Sailing the Noosphere

1. I'm watching a documentary about Star Wars. The show talks about drafts of the script and plot, as well as special effects. In one deleted scene, R2D2 uses his electric hookup to stun Darth Vader. Another part of the show demonstrates how Count Dooku's lighting encodes subliminal messages one letter at a time if viewed frame to frame.

2. I'm playing soccer in my Grandma's backyard. I'm in drag, and I seem to be playing with a couple of cartoon women, including Marge from the Simpsons. The other team is conversely girls dressed in boy's clothing. The game itself is entertaining, with ridiculous combination shots.

3. I'm hanging out with my friends C.W. and K.G., playing video games and being bored. K. goes to his room and fetches a sci-fi series on DVD. The discs are wrapped in foil, and are advertised as seen on an anime.

4. I'm being babysat by Sideshow Bob from the Simpsons. He microwaves a plate of food, pressing a button with a stylized atom symbol to "nuke" it.

1. I'm cripplingly depressed, but I'm riding my bike anyway to meet my brother behind an old Blockbuster in my hometown. The store has been repurposed into a porn store, and I go in and buy something. I see my mom exit from the nearby Walgreens, so naturally I drop the porn and meet her. Rest of DJ is unintelligible.

2. I'm hanging out/jamming with my friend Scott A. in the basement of my house. Q and S.T. come over. I go to greet them, but in my clumsiness I start a chain reaction that breaks a bunch of lamps. None of my friends seem to particularly care, but I grab a vacuum cleaner anyway. As I go for it, I realize I'm hungry. I take the vacuum with me and grab my bicycle, heading to my college cafeteria. Along the way, I am insulted about my age by Nathan S. and other jackasses from college. I ignore them and head into the cafeteria, where I first enter the bathroom.

3. I'm playing a Star Trek version of the TIE Fighter video game. I successfully pilot a starfighter against impossible odds, several capital ships at a time. There's then a "trench run" sequence as in Star Wars, where I follow a freighter into a massive building. It's decorated as a nightclub for giants, and there's a critical spot on the floor that I need to shoot. I can't keep my craft steady enough to shoot and use the tractor beam at the same time and fail the mission.

1. I'm buying mirrored sunglasses in a Walgreens.

2. The Offspring are opening a concert for Rush by playing an ACDC cover. The sound is fantastic, just like real life.

3. Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi are fighting to keep their spots on a crowded passenger starship.

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. 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.

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. 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.