I was alternatively and seamlessly at different stages in my life, from teenager to middle age. I was going through four dull brown monolithic buildings. Almost featureless, their outside corners were hard right angles. They reminded me of huge parking garages, but they teemed with people.

As I went through them, I realized the buildings were familiar. Navigating them, getting lost, finding my way again, I realized that two were schools and one was retail stores, like a giant mall. Traversing the steps to different levels, finding my way through the buildings, I’d get lost and take wrong turns and circle back, searching for the right way to go. Doing this, I became more familiar with the layouts. Some was new information being learned or realized, while more came from dredging up memories. I realized that the fourth building were floors and rows of offices and cubicles, the corporate world.

Deciding I had a semblance of understanding about the arrangements, I began searching for familiar places and faces. I sometimes glimpsed people in the crowds who I thought I knew. The buildings were always so crowded and busy, and everyone was rushed and harried. Becoming firmer about my commitment and more convinced about where I wanted to go, I entered a long and tall but quiet and empty room.

A tall flight of black metal stairs was available in the room’s middle. I went up the stairs. Inside were three women. As I walked around, they asked, “Who are you?” Without letting me answer, one said, “Maybe you can help.”

As she said this, another said, “I’m not getting anywhere. Maybe he can try.”

I recognized the three women as RL blogging friends. I’d never met them but knew them online. They were at a workbench. Some electronic device was in pieces on it. “Here, come here,” one ordered. “You try. We’re supposed to use this to analyze but it’s not working. You try.”

I didn’t understand what they were talking about. I asked, “Analyze what?” I had an impression it was to locate guns being fired but then changed that idea to the device being something about interpreting people’s moods.

The one woman was talking fast about their efforts to use the device and putting it back together while she spoke. When she finished putting it together, she stopped talking and shoved it at me.

I protested and scoffed. “I have no idea what this is. What makes you think I can fix it?”

They urged me, “Just try.”

I bent down, figured out how to turn the thing on, and began messing with switches, dials, and buttons. A male voice was immediately heard.

“You did it,” the women said. “You fixed it.”

I was shaking my head, answering them, “I didn’t fix it, I didn’t do anything. I think you might have fixed it when you put it back together.”

They hugged and thanked me. I kept protesting that I hadn’t done anything and then left going back down the stairs.

Knowing where I was in relation to the buildings, I decided to visit my elementary and high schools. Taking different stairs, I left one building and entered another.

No, that wasn’t right. I reversed course and tried again. Coming down stairs, I entered a place I knew as my high school. I immediately spotted a number of people who’d worked for me during my life. “There you are,” one said. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about this book. You said it was a good read. This is turgid, dull, and flat. I wanted to kill myself reading it.”

I laughed, pleased to see him, shaking his hand. “It is a good book but it might not be the book for you.” I began going on about different tastes and expectations. While I talked, another person came up. This was Howard, from “The Big Bang Theory”. He said, “I thought it was a good book. I enjoyed it, although I thought there were places where it needed help.”

We spoke for minutes more about the book and then I said, “I need to go,” and told them I’d see them later. I left that room and entered a fourth-grade room which I remembered. It was full of young students at desks. Several began asking, “Who’s he,” as I walked around the room and remembered it. Others began saying, “I know him.” A teacher who I didn’t know came up. “I know you,” she said, then shook my hand. She began telling me about all these things that I supposedly did. She insisted I was famous. I clapped back, “I think you’re confusing me with someone else.”

I left the room. The dream ended.