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 at the movies with my friends K.G. and C.W. My brother and his friends are there as well, and we start talking about a new sport called "sniper golf." It's pretty much self-explanatory; one team plays scramble golf as the other tries to pick them off with sniper paintball guns, then the teams switch.

2. I'm playing a Survivor challenge game that the host introduces as "capture the bag." The arena is set up in a cross shape, with four sloped paths leading to a high plateau in the center. Two teams of three try to throw bags at a dinosaur statue in the first round, with the most hits winning the round. In the second round, the goal is to get all six bags by any means necessary, and a fracas ensues.

3. I'm at my old grade school when I'm called to the principal's office to see government agents. I'm a little scared, but when I arrive they just want to say hi and give me some candy. I start walking back through the halls, boasting to everyone I meet, when a teacher rolls her eyes and tells me to go home.

4. I'm playing Drummania in an arcade, a game like Rock Band. Towards the end of the song I'm playing, the standard notes turn into a series of walls, which my sticks break down.

1. My friends from a recent RPG campaign have gathered to perform a work of music I've written. I am leading the ensemble with a marimba, while C.W. plays flute, V.W., K.R., and M.G. all play various percussion instruments. The work is energetic and the conductor is very much into it; there's an extended section of dueling percussion soli.

2. I get a bulky letter from a great-aunt and uncle I hardly know, and on the outside is written something like "If you love us, you'll be much more important." We go to visit them at their sprawling southern plantation-type home, approaching through a huge bluegrass field with a great oak tree as a centerpiece. The great-aunt sees me from across the field and beckons to me; I run away, although I'm not sure why and am a bit embarrassed.

3. I'm in downtown Cincinnati with my brother for some reason, when I realize that I'll miss the opera if I don't go home and change into nice clothes. The crowds outside Music Hall are horrible thanks to the traffic of a Reds game and ticketing problems at the venue. As I walk to the ticket window, MB. T. and her friends jump out of a car and begin to walk behind me. I double my pace to avoid them, but she calls me and I turn around to hug her anyway. A random acquaintance from college, Jessica B., remarks "smooth move," but no one else present thinks this remark is appropriate.

4. I again run into MB at a games club/cigar making club?

5. I'm playing pro baseball, which is serious business in the dreamworld. I miss an important catch, which leads our team to a loss. I am summarily expelled from the team and jailed. In my cell, I get a call from another criminal asking if I want to sell drugs. I act like I have some to receive visitors, then take advantage of the open gate to run like crazy. I get shot but keep running anyway.

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.

I emerge from one dream, the contents of which are fairly blurry... I think they involved being attacked by a helicopter and a plane while on foot, and tricking the two into clipping their wings on nearby buildings. Anyway, after I wake up I notice I'm not turning around and maintain enough presence of mind to stay still and close my eyes. I relax and let sleep come back into me, and soon enough I realize that I'm in a dream state. It's a rather formless place, but when I start to think about what I'd like to do it begins to fill with a series of pipes for acrobatics. I soon find that the pipes are too closely placed, and I can't do the wide swinging arcs that I want to. Instead I focus and jump, and end up flying through the roof of the space. I emerge into a beautiful parklike area, with a large shining lake and forest all around, and I fly for a few moments before waking.

1. I'm taking a trip with my college friends into New York City. We ride the subway, then get off and start to negotiate taxi prices to get to our next destination. There are 15 of us, and the lady at the counter just kind of laughs when we ask if we could get a decent rate. At this I snap, and pull out a sniper rifle. I order everyone to the roof, and they obey fearfully.

Everyone lines up along the ledge of the roof, while I take a fortified position near the back. I start sniping, one after another, and feel great sorrow when I catch one of my friends with a bullet. Soon the police arrive, but without proper backup, and I snipe several of them. I then notice a stunning woman in a white dress swinging her legs out of a nearby window. I put my scope on her, but then notice she too has a rifle. She smiles at me and starts shooting at the crowd. Eventually the police get a machine gun emplacement set up and start to pepper my position, and the concrete blocks that shield me start to give way.

I awaken into my dorm room at college, where I get up and breathe on a mirror. I start writing the salient points of the dream in my breath as my friends are playing Mario Party in the background on the N64. It's hard to get the words to stay (failed RC), but I feel satisfied at some point. I then real awaken, angry...

2. I'm playing backgammon and discussing world issues with former president Bill Clinton.

3. I go to a concert in Columbus Ohio where Avenged Sevenfold is doing an experimental set and recording it directly to Youtube.

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. It's a boring night at the research station, so to pass the time I lean my face against the window of my room and watch people come and go through the courtyard below. CA goes to do laundry, then John L and Joe C go out to find stray animals. They return to the kitchen, where my dad is present to tell tales from the hometown animal rescue. The rescue clinic was apparently so successful that it was able to "hire" concerned volunteers at a dime a pop. After this I false awaken into my bed at home. I get up to brush my teeth, but I don't spit right and swallow the disgusting toothpaste. When I look at the mirror, I see Chinese characters with subtitle translations that say "That toothpaste was disgusting." (A failed text and mirror RC if I ever saw one)

2. I'm walking through Cincinnati with P at night. We have been shooting at an Astro van with our guns to try and get it to explode, but nothing's been happening. We decide to head into a foreigner-owned restaurant for greasy fast food.

1. I'm making a thrilling video-game style escape from an industrial type level. I'm not so much running or parkouring, although there is some of that. Instead, I'm solving puzzles where the penalty is falling down large pits. For example, to cross one I have to latch a carabiner shaped like a hummingbird to the right track above the pit and glide across. Below me is a horde of giants, reaching up to grab my feet and eat me. I think I may actually have failed once, but I re-spawned and took the right path. In another puzzle, I have to figure out the motion of a series of ladders and trains. I jump from one to the other, whirling almost out of control before I land on solid ground.

Finally I manage to break out of the level into a building (which I recognize from another dream after the fact). I take the wrong elevator but eventually break out into my hometown. For whatever reason I walk through a combination strip club/liquor store, then exit from there into a strip mall parking lot. I get surrounded by police, who accuse me of shoplifting and try to tase me. I start getting really scared and half-lucidly force myself to wake up.

2. I'm at a beautiful Japanese university with Dr. C from my research station. He drops me off by a riverbank and tells me to wait as he performs some errands. I dutifully wait, pulling out my laptop and playing Age of Empires II to pass the time. My mom randomly shows up, bringing hometown pizza and her homemade pie, and asks about my general health. By eating and conversation I manage to ease her worries and she goes away. I then wander off to take a leak. When I return, I see two kids in a pickup truck have stolen all my stuff and are driving away!

Frantically I run after them and end up in the main building of the university. I find all of my stuff set up just as I had left it in a hallway of the building. I play some more, then talk to a janitor about the school's study abroad program. Soon I wander into a busy stairwell, where Dr. C passes by, then the two kids who stole my stuff. V passes by me; she then passes by me again in the same direction, and this time she kicks me into the stairs and starts screaming that I deserve the pain. Apparently she heard something I said as "I want a domestic divorce," but this was the opposite of what I meant. I panic to tell her the truth, but the dream ends before I meet up.

3. I'm in some cartoonish epic of wizards and wizardry. A white wizard (white as in race) is on the run from a horde of black wizards led by his archrival and former apprentice. He runs into his house and sets the locks just in time to have the horde crash on his door. He draws his wand, then turns to face the nemesis he knows has teleported right behind him. The two draw, and they launch volleys of magic meant to kill.

4. The scene is set in an exotic hotel, where people are exercising nasty fetishes about the Warhammer 40K universe. Soon things shift to the hotel's courtyard, where the lead singer of the band Foxy Shazam is teaching a dance class.

I'm waiting for my brother to pick me up at home and take me to the mall. He's running late, so I go downstairs and fire up my computer. It has a projected user interface, as in Jarvis from the Iron Man movie, and a very large high-def monitor. I start to browse Wikipedia (text, so failed RC), looking up Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and from there link to an obscure Japanese game that takes place in the Kingdom Hearts universe. It download it and proceed to play.
The only relationship to Kingdom Hearts is the use of the Gummi Ship. This vehicle is presented in top-down perspective, scrolling in a traditional manner as in Galaga or Galaxian. The enemies follow colored tracks along with a soundtrack, as in Audiosurf, and special flight maneuvers are also order with the music as in DJ Hero. The interface is intuitive and the gameplay frantic enough to keep me engaged for several rounds, and I start to reconsider going to the mall at all.

A team of cowboys is riding through a heavily forested area in what is clearly a Wild West setting. The team encounters a group of Indians who live on the land, and their first interactions are rather peaceful. Some of the cowboys feel that the Indian elders are plotting against them, but then again, the cowboys themselves are plotting too. They want to take over the land; both cultural assimilation and fighting are suggested.
Soon, one of the cowboys pulls up a tree from the ground, a oil starts to bubble up. He says, "The Federal Reserve is buying this, we're gonna be rich!" The cowboys claim the land, causing the Indians to join with local townsfolk and fight back. The townspeople are dressed in their everyday attire; I notice a lawyer, a banker, and a baker (complete with chef's hat). A crazy firefight ensues between the sides, with no resolution before the dream ends. One of the coolest moments is when the scene suddenly turns into LEGO bricks and goes slo-mo! The shooting continues, and the baker's hat deflects a bullet. Snaps back into real action after that.

It's evening at a summer camp, and I feel incredibly bored. My brother invites me to play video games with him, so I go to the living room of our house and join. It's some sort of superhero fighting game with SNES-level graphics, and I play as Wolverine against his Hulk. The cartoons have a good level of violence, with blood flying as my Wolverine claws dig into the Hulk's skin. Eventually I get bored again and wander outside.

I find a book of idea for things to do when bored just lying on the ground. I pick it up and start flipping through (yet another failed RC). One of the ideas is shooting a watch battery with a nail to produce some sort of cool reaction; the book warns that after the 41st nail is shot at any battery, both objects are coated with a slow-acting contact poison. I proceed to idly shoot the battery 42 times, watching sparks and corrosive fluids form, then touch the damn thing. Nothing happens immediately, but in a minute or two my left arm feels incredibly numb. I look down at it, and the skin is turning a sickly shade of blue (failed finger RC). I run to the camp's bathroom, but faint out of the dream.

1. I go to visit my friend P, who is living at the rural research station I currently live it IRL. We talk of nerdy things and eat cake in the library, nothing outrageous or illegal, and then my mom comes to pick me up. Out of the blue, P asks where we should do weed next time; I fear for my mom ever letting me visit the kid again, but he seems nonchalant.

2. While talking with P in the library about applications of force, I find a rocket launcher and use it to bring down a nuclear-armed helicopter. I go back in, then realize another chopper is on the way. This time the rocket fails, and I see the chopper fly up to drop its nuke. Not wanting to die alone, I tell P I have to go do something, and climb the steps to seek out a crush from the research station named V. She's walking to her car as I climb up, and from the stairs I call out for her to wait. When I get down, I explain the situation, and she agrees to let me not die a virgin. There is some confusion as to where we'll do it, but the dream ends before anything,