Sailing the Noosphere

1. I'm walking through the Grand Canyon with a school trip. Everything is ridiculously clear and vivid; the sky is the bluest I've ever seen and the rocks are towering above. We go to climb some of the cliffs and the texture of the rocks is rough beneath my fingers.

2. All I remember is shaving, and shaving poorly. Whenever I draw the razor across my face, I nick it and draw blood. Once I even pull a sheet of skin off instead of hair. I'm hurt and frustrated.

1. My brother and I are at a theme park that seems to be based on world War II. As we walk along, our eyes are caught by what looks like an indoor mini golf course. When we enter, however, the attraction is a kind of real-life platformer. Fiendish puzzles of moving boxes are suspended above pits of water or water colored to look like "lava." It takes a lot of time and creative thinking, but we clear a bunch of levels together. Eventually, however, we reach the final stage, presided over by a cigar-smoking wax statue of General George Patton. In this stage, we have to carry a box of supplies over a very unstable path of floating and sinking boxes. I empty my pockets, knowing that I'll probably fall. They have my real-life every day carry in them, including my wallet, cell phone, keys, and Swiss Army knife. My brother and I then start to carry the boxy, but soon we simply give up.

2. I'm exploring the University of Tennessee in a kind of Space Station 13 style setup. The dream is set during a Latin convention, so the place is crowded, and I get up to a variety of hijinks. Highlights include leading a round of spiritual songs on the dance floor, climbing up recently painted ladders, tracking my friend H's little sister, and causing sonic annoyance on the football field. Lots of activity, but little in my notes.

3. A suit clad woman is driving a car of research station students back from a movie. The scenery isn't rural at all, but instead a kind of cyberpunk corporate hellhole. She convinces us to make an unnecessary fast food stop at a White Castle, and we enter the drive through. As we do so, however, she nonchalantly says "By the way, you're dreaming." I realize that yes, I am, but having a DC tell me straight up is enough to snap me out.

1. Mom, my brother, and I are driving around downtown Cincinnati, when I notice some interesting graffiti on the side of a tall building. Everyone gets out of the car and starts to climb the building, eventually reaching an outcrop near the tags. One is simple to interpret and just says "Rage," the other is a design that looks like two capital "A" letters that share a leg. I think that the latter symbol is the tagger's way of representing A=A, the Objectivist tenet. This is backed up when I find (and start leafing through, missing a RC) a philosophy textbook. Details afterward are fuzzy, but the conversation among the family turns to something horrible, and I remember a crushing sadness. The textbook falls and shatters as we climb down, and eventually I start to sob.

2. I'm watching a movie-style overview of an epic bike race in Africa. Things quickly go over-the-top; one bike is a robotic monstrosity, one is ridden by an ape-man who carries jungle animals with him, and one is ridden by Spiderman. Crazy hijinks ensue, but details are kind of fuzzy.

This seems to be a dream within a dream; I start playing Dungeons and Dragons at my research station, choosing the dwarf artificer as my character. Perspective quickly shifts to being the dwarf in a fantasy worldscape. I'm heading with my party into a mining town, which has as its access point an impressive tower that lowers into the mines. I enter and begin walking down the stairs to my assigned bunk. It seems to take ages, and as I pass the other adventurers who have already gotten bunks, I notice that their names are written on whiteboards in the style of a college dorm. All of them have names of people I know from my college, as well.
When I arrive at the bottom of the stairs, I find my real life name written on a board beside a bunk. The space is very spartan, and in the back of my head I wish there were a faucet to wash my hands. When I turn around, lo and behold, there is one! I remember the "turnaround summon" I've read about on the Dreamviews forums, and this reality check lets me realize that I'm dreaming. I get about a second or two of true lucidity as water pours over my hands, but after that I wake up. My eyes are still closed and I try fervently to get lucidity back, but the images I'm conjuring are just like those of a waking daydream and not the full-sense immersion of a lucid dream.

1. I'm washing dishes in the research station kitchen, when V comes in and says "I like your orange skirt!" I think she says "shirt," so I look down and see that I'm wearing my Star Wars band photo tee along with blue jeans. I respond that I'm confused, but she keeps repeating the phrase a couple of times until I realize that there's an orange ring around the bottom of my tee, presumably from a bad wash process.

2. A kindly and eccentric professor is taking my class outside to do some reading. We emerge into a wood that looks exactly like the backyard in my old house, except there is a huge cliff off to one side. Some people try to climb it and fall, but I ask him how to get to the plateau at the top. He shows me the easy rock stairs on the other side.