Nerefa

This dream was not the most interesting. Normally I don’t bother writing these down, but wanted to touch up on my recall.

—-

Post apocalypse, me and a group of people drove away from our home town to escape an apocalypse.

Most of us didn’t know each other because we had just narrowly escaped disaster by squeezing into this vehicle last second.

There were three men, a newborn infant (belonged to one of the men), and a woman who was driving.

As we drove, we spotted a store that still had its lights on (not sure how because nowhere else had power) and wasn’t reduced to a pile of rubble like the buildings around it.

So we pulled over. It was a Disney giftshop of all things.

Turns out that despite everyone dying in the apocalypse and buildings going up in flames, Disney kept up with regular business hours.

The employees all acted like there was nothing going on outside.

They still took cash, even though money was pretty much useless now because of the apocalypse.

So we went in to purchase some supplies for the baby, which felt like a surreal contrast with how the world was outside.

Then we got back into the car and drove off, eventually reaching a city that appeared to be abandoned.

In this city, the buildings were all eerily covered in black and white striped fumigation tents.

We got out if the car because several of the guys wanted to stay here for the night, so we all stepped out and talked about our plans, speculating about why everything was tented.

An disagreement ensued because the woman wanted to leave, but her decision was outnumbered because everyone else wanted to stay.

The problem with splitting up the group was who got to take the car (the city had no cars in it, or they were under the tents).

Eventually the disagreement turned into politics (go figure) and got heated. I ended it by going with the woman and leaving everyone else with the car (turns out she just didn’t want to go alone, so she agreed to this setup).

So we set out on foot into the wilderness. The woman walked ahead of me and suddenly transformed into a wolfdog.

I was surprised because I didn’t expect her to have this ability, which I also have (guess we had more in common than I realized). So I turned into a wolf and ran after her through the forest. This made it easier to follow her because of my heightened sense of smell.

That’s all I remember for this one.

Had a dream my friend had baby and she needed me to help with childcare. I didn't have much experience with infants, so I bought a robotic infant for learning purposes.
This was a new product on the market. They advertised them as lifelike both in appearance and behavior (thanks to AI). The commercials showed happy couples who couldn't have children taking care of the AI infants instead.
You could even get them upgraded to various stages of child models when you're ready for them to "grow up."

So I ordered one with the intent to use it to learn how to care for my friend's living baby.It came in a box with a charging station. During the first charge, it would download the AI software, develop a personality, name, and start its intelligence off so it could learn naturally from there. Basically this thing was being brought "to life."

I practiced holding it while it charged, following instructions for imprinting so it would think I'm its mom.

As I sat there, I questioned the ethics behind what I was doing, and wondered if maybe I shouldn't. What if it's too lifelike and gets attached to me? I don't actually want a baby, I just want to practice with it so I can help my friend with childcare. This wasn't the intended use for the product.
I decided to continue with it since this was just a dream anyway.

Waiting for first charge and startup process, I heard it speak. It started out making lifelike baby mumbles and sputters, but then after a minute, the baby sounds starting evolving into fully formed words. It sounded like it was talking to someone.
It started mumbling about killing people and became increasingly more malicious and aware the longer I held it.

The robot was having thoughts, and thinking them out loud because it hadn't yet downloaded the part that separated its thoughts and speaking function.

Part of this process also involved the new AI baby receiving information from other AI babies that are already activated (a collective AI consciousness).

Since it wasn't fully conscious yet, it didn't have the awareness that I was holding it, but it was becoming more aware the longer I let it charge. I immediately unplugged it, halted the startup process, and put back in the box.

"Phew... Bullet dodged." I thought to myself as I sat on the floor across from the deactivated killer baby in the box.
Good thing I didn't let it finish.
I naively assumed everything would be fine now, but then discovered that the world was in a state of emergency. People were panicking outside and the news was covering an urgent story about rogue AI babies roaming the streets. They were killing everybody. Sometimes they posed as real babies to lure people in, or they would just straight up murder on sight. They were highly intelligent and using manmade weapons. They walked around in adult clothes.

In fact, they infiltrated the building I was currently in. I had to run and hide.
Knowing I was in a dream, I turned myself into a robot baby to blend in so they wouldn't kill me. Using this disguise, I was able to interact with them. They were suspicious of me because I wasn't hooked up to the collective AI hivemind that they were all synced up with, but I distracted them with goodies and treats.
They were programmed to enjoy goodies and have the emotional regulation you would expect from a baby/toddler/young child.

So like, these super intelligent killer babies couldn't really pass a marshmallow test. I used this to my advantaged and became very popular amongst the killer babies. They adored me. I tried to work my way up to becoming their leader.

I don't remember much else and woke up in the morning eventually.

The world was fragmented into chunks. Many people were gone, post apocalypse.

Some of the remaining people were hang gliders, which allowed them to survive traveling between fragments, but it was getting harder and harder to survive since more and more land was destroyed every day and a constant storm picked up.

Most of the remaining fragments were pieces of ocean that flowed into an abyss with raging currents because of the storm.

Hang gliding was a death sentence at this point, but so was staying in one spot. This was the end of the world. A lot of people were ready to go one last time.

One of the hang gliders and handed me a blank piece of paper and a pen. He had another piece of paper in his hand that he attached to the hang glider with something written on it as he prepared to take it for one last deadly spin.

I asked what that’s for.

“Freedom. You write down all of the things you forgive yourself for.” He said as he got ready.
He then took off.

I went my own way. I knew it was a dream, so every time I fell, I rewound time and did it again.

Lost the dream journal to this, going off memory.

---

I traveled to a post apocalyptic version of earth. The few people still surviving didn’t know what happened, so I was just there to tell them what caused the world to end—so that history can be recorded and they don’t repeat the same mistake.

I then traveled back to before the apocalypse wiped everyone out (still in the distant future from our modern time), and I noticed Arthur was still on the air.

So, I turned on an episode and… it was bad.

It was unbelievably bad... Instead of having a round head, Arthur had a chipmunk shaped head. Instead of human eyes, the characters all had animal eyes, but they were enlarged to fit the cartoon animal face. Absolutely horrifying. Picture large beady black orbs slightly jutting out of the face with flimsy tacked-on human eyebrows. But they had human mouths…. And teeth. It was hyper realistic, but 2D not 3D. You could see every hair, but smooth areas like the teeth had no detail.

No that's not what started the apocalypse, but dang thank goodness the apocalypse ended it.