dream fragment

1. I'm following my friend MB at her college. She changes clothes into a very pretty dress, then goes into a local casino and sits down to play blackjack. She's doing all right, but I decide to log onto a computer terminal and anonymously transfer money to her account for betting.

2. I kill a childhood bully, Nick E, with an axe in the backyard of my college dorm.

1. It's a boring night at the research station, so to pass the time I lean my face against the window of my room and watch people come and go through the courtyard below. CA goes to do laundry, then John L and Joe C go out to find stray animals. They return to the kitchen, where my dad is present to tell tales from the hometown animal rescue. The rescue clinic was apparently so successful that it was able to "hire" concerned volunteers at a dime a pop. After this I false awaken into my bed at home. I get up to brush my teeth, but I don't spit right and swallow the disgusting toothpaste. When I look at the mirror, I see Chinese characters with subtitle translations that say "That toothpaste was disgusting." (A failed text and mirror RC if I ever saw one)

2. I'm walking through Cincinnati with P at night. We have been shooting at an Astro van with our guns to try and get it to explode, but nothing's been happening. We decide to head into a foreigner-owned restaurant for greasy fast food.

1. I'm shoplifting several sticks of deodorant from Walgreens. An employee confronts me in the parking lot.

2. I'm poisoning a well in Africa. I seem to be spraying a toxic chemical onto the ground, which seeps down and makes the water unpotable. A young black girl catches me in the act, but all she does is compliment me on my hair and skip back into her village.

1. I arrive at my college for a new year, but as I'm unsure where to go I end up meandering through random hallways. In one of them I find my friend Mary T, who directs me up to her room. She's very happy to see me, and we hang out by playing a music theory game using a piano controller against another friend via Skype. Soon we start to cuddle, but as we do we're rudely intruded by an orientation activity. The RAs are leading a "Parade of Geeks," dressed in suspenders and huge glasses. They take my friend CW from the room after asking "Is anyone weird?" and Mary and I join him in support. I get lost on the way and stumble into a succession of other rooms on the floor. One contains freshmen girls from my old high school, another is an office space, and another is an apartment housing my roommate from the research station and his father.

2. CA and I are the only survivors of a pandemic that is changing all of my college into gibbering lunatics. I commend her as she singlehandedly diagnoses the disease and develops a cure.

3. I'm present in the final level of a Paper Mario game that takes place in the bar level from Guitar Hero. I am playing bass in the background, but when the final boss shows up I start to interact in the Paper Mario world. My dialogue is extremely cocky as I fight rather poorly, but as people criticize me I say I'm roleplaying. Another band leaves in fear and I insult them, leading to one of their members and I exchanging insults. He ends up kicking me in the face, which loosens the glasses I'm wearing.

4. I am watching a dinner show at the Dollywood theme park. Each guest is given a light gun to interact with the show as it goes on. As the show starts, the main character boasts how presidents (Bush father and son) and other dignitaries love it. The seats then move backwards to proper viewing distance for a massive screen, where a trippy music video appears. In the video, a redneck pharmacist has placed the world in a stupor by distributing colorful pills in colored Solo cups. The audience seems to enter the music video, and there's a crowd marching single-file through a large mansion.

At this point, I remember the main character declaring that the whole thing is a dream, and I feel a mild awareness for the rest of the scene. However, I don't feel any control and the faintest of physical sensations, so I'm not counting it as a true lucid. For some reason, I know my name is Vincent in the dream, and my body has split into several selves. One looks like the waking me, but several are burly black men and one is a golden robot. I feel pulled away from the march through the mansion, and my other selves go exploring with me. The robot leads the way to a golden cabinet, where I see a camera and a cell phone. Out of the corner of my eye I develop an X-ray vision and see the two objects go down a shelf in the cabinet. I know that to go further into the mansion, I have to move the objects myself, as the vision was an illusion.

1, My brother is playing a variant of the Plinko game on the Price is Right game show. As the disks drop through the machine, he has to push sticks into them, which reveals yellow circles. Five circles before a failure means victory. However, he soon loses. In his disappointment, he steals a tabletop version of the game called Klinko from backstage. After he leaves, Bob Barker reveals that hidden under the tabletop was a dazzling array of jewelry.

2. I'm driving with two friends from high school, Sam A and Matt C, just bored and cruising. As we pass through my neighborhood, we see a live bear decked out in Christmas wreaths walking down the street.

1. Some sort of cartoon/live action switch thing is going on in this fragment. It takes place in a world where our superheroes are revered as vengeful and fearsome gods. Batman, with the epithet "Scientific," can swoop from anywhere to show his wrath. Superman's X-ray vision can see anywhere to reveal embarrassment and sin. The Green Lantern is a trickster god; he is shown using his powers to unwillingly jack off men at unfortunate times.

2. I'm watching Futurama. Fry is on the run for some sort of debt (notes unintelligible). He is without transportation, so the going is slow. At one point he comes across a dragon pulling a rickshaw, but the dragon is high on drugs so Fry continues on foot.

3. I play bass in a School of Rock style concert, closing with ACDC's Shoot to Thrill (sounds fantastic). Backstage, Dan C from high school shakes my hand and a number of teachers congratulate me. The teachers are talking not only of the show, but also of the insurance scam they are pulling. By burning their houses, they've made enough money to take luxurious vacations!

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. I'm attending the Cincinnati Bengals training camp as T. O. For some reason I slap my thigh, and the sensation is enough to send me momentarily aware. I lose whatever lucidity I have before anything happens.

2. I am browsing a massive flea market full of books. I find an Unknown Armies monster manual for a cheap price (so much text with failed RCs), but before I can buy it my Mom approaches along with several college friends.

3. I am trapped inside a crumbling barn. As it falls around me, I manage to peel out of the twisted wreckage.

1. I'm searching to buy a regular guitar at Guitar Center. I look at the wall and select a $180 Strat, black with a white pickguard, and take it down to play. There's some trouble getting it hooked up, and even more trouble as the seat next to the amp is feet taller than I need,

2. I vault down the stairwell in a college food court.

1. I'm playing D&D with my girlfriend, and we are in a fight with a zombie dragon. There are lots of laughs during the fight as we exchange stock quotes and in-jokes.

2. I'm in a Space Station 13 style futuristic lab, where there's been an outbreak of several weird diseases. I have one where rats constantly burst from under my skin. Looking for a cure, I stumble into a field of zombies. A zombified CZ (junior when I graduated high school) attacks me, and I punch her in the face. I then proceed to wrestle her to the floor and do a chokehold, snapping her neck. I remember the experience as strangely erotic...

3. I'm winning huge on a Japanese slot machine in an arcade.

4. I'm watching a dirty soccer match between some African country and the Tamil Tigers terrorist organization.

1. I'm at a football stadium in the desert. The Cincinnati Bengals are playing a game against an unspecified team, and I'm on the field as a Bengal's lineman pushing against the enemy offense. I actually do an OK job, and as the downs progress I get teammate support in a kind of military, "Hoo-ah!" way

2. I'm watching what seems to be a fight scene from an X-Men comic or movie taking place in a desert. The choreography is stunning, as is the skill of the mutants. The fight ends with Jean Grey drawing all the combatants towards her in a massive display of psychic power, then throwing them apart in a sphere of blue light. The Silver Surfer rides by, quipping, "And I thought I was overpowered!"

1. I'm trying to hack around in Facebook to find a way to see V's profile again (after she's blocked me IRL). Soon, however, I don't have to hack, as she re-adds me just long enough to send a poorly written but very painful letter (I fail the text RC).

2. I'm biking with E and C from the research station in a upscale community, trying to make a lunch date with the rest of the crew. In retrospect, the community has been a dream location before.

1. The whole family is going on a visit to the King's Island amusement park. We pull into a far away parking lot shared by a strip mall and several megachurches. My mom expresses concern about all the black men loitering in the lot, but my brother and I don't care and start to wander. We pass a local music shop, which seems to be having a going-out-of-business sale. Outside of the store is a row of basses with prices (failed RC), and I give them a good examination. As I look at them, one of the office ladies from my high school walks by and says "I know you and who's with you!" Cut to my high school's office,, where Mom and the lady are talking. It's the last day of school, and she's complaining about how only one student has wished her a good summer. PV, who she's nicknamed (appropriately) Big Chunky," is that student, and he comes from the back of the office to greet my mom and I warmly.

2. I'm watching a suspended roller coaster that seems inspired by a fight with a dragon. There's a lot of flat preparation at the beginning, followed by a crazy drop and a series of loops. Some bullies from my grade school are riding it, and when they get off of it they start to make fun of me.

1. My research station colleagues are heading to a lecture on the different layers of the sun, but I am too busy to go. I need the information for a future test, so I manage to get a handout with lecture notes on it (failed RC). I work for a good bit and get tired, so I take a break. I get on my computer and go to YouTube, where I start to watch videos from Renaissance festivals.

I find a video from the start of the Ohio Renfest, taken from the Queen's box for a panoramic viewpoint. An old man delivers a witty poem about mortality and time, then the crowd separates into four factions grouped by color. At the man's signal, they begin a massive LARP battle, and after the dust clears the blue team is victorious. The old man then continues his poem, ending with the line "Watch out for that grandfather clock!" He then roleplays his own death very convincingly.

Somewhere in all of this, my viewpoint has transferred into 1st person on the grounds of the Renfest. As I walk away from the old man, I run into MB. She's dressed in blue, but her face is very red and I can see she has been crying. She greets me sadly but without any great surprise, even though I haven't seen her in many months. I ask why she's crying, and she says "We were supposed to meet at 6:30. It's 7:30." She then walks away, saying she isn't OK.

2. I'm in an alternate-universe Chicago university, where my band is preparing itself for a benefit concert. It's something to promote world peace, as in this universe the Cold War is still boiling. The concert doesn't help, and soon the Cold War erupts. My band escapes from the city as radio reports tell of millions dying.

1. I'm watching an old couple do a live broadcast of some comedic radio show. They only get a couple of lines in, the last of which is "He's always so polite," before I false-awaken into my bed. I start to write it down in my dream journal, when suddenly I hear "Habenera" from Carmen blaring in full orchestral beauty. This causes me to check my dream journal, and sure enough, my handwriting is unstable! I get lucid and try to stabilize, rubbing my hands together and feeling the bed beneath me. Things are solid and quite real feeling, and I try to engage as many senses as possible. I start thinking about where to take the dream while still stabilizing, and this continues for a good twenty seconds. However, I lose control before I'm able to do anything.

2. It's after the civil war, and my embarrassed family is ordering drinks from our former slaves who are now free employees of a restaurant.