Sailing the Noosphere

I have gone to the back of the campus dining hall, where some students have started a productive garden. Everything is planted in raised beds, but there are benches and containers that once held the plants currently in the ground. I take a couple of these containers and begin to arrange some tomatoes in them, then place the full container on a bench. One of the cafeteria workers, an older black lady, approaches me and begins to talk about the uses of tomatoes as I listen politely.

1. I am in jazz band, and my bass skills fail me rather epically.

2. I'm drinking with my friends, in what amounts to a rehash of the truth-or-dare game from the night before.

3. I visit a shooting range with my dad and pop off a good deal of rounds fairly accurately. I note that instead of my meager 22 rifle, I could be renting Uzis and machine guns! Before I can do so, a whole busload of deaf and dumb people pour out onto the range. They talk in sign language to each other and begin to shoot.

I exit my old house and start off at a good jog through my neighborhood. I set an excellent pace, and it feels as if the scenery is flying by without me slowing down or getting fatigued. I pass along an avenue with heavy woods to both sides and come out in a more rural area. I see a church building to the side, and I pull into it to rest. Several attractive girls invite me to stay for the service, so I do. The preacher, their father, is incredibly charismatic, but I soon realize he's spouting nonsense about aliens and other science-fiction style crazies. I leave, but not before I'm forced to take their book, which has a purple cover and a hypnotic spiral on the front.

After I arrive back home, I start to read the book. As soon as I open it, an invisible force projects from the pages and forces me flying backwards! I realize that if I turn the book, I can use this force to actually fly, and I buzz around my house and backyard for a few moments. I then figure that this is a bad sign, so I manage to fling the book away and land hard. I then rip the book into several pieces and place it in a compost pile.

My college friends and I have gone to the apartment of the children's musical group, the Wiggles. Part of my dream-self expects their place to be brightly colored and the Wiggles themselves to be dressed in gaudy clothing. When I see them, however, they are dressed in solid black robes and topped with Spanish priest hats (birettas). They look serious and even epic, although they maintain a sense of good humor as we visit. Eventually we start to play improv theater games, and they guide us through some tips. My friend Q is advised to be "more like Morgan Freeman" for his dramatic entrance.

I'm in some massive factory where robots are being reconditioned after mechanical failure. They shuffle through a row of men and women in white lab coats holding scanners, and above all the bustle is an official-looking man holding a digital watch (time RC). When a robot is identified as needing repairs, it's taken to the side. All the others are stuffed onto a train and sent whistling through the underground complex. The goal is to get each batch of robots done in five minutes, but this rarely happens.

1. I'm reading articles on the internet, and see that the University of Kentucky has a sophisticated oil-cleanup system. I stop reading that and read about a local college's study abroad program. One is to Kenya, another to another African country where the girls are very fat. Also on the website is the college's opening ceremony, where a Christian singer's voice is beautiful enough to cause chicken eggs to hatch.

2. I visit the same college's game club. I see myself playing a board game with P and others, and express surprise.

1. I'm dressing in my room to go to my old high school. I'm indecisive, and wind up taking clothes with me into the school bathroom. I change several times, but the bell rings when I'm in a long-sleve shirt, shorts, and gym shoes with long socks. This is an ugly combination and I have a minor panic attack as I have to go to class.

2. I'm walking the streets of a generic city with my mom. Together we enter a Jamaican-themed hotel, where a steel-drum fronted band is playing a tropical tune. My mom steals the bass and rips off a solo, then throws the bass to me. I miss, and the bass crashes to the floor. We leave and go to eat, and I am rude to her as dinner conversation continues. She reaches a breaking point and tells me tearfully that she's hidden three divorces previous to my dad and my own conception.

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.

A large crowd of kids from my high school have planned to go to a mall, then the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame and a ballgame. I am with them, but am rather low on cash and already have the giveaway bobblehead from the Hall of Fame. When they leave for the Reds, I stay to bum around in the mall. I head to a Barnes and Nobel to buy a copy of the Tao te Ching. When I get to the shelf where it's kept, I'm accosted by a clerk who says I tried to shoplift it earlier and thus am not allowed to buy it. I get angry and start to make a scene. I notice that mixed with the books on the shelf is a poorly written journal (text RC failed); its owner, a cute black girl, returns to claim it and takes the Tao te Ching along with it. Now I'm really pissed, and I go to pick a fight with a random customer. I soon realize he outclasses me in every way, but I refuse to back down and lose pretty badly.

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 sitting in my college dorm room, wasting time on my computer. On Youtube, I find a claymation music video for "Master of Puppets." Cliff Burton is playing the guitar lines on a bass harp, which I think is incredible. I watch and call some friends over, but they don't seem to get that the video is claymation! I notice that one of the professors from the research station whom I dislike greatly, Dr. McK, is hovering over one of their shoulders. I wake up and try to record this dream, but am too tired to do so (false awakening).

2. I'm browsing TV channels in a hotel room with my mom and brother. Soon I come across a black and white film that appears interesting. It's about a very attractive MILF who tries to seduce two young boys. One of them falls deeply for her, but the other retains his honor with great difficulty. During the film I have to leave to go to the bathroom, but I try to hold it too long and end up shitting down my jeans leg. Mom is embarrassed to watch the film with us but doesn't ask to change the channel.

3. I am inside a fighting video game set in Wisconsin. An evil mastermind has stolen a McGuffin and is holding the entire state hostage. To defeat him, I lead a three-person squad in hand to hand combat from a third-person perspective. An avatar of me is the head of the squad, and I hold back no punches in the fighting. One of my foes, a huge strongman, seems to wait until he's badly hurt before he starts fighting hard; he says this is the only way to be "fair." After I beat him, I find two magic blocks of wood. They seem to work like magnets that I can turn on and off, and they grant me the power of flight. I reach a huge elevation and see the mastermind's lair in a green tower at the edge of the horizon.