven’t seen since I moved from the neighborhood. There are so many memories on this street but the old house where I lived, trees, plants and neighboring buildings all look very different today. It makes me wonder if the street has changed so much or if the change is inside myself. I reach Santa Monica Blvd. and look across the street at the building with noted address. The commercial building is one story with a flat roof and has no windows and only one door. I walk towards the door evaluating how I will make my entrance. To my surprise I am on the inside without having to open the door. I do not remember going through the door or for that matter crossing Santa Monica Boulevard and wonder how I got inside as I was unsure if I should go in at all.
The decision has been made for me and I am now standing inside a very large room with an Arabian style tent at the far end. There is no ceiling or roof on this building as I can view the now moving turbulent clouds above. The interior walls have a smooth luster that glows with a soft even light. I cannot see any corners to the room but yet it seems to have four distinct sides. There are twenty or so people in the room all looking nondescript except for one man in a robe . He is looking at me and he appears to me to have more clarity and definition than all of the other people. This man looks rather ordinary except for his teeth as they are very irregular and jagged. He is holding a coil of large rope in both hands and looks friendly and open to my intended questions. I ask him if he is Eghart or if he can direct me to him. He does not answer me clearly but leaves me with the impression that he is Eghart. He then welcomes me and asks me what I want. At this point I feel suspicious of his motives and wonder if he has a hidden agenda for me. I ask him to describe what his organization is about. He looks at me with great calm and appears to have extraordinary inner strength but does not give me an answer. After a few moments of silence another person calls his attention and he quickly responds by walking away towards the other person.
I look around the room and notice that I am now the only person in the room except for Eghart. The room appears much smaller than before and the tent grows in size and is now very close to me. I notice that Eghart is walking around the side of the tent and what was the coil of rope in his arms is now an octopus with long tentacles. As he walks around the tent he places the head of the octopus on his head like a hat with the tentacles falling over his shoulders and down his back. I do not feel endangered by any of these events with Eghart and the room but do feel unsure of what I should do next. The tent has a small opening that I notice and pull back. I am not sure if I should follow Eghart around the side of the tent or to go directly through the tent opening in front of me.
My decision is to pull the opening in front of me and walk into the tent. As I walk in I see a very large array of animals and reptiles. They are all living and breathing but miniature in size and appear to be standing in rows like a platoon of infantrymen. The first creature that I notice is a snake that is larger than all the other creatures and not part of the platoon or group. The snake moves across the room from my left to my right leaving the room. As I walk further into the tent some of the animals start moving in a very nervous fashion leaving their designated places and running across the tent floor in all directions. One of them is a male lion that runs directly at me and crawls up my pant leg. He is so small that he can fit between my leg and the inner wall of my pants near my rig