Dreaming in Narrative

Last night I dreamed I was working on a narrative project in some distant, intensely frozen snowy country. It involved getting smuggled to a school where I was talking with administrators, teachers, and these cute little elementary-age students, figuring out whether to put the felt slippers over the leather shoes, offering a basket of nuts that you cracked open and then had to open a second shell, wondering if my cell phone would work to reach the guy who would guide me out of the country once I got the story, assuming I didn't get arrested by the secret police . . . all very foreign and tense and, once I woke up, pretty jumbled.

My thoughts?
a) Any story you're working on can feel odd and foreign, even if there are no weird food or secret police involved.
b) Sometimes when you're doing the research, it's a big pile of stinkin' jumble and you're not sure how you're going to write your way out of it.
c) I'm feeling guilty that I didn't write more narrative stories this year, which is nearly over.