Sailing the Noosphere

1. I go to the Cincinnati Art Museum with L.H. and Clinton McK. We're there for a special gallery that I've already visited. It contains primarily works by Normal Rockwell, but there are also cases filled with intricate old clocks. The centerpiece is an installation called the "Wall of Memories," which is comprised of hundreds of small video screens. Sometimes they each show a different scene, but the most impressive moments are when all screens act in unison to create a larger picture. An idyllic country scene starts to play as we leave the gallery.

Clinton stays behind as L.H. and I head out. Unexpectedly, she breaks out into a run, and I have to move very fast to catch her. My movement is like a gliding run, almost a skating motion, but I am only wearing shoes. When we reach obstacles and stairs I vault over them, eventually ending up in an auditorium like that from a previous dream about the Cincinnati Museum Center. I recognize this and go very semi-lucid; sensations are more real but I lack control. For whatever reason I start eating a delicious hunk of Cheddar cheese.

2. I go with L.H. as my date, to a grade school reunion, which ends badly. I distinctly remember myself saying, "These people made me the neurotic wreck I am today," but little else.

3. I'm watching ice hockey, and the goalie is making a series of incredible saves.

I'm watching a TV ad for a new day care center, showing itself as "fun" for the kids. The babies enter the building by a catapult launcher, which throws them headfirst into tubes that then slow them down before depositing them in a central play room. All fine and good, but then the dream shifts into something more sinister. Babies keep on coming, row upon row of identical babies with blank stares. This continues until someone decides the only way to deal with it is to flood the world, and water pours over the packed babies to suffocate them all.

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. I'm doing my grocery shopping and wander down the frozen food aisle. Suddenly, all of the TV screens in the isle start to synchronize and launch into a 15 minute presentation about a certain brand. I watch, dumbfounded, and I remember feeling rather convinced. At the end of the presentation, I start to move, but from the end of another aisle a stage flips out. It's filled with opera singers who proceed to launch into a Handel oratorio. To my surprise it's actually rather good, full of humor and some bawdy behavior (such as men kissing) that strikes me as inappropriate for the era. When the show is over the stage folds back into the aisle and I continue shopping. At the end of my purchases, I get confronted by several employees for tipping the produce scales and trying to cheat on the price.

2. I'm at an awesome kid-focused science museum with tons of demos. I recall fingerprint powder, wind tunnels, and infrared cameras. There's also a flight harness to simulate low gravity, and I put it on to fly effortlessly around the room. I'm a little big for the apparatus, though, and I'm constantly on the verge of crashing.

3. I'm competing in the Winter Olympics, where there's now an "extreme skiing" event. This is done as a co-ed event, starting with a beauty contest where the female half of the team shows off her assets. The other part of the event is a breakneck downhill race where the course goes through moguls (and wooden stairs). I finish in second, right behind my female partner, so we win the gold!