Weird dream

This was my dream last night: Ray and I were woken up in our house (but actually a house I've never seen before) by a intruder. Ray heard a strange noise and we both got up to investigate. While we were looking around and peering out windows, a tallish, lanky guy walked into the living room.

"Who are you and what the hell are you doing here?!" I said.

"Just give me the equivalent of what you pay each month for your mortgage, and I'll be on my way," he replied.

"Like hell we will!" I said, and jumped him. Never underestimate someone with experience with and unresolved issues surrounding break-ins.

We found some twine and tied the guy up. I wondered if he was bound too tightly, but was so furious it was all I could do to keep from pummeling him to a pulp. We called 911, and I breathlessly told them the situation and our address.

A little while later, while I was still struggling to keep him from escaping, the police arrived. Actually, it wasn't really the police but this Swedish woman who was like a police apprentice, intern or volunteer. Apparently our break-in didn't warrant the real police initially, so she was there to do triage until an officer showed up.

She took the perp to another room to ask him some questions. Apparently he had a sympathetic story and somehow managed to cut his back and then woefully blame me for wound. He was charismatic enough that by the time she was done with him, she was blaming me for my cruelty. "But he's the one who broke in here demanding money! He's done that to himself!" She didn't believe me.

Meanwhile, more people began to show up at the house. Strangely, this guy was actually someone I had met at a party some years back, and was a friend of an acquaintance. His group of friends (who I knew) came to see what the ruckus was all about, and were alarmed by his panicked pleas and the accusations that I had accosted him.

After a while, the media arrived to cover the story. By this time the guy had tried to escape a few more times, managed to inflict several more deep wounds to blame on me, but somehow no one noticed but me. He had also worked himself into such a state that he had regressed to about a 7-year-old -- he literally behaved as if he'd dissociated back to childhood. I could no longer tell if this was real or an act.

Regardless, this was fascinating to the media. The TV reporters' solitary focus was the drama of this distraught young man who found himself at the wrong place at the wrong time. The house was now so full of people and camera crews, I couldn't even get to the police officers, who'd finally arrived, at the other side of the house.

Then I woke up. The end.

Funky, eh. For those of you into dream interpretation, enjoy!