The Dream Scale!

Wouldn't you know, the most powerfully positive dreams are the ones centred on love. These are the kinds of dreams that etch themselves forever into my memory. Despite not always writing down my dreams, I can still vividly recall images and feelings from these even a decade after having experienced them.

So, what happens in these dreams? I'll meet a girl and talk to her. Sometimes the girl is from an existing work of fiction, sometimes she's entirely made up by my subconscious. But she's always just *perfect*, and that's something that's difficult to define in terms of personality traits. I'd have trouble describing a "perfect girl", and I think it'd be a bit demeaning which is why I haven't given it much thought. Thankfully however, my subconscious has already done that for me. Here's the common traits I've noticed:

• Introverted, quiet
• An outcast
• Passionate about one or more niche subjects, and eager to share them

So, my perfect girl according to my subconscious is just female me. I guess I'm really just that much of an egotist. Or is my brain simply not creative enough to come up with someone appealing that isn't shaped to my own personality? Whatever the case, here's some examples of those lovely dreams where I've met my perfect girl~

The Pinball Witch - Incredibly, I managed to meet a girl on a campus who happened to share one of *my* weird interests. Events in the dream somehow led me to being invited to her home, a cozy looking cottage in the countryside that was filled to the brim with all sorts of pinball tables. It was indeed just too good to be true!

Four Legged Soccer - This was probably(definitely) the greatest dream I've ever had, and that's something I'm not even ashamed to admit. It had a dull enough setup: I was in some kinda summer camp with other students, one of the main things we did there was to play sports. We got into a soccer match and as I was playing, I noticed Fluttershy was there, acting pretty much as you'd expect, embarrased, not enjoying herself, not wanting to be there. So she ran off on her own, and I excused myself to go look for her. Eventually I found her, crying in a quiet corner.

I still have that mental image of meeting her all alone, talking to her, making her feel better and seeing her smile at me.

It got late so we headed back to our dorms, but we said we'd meet tomorrow. And that's when I woke up - boy was I bitter on that day! Though to be fair, I'm still holding out that I'll meet her again. I've got plenty more dreams ahead of me after all.

Queen of the Monsters - This time I met the girl on the bus. I can't exactly remember how we started talking, but she made it clear early on that she was a real Godzilla nut. I myself have only watched a few Godzilla movies (the original and Shin Godzilla) but it's something I've always been curious about. They're not the kinds of movies that I'd necessarily want to watch, unless I had someone else willing to watch them with me, perhaps even someone who was very enthusiastic about sharing their interest. So that's what the dream was all about. We watched a Godzilla movie and then played a Godzilla game together using two Gameboys. She wanted to play as the King himself, so I had to settle for a monster who looked similar to Godzilla but wasn't as cool.

Even before my dad's passing I couldn't help but dream of him. Now that he's no longer here, I continue to see him in my dreams. What's interesting here is that it's never a kind of 'resurrection', or a surprise that my dad is back. The dream always flows as though he had never died. So in the truest sense, he's still with me, the only hurdle being that I can only see and talk to him when I'm dreaming.

In these dreams, we're usually just doing mundane stuff. Spending time in the way we'd usually spend time, watching TV, playing games. In that sense, there's not really too much to comment on, and there's no 'standout' dreams where anything spectacular happens. Waking up from these, however, is the true definition of bittersweet.

Ohh yeah, you know these are awesome. Just take off and leave the Earth behind. I dream of flight even when I'm not asleep, though it's not quite as immersive. And I'm not talking about the lame sort of flying that is being on a plane, a blimp or even a hang-glider. I mean spreading your arms and soaring through the air with total control. It's more than just a convenient way of getting around: it's a liberating experience to be able to disappear off into the vast sky, away from people, problems, and anything in the world that ails you.

It's not easy to convey the feeling one gets when soaring through the air, but if you've had a dream like this, then you already know.

This is the first kind of recurring dream on this scale that can't be classified as a positive or negative experience, it just depends on the individual dream. It's also my most common type of dream by far. What happens in these dreams is that I find myself in a fictional theme park, usually in a different country. What can I find in these parks? Completely illogical rides and rollercoasters, such as one coaster that had the shape of a tree and just spun you around its branches without any discernible propulsion.

The wonderful part of these dreams is that my mind always makes up some kind of fantastic environment for the park. Sometimes it's on a cliffside, with coasters suspended what looks like a mile above the sea. Sometimes it's on a mountain, with stunning views of the countryside. Often the park itself is built in an implausible way, with massive transparent domes to contain the rides, or castles that are so enormous I get vertigo by looking at them. Most of these dreams are not that noteworthy by themselves, and just had a select few cool elements, but there were at least a few that are worth writing down.

My Little Abandoned Park - Now this one's just depressing. As a parallel to the state of MLP G4, this My Little Pony themed park was old, abandoned, everything looked decrepit and there was almost nobody around. I was happy to be there, and I was happy that this place was once vibrant and full of life, but the feelings that this park emitted were anything but uplifting. I remember seeing a Spike themed junior coaster, and being disappointed by that of course. No cool Rainbow Dash themed flying coasters here.

The God Coaster - This park was in a pretty desolate urban area, not much of a looker. I can't really remember much about it other than the fact that it was home to the greatest coaster ever made. It had the color scheme and trains of Shambhala, but the track looked more like that of a Gerstlauer with a triangular prism shape. It had two tracks like a dueling coaster, but since they looked identical it was hard to tell which track was which. Now, for what's interesting: it had a launch so powerful that the trains disappeared from view almost as soon as they left the station. Every now and then you could catch a glimpse of one of the trains on the parts of the track that could be seen, but since the coaster was so large, even that was a rare occurrence. I couldn't *wait* to get on the ride, and when I did...

It was tame! That's the problem with riding coasters in a dream I suppose, no matter how much it's hyped up it'll never be as good as the real thing.

Ever had an amazing experience in a dream, only for that experience to actually have taken place in a videogame inside the dream? That's always a big disappointment, and it absolutely ruins the magic of dreams. On the other hand, I sometimes dream about a game that's not released yet, and it can be pretty cool for my subconscious to form an idea of what the game could be like. When Sonic Fronties was announced and said to be open world, I immediately had a dream that showed Sonic running around the outskirts of a gothic castle with highly illogical McEscher-esque architecture. Upside down staircases and all that, but it fit perfectly well with Sonic and his ability to run up and down walls. In hindsight it seems to be a much more interesting setting than what they eventually went with in the real game.

It happens that the games I dream about are always games I don't know much about. I suppose it gives my mind more freedom in imagining what they look like based on preconceptions that I have. Unfortunately it never makes me actually want to try those games, since I feel they'll never be as cool as what I experienced in the dream.

Naked in public! Now this one's common, and it's not hard to understand what it's about. It's just the fear of being humiliated or shamed in public manifesting itself in a way that's kind of funny. In these dreams I'll often find that I've somehow forgotten to put clothes on before leaving my house. I'll then usually try and run to find something to wear.

What's weird is that it is quite embarrassing and shameful, but never as much as it would be to be naked in public in real life. The people I expose myself to in my dreams always seem to be very polite and tolerant, like they're afraid to call me out for being naked. They will seem uncomfortable, and it would appear that it's due to the fear that they'll be branded as intolerant or mean if they tell me to put on some clothes.

Another common dream, which is to miss the bus or otherwise be late to important meetings. I *hate* schedules, I *hate* having to make calculations for time and I *hate* that hedgehog. So it's no wonder that this is one of my most frequent dreams. But it's also boring as hell so I'm not gonna blather on about it.

One of my worst dreams in recent times has been one where my beautiful polymer clay statue of Jenny Wakeman broke in a way where I couldn't even repair it with super glue. It impacted me so much that I went and had the exact same dream the next day! I'm always so deathly afraid that all the fragile crap I collect is going to break or wear down. And it seems like no matter my efforts to keep all of my stuff safe, I'll still have to go through the experience of having it break in my dreams.

I'm fortunate enough to never have been in a car accident, at least in the real world. In the land of dreams, just getting into a car is a guaranteed setup for a horrific crash. I'm always driving into trees, other cars, brick walls or just a cyclist if I'm lucky. I'm not the worst at driving but you'd believe it from the fear I have to go through when behind the wheel of my dream car. I can barely stay on the road in that thing!

The good thing is that I almost never hurt myself in those dreams. All of my crashes happen at low speeds and I'm usually just super upset that I lost my car.

Alright, here's the absolute lowest circle of hell for dreams. So far I've got to say that these haven't been so bad - I rarely have dreams that ruin my day. But here's the one that always does.

I'll make it quick because these are simply unpleasant to think about. In one of these, I'll see a pet getting hurt, sometimes by falling, sometimes by getting attacked by another animal, and it'll be left in such a state of misery that I have no choice but to put it down.

So I'll try, and for some reason I've only got my hands for this task. I'll try to strangle it or beat it, but it manages to cling to life through all of that. All the while, it's staring at me, wondering why I'm doing this. Why it has to suffer so much. I can't help but look into its own eyes as my grip on its neck tightens, but to no avail. I can't kill it, I can only watch it suffer.