Sailing the Noosphere

1. I'm on my recent girlfriend's Facebook, where I see her pictures from field school. She's shaved her head, and she's standing with an old friend from college S. T. I laugh, shut my laptop down, and head into the night. I go to a bank, where I'm trying to get a summer job. On my way in, I see the same girl, but she has a full head of hair and is wearing our green senior class shirt. She says softly to me, with a bit of worry in her eyes, "I was never here." I don't know what to say, so I pass her and enter the bank. I don't get the job, but my parents are in the bank and walk out with me. She's still there, although my parents don't seem to notice her. She affirms, "Seriously, if we somehow meet I was never here."

2. I'm at the opening game of the World Series. Joseph Stalin is opening the ceremonies with a rant about Russia's nuclear capabilities.

I'm walking the streets of London at night in my awesome long coat, when I'm suddenly struck with the urge to break off a piece of a building. This I do, and it feels heavy in my arms as I carry it into a nearby library. There I find an excellent book on poker, which I tuck into my backpack along with the building fragment and take without checking out.

I false awaken into an apartment in Cincinnati. I wander down to the riverbank, where a festival has set up. Two massive swings are on either side of a roller coaster shaped like a snake and themed "The Garden of Eden." I choose to swing, and get massive air, clearing the top of the coaster as I flip in midair and throw the metal horns with my tongue sticking out.

I'm playing at Pokerstars on my laptop, and losing pretty bad, when my machine suddenly crashes with a blue screen of death. I panic and restart, then try and diagnose the problem. I find that I have a virus from the old music site Kazaa, and Google from another computer to try and find the solution. I realize my trusty flash drive has the antivirus software I need, so I grab it and jack into the laptop.

When I open up "My Computer," I realize that every machine on the botnet is listed, an endless list with constantly shifting names (failed RC). Finding my flash drive, with the appropriate software, will be impossible... The visuals for this are all very vivid.

The title pretty much says it all. I'm dressed in all black, stalking into my old high school with a flute in my hand to play for their Christmas concert. The place is well lit and pretty busy, so I sneak into a stairwell and slide underneath to hide in the darkness. I feel the approach of something evil, so I sprint up the stairs to the top floor. When I look out, I see that the whole floor has been cut away, replaced by a huge hole and some unknown machine surrounded by catwalks. Scientists in white lab coats surround the machine and enlist my help in turning it on. This I do, and an energy beam shoots out from its center and starts to cut through everything in its path. I realize that it's supposed to drill to the center of the earth.

I'm hanging out with one of my advisers from my summer internship. He's filming a documentary about global warming, and he walks through the halls of his university as I follow him in a powered wheelchair (having great fun as I do this). He and the film crew then take off for London, and I follow them onto the plane. I realize that I haven't packed anything for the trip and start to freak out.

My parents and I are at the Cincinnati Museum Center taking in an exhibit on history. Multiple periods are contrasted, from ancient Assyrian engravings to the civil rights struggles in America. The exhibit proper ends with a model of a very pretty African-American girl in pearls and a cocktail dress getting lynched... then opens into a gift shop. People are sitting on benches in the shop with laptops, playing poker on Pokerstars.net. My mom comments on this as rather silly, then goes to discuss some business about layaway.

Poker serves as a transition point to an outdoors scene, where I sit down to a large ring game of Holdem. My mom insists on joining me, and initially the other players are fine with it. However, she is slow at playing and screws up her deal of Omaha when it comes around to her. The game goes back to Holdem and I get AK in the hole. My mom goes all-in, and I look at my cards again (which have become AA, so missed reality check) and call. Other players are disgusted with me for some reason...

I false awaken into my room at home, then go downstairs. My brother and his friend are there and report also dreaming about poker. With some questioning I find that they shared my dream, varying in minor details. I freak out about this and wake up.

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.

I emerge from one dream, the contents of which are fairly blurry... I think they involved being attacked by a helicopter and a plane while on foot, and tricking the two into clipping their wings on nearby buildings. Anyway, after I wake up I notice I'm not turning around and maintain enough presence of mind to stay still and close my eyes. I relax and let sleep come back into me, and soon enough I realize that I'm in a dream state. It's a rather formless place, but when I start to think about what I'd like to do it begins to fill with a series of pipes for acrobatics. I soon find that the pipes are too closely placed, and I can't do the wide swinging arcs that I want to. Instead I focus and jump, and end up flying through the roof of the space. I emerge into a beautiful parklike area, with a large shining lake and forest all around, and I fly for a few moments before waking.

1. I'm walking through the Grand Canyon with a school trip. Everything is ridiculously clear and vivid; the sky is the bluest I've ever seen and the rocks are towering above. We go to climb some of the cliffs and the texture of the rocks is rough beneath my fingers.

2. All I remember is shaving, and shaving poorly. Whenever I draw the razor across my face, I nick it and draw blood. Once I even pull a sheet of skin off instead of hair. I'm hurt and frustrated.

The dream starts in my ecology classroom. The teacher has just handed back an exam, and I've done particularly poorly. I start to complain, arguing for several of my answers, but the teacher doesn't budge. I become louder and more forceful, flailing my arms and even screaming. My classmates start to look at me funny, but I don't care...

I wake up into the same ecology classroom. I realize that the previous dream had been caused by me falling asleep in class, and I'm quite embarrassed. The teacher scolds me while handing back the actual test, on which I've done well. It seems that I actually moved a bit while dreaming, and I apologize. This is, of course, a false awakening, and I soon wake into real life.

1. I'm part of Ganondorf's wedding party. The ceremony is to take place in a skyscraper, which we enter through a doorway labeled "Weddings for Demons." As we ride up the fully mirrored elevator, I take note of my dress. I'm in all black with a long coat, and pull out a magnum from a side pocket. Others on the elevator roll their eyes and tell me to put the damn gun away.

2. A bunch of college friends and I are in a zombie apocalypse theme park, almost like laser tag. We're gearing up for the first round, and the only improvised weapons we can find to use are musical instruments.

3. I'm racing RC cars with my friend Q. We're on a farm so there's plenty of space, and my RC motorcycle rips along the paths to take a strong lead. I soon miss a turn, however, and the vehicle ends up falling into a lake. A bunch of rednecks are swimming, and they start to throw the motorcycle deeper into the water and fry its electronics. I drop my controller in the water too and start to cry.

4. Someone has time-traveled back to make the Confederacy beat the Union, and I'm watching the ripple effects as they take place in the present day. Surprisingly, not much changes, but all the advertising signs become much more blatant and stereotypically Southern.

I'm driving with my friend Z., and we pull over to a rest stop to chill and get gas. As one of us is pumping the gas, a policeman comes over and asks to see our identification. When we show him, he gets a serious look on his face and tells us we need to come with him. I know I haven't done anything wrong, so I make some excuse about needing to dig around in the car for a bit and then floor the accelerator. We engage on an epic chase sequence through rolling green countryside, and eventually I manage to shake him by doubling back at a turn.

I head to another police station and report the activity. The officer there takes me seriously and hauls the other one in for questioning. He uncovers a whole ring of corruption where officers drive people out to the middle of deserts, take their money, and leave. The dream shifts to an explanation of the charges and the whole conspiracy before I wake.

Sigh... I'm not posting enough to make the lucids happen, but I still get a couple. Oddly, I got two in one night, so I figured I should reinforce that.

1. I'm just sort of walking through my house when I realize I'm dreaming. There was either no reality check or I've forgotten it. I enter my kitchen and try to do a couple of turn-summons for different things, but nothing seems to be working. In frustration I go and eat a banana; the authentic taste and feel at least affirms my lucidity. I remember flying through walls in my last lucid and try to do that, but I thud inelegantly against my front door when I try a running start. I just open the door instead and finally do get to fly. I notice two girls on my front lawn, but on closer inspection they seem to be versions of the same, Suzie N. I knew from high school. One is dressed in black, the other in white, and I figure "What the hell" as I swoop in for an aerial makeout. It lasts a few seconds before I fade out.

2. Recall is horrible, but I distinctly remember being lucid, once more in my own kitchen.

Shit, it's been weeks since I last posted... I should get back on the train, and nothing better to do so with than a lucid.

The man in the house neighboring my childhood home has passed away. The dream goes into a sort of news-style overview of his life, complete with interviews from people who had known him in the past. He's apparently been a recluse for the past several years, his only intercourse with the world a mail slot through which he got movies, books, and food. The dream then cuts back to first-person as I start to explore his house. I enter his library, stacked floor to ceiling with books. As I look around, I notice that the titles on the spines are different every time I look at a particular shelf. I pass this reality check!

I start to walk around the house, leaving the library, and I enter into the hallway from my own house. I think about what I'd like to do, and decide I should try some dream combat. I try to turn-summon an awesome sword from the closet in the hallway, but for all I try nothing appears in my hands. I then decide I should do something before I lose lucidity, so I jump down the stairs and start to fly. I pass like a ghost through the wall, then pull up sharply in a breathless rise. It's nighttime, and the moon is huge and full. It illuminates a towering cloud that looks like the Grim Reaper! I get a couple of swoops and whirls in before I wake up.

1. I'm taking a trip with my college friends into New York City. We ride the subway, then get off and start to negotiate taxi prices to get to our next destination. There are 15 of us, and the lady at the counter just kind of laughs when we ask if we could get a decent rate. At this I snap, and pull out a sniper rifle. I order everyone to the roof, and they obey fearfully.

Everyone lines up along the ledge of the roof, while I take a fortified position near the back. I start sniping, one after another, and feel great sorrow when I catch one of my friends with a bullet. Soon the police arrive, but without proper backup, and I snipe several of them. I then notice a stunning woman in a white dress swinging her legs out of a nearby window. I put my scope on her, but then notice she too has a rifle. She smiles at me and starts shooting at the crowd. Eventually the police get a machine gun emplacement set up and start to pepper my position, and the concrete blocks that shield me start to give way.

I awaken into my dorm room at college, where I get up and breathe on a mirror. I start writing the salient points of the dream in my breath as my friends are playing Mario Party in the background on the N64. It's hard to get the words to stay (failed RC), but I feel satisfied at some point. I then real awaken, angry...

2. I'm playing backgammon and discussing world issues with former president Bill Clinton.

3. I go to a concert in Columbus Ohio where Avenged Sevenfold is doing an experimental set and recording it directly to Youtube.