International Oneironaut Shared Dreaming Journal

Nephanim's Dreams

Nothing related to Chichen-Itza.

An Enrichment Center Activity and a Ghost

I was in a massive testing chamber at Aperture Laboratories. It was clear that I needed to get into a room built into the wall, but it was too high to jump onto, and I couldn’t shoot my portal at the right angle to go up that way. I realized I would have to shoot through glass. I broke the glass with the portal device and quickly made it into the room. Walking down the hall, I came to a cluttered bedroom. There were clothes everywhere, and they had marijuana in them. I knew it had to be Pockets’ room. I decided not to touch any of his clothes. While I was in the room, I gathered some supplies – pens, paper, and other things that were basically useless in a test chamber.

The dream jumped. Autumn and I were watching a crazy movie where everything stretched and twisted on-screen. I felt like I had to be on something, but it was just the video. I watched the Mystery Machine stretch to several times its usual length and then twist like a Twizzler. One of Autumn’s relatives came up behind me and handed me a video game. He said I would probably enjoy it. There was too much writing on the surface for me to tell what the title was. I had trouble reading it, anyway. While I was looking at the game, Phil asked for another one. I found the game he was looking for and handed it over. Ryan found us and asked if he could play Portal with me. I insisted he wasn’t old enough. When he could climb Mount Everest or White Mountain, I promised I would let him visit the enrichment center.

The dream jumped. Going back to the test chamber, I rode a wind tunnel across the main room. There was a series of these set up, so I followed the path they formed until I came to a dead end. I found a small section of the room that was completely inaccessible except through falling into it. I dropped down. A sign on the wall informed me that this was a miniature test chamber contained within a test chamber. I would have to solve this test in order to solve the more important test. Switches, buttons, chests (which I knew could be opened with a skeleton key), and other devices were positioned carefully around the small room. I had to activate and open them in the correct order to proceed. There was some kind of hint scribbled on the wall, but I didn’t understand it. I tried pushing one of the buttons; the order was wrong, so I fell through the floor.

The dream jumped. I was back in the main room. Since I had fallen, I would have to go back through the wind tunnels to get to the miniature test chamber. A companion cube I had positioned on a switch about ten feet off the ground started rocking for some reason… It slid off the switch, and I realized that the platform had tilted. It was on a timer. If I didn’t complete the miniature test chamber in a fast enough time, I would have to start over. I set up a portal to put the companion cube back on the switch.

The dream jumped. I was mostly done with the miniature test chamber. I had only two more things to do, so I had a 50% chance of succeeding. There was a chest over my head that would be fairly hard to reach (it was on a floating platform). I also noticed a switch in the back corner of the small room. It seems I was receiving some kind of token for each device I used in order, but I felt that the last one wouldn’t give me anything since it would result in the test’s completion. I decided the chest was the best option and readied my skeleton key. I couldn’t reach it from the ground, so I had to put myself back in the wind tunnels and fall onto it. Meanwhile, my companion cube began to wobble. I landed on the chest and opened it. Instead of the token I expected to receive, a white-haired woman in a white dress popped out. She was beautiful and elegant, but she was also transparent. I had released a spirit! She thanked me and floated off toward the ceiling. I was about to hop down and hit the switch to finish the test, but it ended prematurely. I complained to Autumn that I had finished the game without getting all of the tokens or achievements.

Special Effects for Superman

Autumn and some of her friends were making a Superman movie. They held tryouts to cast the role of Superman. Immediately after selecting an actor, they started working on the special effects. My dad was in charge of this part of production. I walked into a room where Autumn had set a rocket up on a curved track. Rather than burning fuel to send it along the track, Autumn just used a magnet to move it quickly across. Unfortunately, she wanted it to look like flames were shooting out of the exhaust. I suggested attaching red and orange streamers to it. Although this was a pretty childish idea, the rest of Autumn’s special effects team thought it was brilliant. I put in a yellow streamer for good measure. While we worked on this, Autumn went to ask my dad for his opinion on the rocket effect. He was working on another scene much later in the movie.

My dad led us to the kitchen for dinner. On the way, we complained about Umineko no Naku Koro ni and its lack of suspense. We wanted the Superman movie to be suspenseful and exciting. He asked me about the spirit I freed at Aperture Laboratories. Evidently, she had possessed a body somewhere – that was how he met her.

The dream jumped. I was on my way out of Walmart with Autumn. We didn’t buy anything. I went ahead of Autumn with her sunglasses, but I was worried the people at the exit would accuse me of stealing them. I put them in my mouth as I walked out. When we made it outside, I noticed that the car had been moved several parking spaces down. It was now in the shade, however. Autumn and I got in the car, and she turned it around while keeping in mind my advice about heavy traffic on the feeder road.

The dream split. In the first branch, Autumn turned around just fine. I noticed a motorcycle approaching, but it was nowhere near us. In the second branch, the motorcyclist was in our way, so she had to stop. The second branch rapidly overtook the first.

The Salary Game

Autumn, a bunch of her friends, and I rented out a restaurant to play a game related to math, memory, and money. Everyone was given a card stating their name, occupation, and current funds within the context of the game. In the first round, everyone introduced themselves and said how much money they made. By the end of the first round, I couldn’t remember anything that was said. Between the first and second rounds, the person directing the game told us to write down everything we knew about the other players. We were given some hints on a flat monitor – just a couple digits of everyone’s salary. That was all I was able to get down, and it still took me longer than everyone else. People kept telling me to hurry up.

In the second round, we watched videos of alien abductions. I don’t think this had anything to do with the game… I still didn’t have any more information to put on my game card, but I noticed that there was a section to total up everyone’s money, so I started working on that. Some of the “numbers” given to me on the monitor were letters, but I didn’t know which base they were in, so I had no way of converting them to base ten. I couldn’t even come up with an estimated sum. I just couldn’t hold the numbers in my head.

By the third round, it was already 5:30 PM. I wanted to leave, but the person running the game insisted on doing one more round for the day. I understood that I was missing class for this… We watched videos of each person’s ultimate motivation in life. Interestingly, Andrea’s was to get married. She danced around in heels while announcing that she would get married no matter what. I was also dancing around in the video just to be silly. I had some kind of furry hood on the back of my shirt. Before we made it to my video, I blacked out.