Dreams

The first I can remember of the dream is that I am in a classroom. Desks and chairs are arranged in a simple U-pattern, with a (male) teacher at the front of the classroom. A specific girl of my real-life acquaintance sits to my left. Let us call her, in lieu of her real name, "Ophelia."

Beginning a lecture, the teacher asks, "What is the first age of civilization?" I, as well as most of the class, am rather confused by the question. Guessing, I raise my hand to offer the suggestion of the "Ancient" age. (Though I don't realize it in the dream, this is taken from the Civilization series of electro-video-games; my next suggestion would have been the "Classical" age.)

The teacher, to my surprise, agrees with the suggestion, and begins talking about Hong Kong, and its rich and ancient history. (This makes no sense.) A number of other students begin bristling at this, offended by a perceived or real untruth; I have some vague thought that they are Chinese. I lend half an ear to the lecture, instead turning to speak to "Ophelia", who sits a seat away. I don't recall what we speak about, but after a minute or two, she laughingly notes that I cannot keep my eyes off her.

She is correct. Though I had never (in real life) felt romantic feelings toward Ophelia, there is a feeling within me that suggests such has changed. I look down, offer her a very bad compliment that takes me a very long moment to formulate; "There nothing better around you to look at," something like that. She rejects the flattery.

In a moment of daring, I ask Ophelia out on a date. She seems to agree, and asks me when would be a good time.

I wake up, lying abed. For a moment, I think: "All was a dream." I chide myself for believing that such could be real, noting the obvious bipolarities and inconsistencies.

Then I notice my laptop next to me. (At the time I had this dream, I did not own a laptop.) I realize that at least part of the conversation is real, because a chat client is up. It stores chat logs, so I should be able to find what part of the dream-conversation was real. I begin looking.

(At this point, things begin making somewhat less sense than they did before. This is partially because I've forgotten some linking sections; for instance, there was another occasion shortly thereafter at which I 'woke up' and then realized that the dream WAS NOT A DREAM, but I don't remember when or why. Follow along as best you can.)

For some reason, I have trouble finding the chat log. This may be because the laptop is now a DS, and the conversation was held over some more sophisticated, text-focused variant of Pictochat. I try to look for it - there's a big button on screen, "Press B to refresh chat logs", something like that - but I'm having difficulties. People (and the logs of my conversations with them) are represented by crayon-drawn avatars, drawings of their heads, and I'm having trouble finding Ophelia's head in the mess.

Luckily, two other people are here. (I'm standing in front of my desk, still in my bedroom). A teenage boy and girl - one of them is, I think, the boy named Trevor Criddle, though I am uncertain. The girl's name I have never known. They offer to help, and look for a moment. Reluctantly, I offer them a few descriptor's of Ophelia's appearance; I am reluctant to let them know of who exactly I was speaking with, so I try to leave some ambiguity.

Trevor and the girl scroll through the list of avatars, as I watch over their shoulders. They look at a number of girls, skimming past the boys, dismissing each in turn. The girl notes one - the avatar has black hair, tinted at the front with red. Suspicious, she yanks out some hair from the front, revealing the roots - a startling yellow! She yanks out more, turning the entirety of the avatar-girl's head a close-cropped yellow. I object, but the girl refuses to stop - she's just an avatar, after all! Now three dimensional, and possibly existing in real life in some way, the avatar confesses that, yes, she dyed her hair - perhaps there was a reason? (She's not the person represented by the avatar, she's just a representation, so she's rather more forthcoming about these things.)

And blessedly, at this point, the dream stops. I expect that, should it have continued, I would have eventually found the chat log (with Trevor's help or otherwise), would have found that I did give 'Ophelia' the terrible compliment but had not asked her out, and would have had to make a decision about how to proceed from there. (There was some concern about time constraints, as I recall - would she be awake at 8:00 in the morning? Could I call her?)

All in all, it was a really weird dream - not the strangest I've had, but my faithful readers know that's quite something. I hope you enjoyed it, even in its somewhat fragmented form.