International Oneironaut Shared Dreaming Journal

Nephanim's Dreams

20,000 IPRO Hours

I arrived for another IPRO meeting to discover that only a few others had bothered to show up. We looked at the current task hours listed on the iGroups system and saw that Evan had put in 20,000 hours in the past three days. I knew there was no way he had that much free time; he didn’t even have that much time. I was having trouble doing the math in my head, so I whipped out my calculator to determine how many days it would take him to invest that much time. I came up with 688 days… Not correct, but not bad. When he arrived for class, Nick and I brought the problem of his 20,000 hours into discussion. He had no idea what we were talking about. In fact, when we checked iGroups again, it had been reduced to twenty hours – which we couldn’t really contest.

Battling Generals of the Shadow World, Pepin the Cockroach

I was part of a team of dreamers battling with dark forces. Basically, we would go to sleep in a certain formation in the same room to share dreams, then we would track down generals of the shadow world to eliminate them. One general was too powerful for us to defeat in his native world, so we sent him to a new one: a world the size of a small bedroom. Only the garden contained within the box existed in this universe. All of us but one traveled to a third world to wait while the strongest among us battled with the general in the box world. We received a noisy telepathic signal from him and decided it was worth investigating. As the second strongest in our group, I volunteered to check on him.

By the time I reached our box world, I no longer recognized any part of it. The boundaries of the world had been warped and extended. The garden had been turned into a winter landscape with an icy river flowing through it. As I approached the river, sections of the ice reached out to grab me. The general had fused with the essence of the world. In effect, he was the very snow beneath my feet. I took flight to separate myself from my opponent. Somehow, I got the idea to pour pepper on him. When I doused the snow in pepper, it began to sizzle. The general screamed. I descended with my pepper shaker and coated the river’s edge in pepper. He was deathly allergic, so it didn’t take long for this to significantly weaken him. I called one of the other members of our group, a woman a few years younger than me. She was impressed with my work, but since we were out of pepper, there wasn’t any way to replicate this if the general recovered sooner than expected. We decided we would just have to kill him there. I summoned Symphony and had her fire a dream discharger blast into the core of the world. The general died, and the world began to melt… It gradually morphed back into the box world we created. I promised that I would buy a new pepper shaker to replace the empty one.

The dream jumped. I was sitting in Nicole’s living room with her when Jack Pepin walked into the house. I wasn’t pleased to see him, especially when he informed us that he “might have” stolen some money from her mom’s car. I recalled putting some money in there in case we went out to buy something and didn’t have enough cash in our wallets. It took me a while, but I came to the conclusion that we had left $27 in there. Pepin wouldn’t tell me how much money he took, nor would he return it. I went to the car to check. Since there was $7 left, I assumed he took a $20 bill. I tried to get him to return the money again, but he still refused. As I was considering calling the police, they called me.

I explained the situation to them calmly. The cop didn’t understand why I had put money in the car in the first place – as if it mattered. At the end of my story, the officer said he didn’t think there was anything he could do for me. He offered to scare Pepin, at least… As I was trying to negotiate something, our call began to break up. The officer couldn’t hear anything I was saying. Eventually, he hung up on me. I waited for police to arrive, but no one came… So I decided it was in my hands. I walked out into the backyard and saw Nicole and Pepin setting up a boxing ring. I climbed into it. Pepin was wearing boxing gloves, but I didn’t bother. I rolled up my sleeves and balled my fists. Before he knew what was happening, my fist was half an inch away from his face. I left him in a ball on the floor of the boxing ring, covered in bruises.

A few minutes later – when Pepin recovered from his beating – he offered to buy me something to resolve the problem. It wasn’t the solution I’d been asking for, but it was better than nothing. When I asked what he had in mind, however, he started talking about things I could buy for him. I glared at him as he went on and on about how much he’d like to have my shoes, my pants, and so on. I interrupted to explain that I wasn’t going to give anything of mine to him or buy anything for him. In particular, I had no intention of giving away my only good pair of shoes… I turned Pepin into a white cockroach as punishment for his theft and failure to cooperate.

It was around 11 PM. I explained to Nicole that I needed to get back to my campus as soon as possible. I still needed to buy pepper and get a good night’s rest before my classes in the morning. As I prepared to leave, I caught Pepin the Cockroach trying to break into the car and steal the remaining $7. I stepped on him several times until he stopped moving. Phil came into the garage shortly after to explain that he had contacted the police. They were on their way to search Pepin. Unfortunately, since I just killed him, there was nothing for them to investigate except murder… I decided it was better to have them search his house instead. Nicole was able to figure out his address and tell the police where to go when they pulled into the driveway.

As I drove down Nicole’s street later, I secretly hoped the police would find drugs at Pepin’s house. I sensed that although I had killed him, he would be back to suffer the consequences. I started wondering where I was going… The road was dark and surrounded by thick forest. I vaguely understood that I was looking for the train station since it was too late to ride a bus into the city. The more I thought about it, the less sense it made… How would I get the car back to Nicole’s house? I should have brought someone else with me. I turned down a road that looked familiar and realized with dismay that it just looped back on itself. After some more wandering, I came to a highway I recognized. The ten-way intersection was far less familiar than the highway itself…

The dream jumped. I was at a convenience store on my campus. I floated around the store looking for pepper until the girl from my dream warrior group appeared. She explained that she already bought a new pepper shaker. She asked if I wanted to hear her sing in an opera. I explained that I was about to go to bed, but she promised to keep it brief, so I agreed. She took me to an opera hall where the latest performance was about to end. They were scheduled to perform one more time that night – at midnight. This girl would play the lead role in the midnight performance. She managed to get me a front row seat before she ran backstage to get ready.

The dream jumped. I didn’t make it back to my room until well after midnight. I slumped into bed and closed my eyes…

Privacy of Dreams

I was at my parents’ original house in Texas with Nicole. She kept trying to read my dream journal. Every time she tried to take it from me, I put my hand on it and warned her not to read it. My explanation for maintaining privacy was simple: there were some dreams I didn’t want anyone else to read, including her. If I wanted her to read them, they would be publicly available online. She wasn’t satisfied with this answer, though…

“Why do you dream about things you don’t want me to know about?” she asked. I just sighed and told her not to break my trust. When she went downstairs, I hid the dream journal in my desk.

Portions omitted.