One of the cooler ones I had occurred a number of years ago, and it was the first dream I had where I (or my character, rather) started out the dream with a backstory fully-formed in my head already.
See, I was a government worker who had been railroaded into a top secret project by government goons. Their new technology essentially “extracted” your soul from your body, allowing you to roam freely without the trappings of your mortal coil, invisible and undetectable except by another piece of top-secret technology that could locate and trap your soul after they’ve gotten their use from you. I was placed in a small, featureless chamber that had a window on the door and a stool in which one could sit. from the top corner of the booth was slung the top-secret energy device that did the extraction – and extract it did. After moments of blurred vision and disorientation I suddenly found myself looking down at my own body, slumped over itself on the stool in much the way you hear people with near-death experiences see themselves floating over their bodies.
But I didn’t like it not one bit. They couldn’t do this to me! I was a human being, and I had rights. I wasn’t going to take this lying … uh … floating … down. Or up. No, I was not. I had to get out. I was incorporeal, now (though curiously, while the laws of gravity had no effect on me, solid objects were still an impediment) so I could make good my escape.
I pushed up the drop ceiling (yeah, tight security here) and started making my way above the offices and cubicles that these chambers were located beside (Hey, it’s a government office, it doesn’t have to make sense). Pipes and wires snaked through the space above the ceiling and light peeked in from the lower offices where the ceiling offered cracks. There was a commotion below; my soul was missing from the chamber. The began to give chase.
Somehow I came down out of the ceiling in an alcove that lead into a very large mall. This place was huge; six or seven mezzanine levels surrounded a large open space with escalators connecting each one at opposide sides of the mall on alternating levels. Glass-paneled balustrades prevented one from tipping over the edge to certain doom. I wasn’t too concerned with that in my ghostly form though. I reached an escalator that led down and snatched a look behind me. The goons were hot on my heels, and they were being led by Michael Ironside. He pointed his device. (I’d recently seen Total Recall in theatres so I guess he snuck in from there) It located me, and they rushed in my direction. I rushed (inasmuch as one can rush while floating) down the escalator to the lowest level of the mall and hid behind a pillar. The goons passed by a Laser Tag booth in the middle of the floor. (It must have been some kind of TARDIS type dealie because the booth itself was a couple hundred square feet at best) They ran into the booth. Gunfire ensued. I guess they mistook the laser tag guns for real ones and began firing away.
I took that opportunity to float in the other direction. I came upon an empty storefront. At least, I think it was a storefront of sorts; it had a large bay-type opening where there probably should have been a window. There was no door. Only a low-slung wall that barely counted as more than a support for the window. There was nothing inside – it was just an empty, brightly-lit room. In retrospect this was probably a very stupid hiding place, but it seemed like the thing to do at the time. I ducked down behind the little wall, which rose barely higher than I did when lying on my side. Fortunately the wall angled inwards, towards the outside, which offered a bit of a place to roll under to better conceal myself. Except in rolling under I ran face-first into a spider’s web, which freaked me the hell out.
And then I woke up™
(I hate spider webs)