I was on the
tube and there was to be a private
Christmas party just for our street, which G. was organizing. But there was a gang of
toughs from another street in the same
carriage as me, and they were talking about going. They moved off making
threatening noises about G.; I presumed she could take care of herself but I worried anyway.
But I found I was on the wrong line, or had taken a wrong turning. We went through a station called Demeter, I and thought for a moment I had never seen it before, and wondered whether it was named in honour of our noder.
At the end of one line the station became a big room in which there were retro 1950s silver robots. I realized I had to change lines, so I went back a few stations, got off, and looked at the tube map. I had to get to a station at the bottom of the loop called Friday (or Frisky, perhaps), and interchange there. But I only had a single ticket and couldn't use it to continue.
So I decided it wasn't too far to walk, as it was just over a bridge outside the station, and south of the Thames. It was night, about 10 o'clock, and I usually don't mind walking long distances at that time, but at this point I noticed I was barefoot. I thought back where I could have left my shoes, and after a bit of thought deduced that it was impossible I could have been travelling through London all this time without shoes, without noticing it: therefore I must be dreaming. So if I woke up I would be all right, or if by effort of will I could turn this into a lucid dream I could just rewrite the dream so that I was wearing shoes again. (I didn't fancy walking barefoot, even when I knew it was a dream.)
So I tried, but without success, and eventually I had waited so long I realized I wasn't going to wake up because I was already really awake. This was a nuisance.
I got a meal in a foil tray, and it looked nice, but there was melted cheese adhering to the sides of the tray, so I really needed a fork to eat it. I went into the station, but they had the wrong kind of cutlery in the nearer parts, so I went further in and got my fork.
Here I met S., the most attractive person I know, and in the course of talk she explained the new tax system to me, with a tape and projections in her bedroom in the station. Because I needed this for work I decided I should borrow her tape.
She measured my arm and expressed amused surprise at its dimension. I really really wanted her to measure my leg because I was wearing nothing below but a loose scrap of cloth.
After I'd woken up, I was lying in bed waiting for the alarm clock to go off, and looking at Everything2. I found a good write-up (possibly by Muke or Anacreon) and wanted to vote for it, but didn't have any votes, from which I deduced that it was not yet six o'clock: or possibly I had to log off and log back in before I saw my fresh allocation.
I think it was in the dream, though I won't swear to it, that I worked out that if I was looking at my computer screen while awake and in bed then I actually wasn't.