Scratch marks

Last night I dreamed about visiting a friend in a foreign country. She lived in an isolated mountain town, albeit a modern one with Communist architecture. At some point people were swept up in a mass psychosis of sorts. Something to do with treating each other as products. We took refuge in an empty storefront, but had no supplies. So my friend handed me a few bills and sent me to the supermarket. I said, wait, I'm not familiar with the money here, why don't we go together. She didn't like that. I went alone. Lost my way, but ran into a group of people I'd met there. We went back to tell my friend, but couldn't find the storefront anymore. So we headed to the supermarket anyway. It was crowded, and a brawl started in which people were sticking labels with discounted prices on each other. Turns out it was all a marketing stunt or something? Either way that was waking up time.

Dreamed I was at some sort of oceanic research facility where they were trying to make humans partially aquatic and/or give aquatic mammals human intelligence, all so we could communicate with some water-dwelling aliens. There was a huge pool, of course, but also an underground train station that could double as a bicycle track. Guess they didn't want humans forgetting how to live on land. The on-site living quarters were interesting too. They had 1960s-style wood paneling but came with automatic doors and lights.

Now and then my dreams are outright sci-fi.

Last night's happened in a desert area. I was with someone, a younger man, not from real life. At first we found ourselves in a war zone. Not sure how, but for some reason we were talking about the new Dune movie. I had a futuristic handgun, too. Never had to use it. The fighting was always over the next hill, and then a sandstorm started. We took refuge in a scattered city, partly sheltered in a caldera; it was expensive, so we could do little more than walk around. The architecture was Communist. Lots of stores, but many were shuttered.

We ended up on the beach. There was a beach. In retrospect it must have been a large lake, not the sea, because desert. We took refuge in a ruined house, and started thinking how to fix it up. That's when I woke up, but there's a story.