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Tag: dream

Finding the other 2

This story can be read in isolation, or as a continuation of Finding the other.

Asleep once more, Jake imagined some rockets onto his feet, and propelled himself up into the sky to get a better view. Beyond a giant wall was a flat, greenish ocean. Out on this green ocean was a house, and in that house was a door.

Having destroyed the house that surrounded the door, he glided down to the ground, letting his rockets slow his descent like a Pixar superhero. He opened the door and looked in, wondering what he would see. As soon as he did this, he remembered that he had tried to look into the door before and had never been able to see anything. He stepped through the door.

His consciousness fell into something that was not another Jake. His subconscious brain could cope with the way he could see, but his conscious brain could not. He was able to see a much wider angle than he usually could, and yet it did not look like he was looking through a fish-eye lens. Rather he could see much more, while everything looked natural.

Jake tried to glance down at his arms, but quickly realized that his head was not able to move relative to the rest of himself. He tried out his arms, but found he had more than two, and that his legs were indistinguishable. When he thought about his limbs, he was able to think of six, and there was no hierarchy.

Jake pondered then, how it is that you know where your arms, fingers and other body parts are, when you cannot see them. If you close your eyes and lift your arms above your head, you know they’re above your head, even though you are not touching them with any other part of your body that has a sense of touch.

Jake mentally explored his body. He could feel a tail, although it had a very restricted range of motion. He could feel wings, and six legs, and two antennae. This was a great experience. All the time he was thinking of this, he suddenly realized that there was movement visible above him.

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The Dream Board

“Thank you for coming to this meeting of the Board,” Derenges said, with a laugh, “as if you had a choice.”

The attendees nodded their ascent and murmured as one. The black obsidian table hung in the air, with its legs so small, and so well disguised, that it was possible to imagine that it floated, magically.

One of the two guards, holding a pike, shifted slightly causing his armor to clank.

“We have a long agenda today. There are two million human apes, and about a third of them need to have a memorable dream tonight” Derenges announced. “What themes do you have for the tribe of Asyrii in northern Iberia?” Derenges looked to its left, into the eyes of the person next to itself.

“If I may be so bold, sir, there is actually a larger problem this time, than the human apes” responded Bolinga. Bolinga was blue with a disproportionately large head with hollow protrusions extending from the top.

Derenges raised its eyebrow in query.

Bolinga continued, “The domesticated canines that the human apes have befriended and selectively bred from canis lupus… They are needing to dream now too, sir.”

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Finding the other

“So, it turns out we have always been able to get there. I haven’t worked out how, yet – that’s for others – but I know it’s real, and I can prove it.” Jake was talking to his friend in the bar, the evening after his discovery. We won’t meet his friend again, so I shall leave him nameless. You can call him “Fred” if that would make you happier, but I am not certain that that was his name.

Jake went to sleep that evening, as excited as anyone had ever been to go to sleep. He laid there waiting to sleep, like a child the night before Christmas. He may even have been more excited than that. Maybe as excited as the night before the flight to Disney World. Of course, all he wanted to do was get to sleep, but all he could do was lay there awake, excited about the possibilities.

Eventually, and without being aware of it, Jake finally discovered that he was asleep, and that he was dreaming. Months and months of training had made him aware of lucid dreaming, and he had long been able to identify that he was dreaming, and control what he did there.

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Huldufólk

The wind howled across the desolate winter landscape of Iceland. No trees to limit its progress, but glaciers to cool it, made the bite vicious. And the longer Gary stood on the exposed top of the hill, the deeper the teeth sunk in.

He dared, for a moment, to pull his glove forward to look at his watch, and slices of sharpened teeth dug into the gap between sleeve and glove. Gary knew he was waiting, but he didn’t remember how he got here, nor what he was waiting for.

Gary woke, with a start. Back in his bedroom in Reykjavik. He had moved to Iceland when the multi-national bank he worked for had bought an Icelandic bank, and he was given an opportunity to help integrate the new bank into the larger organization.

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