Glieuaeiel's DJ

Ceiling Parade (LUCID)

With a cheer, the students start walking. It's time for the "Walk the World" parade, which is what it sounds like, except most of the time you're walking on the ceiling. First, the group starts walking up a side wall in order to get to the ceiling. I'm worried about this, since I'm not sure my dream control is strong enough to defy gravity in this way. I get to the ceiling, but I'm at the very back of the parade, and I keep falling behind as we start to walk through the halls of the building. Even though I'm trying to speed walk, I'm still not fast enough. But then, somehow I change my mental approach to the situation. I'd been concentrating too much on how hard it is to walk on the ceiling, when I should really try to take it for granted and enjoy the experience. So I do, and suddenly I'm easily able to keep pace with everyone else. I even jog for a bit and pass a few of them. I hope this isn't a really formal parade where I'm supposed to keep my place in line; if it is, they'll probably be mad at me.

Soon, we're no longer a single trail of people. There are students running every which way all over the building. I notice there are stairs all over the place, which I realize doesn't make sense. No architect would design a building with stairs on the ceiling. But there's not much I can do about it, since I'd have a hard time imagining what a ceiling does look like from the perspective of someone standing on it. There are limits to imagination. Anyway, I see a grinning student cross an intersection in front of me, and I notice he's walking backwards. That looks like fun! So I get in front of/behind him and do the same thing for a while.

Sometimes I'll take a turn and end up in a hallway with no other students. I wonder if I should be worried about this, but I decide not to be. On one of these occasions, I find myself in a concrete stairwell, and I decide it's time to abandon this parade. I'll challenge myself by trying to find my way back to my dorm room. I feel a bit uncomfortable about not doing any of my declared dream goals, such as setting my fingers on fire by snapping, but I think getting back to my room is more important. So, let's see, where am I? The sign next to the door up there says "6", but that's upside down, so I must be near the ninth floor. And my room's on the fifth floor, so I have to go down four flights--which will actually seem like going up four flights, since I'm upside down. Okay. Let's get going.

I go around twice without incident (though I feel a bit disoriented), but the next landing is unusually dark. This is the perfect place to try that finger flame thing! I stand still and snap my fingers. Nothing happens except the lights flicker a bit at the edge of my vision. I try it a few more times, reminding myself that this is a dream and I can do anything I want to do. Still, nothing happens. I wonder if it would be helpful to have a small flame from another source to use as inspiration. Where could I get a flame like that? I try shaking my hand to joggle a couple flames loose, but it doesn't work. I try striking my right index finger on my left arm like it's a match (I'm proud of thinking of that), but it doesn't work either. By this time, there are a couple other students on the landing with me. My vision's also gone funny, like there's a second image overlayed atop the first. I try not to pay attention to it, because I think it means I'm waking up. I snap my fingers a few more times to show the other students what I've been trying to do. This time, I can feel a sort of heat and crackling in the air, but there's still no visible flame. Still, I'm a bit excited, and I notice my vision's cleared up again. I guess that small success pulled me back into the dream. But I don't have much time. Suddenly I realize it might be a good strategy to visualize success--try to imagine what it would look like to snap and have flame appear at your fingertips. Imagine how it would flicker, what effect the light would have on the surrounding environment. I have a good feeling about this strategy, but before I can test it, I wake up.

[I've no idea when or how I became lucid in that dream. Also, I've never lived on the fifth floor.]

Diet

My mom served me way too much food. I'm on a diet, but I guess she doesn't know that, so it's not her fault. Still, I eat only a bit of one casserole, then I get up and leave without explanation. Later, I realize I should have stored my leftovers in the fridge instead of making more work for Mom, but it's probably too late by now.

Platformer

I'm playing a platform game with four player characters. One of them is Mario. I had hoped that the other three characters would have some A.I. to use while I'm playing the fourth, but apparently not. I have to switch between the characters myself, and bring them all individually through each level. You can really sense the evil of the enemies at the end of the level. I get Mario through, but I die when I try to use the next character, because I don't know its attacks very well. I try various button combinations similar to the ones in Smash Bros. and the character does a lot of different animations, but I have no idea what these attacks actually do. I try the level again, and I die again. The people watching laugh and ask me why I'm playing such a weak character. Later, I notice that I've been reset to the beginning of the level, and all four characters are back at the start. Apparently this game has a very low tolerance for dying.

Later, I'm watching Hank and company play the game on hankgames. It's a "highlights" video with a strange title. As the video plays, I come to understand that the unusual word from the title means "dying and then having your dead body killed again a few times." It's funny because it's like adding insult to injury. It happens a lot in this game.

Frags:

• inside with a few friends, asking if any of them has a lighter I can borrow

[These dreams were not very fun. I felt kind of sad this morning.]

Pop Music vs. Classical Music

Listening to a pop song, I realize that the intro is taken from a piece of classical music. But they really messed up the phrase when they took it out of context and changed it like that. I'm frustrated. I try to find a family member, so I can explain to them what the problem is.

Malicious Shower

Trying to avoid notice becomes somewhat more difficult when my sister shows up in the restaurant. Mentally, I change my disguise to a short-haired Korean woman with a strong accent. I walk to my sister's table to ask her a question, and after we exchange a few sentences, I realize that she thinks I'm one of her new students just arrived for orientation. My disguise looks just like one of the students she just met.

The manager of the restaurant comes over to say that I can have as many samples as I desire before deciding what to eat. After he's gone, I decide to try some of what my sister's table ordered. The trouble is, it's still in a tin baking pan, and whenever we try to cut a bit off of it for me to eat, the pan just spins in circles. There's not enough friction. But eventually we hold it still long enough for me to cut halfway through and rip the piece the rest of the way off. It tastes good. I wind up for a high five with my sister; it's funny because we're both wearing oven mitts on our right hands. But afterwards, I worry if that might have blown my cover.

I wander around the restaurant and arrive at the conveyor belt that customers use to return used dishes. It's similar to the oversized baggage claim in that there are a limited number of slots. You have find an empty slot and try to slide your dishes into it as it rotates past you. A slightly awkward kid from my school is in line in front of me; I doubt he has the chops for this. Plus, the employee overseeing the conveyor belt points out that there's only one slot open. The kid tries to slide his tray at the slot, but he hesitated too much, and it hits the rubber divider. The overseer takes the tray and puts it in the next available slot, and then it's my turn. Fortunately, it looks like there are a lot more open slots, now. But it turns out that I miss, as well.

I have to go to the bathroom. I haven't seen one in this restaurant, so I walk through the big hallway connecting the restaurant to the other business in this building. The main room of the other business is very tall, and small circular tables dot the floor, spaced pretty far apart. It's a nice room, very open. There's a big window in one wall, and the others are painted in light colors. It's the second time I've visited this room; I was here once before my sister came into the restaurant. And yes, there is a bathroom!

I go inside, but when I go into the stall to pee, I'm doused from above with a lot of water. I try to get out of the shower of water, but then another one starts above my new location. It's like there are fire-extinguishing sprinklers all over the ceiling, with laser detection so that they start pouring whenever anyone stands under them. I mean, I wouldn't mind the shower, but I don't think I have any way to dry myself off. Oh, wait--there's a brown towel hanging from a hook just inside the stall. Good thing I thought to bring that. I go back into the stall and try to pee, but it's difficult. I have to hold up the toilet seat with one hand while standing pretty far back from the bowl and aiming my urine carefully.

When I wake up, no, I don't actually have to go to the bathroom.

Unsanitary

[Content warning: this one features poop.]

Spoiler for Unsanitary:

I have to go to the bathroom, so I start peeing in the front hall, naked. There's a place for me to do that, there, but there's no place to poop, so it's bad news when poop starts coming out, as well. I couldn't stop it because I had to finish peeing, first. Fortunately, it's pretty dry. Although I don't really want to, I don't have much choice, so I put my off hand under my butt and try to hold the poop there. I decide to go into the bathroom, since I suspect my sister is in the family room, and she probably doesn't want to see this. When I open the bathroom door, I'm taken aback by the mess. There's a house centipede on the floor, and also a trail of what looks like wet grass leading out of the bathtub. I wonder if it's marijuana--maybe my other sister was doing something in here. It would be just like her not to clean up after herself. But I'm just going to have to deal with the mess, because I'm in sort of an emergency situation.

Slushie Shop

Dad and I are on the way to an event I want to attend. It's an hours-long drive from my house. We're passing a slushie shop, and Dad asks me if I want anything. I don't, really, so I reply, "Only if you're really hungry." He stops anyway, so he probably only asked me because he wanted to visit the place himself.

Another day, we're going to the same event, and we stop at the same shop. This time, they're understaffed, so they tell us it will take half an hour for the slushie to be ready. It takes a moment for that to sink in. There's no way we have half an hour; we didn't build that much extra time into our schedule. My soccer game starts pretty soon. But we stay anyway. While we wait, we sit at a table with two employees of the shop. One of them gets to talking with my dad about the four districts of Denver. One of the districts is mentioned by name, and the male employee starts talking about a building in that district which is associated with the gay rights movement. He's in favor of it, and he's frustrated with people who are making trouble for the building. After he leaves, the female employee apologizes for him, saying that he doesn't understand that gays are degenerate people [or something to that effect]. I don't respond, since I don't want the situation to escalate, but I reflect upon the apparent fact that everyone against the gay agenda is just a homophobe.

Another day, we're going to the same event, but this time my mom is driving me. We stop at the same shop. My mom tries to pour the slushie from the machine herself, but it doesn't go too well. Worth a laugh, though.

Procrastination

As I'm driving in the right lane along city streets, something important falls out of the passenger side of the car. I really don't want to go back for it. It seems like that would be a huge hassle. On the other hand, I need that something when I get to my destination, so if I don't stop now, I'll just have to stop later, and that would be even more of a hassle. Reluctantly, I look for a place to pull off on the shoulder. I'm not going to turn the car around; I'll just park and walk back. The brakes don't work very quickly, so I miss the first spot I was aiming for, and I have to use the next one. It's right next to a residential driveway. I hope the owner doesn't mind.

Chocolate Graham Crackers

I'm lying in bed in the morning. There's a lot of cereal in the bed with me; my personal stash. But I'm leaving for college in four days, and I'm not sure I can finish all of the cereal in time. I decide to have cereal for breakfast. It's a mixture of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and chocolate graham crackers. Carefully, I dip each piece of cereal in milk using my right hand, then put the dipped piece into my left hand to hold. I'm still in bed, so eventually I'm going to have to carry all of this to the kitchen table.

Incentive

Students are given one piece of candy for each point they got on the last assignment. I got 20/20, which is nice. The students handing out the candy give me two packets of colorful chocolate spheres lined up in a line, then a few extra pieces of some different kind of candy. I'm confused, because I thought there were ten spheres in each packet, so I shouldn't have gotten any extra. But it turns out there are only about eight, so it works out.

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.

P.E. Tests

It's the first day the semester. I'm walking through the halls after my third class, heading to P.E., thinking about my schedule. I can't remember eating lunch. I also can't remember having gone to the Discrete Mathematics class I'd planned on taking. If I'm not in that class, shouldn't I only have three classes today? I suppose I must have had a backup plan.

It's the end of the week, and that means it's testing day in P.E. These days always make me nervous, because you have to compete physically against your classmates. I see two people playing one-on-one basketball, which makes me even more nervous. I've never been good at basketball. A bunch of other people are walking around with red yoga balls. I take one for myself, but a few moments later someone kicks a ball at my feet and I trip over it.

Later, a siren sounds. I wonder if it's a fire, and I walk over to the boundary of the field, from whence the sound emanates. I overhear a bearded instructor talking about the animosity between Scotland and Ireland. Apparently there's been violence in Southeast Asia, and one of the two factions has completely wiped out the other. That's bad news for one of my classmates--he's native to Scotland (or was it Ireland?).

I walk along the bottom of a low, grassy ridge in the yard. A bunch of bloated weeds grow along the top of the ridge. Some of them look like over-sized caterpillars, or leeches. Or sea cucumbers. I'm interested, because some of them are waving back and forth as though they're a GIF. I try to make some of the others do that, too, but it doesn't always work.

I notice some of the coaches have dispersed from the meeting they were having. They must have finished planning for the tests. That means it's time to get started. But I'm not wearing my shoes; I left them with my other stuff over by the side of the field. Only, I can't remember where, exactly. I look around, but the terrain doesn't seem familiar. I also notice that only a few other students are visible. Well, that's a relief--the others must still be getting ready, so I can't be that far behind. Suddenly remembering my way, I start to trot off around the side of a copse of pine trees.

Flute Solo

As a favor, I've asked a teacher to come play a piece of classical music for me. Now, another teacher and I watch as she performs an arrangement of it for solo flute. I had been worried she would refuse, so I'm glad she's doing this. She's quite good. In fact--is she somehow playing two lines of music at once? I listen closely but am unable to decide. Perhaps she's just switching between the two lines of music depending on which one has the moving notes. She reaches a climax in the music with lots of fast, leaping intervals. During the slower section after that, she interrupts the music to say to me, "Have fun practicing that." (An ensemble in which I play will be learning the same piece, soon.) A phrase later, she stops playing again to say something else, and eventually she stops playing the piece altogether, once it's clear that there are just a few slow chords remaining. The other teacher, who has been holding up a triangle in preparation to play it with the last chord, mimes teetering on the brink of playing then falling over from the waist. She's obviously saying she's disappointed that the flautist didn't properly finish the piece. After this, I think there's one more piece for us to go over.

Standing Room Only

People standing in the back are having a hard time seeing the presenter, so they keep shifting around in a counter-clockwise direction. Even though I'm back there with them, I think the constant shifting is more annoying than not being able to see. Cynthia, standing next to me, agrees. (Cynthia's a college housemate of mine, a year older than me.) Suddenly, the whole audience starts moving. Apparently the presenter noticed all the milling around in the back and decided to try to fix things himself. So now those people have made him interrupt his presentation. I hope they're happy.

As we're moving around, I stretch my arms over my head. Realizing that my left arm is behind Cynthia's head, I decide I might as well put my arm around her shoulders. It's a bit of a cliche, but I need all the help I can get. At first, Cynthia doesn't react. Then she moves my hand from above her shoulder to under her armpit, and says, in a surprised voice, "Glieuaeiel, you've put your arm around me." Like she's known all along that we're interested in each other, and the only slight surprise is that I would choose now to make a move. Then she calls me a first-year, which is an unfair dig at the fact that I'm younger than her (since in fact I'm a third-year). She's always been one to worry about not acting her age, though, so maybe it really does bother her. Anyway, it's actually a bit uncomfortable walking around in this position. [I guess the arm-around-the-shoulder thing is best used when nobody's moving.]

The presenter is saying something about wizards and what effect the concept of wizards had on our childhoods. Shortly, everyone starts moving around again, and I get separated from Cynthia. I wonder if I should try to find her again, but I decide she'll be fine on her own. I try to help out by moving some music stands, but then I realize that I'm not sure where they should go. Still holding the stands, I find a seat near the front of house left, then set the stands in front of me. Someone reaches past me to grab one of them, and I realize that the stands were supposed to be distributed so that everybody gets one. I keep one stand for myself and hand the last one to another person sitting near me.

Frags:

• A survey about preferences in fiction genres uses the word "tranny" to mean "the protagonist of a science fiction novel." It must have been written by someone old, who didn't realize that nowadays the word is an offensive term for something entirely different.

Workout Schedule

Spoiler for Workout Schedule:

A woman is considering changing her workout schedule because a recently arrived man want to use the facilities at around the same time. She decides not to. Right now she's doing ab exercises. She notices she's in pretty good shape, so she keeps doing them for longer than she had planned to. I wake up messily.

Frags:

• I notice that this person doesn't use a monospace font, which is unusual, but it actually works. I take note of the font name, because I rather like it.
• I am being taught an important lesson. Someone gives me a list of four things, so I try to memorize it.

Out of Order

The members of the adventuring party start singing. It's a very pretty song. I like it a lot. But I can't remember why they're doing it, so I flip to a different part of the book to try and figure it out. That doesn't answer many questions, so I flip around again. Now, before all of this, I'd been near the end of the book. But by the time I'm done, I've found a chapter back in the first third of the book that I don't remember reading at all. Oh, dear. I guess I must have skipped these chapters accidentally, when I was trying to find my place after setting down the book for a while.

LMMS

I open a new project in Linux MultiMedia Studio and start composing. The idea I have in my head uses the string section, so it would be nice to have some good samples for that. I remember that I configured a couple for a previous project [IRL: true], so I open that project and try to copy over the instruments. It works pretty well! Now I guess I should start thinking about how to use percussion. Should I use it to reinforce the string accents, or do they stand well enough on their own?

Old-Time Riddles

I'm reading a set of six or seven old Garfield comic strips. But it turns out they're actually riddles. An old man comes up to me and explains them, one by one. The last one is about balloons: A man buys a balloon in the early 1900s. Then he sets it down and picks it up again, or something. Anyway, the trick to the riddle is to realize that back in those days, people didn't know how to use helium, so balloons didn't float. They weren't held with ribbons; they were held using a sturdy plastic stick. I think this is rather clever, and the old man and I part on good terms.

[Drat! I got the month wrong. Also, sorry about my absence, there. I've been trying to install Linux on my laptop. . . .]

Crash Landing

I'm in an episode of Doctor Who! I'm in a flying craft when I hear some team members calling for help. I expect someone else to help them, but no one does, so after a minute I go over there myself. The two team members, a man and a woman, are sitting side by side, flying the craft from a sort of detachable pod on the side. There's also a giant, black grasshopper in the pod with them. It's not moving, but it looks dangerous, and I assume that's what's worrying them. I get in the pod to help them, but it looks like we're going to have to crash land. We're going too fast; there's no way anyone should be able to survive this. But somehow, with myself at the wheel, we just glide to a halt on the ground. No one's even bruised. I look over at the two other people and say, with a wry smile, "I have no idea how that just happened."

But there's no time to think about that. Everyone gets out of the craft. The man who was next to me takes out a small model of the grasshopper and disparagingly throws it on the ground. Wow, was that all he needed to do to deal with it? Suddenly I remember that the only reason we needed the grasshopper was because it powered the craft, somehow. I'm glad to be rid of it. But then, from the place the model grasshopper landed, bugs begin to rise from the ground--one by one, but quickly, so that soon there'll be an entire swarm of them. And they don't look benign. The Doctor runs in and meaningfully taps his watch. Yep, it's time to get out of here. I try to run on ledges around the side of the cavern, swatting bugs away from my face. Eventually I get away.

Later, it comes to light that the structure in which we now find ourselves is a remnant of an ancestral civilization, forced to escape from its homeland.

Grammar Game

The point of the game is to take regular English sentences and "translate" them into an amusing American dialect. Something about switching from present tense to present progressive. One variant of the game involving the word "grandma" turns out to be pretty hilarious.

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?

Car Argument (LUCID)

From the back seat of the car, I'm having a minor argument with my parents. The situation seems a little ridiculous to me, and when my mom leans over to reveal completely gray hair done in a long braid, I'm pretty certain I'm dreaming. After a nose RC, I'm sure of it. Thank goodness I don't have to deal with this argument any more. But as I try to figure out how to get out of here and start working on my dream goals, I realize that I'm waking up. The interior of the car seems to fade into the view of my bedroom from my bed. For instance, my mom's gray hair becomes a fold in my blanket. Well, that's too bad. [Thinking about this now, there's a good chance that that was actually a false awakening. I'm not sure, though.]

Snarl

[This dream was definitely inspired by the series of videos called "The Walls 2" recently recorded by Yogscast on YouTube, which I watched the day before yesterday. It also happened quite late in the morning (for me)--around 10:30.]

We're playing PVP Minecraft in 2-person teams. There are only two teams left. One member of the enemy team is chasing the other member of my team, while I in turn chase him. We run back to my team's base, then we sandwich him between us and kill him with swords. Excellent! Now, the other guy is hiding underneath the ground here. There are lots of holes in the ground and lots of tunnels, and it's all very confusing, so we're not sure how to get him.

We decide to build an enclosed room with a roof and a tower. So my teammate and I sit down with the Legos and start working. I begin by making the tower, which is a really tall wall built from 1x2x1 blue blocks. I get bored with how slowly it's going, so I try just spreading the blocks like I'm extending a folding telescope. It doesn't work, and my friend laughs at me for trying. Anyway, eventually I finish the tower and start working on the other half of the roof.

Suddenly I hear a violent snarl and I feel as though my head's been seized in the jaws of a big, angry dog. The snarl continues as it starts shaking my head back and forth, up and down, like a very erratic vibration. I spend a panicked second trying to decide what to do--is my friend playing a prank on me?!--before I wake up. It feels like the vibrations continue for a moment before they stop. I sit for a minute in shock before doing an RC and confirming that I'm awake.

[It's crossed my mind that maybe that was a seizure, but I doubt it. More likely I imagined it. Either way, it was a strange experience.]

Rude Receptionist

I'm talking to a clerk at the front desk of the hotel at which we're staying. Somebody mentions cherries. I'm excited at the chance to practice my Spanish.

"Oh, oh, I know this one. . . . Cer--, uh . . . cerezas!" I grin around the room. "That's 'cherries' in Spanish. I learned that earlier today." [IRL, that's true. And during the dream, I used the memory trick that I invented yesterday for that word: "cereza" is sort of a combination of "cereal" and "cabeza."]

The clerk exhales, shaking her head. She says something about never being very good at Spanish, herself. I think she sounds too defeatist. Then someone comes into the hotel, and she calls him over. "Mr. Branagh!"

Surprised, I look closely at the newcomer. Indeed, it's Kenneth Branagh. I'm impressed at how calm the receptionist remains in the face of a movie star. I guess she's prepared for that, since actors probably stay in hotels a lot. Then she starts talking to him about all of these hotel policies about publicity posters. (He's carrying a bunch of posters, presumably with the intent to advertise his newest project by putting them up around the hotel.) It really seems to me that she's splitting hairs, and I realize she's not only being calm--she's being downright rude. Oh, dear.

Old-Fashioned Bathroom

I enter the bathroom in an old-fashioned wooden building. I'm not sure if I saw the sign correctly when I chose this door, so I might have gone into the women's bathroom by mistake. I look around to check, and indeed, most of the dozens of people in here are middle-aged women. I spot two other males, though, both my own age. Also, I'm using a urinal right now, which has no business being in a women's bathroom. As I'm looking around, one of the other boys says loudly that he thinks he chose the wrong bathroom. The other two of us assure him that there must be something unusual going on, because we made the same mistake. I wonder if maybe this bathroom was designed to be non-segregated. As in, there are two doors, one labeled "men" and one "women," but they both lead to the same room.

Runaway Grandmother

I hand my grandma a walking stick and turn around for a second, surveying the multi-story shopping complex that we're exploring. I hear gasps from behind me, and whirl around to see Grandma falling down the wide staircase behind us. It has a few dozen steps, and she bounces about three times on the way down. Then she gets up and starts hobbling away. She must have tried to put her weight on the stick and accidentally lifted herself off the ground, putting the stick off-balance and causing the whole assembly to fall over backwards, down the stairs. I probably should have given her a shoulder to lean on, or something. In any case, it's my job to go bring her back. As I head down the stairs, someone reminds me to be prepared for her to be stubborn about coming back: she gets recalcitrant if she's just been injured.

I run after her down a hallway and see that she's taken an escalator upwards. I get on behind her, but without missing a beat she climbs over the railing and onto a different escalator headed the same way. Wow, she really is being stubborn. I decide not to climb over--I'll just meet her at the top. But when I look ahead, I see that my escalator bends around and goes back down, while hers just continues straight up. Dammit, what an absurd design! It will be a disaster if she gets away. Even if I can't bring her back, I at least have to keep an eye on her. Now, there's another escalator following the same line as mine that goes halfway down before bending around to go back up. The semicircular railings of the two escalators come close enough that I should be able to climb over both of them. I'm reluctant, because the railing will be trying to pull me sideways as I climb over, so I could easily get injured. But I don't have much choice. I do it.

At the top, I realize that in all the confusion, I've lost track of Grandma. Did I get ahead of her? Is she ahead of me? Where might she have gone from here? Her distinctive gray hair is nowhere to be seen. Someone else from our original party comes walking up to me and asks me how it's going. I'm forced to admit that I think I've lost Grandma.

Pranking Little Kids

An old friend of mine laughingly shows me a small, simple geometric carving (similar to a die) with the word "BOOBS" on one side. He also shows me a table he's made, documenting the reactions of youngish kids when given this carving. These kids are all about the age where they'd be receiving their first sex education, so the idea is that they should be very embarrassed by it. It's amusing to us older kids since theoretically we know better than to be embarrassed by sex. Anyway, his results aren't disappointing: only one kid of the dozen or so he's pranked has managed to get through the encounter without blushing.

Maybe half an hour later, I give the carving back to my friend, joking that I couldn't find anyone who actually wanted to take it from me.

Meats and Sweets

I'm trying to get food at a cafeteria. I've already been through the line once, but somehow I just got a lot of different kinds of meat. Even though I'm not exactly a vegetarian, I feel bad, since I've eaten meat almost every day this week. So I need to go through again, but I don't want to wait patiently in line, so I try to dart in and snag food where there are gaps. After a while I look at my tray again, and apparently I've been grabbing mostly desserts and other simple carbs. Dammit, why is it so hard to put together a decent meal?

Bus Escape

A man's being chased. He passes a building where two female celebrity actors are having a women-only event. It's about to start and there are a whole line of women outside, waiting to get in. Most of them are topless; I guess that's required in order to gain admission, maybe. Anyway, the man pushes his way through the crowd to try to hide inside. They decide to let him hide there for a while. But eventually he has to leave. A city bus driver offers to help him escape, so the man gets in and the bus starts careening around the city. Sometimes there are groups of people visible on the sidewalk that cheer when the bus goes by. They think the bus is coming to pick them up, and they're happy about it because they've been waiting for an unusually long time.

Glacier Simulation

I'm watching an exposition of various different computer models for the behavior of glaciers in the face of climate change. The camera flies over a 3D time-lapse of different glaciers forming and moving, floating on a dark sea. The present model is vaguely unsettling, with swooping camera movements and lots of little ice formations forming and disappearing everywhere. I mutter to myself that it's kind of scary. Then there are people playing in the water, throwing ice at each other, or something. Someone accidentally dies. The creator of this simulation is shocked, saying that he never guessed something like this might happen. He'd just wanted to make a fun game, I guess.

Frags:

• eating pea soup

Gaming for Health

An elderly man is playing a video game, because it'll be good for his mental health. It's a story-based FPS: he has to break into a compound and prevent the men inside from setting off a bomb. I'm watching. I hope he does well.

Stuff happens. By the time he reaches the bomb, the timer is counting down from seven or eight seconds--far too little time for it to be defused, especially since there are still people running around trying to shoot him. Instead he dashes over to a small but deep pool (I think it's connected somehow to a nearby lake or river) and dives in. From several feet below the surface, he looks upward to see the air above the water turn red and orange, blossoming with fire. I think that was a good decision: if you can't stop the bomb, at least save yourself. But it was only half a success, so he has to come back tomorrow (in game time, not real time) to try and stop them again.

Somewhere along the line, I start playing instead of the man. As I approach the complex, I see that there's been a flood. Most of the parking lot is covered in water. But as I look more closely, I realize that the pool in front of me isn't very deep: there's still a road under it. So I splash across.

Black Dragon

A girl my age is playing some kind of Minecraft/Skyrim/Portal hybrid. She's opened some portals to travel away from the base of operations to the island where the black dragon sleeps. At first, they're not sure if the beast is there or not, but gradually they realize that they can hear it breathing on the other side of a long, low ridge. They try to carry out their job quietly.

Suddenly the dragon wakes up! The girl dashes back through the portal, knowing that the dragon will be intent on killing her. She goes through a second portal, then pauses to catch her breath in a hillside cave miles away from where she started. She's hidden from view, so it's all but impossible that the dragon will find her here. And yet, with a roar, it soon thrusts its head through the entrance to the cave. It knew exactly where she was. They must be bonded somehow in a way she did not understand. Wasting no time, she runs farther back into the cave, considering taking out her pickaxe to dig even deeper. The dragon will soon reach her, so she decides to go into a dungeon--right into the middle of a battle. Other explorers like her are fighting against a band of skeletons. A couple of the skeletons come at her with swords, and she fights them off. It's dangerous in here, but less dangerous than trying to fight a dragon on your own.