Movie Dreams

Last night I watched a bunch of stuff. I saw many of the Phantom Museum stop-action shorts that are very much like David Lynch, 10 to Midnight with Bronson, Dead Heat about a resurrection machine bringing criminals back to life, and some other that didn't play as big a roll. I was high by the time it was bedtime, so I crashed without melatonin, my stomach full of junk food.
I dreamt I was in some sort of school building, maybe a middle school, which was surrounded by large amounts of abandoned agriculture land that looked dusty and some swamp-like land. The sky was dark and hazy.
I was with some people who were more like the classic stereotype personalities that make up a movie cast. We went inside and turned on the antique looking wall lights, which produced a dull, flickering light as hazy as the sky. The inside of the "school" was surprisingly similar to the layout of my parent's house with added rooms or stories; but this seems to happen with all buildings in my dreams.
A certain level of fear was felt amongst the cast of the dream; apparently, the world I entered when I fell asleep was full of creepy imagery and creatures that wouldn't make sense, but had to be avoided.
One particular scene that stood out vividly to me, because it felt like it was most of the dream itself, occurred in my room. The room was altered such that the bathroom door led to a guest bedroom a little smaller than mine but with a similar configuration of windows. The really long window in my room had the new blinds my parents just put up, but with a break so that half the window could be open while the other was closed. Next to that window was a vertical strip of marbled glass, thick and distorts the view so it's like a natural blind. The last window that mattered was the normal-sized window that had a leafy bush growing right in front of it, obscuring the view. The blinds are the sort that let light through but only shadows can be seen, and are operated by drawstring fixed to the wall. I was with an older man character who was loveable but confused.
In my room the blinds were fully down and in the guest room the blinds were only down on the window half nearest the door. I could hear something breathing or pressing against the large window in my room, but I didn't want to raise the blind. So I went into the guest room and peeked around the edge of the half-blind. A very large, white-haired, winged dragon-shaped creature was crouched by the school trying to see through my blinds. Somehow I knew that if it saw anyone it would break through the house to grab them. Just like in the movies, I also knew to move back to my room, and sure enough the creature started moving toward the guest room to look through the unblinded part of the window. It gave up the search and took flight and on its hairy tail I saw a flag with some eastern looking symbols apparently growing from the tail.
The last memorable scene took place at the normal-sized window with the bush. The bush was thick enough not to see through, but thin enough to make out what was happening inside of it. Right up against the window was a central cavity in the bush of leafless stems. On one stem was a praying mantis and every once in a while it would vibrate, the whole body would shake in place. It would fly to another perch and do it again, and once in a while quickly vibrate greater distances to eat an insect. I know for sure this part came from the Phantom Museums series. Weird dreams, the kind I like.