Narwhals and Computers: A Nikolas Dreamtimes Production

I had a rather vivid dream this morning, roughly twenty minutes ago, as of the time of writing; having been awoken by my cat (at 5:44 in the morning), I retain the memory of that dream, and it is so bizarre that I must share it with you. It begins!

I am in a large room. Mr. Zhang is there, as well as two girls; we are talking. (I know, this is unrealistic; it's a dream!) I think this may be a workplace of some sort? One of the girls speaks of a computer that is being built by her family, for which a list of users is being built*. I suggest that Mr. Zhang and myself should be added to the list, embarassing myself in the process. The girl is reluctant, showing us the present list, mainly filled with Chinese names (or Japanese?), though there are a relatively few Roman-alphabet names at the bottom. She suspects that we (especially me, I guess, since Mr. Zhang has a Chinese name?) would stick out a little. We add ourselves anyway.

This is one of the stranger bits about the dream; the bit where we look at the list and add our names to it occured twice, in three different places. The first time occured as I have already related, in the large workplace-room (a sort of laboratory, perhaps?). Then there was a short drive, on which nothing of note occured, and the same scene occured in a large, brightly-lit plaza filled with people. There were two divergences from the original computer-usernames-list scene; the girl was Emily Chu this time, a person known to Mr. Zhang and I in real life, and there was also a scene inexplicably inserted into the middle wherein Mr. Zhang, noting the rude nicknames of some of the Roman-alphabet named people on the list, suggested that they fit me well. (I do not know why nicknames were on the list of usernames; it made sense at the time.) This sub-scene took place in a dark apartment room. I don't know why.

Anyway. After the list was dealt with, something occured causing me to note the madness of the Japanese people to Mr. Zhang. (I think it had to do with Ms. Chu, which makes little sense; she's Chinese, as I should have remembered!) Then we proceeded into Ms. Chu's family residence (presumably to deal with the list). The residence was some manner of entertainment-house, half-filled with water. There was a rock in the center. Ms. Chu's father and brother were narwhals.

It made more sense at the time.

Ms. Chu explained that they were trapped in narwhal form, becoming increasingly animalistic as time passed (it was taken as a given that they could turn into narwhals, as well as turn paying visitors to their business; perhaps by means of some serum**?). They seemed fine with this, though Ms. Chu, Mr. Zhang, and I were somewhat concerned. Mr. Zhang was separated from us; Ms. Chu and I discussed the matter of the narwhals, during which time strange fish began to appear, spiky and brightly coloured. The narwhals chased them; oddly, their hide too was brightly coloured, though only underwater, like a water-slicked pebble. (The comparison was one I made at the time.)

Ms. Chu and I continued to discuss matters; Mr. Zhang, having become a narwhal (naturally), was pushed onto the rock by Ms. Chu's relatives, thus becoming trapped in narwhal form by the same means they were. He was rather upset about this, and noted that he would be forced to leave by the rear. I commiserated with him.

At this time the water level was slowly rising; this seemed to be by design. I'd been communicating with Ms. Chu in part by laptop, as we both had some rather marvelous waterproof ones with us; she suggested that I attempt photography (of the fish and narwhals), but I logically refuted the notion, and left by the front door, which was, apparently, an airlock. (Ms. Chu remained inside; she may have left later.) Considering the worry of Ms. Chu's relatives following Mr. Zhang upon his own departure, and my reluctance to wait for him in the rear of the establishment, as there were many smelly dumpsters about (filled with rotten fish, of course), I set about putting arrows on the ground, to guide him to me. I made them out of available paper and other materials; thus, logically, they were filled with cameras, but Ms. Chu's elder sister (?), also a narwhal (?), managed to evade them, even years later.

This is around the point that the dream ended. It probably would have made more sense had I not been abruptly awakened; I was half-consciously editing the dream as it went on, skipping back and forth in time, which is why the scene with the list occured twice, I think. If the dream had progressed further, I would likely have pressed things further, into making some manner of sense; but then again, if I had not been abruptly awakened, I would likely have not recalled it. So it's all for the best. Hooray!

*Likely inspired by my father and brother, who are presently assembling a new gaming computer, to replace my father's aging one. There will only be one user, however.

**Likely inspired by the MAN-BAT, who I was reading about late last night on Wiki.