19780000 Dreams within dreams, an example of many

First, there was no awareness... The void eventually dissolved. I realized that I was alone in a church, laying on a slab. Nothing was happening; my thoughts were as viscous as cold molasses. I didn't have enough energy to stir a muscle. I was vaguely aware that a funeral had recently occurred there, and I worried that I didn't have enough life force to safely avoid similar proceedings for me. I was so exhausted that I wanted desperately to go back to sleep—but I knew I would never wake up, and I didn't want someone to come in and mistake me for the next cadaver to process. It seemed like a dangerous time to give in. Fortunately, it occurred to me at that point that I might be dreaming, so I focused my last energy in determination to escape from the bleary cathedral.

My consciousness slowly shifted. I translated into a livelier environment where the illusion was maintained for several minutes that I was awake. It seemed perfectly normal to propel myself through the air by mere thought power. However, I soon had to push the envelope of my aerodynamic talents to elude threatening characters who were chasing me in jet backpacks. I became aware that I was dreaming again, and as this adventure escalated, I decided to really wake up.

My mind felt much clearer. I was grocery shopping in Safeway and ran into Scotty, the Chief Engineer who lovingly maintained the starship Enterprise. We chatted. So that's how the transporter works! I woke up and scribbled what I could remember of the design. The phosphorescent Vulcan IDIC (Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination) symbol hanging by my bed was glowing furiously, and my digital clock was blinking 12:00, indicating a recent power outage. This can't be right. Help me Mr. Wizard! Time for this one to come home!

My clock steadily displayed 6:32. I heard my dad in his customary A.M. routine of coughing and plodding down the hall to the kitchen, assembling his coffee pot, filling it with water, retrieving his cup and saucer from the cupboard. It was a familiar, comforting auditory sequence that I had heard almost every morning of my life.

I rolled out of bed and went about my customary morning routine of putting in contacts, finding clothes, and working on some odd radio project scattered across my desk. The lights flickered and I noticed that it was getting darker outside instead of lighter. Hmmmm. I considered the bewildering variety of electromagnetic energies flying through my room at that very second. An oppressive silence and a faint but discernible shimmering light filled the air. As I tweaked a trim-capacitor in my home-brew receiver, it produced startling audio output without any battery power. Mighty strong radio station, I mused. However, I didn't question these events until the radio waves wafted me out of my chair toward the ceiling, and I looked up and saw storm clouds boiling outside of my window like a time-lapse nasal spray commercial. I felt a dark presence nearby. I tried to suppress a twinge of panic as I realized that I still wasn't awake. The situation felt serious because I really had been convinced that I was awake this time, and it worried me that I hadn't initially questioned what—were now—clearly abnormal events. I concentrated as hard as I could on reaching the normal world as I knew it for 18 hours a day.

Thoughts evaporated. My eyes opened, and I nervously glanced about. Alright—this place looks normal. My IDIC symbol wasn't glowing. I could hear my dad shuffling down the hall again. I stood up and looked out the window. The clouds were still. I poked at the heap of circuitry on my desk, just as I had left it the night before. Not a peep. I experimentally jumped up and down a few times. Gravity was working properly. I relaxed considerably.

This time it took more than an hour to realize that reality was deteriorating again. I couldn't find my way to the high school I had walked or bicycled to hundreds of times before. The small town that had once been so familiar was now strange and unrecognizable. I couldn't even get back home.

And so it went throughout the night. When I actually, truly, really woke up, Dad hadn't even got up yet. I didn't trust anything to behave normally. I was convinced that at any minute, the continuum would crack again. The rooms in my house would be rearranged. My toothbrush would be the wrong color. My bicycle would go 45 MPH. I wouldn't notice that I forgot my clothes until I was already at school. I wouldn't recognize any of my teachers, but everyone else would act like they had been there all year. Something bizarre was sure to happen, be it positive or negative, subtle or outrageous.