I had a bunch of weird dreams last night. In one I was a man wearing overalls who jumped a lot. In one I was flying a spaceship, and in another driving a car. In real life I’m a 15-year-old girl in high school and I haven’t even started driving, but I didn’t have any trouble in the dream. But those were more normal dreams. The dream played out and I experienced it.
The last dream I had was different. I really felt like I was there, in the dream. I was a male athlete, not a super-built bodybuilder type, but still strong with good ability to run and jump and throw. I had just barely started dating a boy my age named Brad, but I could have easily imagined in the future having a boyfriend like that. In this dream I was that guy. It felt strange to me to be a guy, but I didn’t have any trouble doing it, and in some ways it actually felt good. I was running and jumping and living in that body. It was so realistic! I could feel the breeze on my skin, and when I was close to too many of the guys, I could smell the sweat. I could hear the shouts and grunts some of the guys made when they jumped or threw things. I could feel the impact in the sand when I did the long jump. I could feel my athletic cup holding my junk in place, junk that I didn’t have in real life.
I was part of a group of similar men. We were practicing track and field events; maybe it was the decathlon. There was a trainer at each station explaining what it was we were supposed to do, and I wandered from one to another in no particular order, practicing them, carrying a small gym bag with me that had a hand towel, a water bottle, and a few other things in it, and enough empty space for the clothes I was wearing, that I would put in a marked area while I was practicing there. There were running and hurdle events and also some throwing and jumping ones, and the lanes of the track were divided into two sections. On the inside of the track they were doing the short run and hurdle events, and on the outside they were doing longer runs where you needed to make one or more full laps.
The stadium we were in was initially empty, but some spectators started coming in, and by the time maybe a tenth of the stadium was full, they told us practice was over and to head to the locker room. I thought that meant I was going to shower and see all the other guys naked, and I didn’t know whether to be excited or scared about that. But that didn’t happen. It seemed like as soon as we got in there, they were lining us up to enter the stadium again, in alphabetical order by surname. A panel I noticed on my bag said McCaffrey, so I figured out that was this guy’s name and I got into line when called. As we got in line, they handed each of us a small card which had a schedule, with no times but just the sequence in which we were going to do the events, which fit into a slot on our gym bags on the other side of the bag from the one with the name.
When we did reenter the stadium, it was full of spectators. I went around and tried my best at the various events, but I had only had the one little practice session and didn’t do very well. I was OK with the running, with the power in that body; in fact, I won one heat. But the throwing and jumping events required more specific skills I had barely practiced. While I had no problem throwing and jumping, I wasn’t doing it optimally, which was what was needed here. At the end they announced the top scores and which people qualified to move on. I didn’t, and the dream ended then, so I still didn’t experience the showers in the locker room. I don’t remember any more dreams before I woke up.
I went on with my day, with nothing unusual happening.
Bang! Bang! Somebody is shooting at me!
I hid behind a wall. A boring, gray stone wall. I had no idea where I was, but everything I could see in any direction in the dim light here was made of the same gray stone.
At this moment I realized I was armed. The large pistol wasn’t even holstered; I was carrying it in one hand. I couldn’t remember ever shooting a gun before, not in real life, though I had done so in video games a little, so I wasn’t sure why I had one. Nevertheless, I did. It seemed real enough.
I heard footsteps approaching, and backed a few more steps from the corner along the wall I was hiding behind, keeping a close eye on the corner. The steps got closer, and finally the thing which first appeared around the corner was a gun. I ducked and he shot over my head. I aimed and fired the moment I saw a body there, and the body slumped to the ground.
The body was wearing some kind of military uniform. Then I realized that I too was wearing a military uniform, but a different one. I’m not a member of the military! What was going on? I wondered whether it was another of those dreams. This time, I was a woman, though an older one than I really am. I don’t think they let women into combat here, so it must be a dream. Not that I actually wanted to do something like this.
I went back to the place from which I had shot this man, sat down on the ground, and waited. More footsteps, another gun around the corner, another shot from me, and another body, in same uniform as the first, fell right on top of the first.
This happened a few more times, and then it seemed like no more came, and I eventually fell asleep there.
I woke up in my own bed, in my own body, and in my own clothes, not a military uniform. That horrible shooting thing had all been a dream. A nightmare.
Summer was winding down, and while Dad was at work, Mom took me shopping for school stuff. Most of it was boring, but I did get some new clothes, which would have been fun if I wasn’t restricted to school dress code, which instead made it only kind of OK.
Brad called after dinner. His family was still on vacation in California, and it was before dinner time for him. They were going to be flying back tomorrow, and I couldn’t wait to see him again.
I was back in the gray stone maze again. Not in the same place as last night, because the pattern of walls I was looking at seemed different. But part of the same place, definitely.
I mostly hid and waited, like last night. But I realized I was pretty hungry, which made me think about the box I had noticed standing neatly near one of the walls on the other side of the space I was in. It looked like a box of crackers.
I ran across to get it, and managed to get there without anybody shooting at me. There was a bottle of water standing next to it. I thought that might be good to have, so I holstered the pistol to pick up both items. This spot was not sheltered the way the other spot was, so I ran back to my former location.
It was indeed a box of crackers. That was all I could say about it. It didn’t have any particular taste or anything. Before I knew it, I had eaten the whole box, and drunk what was labeled as 1 liter of water. But I felt better.
A few more shooters came and I took them out.
What was it with this dream? Two nights in a row in the military.
Brad was traveling today, and he texted me from the airport to keep me updated. His family couldn’t get a direct flight, so he was changing planes in Dallas, and between that and the time zone difference, it was going to be late when he got home, so I wasn’t going to be able to see him tonight.
I couldn’t really think about anything else, though, so I pretty much wasted the day.
The shooting again.
I was starting to get more confident with the gun, so when I was feeling hungry again, I ventured on out into the maze. I shot several guys without hiding and waiting for them, but I wasn’t seeing any more food.
Finally, when I was shooting one guy, I took two shots but for the second shot, the gun just clicked. It was empty. Fortunately, I had killed the guy I was shooting at with my first shot.
The dead guys all had guns, so I went to the last two I’d killed and picked up their guns. They seemed identical to what I was carrying. When I actually thought to look for it, it was easy to spot the small window that showed the number of bullets left. None of the guns had much ammo, but some of the men had been carrying full spare clips of ammo. I figured out how to eject the empty clip from the gun I was carrying and reload it with a full one. There was a small button on the bottom of the handle which released the empty clip. The new one slid right in.
This gave me the bright idea to also see if any of the dead guys were carrying food. I found two boxes of the crackers and one bottle of water, and ate one box and drank the water.
I was tired of this, though, so I found another safe looking spot and sat there, holding the crackers in one hand and the pistol in the other. I felt hungry and wanted to eat the crackers, but I don’t think I actually did it.
I woke up again, realizing I had been in the weird stone maze shooting people in my dreams for the third night in a row. But something was different this morning. I had the box of crackers in bed with me!
Weird. Some generic crackers, I guess; the box just said CRACKERS on it. I opened it and pulled out a cracker and ate it. Kind of bland, but not stale. Pretty much a generic cracker, I guess. Almost anything else I could eat here was better, so I closed the box back up.
I spent the morning preparing myself and Mom took me to Brad’s house, where I had lunch and then spent the afternoon with him. We spent a lot of time talking about his experiences in California. I wished I could have gone with him but Mom and Dad wouldn’t let me.
This time, when I realized I was in the maze again, as soon as I had a moment where nobody was shooting at me, I stopped to take stock of myself.
My body here was similar in size to my real body, but more muscular. Maybe if I worked out a lot, I could look like this. I wore a camouflage jacket and kind of longish shorts. I might be an inch or two taller, and a cup size bigger in the bust. I wore a belt with a holster for the gun I had been using, which had slots for four clips of ammo, three of them full. But I was also carrying a small backpack. In the pack was a dozen more ammo clips, two of the boxes of crackers and a bottle of water, an amulet apparently made of bronze and jade, a small bag of gold coins, and a notepad with attached pen. I flipped through the pad but it was blank.
I went on with the running and shooting. I was getting better with the gun and using it more. I ran out of bullets again, and reloaded with a spare clip. I found and ate one more box of crackers and found and drank one more bottle of water. Now that I had learned to recognize the clips, when I found two more during my run, I stashed them in the backpack. And like always happened, at one of my resting points, the dream ended and I woke up. I’m not sure if the dream actually lasted longer, but I know I did a lot more instead of just sitting around in a corner.
What’s that, four nights now?
While I was getting dressed, I realized something. I had left the box of crackers on top of my dresser yesterday morning, but I didn’t remember seeing it in the evening and it wasn’t there now.
I searched the house and asked Mom about it. She said she hadn’t been in my room while I was out and hadn’t seen it. But I was sure it was there.
I spent a lot of the day with Brad again and forgot about the box.
It happened again, the fifth night in a row. This was getting really weird.
I forgot about the crackers while I was out with Brad again today, but in the evening at home I remembered. I decided to try an experiment. If I could bring crackers from the dream back home, it served to reason that maybe I could take other crackers there. I took a box of real crackers from home back to bed with me, and, remembering how hungry I was in the game for the crackers that I ended up bringing home, I went to sleep with the thought of having these tastier crackers there with me.
Sure enough, I arrived in my dream holding the box of crackers. The dream-me was hungry, so I ate the whole box. While the other crackers had not tasted much like anything in the dream, and tasted bland in real life, these tasted like they should in the dream.
The backpack now had only one other box of crackers, three water bottles, and 9 clips, along with the amulet, coins, and notepad. I had noticed that the contents of the pack and my location changed between dreams. After about a week of coming here every night, I had this epiphany: If this was a real place I’m traveling to, which I was assuming was true since the crackers were real, it must mean I was animating some other person’s body, probably while they were sleeping.
I went on as usual, but when I sensed I was coming near the end of my run, and found one of those convenient resting points, I got out the notepad. Clearly whoever I was possessing during these dreams lived when I wasn’t here, so maybe I could leave them a note. I wrote on the first page “Dear alternate body, Hi! I’m Sarah. I’m a high-school student from Atlanta.” Then I stayed there with the pad in my hand, hoping this body’s real self would notice it, since the pad appeared to have not been used.
Tommy finished his homework and went to his room and started up his computer, and as soon as it was ready, started up his latest favorite game, Death March 6. I hope I can figure out why my character is doing things between sessions and how I can learn to control it, he thought to himself while the game loaded. Once he noticed this was happening, he jotted down the stats at the end of each session and the start of the next. He learned that Elissa was playing about 5 or 6 hours a day without him, and running forward at twice his pace, but apparently at the expense of not shooting stuff. She was missing a lot of potential XP from doing that. She fired at about 1/5 his rate, but she hit more often, 72% to his 49%. Bullets weren’t scarce, though. She should shoot more, even if it meant she missed more.
When it did load, he noticed first that his character was once again in an unfamiliar place. This time, though, she had something in her hand which wasn’t her gun. He examined the item and found it was her notepad. Tommy thought, Oh yeah, I remember that notepad in the pack. It seemed like it should be important somehow, so I kept it, but I haven’t found a use for it yet. When he looked again, he noticed there was something written on it. After a moment, he figured out how to read the notepad, and the image of the page filled half of his screen, with a reduced view of the world on the other side. There was a very short message apparently hand-written on it.
She’s a high-school student, huh? You mean I’m sharing this character with another player? Tommy thought. Weird. I’m not sure I like the idea, but now that I know this, I should write her notes and maybe we can help each other learn something.
When he entered his note, it came out as typed letters on the page, rather than handwriting. He didn’t see a way to draw on the pad, as would have been required to hand-write the note like Sarah had. He wrote back below her note on the same page:
He put the pad away and continued his game.
