Morning Showers Groggily, I stumble to the showers of the hotel where I'm staying. I can't seem to think straight or keep my eyes open for more than a split second, so it's a moment before I realize I'm standing under the water, holding a paperback book. A book! Quickly, I walk a few steps away and set the book on a shelf, hoping the water damage won't be too bad. I go back to the shower and stare at the wall for a few seconds. Suddenly I wonder if I'm wearing my glasses--are those its rims that I can see around the edge of my vision? I put a hand to my face. Yep, I'm wearing them. Wow, I must be really tired. I take off the glasses and put them in a basket nearby. I continue with my shower for a few minutes, but something's bothering me. I feel like there's some part of the showering process that I've forgotten, maybe something that I forgot to wash. I look down at myself. I'm wearing pants. Argh. I [falsely] wake up in a hotel room. While I'm still in bed, my sister comes in to talk with me about lucid dreaming. I tell her that in a dream last night, I was scrolling through tumblr. She seems surprised, but she believes me. "So there really is a tumblr in there," she says. ("There" refers to "the dreaming world.") She's been trying lucid dreaming herself, but apparently she still has trouble believing how closely dreams can imitate real life. Right now she seems to be imagining all of the things she could do while she's asleep, all of the stuff she could get done. "There's so much time," she says. "You could fill out forms." She's always seemed rather results-oriented to me. My sister starts getting ready for the day, but I keep lying in bed, thinking about how much I DON'T want to take a shower. I know I'm being lazy; I just really, really do not want to take a shower. Internally, I wonder how long it's been since I turned off my alarm at 7:00. [IRL: I meant to get up at seven, but when my alarm went off, I decided I was just too tired.] Out loud, my sister says in a surprised voice that it's already 11:00. Dang, that's late. It's time for me to get moving, whether I want to or not. I enter the long, windowed hallway that leads from my room to the showers. Sullenly, I consider taking off my clothes and walking there naked. It seems an appropriate punishment for the world that made me get up when I didn't want to. But I don't do it. I reach the end of the hallway, which dead-ends in a pair of double doors. Confused, I realize I must have missed the turn. When I start going back the way I came, I look through a window and see a dome-shaped structure off to the side of the hallway up ahead. That must be the showers. I vaguely recall that the architecture looked dome-shaped from the inside. Soon after, I actually do wake up. I'm amused to note that I'm actually NOT strongly opposed to the idea of taking a shower. And it's only a little after 8:00.
Date Reservation (LUCID) As I walk past the front desk of a cafe, I see a high school classmate whom I've always thought quite attractive. I haven't talked to her in a long time, but unfortunately I'm busy. So when we make eye contact, I only say "Hi!" and indicate that I don't have time to talk. A few steps later, though, I regret it. It seems really rude to pass up the chance to catch up with an old acquaintance. I wish I was in the sort of world where I could just walk up and cuddle with people and no one would care. But wait, I am! I'm dreaming! I don't even bother with a reality check before I turn around and walk back towards her. Hesitantly, I sidle up to her and put my arm around her waist. Her shirt feels like it's made of some kind of silky fabric. Her only reaction to this seems to be resignation; she continues talking with the front desk clerk, with occasionally a few words for me. I stare at her eyes. They're pretty, and I think green, but it's like looking at a picture. Nothing moves much, and I can't read anything from her face. Eventually she says, "Come on, our table's this way." I guess she's done arranging things with the clerk. We have a circular table right next to a window. Every other table in the cafe has a dark surface, but ours is quartered in primary colors: one quadrant red, one green, one yellow, one blue. "Of course," I groan. Of course our table would be singled out in the most gaudy way possible. And when we get nearer, I see that my chair is covered in crumbs and other meal residue. Ugh. "Well," I say, "the only thing to do is wipe it off." We commence using our hands to brush the crumbs onto the floor. It takes a while. [Clearly I wasn't very lucid by this point.] Meanwhile, the girl is giving me a few warnings. She says, "If this is about Uncle Bill, please don't be too awkward about it." Somehow she's romantically involved with him, I guess? It's become clear she's rather uncomfortable with the whole situation, and I'm starting to get uncomfortable, too. I wonder if maybe I should try to do some other dream goals, like swimming beneath the ocean. Maybe I could take her with me; she might like that. I ask, "Do you . . . want to go . . . somewhere else, after this?" But whatever her answer, I wake up a few moments later. Insomnia Spoiler for Insomnia: [After waking from that last dream, I tried to picture it in my mind as I fell back asleep. But that only made it harder for me to fall back asleep, I think. I don't remember when I finally dropped off, but this next dream was probably inspired by those feelings of frustration.] It's almost dawn, but I'm still awake. I woke up a while ago from a dream and I haven't been able to get back to sleep. I'm using the computer. Watching videos. Mostly porn. One of the "related videos" on the side has a title that starts with "OMG OMG OMG" and I'm very tempted to click it, before I realize that's exactly what the title's intended to do. The video's probably really stupid. I must be really tired, if I almost fell for that one. I don't watch it. Later, I find a porn video whose title includes the name of one of my high school crushes. And the thumbnail even looks like her. I'm intrigued, so I watch it. It's kind of sexy, although she never takes off any underwear. I probably should have expected that. She was pretty classy when I knew her. I look out the window and see one of my roommates coming up the driveway on a motorcycle. Huh. I hadn't realized he wasn't home. It's almost seven, so he must just be coming to grab his stuff before going to class. It's a school day. I suppose he slept at some girl's place last night. I'm a bit jealous. I look back at the video. Surprisingly, now her bra is on backwards, although it has a wide strap. I hadn't noticed that, the first time through. She takes it off entirely--that takes a moment to register--then turns around and leans over. I lean closer to investigate, but a moment later I wake up. (Messily.) House of Spirits I'm playing a game where you live in a house with a bunch of spirits. Most of the spirits are evil, so you have to fight them. It's multiplayer, and there are a few other people in the house with me right now. We're going through the rooms trying to roust all of the evil spirits so that none of them will surprise us in our sleep. Usually they don't wake up if you just walk through the room, but they will if you say anything aloud. While sort of alone in one wing, I accidentally talk to myself, and a spirit starts to coalesce out of the air. Oops. He offers to duel with me, and he even offers to let me use a pretty nice weapon (like a crowbar or something). That's much better than the weapons this game usually lets you use, so this sounds good to me. But spirits can be tricky, so I ask him what his own weapons will be. "Oh, just this metal letter opener and [some other sharp household implement]," he replies. Then he attacks, before I have a chance to realize that his weapons are much more dangerous than mine. We battle through hallways and rooms. Some other people see us and shout and point, and try to come to assist me. In the end, we defeat the spirit. The rest of the group continues looking for other spirits, but I suddenly realize how silly all of this is. Ghosts aren't real, and I'm tired. I just want to go to bed. My dad sees me abandoning the hunt and starts arguing with me. In response, I try to explain to him that this house isn't even real. It's virtual. Not worth worrying about, see?
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