International Oneironaut Shared Dreaming Journal

Nephanim's Dreams

Judging Restaurants at the Mall

I went to the mall to eat lunch. There were several places open, but I had my eyes on two of them in particular. Both were Chinese restaurants. The one I selected didn’t have a line. When I looked at the food on display, I was a little disgusted… I couldn’t even tell what it was, much less what to order. I asked the woman working there what certain foods were and what she recommended, but in the end, her suggestions weren’t very helpful. I just ordered a couple of things at random and hoped for the best. The total came out to $20 exactly.

The dream jumped. I came back to the mall for dinner. I recalled that my lunch experience earlier had been terrible, so I definitely wasn’t going back to that first place… I went to the second of the two restaurants I’d been interested in. There was a much longer line here, so I assumed the food was good, but after I paid for my food and started eating, I realized it was no better than the first place. I ate it anyway so I wouldn’t waste the money.

The dream jumped. I was back at the mall for yet another meal. This time, I decided to look at some of the restaurants I glossed over before. There was a place that reminded me of Sbarro in the back of the food court. I sat down in their restaurant and looked at the short menu. It seemed fairly simple… The menu just listed a number of sizes for various things and prices. I decided to get a really big burger.

The dream jumped. I was in Nicole’s room with a plush Scooby Doo head. There was a hole in the neck, but we couldn’t figure out why. It reminds me of those toy horses with the sticks coming out of their heads. Nicole and I inspected the Scooby Doo head for a while, sticking our fingers in the hole… I finally came up with an idea, but I doubted it was what the designer had in mind. It was too awkward to even suggest it.

Searching for an Old Town Restaurant

I was driving through an old part of town by a dirty river. Austin Hill and Alex rode in my parents’ car with me and Nicole. Our objective was a restaurant on a side road somewhere, but we had a lot of trouble finding it. We stopped the car twice to check the address and look around a parking lot. For some reason, I opened the trunk and sat back there. I didn’t bother closing it.

I ended up in the convertible with Nicole driving. Austin was driving my parents’ car. We never closed the trunk, but I kept forgetting to remind him to do that. We drove by a hookah lounge, and Austin and Alex insisted on driving up for a better look. I noticed that they even had equipment set up outside with tables. Since it was so late at night, though, everything was closed. We drove around the back and found a KFC hidden in an alley. Following the road back up, we came to an intersection. Austin decided to back up and go through the parking lot instead. He made it back onto the busy street before we did since we had to turn.

The traffic lights were messed up, too. Our left turn arrow kept flashing on, going off, flashing on, going off… When the light turned yellow, it finally went on and stayed that way. I was relieved that Nicole hadn’t crashed her mom’s car. We met up with Alex and Austin at a box store of some sort – probably Target. I finally remembered to ask them about the trunk, and Austin said that it was still open. I couldn’t believe he knew it was open and didn’t close it. He offered me the keys, but I knew I wouldn’t need them just to close the door. They directed me to the second floor of a parking garage connected to the Target. I rode an escalator up to the second floor and almost immediately saw the car. It was easy to pick out because of the open door in the back.

I quickly realized why Austin hadn’t closed it, too. The way he had parked, the wall of the parking garage behind the car was in the way. I had to push the car forward the inch or so allowed by the suspension to get the door past the wall. Once I took care of that, it seemed to close without a problem. I was still suspicious of the door… I went back down the escalator to talk with the others about the restaurant we were looking for.

Screaming Phone

I had a false awakening in which the alarm tone was replaced by a woman’s screams of agony. It was so jarring that I had difficulty going back to sleep afterward.

Until my 7 AM alarm really woke me up, I thought this actually happened.

Tsuna's Wedding Invitations

I was Sawada Tsunayoshi. Reborn led me, my guardians, and a number of guests into a classroom to discuss invitations to the upcoming Vongola wedding. No one ever mentioned who I was marrying, but I understood that it was only a matter of days until the ceremony. My task was to draw four cards for everyone to determine whether or not they were suitable guests for the wedding. Reborn insisted that the Goddess of Fortune would prevent me from inviting any troublemakers. If the sum value of the four cards was less than 20, I wasn’t supposed to give them an invitation. Of course, I planned to keep a list of the people who failed this test in case there were extra invitations at the end… Regardless of Reborn’s superstitious talk, it was going to be a small wedding if I started turning them away now. We didn’t discuss the values of each card; Reborn left that to my interpretation. I gave numbered cards their face value and named cards a value of ten. I didn’t see the joker until later on, but I eventually decided that whoever got the joker would need further review.

While I distributed the cards, I thought about Apheri. Her form seemed less stable lately, but I couldn’t figure out why. People kept asking me questions about things I’d done, but Reborn just threw things at them to get them to be quiet. I moved down the line, handing people cards and smiling when they thanked me. When I came to Yamamoto, I drew just one card. It had the number 20 printed on it, and the card art depicted me and Yamamoto standing together. I thought it was fitting since he had saved my life so many times.

“Thank you, my friend,” I said mostly in response to my own thoughts. I hugged him before moving on. Most of the time, three cards were enough for people to pass. While it was certainly possible for someone to fail the four card test, I wondered if it would ever happen… I saw more signs for concern in a couple of guys’ argumentative behavior than I did in the result of the test. By the end of it, I was just drawing stacks of cards and lying them out before I went to see the people sitting in the room. The test didn’t seem relevant. This was when I drew the first joker. The card art depicted a creepy clown with curly, red hair. I wondered who would receive it… Surely, they would be offended that I gave them this disgusting card. I put it in the back of the bookcase I was using as a placeholder for my stacks of cards.

I found a wooden boat on the top shelf of the bookcase. It was covered in sand. As I set it down, I had a faint memory of sailing it in Arabasta. I wondered whether this sand was from there or the beach. Someone mentioned that I sailed it somewhere else even more recently… When I thought about it, I pictured the dirty river from another of last night’s dreams. I remembered it sinking in that nasty river. Any remnants of Arabasta sand were almost certainly washed out during that ordeal. I glanced over at Reborn – still going on and on about wedding procedures. I hoped he wouldn’t punish me too gravely for not paying attention.

Etching Thoughts into Data

In a false awakening, I inscribed my dreams into my journal by etching my thoughts into a file from Nicole’s bed. The vividness of my dreams was better captured this way, and I was able to post pictures of my dreams, too! When I was done, I decided to go back to sleep.