Evil pinball machines in the arcade of horror, haunted by the spirit of the witch doctor, Hakeem. He told me to shoot the ramp and explained via multi-ball that I needed to spend more time with my animal friends, then printed me enough tickets to buy breakfast. What a guy! Maybe he's not so evil after all. That's not the first time I've seen Hakeem in my dreams, first time he's been a pinball machine though, quite the interesting choice in manifestations. But he knows my interests, he's explored my mind many times and knows the things and places that I dig.

The other machines started flashing and playing their theme songs, they all had a special message for me, they told me somehow that there was someone I needed to watch out for and that I could be in grave danger. There may be an evil spirit haunting the machine in the corner, it is glowing quite evil like, playing spooky haunted house music, and may have intentions on putting me into eternal tilt! I don't know, I think they may need maintenance. I'll call them from the blue payphone in the corner. It always smells like old menthol cigarettes back there and there's at least one cigarette butt sitting on the phone box. But the only guy who ever answers that phone sounds like one of the Insane Clown Posse and is never very helpful, if you talk to him long enough he will start to bully you, slip into your mind and start turning your delightful dream into a hellish nightmare.

I'm pretty sure it's Scott, watch out for Scott, he's a dick. He likes to manifest as a bloody skeleton that pops out of walls and tells me that I belong in hell. I don't believe him, but it can be an intense encounter. He's usually the culprit of evil and bad things in my dreams. He's the nemesis, the bad guy in all the stories. Sometimes he's more powerful than I want him to be. I don't know why, but it feels good to walk back there and pick up that phone anyway.

Almost always there is a symbol carved into the wood of the booth. The mark of Ramses II.

The ancient king often leaves graffitti in my dream worlds. Sometimes I see him in dream bathrooms or around corners, etc. It's always the mummy, but he's not scary at all. I remember once, taking a piss in one of my dream bathrooms at one of those old trough style urinals. Suddenly, I feel a presence next to me. I look over and the mummy of Ramses II is standing right next to me with his boney finger down where his genitals used to be, pretending to take a piss. His head turned slowly to look at me and creaked with dust. But instead of being scared, I just started to cackle. There was something so funny about it. He can't talk, he's a mummy. But I could feel he thought it was hilarious. Mummies have a much different sense of humor than skeletons.

The pinball machines here could also do yoga. I remember one of the machines called "Whitney's Rampage" having some real trouble with downward facing dog. You could hear it's steel balls rolling out of place, falling and smacking into its glass top, pinball machines aren't supposed to be in those kinds of positions. Those small metal legs of theirs are surprisingly strong though. I saw it's head swing up and it made that loud "pop" sound that pinball machines make when you match the numbers at the end and win a free game. Then a statement rolled across it's digital display: "UGH!! MY BALLS!!", it flashed a couple times in bold green, displayed the high score, and then scrolled away. It then got up and moved back into it's position, I had a feeling it wanted to be left alone. It wanted no quarters, or at least none of mine. One of the other machines then moved into a more comfortable child's pose position as not to upset it's balls. Very wise. But one poor machine attempted a head stand and lost its head completely, maintenance had to come take it out on a stretcher, I hope it's okay, poor little fellah.

It's an odd place, my dream arcade. You never know exactly what might be in store for you there. In the back there is always a ball pit filled with rainbow colored balls and if you jump into this ball pit you will sink all the way under and fall out the bottom into a giant room with a huge deep ball pit at the bottom that you fall safely into. It's easily the size of an indoor sports arena so you fall like 100 feet. It's very liminal, as are a lot of places in my dreams, and I dig it. In this giant room there are many other ball pits, they are all solid colors though and the colors lead to different places in my dream arcade. So if you jumped into the ball pit filled with orange balls, you will sink under, fall out the bottom and be in the strange place I call "The Orange Room."

It doesn't make a lot of sense, you can go up down sideways, where ever and if you sink down in a ball pit, it doesn't mean at all that you'll be below where you just were. All the rooms have a ball pit, some lead to other rooms, some go back to the main hall. There are hundreds of rooms with different things and worlds, all you have to remember is that a multi-colored ball pit will always lead you back to the main hall, so you're never lost. If you jump into the blue ball pit, it leads you to a completely different world with a different transportation method, water slides.

If you jump into the pit full of black balls, you will appear in a completely pitch black room, on a tube in a heated pool. The only light you can see is the glowing from the vending machines in the corner. Again, very liminal, and extremely satisfying for me.

The green ball pit leads to an old furniture store from my childhood. It was huge and you could get lost in there as a child and I believe I did once. It has that same feeling to it. I am always the only one there, unless I run into Hakeem, Ramses II, or that asshole Scott. It's good to have allies and visitors to the arcade. The furinature store has every bed or couch you could ever want to sit in. So it's a nice place to relax. The escalators will take you to another floor with different items if you wish. The escalators never end and you can go on and on, deeper and deeper in to the store. But there is something darker about the furniture store, as you go deeper, it gets darker and creepier. More lonely feeling and the light gets dimmer until all you can see is the glowing green exit sign down at the end of the room. There's something unnerving about being that deep down in there and I have usually stopped there. I wonder what's actually down in that darkness. Probably Scott. It's his vibe for sure.

The yellow ball pit leads to a hall filled with hot tubs, every one of them is tiled with beautiful colored tile and are all works of art and varying temperature. At the end of the hall is a set of metal double doors. If you push them open you emerge into a limitless outdoor garden that is unreasonably beautiful. There temperature is always perfect, there is a slight cooling breeze, and little cement pathways wind between the plots and terraces of beautiful plants and flowers. There are little fish ponds and streams that bubble fresh clear water through the gardens via perfectly cut channels. This water is always fresh and flows freely. You can drink as much of it as you want. It is always the most refreshing water you have ever tasted in your life. No wonder the gardens are so beautiful and they extend to the horizon on all sides. You can walk here forever if you choose. I don't believe there is an end to this place. At least I've never found one. But when you're tired and want to go back to the tubs, all you have to do is think about it and turn around. There are the double doors again.

The pink ball pit leads to the Patio, it sits far high in the sky above the endless gardens that extend to all horizons, you can see the sidewalks and paths winding around like a giant maze off into the distance. Here, you can look out for miles and relax on a patio chair with a drink. I don't know where they come from, they just kind of show up when you want them to. It's a nice feature. The air is cool and fresh all the time, there are ash trays between the chairs if you care to smoke, just don't throw your butts over the side, no one likes a litter bug.

It's one of the coolest places I've ever dreamed up and I love it when I get to go there, remember that feeling of going to Lagoon as a kid? Or your favorite amusement park? That excitement? Well, in this place, I get to relive that feeling every time I go there in my dreams.

Thanks, Hakeem.