This dream was in two parts.
The first part had something to do with living in a dorm-like situation in a room with white walls, but the paint had worn off in places making the place look old. There were two closets filled with clothes on one side. I remember picturing where I was going to put my desk and dresser in the room.
There was a part of that dream where I asked a question to some authority figure/advisor(?) and they said yes (giving me some sort of freedom to do what I wanted) and I remember thinking I had another year left in some creative program.
The next part I remember was of eating lunch in a cafeteria with others in this program. The table was big, round, and fake medium dark wood. I had my black hoodie on the table.
To my right, some charismatic guy was telling a story. He wore a type of sweater I really like on guys and I think it was “dream green” like the one I’ve seen Warren* wear. This was not Warren. This guy was slightly taller, more…military-y and had lighter hair. I remember liking this guy’s confidence and how he interacted with people. I never got his name, so I kept calling him “Sweater Guy.” He reminded me of Jordan or Jensen from other dreams (my subconscious LOVES naming guys with J names).
He put his fist in the middle like some rallying move. The others, still eating, were confused. I was enjoying this guy’s energy so I went with it and the others did, too. He then started messing with my hoodie and going through the pockets. I was like, “Yo, dude, what are you doing?”
He admitted to looking for cash.
I told him I wasn’t that stupid – I wouldn’t leave cash in my hoodie and have it on the table.
Later, I was walking out of the main area and he approached me and hugged me and tried to chat me up, but I could tell he was trying to find my cash – usually in my back pocket, which he got and teased me about actually getting it from me and offered it back. I played back during this, trying to find where he kept his cash, but didn’t find it.
I woke up around this time, but the dream character never seemed like he was out to steal, but to remind people to be smarter about where they keep their cash. I think he targeted me because I wasn’t scared off by him or get mad at him. Even if he was out to steal, I’d just make sure I didn’t have anything valuable when I was near him and still treat him kindly. My subconscious makes up interesting characters.
I can barely remember it now, but I vaguely remember trying to get out and help others get out of some place with maze-like hallways.
I remember getting tasered/shocked by some earbuds. I’ve never been tasered in waking life, but in the dream, I don’t remember pain, but I froze in mid-sentence, my mouth was open, so drool came out, and I dropped because I couldn’t move to catch myself from falling. The earbuds with the electricity shocking me stayed against my skin like a magnet. I found it really interesting while it was happening.
I remember telling others about this dream in the dream and about how I generally don’t run from people in dreams, I plan how to get others out and take down whoever the “bad guys” are through outwitting them or befriending them.
Voice notes while half asleep (better details below):
Across this Great Divide space themed we weren’t a TV show part of it hooked up some kind of device to our backs and it hooked up to something that early adopters used for game video games and they figured out how to hack it so that it turned us into shooters that and used our video game reflexes to shoot enemies they tested it on and I seen that it was interesting that I felt no guilt they are on a ship full of these people that were being trained to go after enemies and I had plans on not only making it through bringing my friends with me I think Charlie was there there was an actor from The Magicians really need scene about blocking and defending it was a nice black guy who warned me about naked people fell asleep after one of the things and a closet if you want to call it that I was just bored
Actually, the song was “New Divide” by Linkin Park and it was the theme song to this TV show. It was a space theme, but the interior of the ship I was on looked like stock Unity assets.
The first scene I remember was stepping onto a platform and I was wearing a baggy gray/blue jumpsuit. Some other people were directing me to stand still – they opened up the back of my suit to get to some device embedded into my back. The people around me added another device to the one I had and it hacked it to somehow hack my brain and it was able to control me.
I remember people in uniforms holding guns running around a corner and I had to shoot them like a video game. They disappeared and numbers came out when I shot them. The people around me made some adjustments and the scene happened again, but some of the people were real. I gave in to the automatic shooting movements and shot and killed the real people. The people around me smiled and said I did a great job. I mentioned to them I liked the fact the hack took away any guilt I’d normally have in this situation. I really felt no guilt or anything really – it was like playing a video game – how often do you feel bad about killing enemies then? I also said these things as a way of putting myself on THEIR level. Make friends with your enemies and authority so they don’t look down on you and are less likely to hurt you.
I was one of many on this ship. I felt I wasn’t there on purpose – like I was kidnapped or something and was making the most of it to eventually escape.
The embedded device was something immersive video game related and everyone participating on the ship had this device, but only the earliest version – so I saw many classmates later because we all tried out the technology as part of our studies.
Next scene:
I remember randomly crawling halfway into a storage compartment because I was bored and I was trying to make people laugh. I said, “This is a nice area to take a nap!” My voice sounded different because of the shape of the space. Some other participant that was friendly and about 10 years older than me crawled all the way into the compartment and laid down and agreed with me. I laid my head on his stomach and we talked about what was going on. He had been their longer and said each test would be harder and they eliminate those who score low or fight the hack – part of testing this involved using anything to emotionally arouse or distract participants – like nudity and whatnot. I laughed saying that I’ve used the internet since I was a kid and that random nudity/sex/etc. is something that shows up all the time. I think I could catch what is going on and ignore it and win those rounds.
Next scene:
The same guy sat near me on some bleachers in a large room as we watched the participants that have been there longer working on a theater performance. It looked like a scene from some 1930s movie with dancing and people in the back with large props and a jazzy singer at a microphone at the front. The director said “CUT!” and I was curious to who it was. It was the actor from The Magicians and I thought, “That’s great! I like his acting and his character on that show.” (I tend to like characters who are ass hole-y, but in the end care the most about those around them, even strangers). I remember seeing Charlie* in a group milling about.
The next part is hard to explain in text since it was the guy behind me VO-ing over the scenes I was watching. It’s kinda how I picture my memories – as some edited piece of film. He told me to pay attention to EVERYTHING. Sometimes the smallest detail could save me in one of the trials. The actors began practicing a fight scene where one guy had only a towel to defend himself. The scenes I saw showed people blocking my view of the actor, then moving based on what he said as he figured out the blocking on stage. Then, the character twisted his towel and used it to block a blow to his face. The guy behind me thought this was about fighting and training. I said it was all about blocking.
Note: This “different types of blocking” theme is actually from waking life. Last semester, I thought it would be neat to make a story/film that looks at how film terms can mean different things. It was also related to something with Warren* which is probably why he showed up later.
So I woke up and recorded the voice notes at this point. I wanted to watch more of this TV show and did, but the scenes weren’t very entertaining.
Went back to sleep…
Next scene:
I remember being in a food line that went around in a zig-zag pattern. Tammi* and Warren* were about 4 people behind me. Warren was making friends and, even though he’s super friendly, I wondered if he had a similar plan to mine. One of the other people kept saying Tammi and Warren were together romantically. Tammi blushed and said they weren’t, but the way she said it made it seem like if they weren’t she wished they were. I like Warren, but I’ve always thought romantic or friend relationship, Tammi and Warren need to stay in SOME kind of relationship because they need each other’s support. I thought maybe she was trying to deny their closeness was because it could be used against them.
Next scene:
I remember being in a small lodging room with a window that looked into space. I walked around, looking at things in the room – there was a phonebook with a scrapbook under it. I would have looked at the scrapbook, but there was another participant resting in the room. He was talking about how some of the trails have Hentai and if I knew what that meant. I wasn’t sure what he was hinting at, but I said that the technology takes memories from our minds, so at least one participant probably watches it.
Next scene:
I’m not sure if this was the same series, but I remember an elevator and floor leveling system. I had gotten to Floor 5 safely but ended up back on Floor 1. Usually, “Explorers” start here and look everywhere and collect fruit needed by the time they get the letter saying they need to collect fruit to get to a higher floor. I was replaying, so I went for the letter and had to look around for something and had no idea where it was. This was while some new storm element was added, making it a timed event.
I saw two participants while looking through large rooms with stacked cardboard boxes near large cargo doors. I haven’t seen them in months. They claimed they just started and I said, “In case you didn’t know, it’s May.” They actually didn’t have any memory of the past few months.
Kinda dream scene:
It wasn’t a full dream, but part of the technology involved gloves that either make your emotion more positive, more depressed or no emotion at all.
* Names were changed
One of the dreams I remember came after seeing there was both a flood warning and a frost warning and falling right back to sleep.
I was on top of some small red double-decker bus (like the ones in England) and I was riding it around a parking lot that had people trying to walk on black ice. I lost control of my bus and fell, but I avoided major injury. Some firefighters helped me up and I clumsily tripped again and messed up my left big toe. They helped me up again and I went with a crowd into an old brick school.
There was a blond girl asking me questions like she was a journalist and I kept having her repeat the questions so I could respond with good quotes. Suddenly, a lot of dinosaurs randomly attacked the school. I started to see it from above as my character was bitten by a velociraptor. It laid on its side and started chewing.
I laid down and put my arm on it and it felt like a dog chewing a toy/bone. (A velociraptor wouldn’t have felt warm like this.) I thought, “Maybe being eaten by a velociraptor isn’t half bad.”
Then I woke up in a dream where I was in a bed and my arm was lying on a medium-sized dog with short black hair chewing a toy. I remember being happy and thinking it was cool how the dog showed up in my dream. Someone was sleeping to my left, but I woke up for real right after that.
“OMG I just dreamed of one of my favorite forms of storytelling and art. It was a story told through interacting with real life locations and strangers. Like, you got the next part of the story if you bought a character’s favorite candy in their hometown. You had to call/text numbers. You had to follow a trail in a national park as you listened to a scene (memory) that happened there. Go to a page in a book from a local library. Etc. In my dream, the story was called ‘Arizona’ and was about the short time a mother had with her son before some tragedy ended one of their lives.”
— Hope Moore on Facebook
So more details:
I remember one part where there was a small dilapidated shack out near a foresty area. There was a handle that looked like a crank to a large Jack-in-the-Box. As you turned it, an audio file would play, continuing the story. There was also an intercom that used AI/Alexa-like responses to respond as one of the characters answering questions through an intercom of a building.
I remember a scene where I was buying candy from a small-town store and the cashier told me about the characters and a scene that happened in the store. I left and remember thinking how cool it was that I was in BFE someplace I’d never go to just to continue an immersive story. Some rando guy was following me and hitting on me on the way back to a public parking lot. I was nice because I’m nice to everyone, but the guy took it as me being interested in him. I tried to show I was just being nice and didn’t want to go somewhere with him at the moment and hoped to get to my car and never return. The parking lot was kinda shady and people were just hanging out there in the cold. I remember getting in my car, but I was smoking a cigarette and put it out on my car near the doorframe.
I really want to do something with this storytelling technique. It will probably involve time travel and local historical sites since I use real things in my fictional stories. I’m going to look into using augmented reality or 360 video triggered only in a specific location and angle to create a “shared memory.” I love codes and information, so I think I could use Dewey Decimal numbers, country auditor info, etc. I also like to ramp up the difficulty to include things that only work when at least one other person participates, during peak colored leaves season, during the month when lightning bugs/fireflies are visible, things that only work at sunrise/sunset with a view, etc.