International Oneironaut Shared Dreaming Journal

Nephanim's Dreams

I didn't sleep very well last night. Basically, every time I woke up to write down dreams, it took me ninety minutes or longer to fall asleep again. I ended up sleeping later to get the same amount of sleep.

Mike's Time Toilet

I was at my parents’ new house in Texas. They were setting up a shed of some kind in their backyard. While I helped my dad with this, a device quite similar to a TARDIS appeared in the yard. It looked like the owner had worked fairly hard to maintain it with the least amount of resources possible. The door read: “Discover something new about something old… or something new.” The first letter in the first something crackled with electricity. There was some kind of bulb inside, and instinctively, I sensed that it was an error indicator. If this light went out, the machine was no longer operational. As I studied this device that appeared out of nowhere, I wondered whose it was.

Out stepped Mike, armed with a bag of tools. He waved when he saw me.

“How do you like it?” he laughed. “It’s my time machine.”

“Wow, that’s awesome,” I said, walking around the door to study the interior. It certainly wasn’t a TARDIS; the interior was just as cramped as it looked. It looked more like a refurbished portable toilet than anything else. I even saw two extra large rolls of toilet paper inside.

“While I was working on it, I heard that your parents built a shed in their yard… You told me I helped you build it. It was just too crazy an opportunity to pass up.”

“Hold on,” I interrupted. “That means you could’ve decided not to build it. Then I would’ve just been lying to you in the future.”

“Right. I didn’t want you to have to lie, so here I am.” I felt kind of pathetic knowing that the extent of my honesty was limited by the motivations of people who could build time machines. Scratching my arm, I studied the inscription on the door again. It looked like most of it had been on there already, but Mike had etched some of the letters into the metal.

“You didn’t build this, Mike…” I admit, I was really just testing the water, but I had a strong suspicion that I was right. He just laughed and started pointing things out to me.

“Hey, could you look at this for me? I think there’s something wrong with it. And, you know, I need to go back sometime.” Mike pointed at the light I recognized as the error condition signal before. “This keeps going off, and then the machine doesn’t run. Is it just a light bulb, or…?”

“It’s a fail-safe.” His aah of realization was but background noise to me at this point. I was already deeply meshed with the system of the time machine, studying it in fine detail. I could feel wires lining the door… Control systems, an internal clock holding the current offset… After a moment, I walked around to the back of the time machine and found a removable metal panel. Mike handed me a screwdriver before I could ask for one. When the panel popped off, I scrutinized the switches beneath. It didn’t take me long to find the one that was set incorrectly. I couldn’t possibly tell him what the switch did, but I knew it was wrong. I flipped it, and there was a flash of light on the side of the machine. I put the panel back on and walked over to inspect it. This time, the indicator light was totally dead, but I knew it wasn’t a system problem.

“This time, it’s just the bulb,” I laughed. “We’ll get you another one before you go.”

From there, we went into the shed to help my dad. I found Autumn sitting on the wooden floor inside while drinking a bottled water. She stared at Mike when he came in, but she didn’t find his appearance strange enough to ask any questions. He and my dad talked briefly, and then Mike switched places with him on the ladder. When he got to the top, he doubled over, clutching his stomach. My dad and I frowned. Without a word, Mike scrambled back down the ladder and hurried out of the shed. Autumn and I were bewildered, but my dad wore a knowing smirk.

“He pooped his pants,” he explained. “Mike has that gastrointestinal problem, right?” I could just see Mike outside the window of the shed. It seemed like he was taking care of his business in the yard. I didn’t understand why; he could just as easily have gone to his time machine. I supposed Melissa was tired of cleaning out his waste.

“Well, I’d better get him some toilet paper… Be right back.” I stepped out of the shed, grabbed a roll from the time machine, and brought it over to Mike.

“Don’t look!” he warned when he heard me approaching. Respecting his wishes, I put a hand over my eyes and chucked the toilet paper in his direction. I explained what I’d brought him. “Good, thanks. Could you draw the curtain inside so they’re not watching me? Sorry about this.” I thought about reminding him that my parents have multiple bathrooms inside, but instead, I just went along with what he said.

Inside, Chelsea and my mom started talking about how she drove when they moved to the new house. My mom was so excited that Chelsea finally had her license. In contrast, Chelsea seemed uncomfortable about the fact that our parents had let her drive. She said she didn’t even have her permit at the time… I thought that was a little strange, but it seemed like such a stupid detail for her to get wrong. I pretended I knew what she was talking about.

“That’s the great thing about driving on the interstate,” I said. “People usually don’t get pulled over as long as they sort of know what they’re doing.” After chatting for a while longer, Chelsea came out to the shed with me. She, Autumn, and I talked about Mike’s time machine and what we could do with it.

Presentation and Lost Items

Autumn and I were visiting my parents. My dad kept getting mad at me for complaining that I didn’t get enough sleep. I assured him that getting eight hours of sleep was extremely important, and by depriving himself of that, he was likely to shorten his lifespan. He said he had been sleeping six hours or less every night since I was born, so he didn’t care if it made him die sooner. We argued in Autumn’s kitchen (even though we were supposed to be at their house) for several minutes. When we left to pick up fast food, we argued in the car, too. My dad finally lost all patience with me and refused to let me order food for myself. I decided not to argue anymore. When I got back to the house, I could just go to sleep… We returned home, but my dad insisted on watching me to make sure I didn’t try to sleep. I was furious.

The dream jumped. I walked from Autumn’s house to the location of our IPRO presentation. I had to walk through a field of tall grass to get to the small town. The black shoes I wore were new; I picked them up on the way so I wouldn’t look like a slob. I also brought a copy of Inception: the Children’s Book. During the presentation, I just sat back and watched. They didn’t need me to answer any questions. Afterward, Kay sat down with me and asked me to help with her earrings. She just needed me to hold pieces of them while she took them out. They were these really elaborate dreamcatcher earrings with four pieces. I studied them as I held them in my hand. Once she got the first one out, I started putting it back together so she could store it safely in her bag. Apparently, there was some kind of trick to this. I had to push the pointed end into the back of the earring while just barely pulling in the other direction. After I did it wrong several times, Kay took the earring from me and effortlessly did it right. The earring folded in on itself like jelly and turned into a hemisphere. She did the same thing with the other earring once she got it out.

We walked out of the presentation hall together, and before going our separate ways, she hugged me and asked me not to forget about her. I assured her we would stay in contact somehow – although I wasn’t connected to her via social networking or anything like that. At the time, I wasn’t even sure I had her name right, but I didn’t say that. I continued outside alone. It was too dark for me to tell which way I had come from… I still had a long way to walk to get back to Autumn’s house – at least an hour and a half’s journey. I pulled out my phone and asked for walking directions to her house. It was running really slowly, though. I decided to start walking in the same direction as some other people. Before long, I realized something was wrong: I wasn’t wearing shoes. For that matter, when I checked my bag for them, I realized my book was gone.

I ran back inside the building, passing a couple of old theaters similar to the Ramova. There were security devices everywhere. I didn’t have any trouble getting back in, though. I got on an escalator that adjusted its speed according to my will. On the top floor, I ran into Kay and a guy I didn’t know. I asked about my book, but they weren’t sure where I’d left it. The guy led me down to the library and tried to give me their copy. Obviously, I wanted to find my own… I continued into what appeared to be Dakota’s bedroom. Kaitlin was changing her diaper under a dresser. The whole room was in complete disarray. Instead of a crib, she had a mattress on the floor. The rest of the furniture was turned at strange angles in the middle of the floor as though Kaitlin was in the process of rearranging. When I told her what I was missing, she made a worried face. It was going to be hard to find anything in this mess of a bedroom. We searched together and eventually managed to find my copy of Inception. There was no sign of my shoes.

At Kaitlin’s recommendation, I went through a portal into a haunted house to check there for my shoes. I found a ghostly skull in the room on the other end of the portal. When I defeated it, I received three books and the initial tokens for a quest corresponding to each. It was clear that Kaitlin thought I still needed a book even though we’d found that already.

I went back to the presentation hall to check there. The custodial staff stopped me at the door and assured me they hadn’t found my shoes. They said I could check the lost and found tomorrow to see if anyone had turned them in. Disappointed, I walked out of the building. I ran into Autumn and her dad on my way down the dirt path leading back to their house. We talked about my family, especially Austin. The conversation seemed to revolve around how my dad never taught us to use tools. Phil seemed to feel guilty that he couldn’t give Autumn as much money as my parents gave me at the end of our visit. I furrowed my brow when I heard him say this; it didn’t seem like him at all. When we mentioned my shoes, he pulled them out of his bag. He had them all along! Equipped with shoes, I was eager to head home.

Robbo Fruccini and the Elderly of Deadman Wonderland

I was imprisoned in Deadman Wonderland with Autumn. As we stumbled upon his office, we discovered that Robbo Fruccini, the legendary mob boss who secretly controlled most of the prison guards from within the prison, was actually Autumn’s brother Rob. For some reason, I understood that he was Matt and Eric’s brother, but it took me a while to understand how he was related to Autumn… We met with Shiro and retreated so Rob’s men wouldn’t kill us for discovering his secret.

The dream jumped. I watched a bunch of elderly prisoners struggling in their wheelchairs. Their younger relatives visited on occasion, but in almost every case, they felt such pity for their elderly family members that they weren’t sure they could ever come back. I watched an old black woman climb into a laundry basket and roll around on the floor. Her son covered his face in his hands and muttered something about what a burden she was.

Bowling, Chess, and Searching for Hills

I stood in line at a store. There was only one register open even though two cashiers were working. The two people in front of me weren’t that slow, however, so I didn’t really mind. When the guy directly in front of me swiped his card to pay, he walked off to get something without signing his name, so I had to wait. After he paid, he played some kind of bowling match with the cashier. I continued waiting patiently. When my turn came, he handed me a controller. A young girl with a bored expression took the other one. I chose a golden bowling ball for good luck.

At the start of the game, we had to bowl on a gigantic lane with twenty pins and some obstacles to determine our turn order. My opponent only got two pins before her ball ricocheted into the gutter. I got three, but then my ball spun so hard that it turned around and came back to hit me. Anyway, I won, so I got to go first.

I found myself standing on a stone bridge just outside a small castle. Below me was a bubbling marsh full of wrecked ships. The bridge made a J shape connecting my castle to a similar one on the other end. I knew without asking that this was the girl’s castle. I decided I would start collecting materials from the shipwrecks to fortify my castle. I lifted them out of the marsh with telekinesis and set them up on the bridge. After grabbing a few ruined ships, I walked into the castle to see what was available to me. I found a reference guide for playing this game. It was ultimately a game of chess, but I would have to build my chess pieces using resources. I set the reference guide on a desk in my personal office. A man serving as my assistant stood outside the door and said “Yes, sir” to everything I said. He didn’t really assist me much. I also noticed an enormous cicada on the balcony outside my room. I warned my assistant to keep the door closed – lest the world’s largest cicada decide to invade our kingdom.

“Yes, sir,” he replied, rubbing his nose. I went back to my shipwrecks and dismantled them. Using the resources from these, I was able to create some pawns. I sent most of them across the bridge to attack my opponent’s castle. It was just a test run; I wasn’t sure what they were capable of. The pawns that remained behind helped collect shipwrecks while I reviewed the reference guide in my room. It mentioned something about using fireworks to strengthen enemy soldiers. I wondered why anyone would ever want to do that…

The dream jumped. Autumn was talking with Alicia about sexual orientation. She said that liking men was worth two points, liking women was worth two points, and being bisexual was worth two and a half points. Naturally, I had a problem with this; I didn’t understand why liking men and women was “better” than liking men or women. She also claimed she had earned a total of nine points through her sexuality, and even if I gave her all the points she listed, that still wouldn’t come out to nine! I brought this to her attention, but she didn’t have a good answer. She just told me I didn’t understand. I argued that perhaps someone had pressured her into preferring one of the two genders, so she was giving herself double points for being bisexual and double points for that gender. That would be nine points if she excluded the less desirable sex, but then she wouldn’t really be bisexual anymore. Anyway I worked it out, it didn’t seem right.

“Hey,” Alicia said, changing the subject without a care in the world. “Have you ever seen Legacy of the Jount?”

“No…” I replied. Autumn hadn’t seen it either, but apparently, she had heard of it. Some random person asked me what it was about. “I don’t really know…” I answered honestly. As I pictured the movie, I saw a building with “FORMAL HIGH SCHOOL” written on it. I supposed it was about rich kids going to school.

The dream jumped. Hibari tired of dealing with school discipline and walked out to his school’s parking lot. He managed to get into a car, but without the keys, he couldn’t go anywhere. Strangely, the radio turned on when he climbed in the back seat. He muttered something about the Japanese understanding how to make a proper vehicle. Gradually, Hibari and I merged awareness, and I took control of his body. I looked down and saw the car keys on the floor of the back seat. Grinning, I picked them up and began twirling them. I could leave – but where would I go? I pulled out my phone and searched for a hill nearby. I doubted I could find one of significant size anywhere nearby. After the search went through, I found a hill that was only 1.8 miles away. It was on the other side of an airport. At first, I thought it was on the airport grounds – which would be completely useless to me – but my phone showed a video of me, Omi, and Opi taking pictures on the hill. There was some kind of desert plateau near the hill. We also found a whole family of hedgehogs living there.

I wasn’t sure I really wanted to drive that far, but if I wanted to go anywhere else, it would be much further. I hopped into the driver’s seat and started the car with a sigh… Anything to get away from here, I thought.