my dreams this morning we all woven into a long tapestry. I don't remember how they were all connected together but here's a shot at it

I was in an house or an apartment where the master bedroom had hardwood floors. it was like my parents' bedroom but oriented in the opposite direction and totally empty. we were in there discussing plans, and drawing in chalk on the hardwood floors something that looked like a rectangular baseball field.

there was an alien invasion being launched. it would come up America's traditional vulnerable spot, up the great plains. the aliens were from a Star Trek or LeGuin universe - i.e. close enough to humans to be hard to distinguish. they were trying to recover an artifact...

I was in the advance party to locate the artifact. there were 4 of us. we found it in some vault, I want to say in Minneapolis but that's too far north. we could fly in a way - more like long hops. it took a lot of effort, and was very dangerous.

the vault was pretty dark, and there was sort of a raised part, like a central dais without steps up to it. the artifact was a plain leather collar. only the right person could wear it. it killed whomever else tried. one of our party tried. the other one could wear the collar. he was young; and was unhappy about it.

we made it back somehow to the ship which was waiting somewhere south of the U.S. the vault somehow became part of the ship. preparations continued. there was this one guy who was a cyborg. the way the cyborgs worked, they did not have eyes as sensors, but the visual sensors were deep within the skull. so you looked at them and it was very disconcerting as you could see all the way into the skull through the eyesockets, which were covered in a clear polymer. anyhow this guy didn't trust the collar. her lurked around the corridors.

the collar would draw people, who would come to look out of curiousity, and then devour them. I knew this, as did the young guy who could wear it. however, in my dream I only saw it as a third-person perspective, and not as the person in the dream, so my dream-self "knew it" but had not "witnessed it".

I was on a bicycle on Shattuck in Berkeley, except of course we were south of the U.S. border so maybe this is replicated. or maybe it wasn't really me, it was Bethany, but this was my character, so it is all confused. I was about 100 ft from the BART station. the commander had come to talk to me about plans and crew disappearances. I said that we should not delay, and he said how could we move fast enough. I looked at him with something akin to contempt, and told him how we flew/hopped in all the way to where the vault had been. he looked at me askance, and I explained the danger and the advantages. then we started talking about the crew disappearances.

I told him about what I thought was happening, and this is why the longer we wait the less capable we will be. we decided to do it.

and I woke up.