Sailing the Noosphere

1. I go to see Swan Lake at Cincinnati's Music Hall with C.W. We pass a White Castle on the way there, and I remark how it's practically an outpost of my college with the clientele it gets. We arrive at the hall, and as we ascend the escalator we see Dr. L. and give him a salute. We get to the lobby and see a glorious buffet laid out before us; the ballet is already starting, and we hear a flautist fail her solo. I start eating and scarf down hashbrowns, vegetables, and a roll before a frumpy attendant starts asking me questions. I act suspicious and evade her questions, and she starts chasing me down. I run into the auditorium, where I find my family and sit by them. I don't escape the woman, though, and am kicked out.

2. I view a montage of Call of Duty matches, all taking place in some sort of museum. It's a hardcore assault on an elevator, and teams trade places between attack and defense. The terrorists almost win a match, letting only two of the good guys escape before time runs out. Once, when the elevator is nearing the attack stage, a string quartet forms and plays Metallica in the space.

1. I'm attending Cincinnati Opera's production of "The Magic Flute." It seems to take place in a great hall instead of the traditional auditorium, and our seats have rather bad views. However, the ambiance is very nice, a candlelit affair. Plates of food are brought out with appropriate themes for every aria, and each patron is given a book with explanatory notes to the action.

2. I'm playing in a chess tournament at the local library, and I manage to win the whole event. I get $100 from a large roll of cash as my reward; I notice that there are ticket stubs and coupons attached to the end of the roll as well. I start to browse the library, which has recently expanded its collection to include food and wine. Little samples can be "checked out" for tasting purposes. I sample a decent white wine, and as I do the old lady who organized the chess tourney asks me to complete her bridge foursome. I'm reluctant, but I eventually agree and text my mom that I'll be late to meet her.

5 separate entries? Good night of recall...

1. I'm watching the Simpsons, where Moe and Barney are the only two in Moe's Tavern. Both are fairly drunk and feeling vulnerable, and after a bit of dialogue they exchange a single kiss. Moe admits he was curious, and as soon as he does the bar begins to collapse around him. Dream cuts to "South Moe's," recast as an upscale drinking spot. However, pots of a black goop bubble behind the surface of the bar. Drinkers are littering the floor with their empty bottles, and as they do so the goop reaches out of its pots to grab them. The drinkers seem to dissolve before my eyes; Milhouse (dressed as Admiral Ackbar) screams "It's a trap!," while his mother's head lulls sickeningly on a bleached-white spinal column. Eventually Moe is the only one left in the bar, and he angrily tips over the pots. All the drinkers emerge, unharmed, and Moe orders them to clean up the mess as a lesson in environmental stewardship.

2. My high school friend S.M. has asked me to text him on Facebook, but I ignore his request. The next day, he and M.B. show up at my house bearing Magic cards, and as we play they both admit that they've been crushingly bored. I false awaken, then go to the computer and log on to Facebook. I see his text request again and ask myself, "Is this a dream?" I fail the reality check miserably and fail to go lucid.

3. I'm reading about Tarot readings I've done in my journal, only to realize that I've forgotten the staff portion of the Celtic Cross.

4. I'm at a flea market with the family, and we enter the main building through a sort of farmer's market area. Most things are reasonably priced, but bananas are $8 a pound and my mom flips out about it. Dad, fed up with her, enters a room containing clothes and life jackets. My brother has a smartphone with him, and dad wants to use it to check prices. The internet at the market can only be accessed through a medieval themed game interface, which costs $35. He buys it, but finds it very hard to enter web addresses, as letters change after entry (failed RC). Eventually he succeeds, and sees that his parking can be validated if he goes to the student union at my new graduate school. As he logs off, the game reports his session as a "royal history."

5. I'm at college, where I'm taking "History of Baseball." I get destroyed by the first test, and walk out dejected when I meet my old roommate, J.L. He carries a Whiffle bat and ball, and we play a little.

1. I'm talking about traffic density with one of my brother's classmates, Sam S. We have a nice visual aid as we discuss, a projected map of Earth with different traffic patterns as different colors. There are black/white and red/blue modes that show routes of transit quite clearly. Sam gives the example of dogsled races as an unforseen variable that brings lots of traffic to untraveled areas, and illustrates this with the map. The display changes to a 3-D view, showing the swath of tree destruction caused by tourists to the races. Obviously I'm disturbed by this, so I get my family to travel to Alaska to check it out.

Transition to outside the home of one of Alaska's most prominent breeders. We talk about the science of breeding; for whatever reason my parents call heritable traits "actions." Conveniently, the breeder has a poster that's basically an illustrated Punnet square for nose shape, with each genotype's phenotype shown and discussed. My dad talks about technique, and speaks of backcrossing by "taking the best female dog and getting offspring with her son."

We continue to walk to the breeder's backyard; I feel a cool breeze quite vividly. Finally we see the breeder, who is on a deck high above us. He pays us no notice, as he's managing an owl on his shoulder with an unusually big head. He releases the bird, and as it flies down to earth it seems to grow larger. It's practically human sized as it hits the ground in the neighboring yard. This belongs to an apartment complex, and two pretty girls clad only in towels giggle (and maybe flash us) as we look up at them. I comment to myself that it must be cold up there, but the owl has my attention. I marvel at the breeder and say "I want to be the guy!" My dad smirks and says, "You probably already are." Dream ends, but that's probably the best dialogue recall I've had in a long time.

2. I'm playing a Terminator 3 arcade game. It's quite high-tech, with Kinect type technology, but it keeps glitching and showing the body recognition data instead of the game proper.

1. I place a mail order for two large grey discs of "questionable literary material." They arrive in my backyard at a bad time, as I'm playing something with my brother and my mom is on the patio talking. I keep my cool and wait until night to bring them in, but both parents are still puttering around. My dad goes outside to get a radio; I perceive him like guard from Metal Gear Solid. I make a mad dash past him with the discs under my arm, then run up the stairs, stash them under my bed and get ready to go back out. My brother then enters, dressed in a little green man alien costume.

2. I'm playing some sort of Disney/Halo crossover game. Its first level is a straightforward run and gun with an HMG, but the second is sniper mission that my dad and I can't beat. I scan a crowd of faces with my scope, but don't see the character I'm supposed to kill. I shrug and give up, and the sniper nest turns into a hotel room.

3. I'm biking at a local college, where I see my friend C.W. I invite him to have lunch with me.

1. My family visits MGM studios at Disney World. One of the main attractions seems to be a large kissing booth with "famous people," but all one can see of these people is a pair of lips. There are text descriptions of each person under their lips, from Einstein to Disney himself and more. I explore for a bit, then head to the exit area, where a friendly Disney employee offers Purell hand sanitizer and a station for making PB&J sandwiches. As I exit into a garden, I look up at the sky and see two missiles streaking down towards the ground. I remark to myself how much the missiles look like breasts, then run to the impact site. My dad is nearby, pissed off, because the missiles were aimed at his bicycle as punishment for trying to enter an attraction through a forbidden doorway. He mentions he might not have been on best terms with Disney, as they caught him littering before.

2. Some sort of four-color version of the webcomic Cyanide and Happiness. The characters are attacked by a shark while on an ocean raft, and they hold it off. The dream ends when the characters start to peel layers off of themselves, revealing different shirts.

3. Vague account of bounding like a dog through a streetlight night...

1. I'm on my recent girlfriend's Facebook, where I see her pictures from field school. She's shaved her head, and she's standing with an old friend from college S. T. I laugh, shut my laptop down, and head into the night. I go to a bank, where I'm trying to get a summer job. On my way in, I see the same girl, but she has a full head of hair and is wearing our green senior class shirt. She says softly to me, with a bit of worry in her eyes, "I was never here." I don't know what to say, so I pass her and enter the bank. I don't get the job, but my parents are in the bank and walk out with me. She's still there, although my parents don't seem to notice her. She affirms, "Seriously, if we somehow meet I was never here."

2. I'm at the opening game of the World Series. Joseph Stalin is opening the ceremonies with a rant about Russia's nuclear capabilities.

My parents and I are at the Cincinnati Museum Center taking in an exhibit on history. Multiple periods are contrasted, from ancient Assyrian engravings to the civil rights struggles in America. The exhibit proper ends with a model of a very pretty African-American girl in pearls and a cocktail dress getting lynched... then opens into a gift shop. People are sitting on benches in the shop with laptops, playing poker on Pokerstars.net. My mom comments on this as rather silly, then goes to discuss some business about layaway.

Poker serves as a transition point to an outdoors scene, where I sit down to a large ring game of Holdem. My mom insists on joining me, and initially the other players are fine with it. However, she is slow at playing and screws up her deal of Omaha when it comes around to her. The game goes back to Holdem and I get AK in the hole. My mom goes all-in, and I look at my cards again (which have become AA, so missed reality check) and call. Other players are disgusted with me for some reason...

I false awaken into my room at home, then go downstairs. My brother and his friend are there and report also dreaming about poker. With some questioning I find that they shared my dream, varying in minor details. I freak out about this and wake up.

1. I am in jazz band, and my bass skills fail me rather epically.

2. I'm drinking with my friends, in what amounts to a rehash of the truth-or-dare game from the night before.

3. I visit a shooting range with my dad and pop off a good deal of rounds fairly accurately. I note that instead of my meager 22 rifle, I could be renting Uzis and machine guns! Before I can do so, a whole busload of deaf and dumb people pour out onto the range. They talk in sign language to each other and begin to shoot.

1. The whole family is going on a visit to the King's Island amusement park. We pull into a far away parking lot shared by a strip mall and several megachurches. My mom expresses concern about all the black men loitering in the lot, but my brother and I don't care and start to wander. We pass a local music shop, which seems to be having a going-out-of-business sale. Outside of the store is a row of basses with prices (failed RC), and I give them a good examination. As I look at them, one of the office ladies from my high school walks by and says "I know you and who's with you!" Cut to my high school's office,, where Mom and the lady are talking. It's the last day of school, and she's complaining about how only one student has wished her a good summer. PV, who she's nicknamed (appropriately) Big Chunky," is that student, and he comes from the back of the office to greet my mom and I warmly.

2. I'm watching a suspended roller coaster that seems inspired by a fight with a dragon. There's a lot of flat preparation at the beginning, followed by a crazy drop and a series of loops. Some bullies from my grade school are riding it, and when they get off of it they start to make fun of me.

1. I'm watching an old couple do a live broadcast of some comedic radio show. They only get a couple of lines in, the last of which is "He's always so polite," before I false-awaken into my bed. I start to write it down in my dream journal, when suddenly I hear "Habenera" from Carmen blaring in full orchestral beauty. This causes me to check my dream journal, and sure enough, my handwriting is unstable! I get lucid and try to stabilize, rubbing my hands together and feeling the bed beneath me. Things are solid and quite real feeling, and I try to engage as many senses as possible. I start thinking about where to take the dream while still stabilizing, and this continues for a good twenty seconds. However, I lose control before I'm able to do anything.

2. It's after the civil war, and my embarrassed family is ordering drinks from our former slaves who are now free employees of a restaurant.

1. My brother and I, both living at my research station, have started a band called "Acid Warning." We're preparing for a big concert and are trying to recruit as many audience members as we can before the show. We take a break from practice to go watch TV with our dad. The first show is Jeopardy, and after we finish, Alex Trebek himself comes by the room and just laughs at us. We are nonplussed and continue watching, this time seeing Dr. Who.

Afterwards, Mom joins us, along with a professor from the station and his wife. Subtle, barbed insults are exchanged between the adults, making my brother and I feel very uncomfortable. We exit, but soon the parents follow us. Dad orders us to leave, saying that he can't stand to spend another day here.

2. My brother and I discover a website with every N64 game ever made. We hook up the computer to the TV and start to play; I start off with Pokemon Snap, but he soon changes the game to Star Wars Battlefront.

1. My brother, dad, and I are at the animal shelter adopting a new cat. For some reason my brother empties his pockets, but all he has in them is a large and unwieldy knife-wallet hybrid with a combination lock. An Asian man grabs the lock and starts cracking it. He soon solves it and tries to leave, but I hook my finger in the lock and pull to make him stay. We struggle for a while and he calls me racist names, then pulls out a pistol. I then proceed to knock him out with my other hand and escape with the family.

2. I'm playing DDR in an arcade with some of my college friends. It only costs two tokens, but the machine has been modified to float and is very unstable on a pool of water. My friend Q starts to bash arrows on the machine, and I try to stop him from messing me up. I lose my balance, however, and fall into what turns out to be putrid water.

3. I am watching a Tupperware container with a hot dog and a bunch of Cincinnati chili. Suddenly the hot dog grows a tiny mouth and starts to eat the chili, eventually leaving the container spotless!

4. I can see my own aura, and it is green. Someone else (unintelligible notes) also sees it and comments.

1. Once again I find myself in a mall arcade with my parents. I find a DDR machine where someone has left credits, and happily I jump on and select double mode. I have a lot of trouble selecting my first song, though (and with text menu, another failed RC), ending up on a Paul McCartney solo work. The stepchart is silly, and I barely manage to pass, feeling acute embarrassment. For my next song, however, I go to my old fallback "Heaven is a '57 Metallic Gray" and rock the house. Arrows seem smaller than in real life, but otherwise the interface is fine.

2. I play the main role in a music video for one of my favorite bands, The Dear Hunter. I don't remember details, but I do remember that it ends in a passionate and particularly real-feeling kiss.

1. The family is visiting me at my research station. My brother says he needs to talk, and he tells me that his friend A is growing more distant with him after breaking up with K. The dream fast-forwards to the next day, where we all go out to eat at McDonald's. The brother orders poutine (suggesting we're in Canada?) and we talk about how relationships seem to chain down from one person to another. The parents eat calmly downstairs.
When he and I go back down, a waitress (with a nametag reading Skilscience, so a failed RC) is talking in a Norwegian accent to my dad. It seems that he's been rude, and she's trying to instruct him in manners. He ignores her while asking for more gravy, and she snaps. She jumps up on a nearby table and starts shouting everything wrong with McDonald's. The cheese is fake, the beef is tainted, employees spit in the food, etc. Soon the rest of the employees join her, shouting "Down with Wal-Mart! Down with McDonald's!" The family leaves in a huff, and the dream fades out over Anti-Flag style punk music.

2. I'm a bassist in a successful rock band with a large crew of student roadies (all of whom I recognize as fellow students IRL). We're recording a new album, and in the studio other members of the band are listening to Led Zeppelin for inspiration. We start to record, but the drums just aren't working properly. We waste hours of precious studio time, and I drive away from the studio frustrated.

3. Movie-style voiceover shows an epic tale in the Star Wars universe. Two Jedi, dueling hardcore, got frozen in a block of ice; their bodies rotted, but the lightsabers still burn today. I lead a team of explorers to find them, but as we retrieve the blades one of them somehow cuts through the other. This releases a huge fireball of energy, and my crew races to escape while being pursued by ninja stormtroopers.