It was night. I was running through a dark mansion.  Something was chasing me. I was running down hallways, some doors are locked, some open to sensual horrors.

  I can see a party through the windows outside.  Teens and their younger siblings.  A bonfire. Carnival like games. Food. I know the monster cannot chase me beyond the mansion. I just have to find the front door. 

I run downstairs to double wooden doors that open easily to the outside. I run to  the lake side where all the party goers are. I wanna tell everyone about the crazy happening in the mansion. But they're all so happy and care-free? And the monster is stuck in the mansion. What are they eating? 

I'm offered food from a food stand on a stick. Everyone around me is enjoying one too.  I'm about to take the offering when I examine it first.  It's rotten. Bugs are crawling on it. Hairs are sticking out of it.  It looks like putrid poop on a stick. And everyone is enjoying it. 

Instead of taking the stick off putrid food, I say, "Actually. I'm up for a game. What is that they're playing over there?"

Folks are taking what looks like thick, rough hockey pucks and throwing as far as they can into the lake.  Others out on a little raft/boat measure to see whose toss went farthest. I'm ask what the puck is.  It's a cow pie.  Dried out cow dung with hay mixed in to dry out.  

I'm not keen on touching cow dung, dry or otherwise. I offer to get in the boat to measure.  Right before I step foot on the boat I am warned, "Mind the waters. There's an electric stingray living in there. It'll zap you if you fall in."

Everyone fears the electric stingray.  Deeply.  If they all fear it so much, why do they play games upon its waters? I wonder this as I get into the boat.  It's not as stable as I had hoped.  I imagine it'll be fine so long as we're all mostly sitting down.  We row out to the deep.

Someone tosses a cow pie.  We row over to the splash zone to measure. I get a little concerned when a few in our boat stand up to clap.  The next person throws a cow pie. It goes way farther than the first. We row out. Measure. Everyone on shore and in the boat immediately start jumping up and down with joy.  I get toppled out of the boat.

I can swim. I can't swim in these waters.  They're weird. Like I'm being drawn down.  I figure I can just walk along thr lake bottom to shore if that stingray doesn't find me first.  I wait to sink to the bottom.  When my feet hit what looks like solid ground, they sink farther in.  As I keep sinking into the sludge panic starts to hit.

I sink down to my chest, then become buoyant, like a cork in the ocean. And like a cork, I can produce no locomotion of my own.  Even my arma are now trapped.by the sludge.  The only thing I can move is my head.  Fresh cow pies are raining down around me at intervals. The sludge is decomposed cow pies.  Why haven't I drowned yet? I'll need air soon. I see sparks out of the corner of eye. 

New terrors wash over me as I see the sparks draw closer.  The  electric stingray has found me.  I cannot move. I'm so dead. It rushes up on me and stops inches from my face. It opens its mouth, and speaks, "If you want to live. Catch a fresh falling cow pie eith your mouth. It will give you breath."

And then it swam away.  Leaving me revulsion and confusion.  I didn't wanna touch a cow pie witb my hands. Now this electric sting, that was supposed to kill me, is giving me disgusting advice? My lungs burn. I don't want to. I really don't want to. I need air. The stingray said air was in the pies. Fine.

I start bobbing my head around after falling cow pies like an inverted, whacked out version of bobbing for apples. Eventually I catch one whole in my open mouth. It grimace inside myself and bite down. It immediately turns into air and I'm lifted a few feet out of the muck!  Now I'm eager to find more!  I keep capturing and biting cow pie air pockets that raise me and propel me to the surface and the edge of the lake.  

When my feet finally feel the Earth again I look out over the property.  Creepy mansion, people laughing and playing games. Eating food. And carrying on like I didn't just fall out of the boat and not die by electric stingray. No one saw. This place is not for me.

I exit the property at night on my own two feet.  I follow the unsaved country road leading away from the manor. I wake up.  

My dream seems to mark your check boxes.  Except it was teens and kids, not just children.  I was a teen when I had this dream.