Here's one from the mountains - the Coburg Hills north-east of
Eugene, Oregon.
Had hiked up near the Green Wall, a assembly of enormous boulders (and the spaces and caves between them) with an old friend.
Had taken a winding path across Bowerman's land thru thick conifers and a few unused fields and overgrown roads. We arrived at dusk and made a quick camp and meal without a fire. We were both fatigued and decided to sleep and plan on an early morning.
I'd slept awhile when I partially awoke and could hear something unusual. The usual night sounds of the woods were continuing.. crickets and breezes in the branches. However the sounds seemed to be almost liquifying and beginning to spin in a large circle around the small shelf in a sloping clearing where we'd set up our bedding. We were in the center of a swirling ring of sound. I can't explain it more clearly. I spoke lowly to my friend, and said "do you hear that!?". Friend (apparently awake as well) replied "Yes".
Gradually, the sound formed into a pulsation which became the sound of drums and out of that came the sound and feel of many bare feet dancing in the dirt. In the pitch darkness we were in the middle of a circle of dancers and drummers.
The intensity and disorientation of all this was so strong, and to be honest, frightening, that I hunkered down in my sleeping bag and HID! I could here bare feet slapping into the dust and fir needles quite close to my head.
This continued for an uncertain length of time - at a certain point I was waking again and everything was back to normal. The breezes stirring the branches, insect song, a distant owl, my friends sleeping breath.
In the morning I knew I would find tracks of the dancers but there was not the slightest sign. It was a beautiful dawn and we quickly packed and moved on. As we hiked I asked friend "how did you sleep" etc, fishing for an impression of the event. Friend had no memory of having heard anything.
OBVIOUSLY it had all been a particularily lucid dream, but I'd never had a dream that felt that vivid and inherently wakeful.
"Beware the obvious" goes one expression..