I'm sitting around a tower with my RL friends, we're trying to kill time during the pandemic. Writing in diaries, trying to get tired enough to sleep. I accidentally peek at what one of them's writing, I briefly wake up for real.
I drift back and I'm going to college with clones of Hamilton and Franklin. I'm in a boring class and start telling my diary about it, but somehow the teacher clones the page and after class tells me it's going in the school Bible for all posterity to laugh at. I sneak to the surprisingly unguarded Bible, it has a collection of yellowed pages next to it, but the top one says that the threat was a prank for underclassmen and to please not vandalize the Bible. I meet up with Franklin and Hamilton and tell them about how the university "tried" to prank me. We share a laugh as we go down to the waterfront to solve a mystery.
I actually remember the mystery, it involved video of a thief on horseback disappearing into a sheet of rainwater in the crumbled archway of a ruined bridge. Franklin very proudly eureka'd the whole thing, explaining that the horseman had simply ridden into the rainwater, stopped, and dismounted. He's run off with the loot, leaving the horse there being rained on. This was brilliant somehow, you had to be there.
We looked out into the water for a while, so tired. Franklin and I realized we were dreaming. I tried to hold on, but we weren't real, just artificial constructs, and I briefly woke up for real again.
I'm sitting in a middle school classroom next to a large, shy kid who needs my help with social stuff. A real kid from my past. It's a rather contrived story about how I might have been his friend. In real life I was... not, something I've long regretted. One interaction was that a kid in class forgot what a boomerang was called, and my friend said "It'll come back to you" without meaning it as a joke. I congratulated him as if he did it on purpose, and people laughed at his joke as they got it. He was somewhat overwhelmed by the attention but appreciated it.
I'm always pleasantly surprised to hear wordplay in a dream that works in real life, which of course alerted me to the fact I was dreaming and kicked me out. Frustrated I tried to relax and fall asleep again.
I was in a diner out west, sipping coffee. It was nice. I was finally asleep, and I knew it, and while the dream was boring I knew I was resting. I made some sheep appear briefly, they winked away. Boring, but nice. Which of course couldn't last. There was a building feeling that something was wrong in the real world - but I resisted it. I remembered how hard I'd been trying to sleep, and tried to hold on, but there was a rush of air and feeling of vertigo as if from reality. Cursing, I jolted myself awake- so I thought. This time I "woke up" in the same diner still, but had no time to think as cowboy-themed bandits drove up to the store in SUVs. I ran outside to avoid them but was too slow, I had to lie on the ground and play dead. The leader decided I wasn't worth killing, the rest just laughed and assumed I was dead.
There were a couple local dogs which they "looted", ordering the dogs to eat me. The dogs were... still just friendly local dogs, and sniffed at me, but this satisfied the bandits who drove off. I got up, dusted myself off, and comforted my ego by petting the good doggos. Eventually woke up for real.
I went to bed *three hours ago* (plus half an hour to write this). I'm worried I'm feverish, but hopefully it's just that I had more sugar than usual too late at night (apple juice). Frankly, getting a full night of sleep has just been difficult for somewhat obvious reasons. Feels like I can't stay asleep for a full five without almost staying up the previous night. Alcohol helped at first but then just made it worse, as it does.
Ah well, here we go again.