The dream begins with me walking up a narrow rural road in the evening. I have the sense and familiarity with the place that I thin I’m walking to my parent’s home. I make a right turn onto a small side street, and simultaneously everything goes dark, what sounds like a vehicle passes behind me, and I hear a person or a creature approaching me, though I can’t quite place from which direction.

I fumble to start the flashlight on my cellphone, but the beam of light is so weak it doesn’t help much. I do determine that the creature I’m hearing is small, maybe a squirrel or something, and it’s running all over in a most excited way. It keeps running up to me and bumping into my legs. It doesn’t seem particularly hostile, just strange and excited.

I decide that the best way to deal with this little critter is to just keep pressing on to wherever I’m headed, so I do so. He carries on with me, running all over like a weirdo.

The further we walk, the bigger he gets. Now when he runs through the feeble beam of my cellphone flashlight, he is about the size of a house cat. As I notice this, I also notice my light reflecting off something not far ahead of us on the road. As we approach, a collection of computer equipment slowly comes into view, sitting in the middle of the dark road. It’s all set up with a few CPUs, monitors, and a ton of wires. There are also several external hard drives connected. It’s all just sitting there on the road.

The critter, that now appears to be more of a raccoon than anything else, despite having short grey hair, more like a house cat, runs through the equipment, stopping periodically to rub up against one of the CPUs. It occurs to me that this equipment may belong to the critter, or more reasonably, the critter’s owner. Perhaps if I keep moving, the critter will stay behind.

Not the case. As I proceed down the dark road, my new little friend is at my heels.

Not sure how or why I’m here, I find myself sitting in a shallow, dry ditch on the side of the road, still in sight of the computer gear. I’m sitting in the ditch like it’s a sun lounger, and I’m beside a large hockey bag that appears to be mine.  The raccoon is curled up on my chest, and the darkness is gone. I am sitting in this ditch looking across the road when out of nowhere a Scottish festival leaps into full swing. Immediately on the other side of the road is what seems to be a large Scottish family all dressed in traditional clothes doing some manner of enthusiastic dance.  Just beyond them I see a man with a falcon, tents, and a variety of other activities. My attention is drawn back to the dancing family, particularly to a young woman who is facing me, and staring at me. She has red hair, freckles, and a very intense expression as she stares at me.  I have never seen her before.

The scene doesn’t last long, and suddenly I’m in a living room with the family who were dancing. It’s a long, narrow living room, sort of like it’s inside a train car. Two long couches face each other, are very close together, and the backs of the couches are absurdly high for the space.

I’m sitting next to a man, I think he is the head of the family. The raccoon is curled up on his lap. Across from him is the young woman who was staring at me so intently during the festival. There are several more people, ranging from young kids to adults all crowded into the seats as well, but I can’t see their faces clearly. I start to ask a question about the raccoon, when the woman cuts me off. She tells me that I damaged one of her hard drives the night before, and as a result she has lost a number of images.

I do recall running over something with the wheels of my hockey bag, but before I can respond, my alarm goes off.