Prison Escape

I'm in a truck that's normal sized, but souped up to do tricks like a monster truck. There is a battle taking place in an arena between myself and an authority figure who is chasing me. She is piloting a giant robot called a mech.

Somehow, I've gotten my truck onto the top of a tall, narrow, flat tower of rock so that I'm up as high as the mech. I intend to jump the truck onto the mech, but the device that does that malfunctions, and I end up on the ground at her feet. I dodge in and out and shoot, but the authorities decide that the battle has been won by the mech, and I have to go with the woman inside.

We leave the arena through a normal sized door, leaving our vehicles behind. She takes me into a building. It's a familiar place. I've escaped from here before. I ready myself to escape again.

We enter the room where I'll be kept, and I'm told I'm considered guilty and dangerous, and I'm to be executed because I cannot be held for a full sentence. I accept the ruling without any struggle, because I know I'm going to escape again. I'm not going to permit this; I've done nothing wrong, and these people have no right to do this to me. They are not the real authorities, just people who have the arrogance to think themselves that important, and behave like it. The woman speaking to me is put off by my attitude, and says she doesn't think I understand the gravity of the situation. She tells me I won't escape this time. After that, sge and everyone else leaves the room.

I know the layout of the part of the building from which I previously escaped. The room I'm in has huge bay windows, but the glass is unbreakable. However, everyone driving by can see inside. Outside my door is a hallway stretching away from the room, with two other doors immediately to the left and right, then a receptionist's station on the left after the first door. That opens into kind of a lobby with an exit, and there is more building beyond that.

The door to the right leads to offices and workrooms for employees of the prison. On the left, there are other cells, and another hallway that leads to the execution chamber. There are also supply closets and a couple of utility rooms. It was in one of those closets that I hid for several moments after my last escape, while the search fanned out from the facility.

An employee brings me a change of clothes in an overnight bag. I change in full view of the windows, (because there is nowhere else to change) but with my back turned to them and sitting down to prevent anyone seeing anything important. Even so, there is an immediate traffic jam as cars slow down because the drivers can see the back of a naked woman.

The employee returns, and helps me finish changing. She also gives me a magazine with an address in it for where my brother is being held. This gets my attention, as I did not know that "they" had him. Immediately, I am able to see into his room, and speak to him. I tell him that when I show up and say it's time to go, we have to leave without delay, so be ready. He agrees, and then it's time for me to leave this room. The employee leaves, but she leaves the bag with me, along with a bunch of balloons. Before she goes, she tells me to hurry, because they've rescheduled my execution for earlier. She leaves the door unlocked on her way out. She also did that when she brought me the bag, but the receptionist noticed and came to lock the door again. This time, I am able to sneak out of the room.

I walk down the hallway, right past the receptionist's desk. I hear the employee chatting with her, asking what activity I am scheduled for prior to my execution, telling her that she'll take me to it. The balloons hide my face, and the receptionist is distracted, so I am able to slip by. I hear her reply: "Gymnastics."

Gymnastics? Seriously? That's a new one on me. I figure they are trying to keep me too busy to try to escape. I also figure if I head in the direction I'm supposed to be going until I get to the exit, I'll have a better chance of getting out undisturbed. I spot several people in brightly colored (some fluorescent) gym clothes, and decide they must be headed for the gymnastics room. I follow along with them until I get to the big exit. Instead of continuing on to the room, I leave the building.

Several other people are leaving with me. They are completely uninvolved, and don't know who I am, so I'm unconcerned that they will cause me to get recaptured. As I hurry along, though, a tall, blond woman spots a cut on my cheek. She takes a tissue out and wipes off the blood, then wipes the excess not absorbed by the tissue on a pillar that supports the canopy in front of the building. Great. That'll tell 'em I was here when they start searching. Now they'll know which exit I used.

The woman is about to put the tissue in her purse, creating another DNA sample, but I politely thank her and tell her I'll dispose of it for her. I take it, fold it up, and put it in my back pocket. I can't get rid of the blood on the pillar, but maybe they won't see that.

I turn right and head toward the prison where my brother is being kept. The direction takes me across a courtyard with a fountain, gardens, and natural stone steps. From the outside, the building looks a lot like a school. The window pattern is especially similar.

People are coming from the direction I'm headed. I hear them talking, and someone says here She comes. "She" spoken with a capital "S" is how the entire staff refers to the woman who brought me in. Everyone here is intimidated by her. I am given to understand that she is in charge, and is kind of a bitch. I change direction and go up the other set of stairs closer to the building. At the top of the stairs, I find a setup similar to a camp. There are several poorly constructed little shacks. I know my brother is in one of those shacks.

Afraid the woman is following me, and that I will be discovered and recaptured, I slip in behind one of the shacks, the one I am pretty sure he is in. It has a lot of thin wood chips (the same type of wood the shacks are made of, as if the chips are pieces that have fallen off) on the ground behind it, and the back of the building bows backward. Since it's very close to the building I was in, it becomes difficult to get through. About halfway through, at the narrowest point, I realize I'm having to push really hard to squeeze in between the shack and the building.

At the same time, I see prisoners and guards sweeping up more wood chips. They are shoving them in behind the building. If I don't move, they'll see me even though it's dark back here. To hide better, I lay down on top of the chips, which are piled at least a foot deep. Down here, it's even darker. I can see them, but they can't see me. I notice that among the guards are some of my classmates. I'm glad they can't see me. They'd be sure to recognize me, and then I'd never escape.

My plan is easy. I'll wait a few moments until the guards have gone, grab my brother, and we'll run. There is a path from the yard into the woods, where there are carts we can use to escape. Once we've gotten a distance, we can abandon the cart. There will be another family member waiting to take us home.

The guards are just finishing up. As I wait, I can feel the wood chips digging into my side. I have the feeling of certainty that my plan will work, as long as I remain patient and follow it. The only big challenge now is going to be getting up from where I am laying, given how narrow the space is.

The feeling of the wood chips digging into my side woke me. I'd been sleeping on that side all night, and was feeling uncomfortable for real. On waking, I realized that several of the characters in the dream were familiar. Because of who everyone was, I think the dream was a manifestation of the anxiety I feel related to my work and everything that has been going on there. At no point in the dream did I actually feel that I was guilty of something and deserved imprisonment. Rather, the whole time I felt unjustly treated as guilty, and wrongfully imprisoned. I felt that my brother deserved it even less, because he was totally uninvolved with them, and I was angry that they'd taken him.

The "authority" who took me into the building had represented my boss at work. She didn't look like her, but the giant robot did. IRL, my boss is really authoritarian and very impatient toward me. Everything I do is either wrong, not enough, or not necessary, even though it's in my job description or what she told me to do and how she told me to do it. She drives me nuts!

The employee who helped me was a lady who had trained at our store before moving on to a management position. She had noticed that there was unequal treatment by my boss between me and the other employees; I had a heavier workload, wasn't allowed breaks, and couldn't even go to the restroom without getting questioned about it, while most of my co-workers get a break an average of once every two hours, plus restroom breaks, and have time to stand around doing nothing. Sort of mixed in with that identity was the identity of the person who has replaced me in that position as I have moved on to a new position. In my new position, I'll partly be working a different shift, and will not have to deal with my boss as much.


The receptionist was a co-worker who doesn't believe the position I'd been holding was that hard. She is also a gossip monger, and has the tendency to assign blame for anything that she thinks has gone wrong in the store. She frequently communicates that blame to the boss, trying to get people into trouble. It often works, even when the evidence shows that she is wrong. Once the boss has been told by her that someone did something they shouldn't have, or didn't do something they should have, it doesn't matter if it's true or not, that person will be in trouble for something.


The lady who wiped the blood from my cheek, I think represents the regional human resources manager for the company. A couple of months ago, I was injured at work. A doctor authorized me to return, but with a break restriction. Even though the company has allowed that of other employees, my restriction was rejected, and I was taken off of the schedule for a little over a week until the restriction expired. I believe that was done because I filed worker's compensation for the medical bills associated with the injury. I had to, though. I don't have any insurance, and I was hurt on the job. Anyway, it is the HR manager who deals with that, and she's the one whose decisions have kept me off of the schedule for so long.


The condition under which I was hurt has existed at the store for years, and is dangerous. I called OSHA, but found that the particular working condition which caused my injury isn't directly regulated. OSHA offers advice, but doesn't have specific policy. However, OSHA found two other serious violations in the store, and cited the company. The day after the inspection, when the citation was received by corporate, the company changed how my injury was being handled. They used odd paperwork and red tape to keep me off the schedule for nearly two whole months, and refused to allow me to use any of my vacation time to get a pay check during those months.


I fought back by applying for unemployment, and have filed a retaliation/discrimination complaint with OSHA making four specific points which demonstrate discrimination. Because I'd filed unemployment, the company had to put me back on the schedule. They tried to use part of the mandatory paperwork to claim I was on voluntary leave (I wasn't) and get out of paying unemployment, but I had kept a journal, and was able to cite phone calls in which I was ordered to fill out and return those papers and told I couldn't be returned to work without them.

In the end, the company has been left with the choice of either acknowledging that I was laid off, or putting me back on the schedule. In the meantime, they had me out beyond the date of the switch in position from one that comes in early in the morning to one that doesn't.


I've been left with the feeling of having checkmated my way back to work. I'm going to continue to see the OSHA complaint through to the end. Regardless of the outcome of that, it sets a precedent with OSHA and the company that I've felt retaliated against by my manager and by corporate, so that in the future, if they retaliate further, OSHA will be ready to handle it.


I think that my brother in the dream represented my son in real life. My family has been subjected to financial hardship because of what has happened, and it feels like my son has been punished for the company's attitude about safety and employee rights. Among other things, we've had to give up on allowing him to play the instrument he wanted in the school orchestra, because we can't afford to buy one, and we don't qualify for credit to rent-to-own. This is a direct result of my being kept from work. 

I want to make things better for him, and I am sure that will happen, but I'm going to have to be patient and stick out the time it takes for the OSHA complaint to go through, and for the unemployment case to be decided. In the long run, I'm leaving the company; my husband and I are going to move our family back to the area where he grew up after the end of this school year. We'll be able to get the instrument next year, and he'll be able to catch up. There are more and better jobs in that area than where we are. I think that is what the waiting in the dream represented. In real life, though, it's a LOT harder than in the dream!