Sailing the Noosphere

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'm living with my college roommate in a Covington city apartment. I'm going to a concert by The Dear Hunter, one of my favorite bands, but he's not coming along. I decide to walk, and as I do so I pass the library. There I run into two of my favorite high school teachers, Dr. C and Mr. G. We talk about music for a while, but then we go our separate ways. When I get to the venue, it's very crowded in line, and I have to wait for a while. When I get to the front, the bouncer tells me I can't bring my knife in, so I have to run back home to drop it off. The streets seem to change from what I know them in real life, and the distance must be more, for when I get back to the venue the band is done playing. The room is still crowded, but there is no music.

I exit my old house and start off at a good jog through my neighborhood. I set an excellent pace, and it feels as if the scenery is flying by without me slowing down or getting fatigued. I pass along an avenue with heavy woods to both sides and come out in a more rural area. I see a church building to the side, and I pull into it to rest. Several attractive girls invite me to stay for the service, so I do. The preacher, their father, is incredibly charismatic, but I soon realize he's spouting nonsense about aliens and other science-fiction style crazies. I leave, but not before I'm forced to take their book, which has a purple cover and a hypnotic spiral on the front.

After I arrive back home, I start to read the book. As soon as I open it, an invisible force projects from the pages and forces me flying backwards! I realize that if I turn the book, I can use this force to actually fly, and I buzz around my house and backyard for a few moments. I then figure that this is a bad sign, so I manage to fling the book away and land hard. I then rip the book into several pieces and place it in a compost pile.

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 am in the kitchen of my research station. V is there as well, and I finally break the awkward silence that has been plaguing us in real life. I forget the details of the conversation, but it seems to go badly, and she exits the scene without another word. I follow her out the door, which opens out into a snowy urban landscape. I catch a glimpse of her and shout something about reincarnation, and she runs away from me. I try to track her down, but to no avail. I realize that the only release from my troubles is parkour, and I start running headlong into a tall hotel that seems entirely made of glass.

A number of circumstances have affected my recall and ability to post for the past week. But in any case:

1. A weird alternating dream; it began with scenes from an imagined Star Wars Family Guy. I remember a particular scene where Lois, toting a rifle, swung it about the cantina saying in a cutesy voice "Who's the murderer?" However, whenever a lightsaber cut was made, it seemed to cut through the animation. Through the hole would enter tentacles, as if from a Lovecraftian horror. It was like an oozing fungus, and as it consumed and grew I became physically ill. This change of scenes happened a couple of times before I woke up, breathing heavily.

2. In my grade school cafeteria, I'm playing blackjack. The cards aren't falling my way, and so I leave and go upstairs. I find myself upon opening a door in my own room. Soon V and J enter; V has a new haircut, but all the two can talk about is my own egregious bed head.

3. A huge earthquake breaks apart the continents, leaving much technology preserved but social and political lines in chaos.

4. I run parkour-style through a massive prefab house facility, only to find my research group seated in the middle in an already-assembled house. They are nonplussed and continue to play poker.

1. It's nighttime. I'm sitting around drinking something with a friend, when suddenly I start to feel pretty bad. The dreamview switches to a close-up of my digestive tract, which shows itself to be swollen and red and close to exploding. This continues for an uncomfortable time, showing different organs, when the view suddenly goes third-person. My body explodes, splattering blood on the dream "camera" and causing an elderly couple to comment on my rudeness.

2. My brother, my roommate, and I are chasing the girls who live at my research station around the halls. Eventually they start to fight back, and I do parkour down the (IRL nonexistent) basement stairwell to hide from them.

I visit a mall, one derived from the Florence Mall in Northern KY that has served as a location for several previous dreams (failed reality check). As I wander around, I hear some snippets of conversation that seem familiar from real life (another failed reality check), including someone explaining their confusion about my roommate's name. The mall is nearing closing time, so nearly everyone is there to exercise. There are runners, walkers, and a large contingent of skaters inside a cavernous skate shop made entirely of wood. There's even a group of people on old-school penny farthing bicycles!
I start to join in the activity by doing lame parkour moves on the planters and benches. I know I could do better, but I'm wearing leather loafers, a blue long-sleeve dress shirt, and khaki pants. Suddenly, my friend C comes running out of nowhere, his impressive red mane streaming from behind him. He starts to race me through the mall, and he puts on a burst of speed I know he could never have in real life. I fall behind, panting and angered, as he runs out of the mall.