I'm in Houston or Chicago, driving along a broad tree-lined street. The street is actually two streets separated by a narrow paved area, and both sides have dark complex oak trees on each side, so that there are four lines of trees. There is little traffic. For some reason I decide to drive across the paved area and switch to the left road. I can see patches of white light shining through the branches in the near distance. I think, in the dream, that I've been here before.
Later I'm in a high school, where I am a new teacher. The halls are dark and students jostle each other. At the intersection of two locker-lined halls there is a massive pile of winter coats on the floor. I go outside, where I stand in an area outside the doors that is overhung by the branches of a large oak tree. Someone, another teacher perhaps, is walking up. He is smirking and making a joke about the coats, something about the school having been 'coated'.
Lois M comes out of the doors. In waking life I haven't seen her in 20 years, and she was never a close friend. I had heard a decade ago that she was suffering from a brain tumor (since recovered). In this dream, she is still young and dark-haired, but obviously ill. Her face is strained and she is sweating. I ask her what she's doing there--teaching?--but she doesn't reply. Concerned, I ask her if she's alright. She indicates that I should follow her to the roots of the oak tree, but she wanders off.
I can't remember now if this part was before or after that scene, but I am in the school gymnasium incongruously camped out in one corner. The gym is full of students preparing for a ball--the prom? I get up from the bed where I've been sleeping, which is in full view of everyone, and look around for my clothes. I find the clothes but realise that my wallet is missing. I see a golden credit card lying nearby and pick it up. It's one of mine but nothing else from the wallet is there. From a sitting position on the floor (the bed is a mattress on the floor) I see two or three women approach. One is large and moving in a stately determined sweep. She is elaborately dressed in a red gown. When she gets near she dramatically opens the gown, which splits apart down the front, to reveal blazing white lingerie.
