The other night I had a weird dream. I was in the Straight building, in the group room. There was a machine/beast thing, kind of like an H.R. Giger cyborg in the front of the group, as if it were leading a rap. I was trying to stay as far away from the thing as I could, along with a few other people, but we couldn't get out of the room. Some people were sitting in the blue chairs, motivating, trying to curry favor with the Beast, which would extend metallic tentacles from it's body and either drain the person it "called on" or add some of it's essence to the person. Those of us that tried to avoid this thing were crowding around the orange walls, trying to stay out of range of its influence, but to no avail-- we were still close enough to the Beast that we were damaged by the radiation that emanated from it. I woke up, very freaked out, and went outside to smoke a cigarette.
I think the symbolism of the dream was that even though we may have resisted Straight's efforts at brainwashing us, it still had an influence--just being in that environment, even those of us that knew it was bullshit, caused all sorts of damage to our psyches. I am still very weirded out by all this.
