Uninvited Guests
I was in a house of turn of the century (19th to 20th) style, which I recognized as having belonged to a grandfather or some other family member. I had apparently been staying here for a few days. For some reason I was interested in the structure of the building and went into the cellar to look it over in detail. Here I found large supporting pillars, some of which had lost their cement casings to expose large steel "I" beams, which I knew went through the whole building, making it unusually strong.
Continuing to the coal bin, I found its wooden partitions still intact, but no coal. Here I also found two sleeping bags, not long abandoned. I became somewhat upset and explored further. I found a tunnel which I followed out to a weed lot near the edge of the woods.
Returning to the house, I went up to my bedroom and accused two young men who had been sharing the room with me of being the persons or creatures who had come in through the tunnel and slept in the cellar. They admitted to this and started to crowd me. I fell back, stabbing them with a 6 inch knife. It penetrated with a satisfactory feel, but did not greatly affect them, so I retreated out the French doors onto a balcony from which I could escape to the ground.
Becoming slightly awake at this point, I realized I was handling the situation wrong. I lingered on the balcony trying to think of the right action to salvage the situation. I even apologized to the two creatures just inside the glass doors for screwing up. Not coming up with a solution, I dropped to the ground and withdrew from the dream.
End.
The correct solution came to me fairly soon (see The Cliff), so this type of dream became much less frequent soon after this one.