Dream: School of Ether

I dreamed I lived with my parents on our small farm outside a seaside village. I was a clumsy and rather flippant kid, so I was often punished by being shut in my room. My mother was a strict woman, and sometimes I would be in my room for days at a time.

I had a vivid imagination, forever making up stories and acting them out in my little bedroom. When I got tired from running around my bed chasing bad guys and unicorns, I would lie on my bed and continue the story only through mental imagery. I would imagine being able to fly, away from this house.

One day I was lying on my bed, just being aware of my surroundings, I imagined myself getting up and going into the main room. I imagined my mom in the kitchen area, a pitcher of milk sitting on the table. I imagined, out of spite, knocking the pitcher over.
I heard a crash. I opened my eyes. I heard my mother shrieking at one of my brothers.
"That was my best pitcher! Watch where you're running, clumsy boy!"
"But mother!" I heard my brother whine. "I only just came in. I wasn't nowhere near the table!"

I knew I had knocked over that pitcher. I had somehow found a way to travel outside my body.
I worked hard over the next few weeks, faking ill so that I may lie in my room. I concentrated on my surroundings, and had my mind stand up from the bed while my body remained in it.
I walked through town, invisible, sometimes able to touch things -although that took great concentration that didn't always work.

Eventually I tried to fly. I got nervous --I still wasn't sure if I could be hurt in this form.
I stood on the edge of the small cliff behind my house overlooking the sea. I took a great leap, and screaming (although no one could have heard it), plummeted several meters before I concentrated and began to rise again.

I could fly! I flew for hours and hours over the cliffs, over the town, over the sea. I'd never felt so free!
The longer I spent outside my body, the more tired and sore my body was when I returned to it. Once I spent 6 hours flying lost through a rainstorm. My mind has to get back to my body for it to wake up. It wasn't like a dream. When I finally found my body again, my muscles were too sore to move. I had to sleep for many hours to recover enough to sit up.

During one of my invisible trips through the town, I overheard some old fishermen talking about what they called Neptune's Wall. It was an area several miles out to sea, that no ship could pass. There were rumors of land existing beyond the Wall, but no one had ever come back that tried to pass it.
I began to wonder if I could.

The day I decided to cross the Wall was a beautiful sunny day. I hadn't mind-walked in almost a week, saving up my strength for the trip.
I flew high over the sea. I could see the Neptune's Wall stretch like a barrier parallel to the land, hundreds of miles in each direction. The water churned. The waves in just this one area were high enough to capsize any ship. I flew safely over them.

I spotted an island. Our maps ended at the Wall. No one would believe me if I told them about this island. I would be the first to see it!
Not only an island, but with a series of beautiful castle-like buildings on it. I landed in front of the largest building and read the inscription in the stone.
School of Ether, it said.

I went in. It was indeed a school. I wandered invisible around its endless hallways, past many many students. I stepped into a classroom where they were teaching mathematics, but unlike any mathematics I had ever seen. The equations seemed to include little pictures.
I remember one equation looking like this. (this took me a while to write out because i had to remember exactly what I saw in this dream, and then figure out how to type it.)
anything marked like [this] was an actual drawn picture of that object.
R |X S = [horse]Π_a1,.34.,an⇔{n ∈ ℕ [flower]: n² <>b³/3[butterfly]E3
I was just a farm girl, but even I knew that this couldn't possibly make any sense.

I wandered around some more, peeking in on normal looking classes: history, art, etc. I even saw a falconry class taking place outside.
I came upon a direction sign pointing to the different departments. I saw an arrow pointing up a spiral staircase that said "Ethereal Studies."
I followed the staircase to a large classroom with amphitheater seating. The instructor was teaching something I could not understand no matter how long I listened outside the door. It sounded almost like physics, but with strange differences. They seemed to be talking about summoning something, though I couldn't imagine what.

To get a better look, I stepped into the classroom. The instructor froze. I was frightened for a moment before I remembered that I was, of course, invisible.
He walked past me, and shut the door. He placed his hands on the wall on either side of the door, and said a long string of strange words I'd never heard before. Then he turned with a smile back to his students.
"Class," he said. "I'm pleased to tell you that there is a creature of the Ether in this classroom right now."
The class murmured excitedly.
"I have sealed the room, and I want to take this opportunity to practice your summoning. Let's make this creature visible."
The students stood up, and spread out through the room. They began to recite another stream of words of that strange language, first in unison, then in canon.

I began to feel very strange. My mind-body started to feel extremely pressurized, like I would burst into a thousand pieces any moment. I was terrified. I tried to concentrate enough to walk through the wall. I could do that sometimes, but right then it made the pressure increase.
My mind-body was beginning to produce smoke or steam of some kind. I could tell the students could see it, because they were all staring at me now.
I examined every part of the wall, until I found a weaker part in the seal. It was smaller than my real body, which is a space I'd never tried to force my mind-body through. I did it anyway, feeling like my head was going to explode.

Finally out in the corridor, I heard the instructor shouting.
"It's escaped the room! I've sealed off the building. Let's go find it! It can't escape!"
I ran. Every time I tried to get through an exit, the pressure built again. I couldn't get outside.
I ran through classroom after classroom, looking for an exit or a place to hide.

I ran up another flight of stairs on the other side of the building. This classroom was smaller than the others. Across the blackboard was the course title: "Ethereal Ethics." This instructor was in the middle of a lecture about responsible Ethereal use, and the different types of wrongful manipulation of creatures of the Ether.
I made a rash decision.
I showed myself to him. I didn't know that I could do that until that moment.
"Help me!" I screamed at him.
He was shocked. So were his students, who jumped out of their seats, and backed up against the far wall.
I explained in a rush my situation. How I was from across the wall, how I had wandered around the school, how I had been trapped and abused by the other class, how they were still after me and I couldn't escape.

The Ethics instructor listened to me with an open mouth. He then walked past me and locked the door. I was afraid he was about the seal the room like the other instructor had. But at that very moment, the other instructor was banging on the door.
"Open this door! There is a highly valuable and educational creature of the Ether in there! This isn't your area, Professor, let me handle it!"

The Ethics professor said nothing, but made a spiteful expression towards the door. He turned back to his students.
"You see," he lectured. "This is a perfect opportunity to put Ethereal Ethics into practice. This Ethereal Creature has been trapped against its will, for no other reason than educational curiosity." He looked at me, curiosity weighing heavily on his own features.
"Creatures of the Ether must not be subjected to this kind of manipulation. It is playing with fire, and will cause retribution. It is also, I might add, completely unethical. "

He put his hands on the large window that looked towards the sea. He began a string of words in that same language, but coming from him, it didn't seem as menacing as from the other instructor.
I sensed a release of the seal in the walls of the classroom. The other instructor was yelling obscenities at the door.

The Ethics teacher smiled at me.
"I hope this brings peace between us, Ethereal One. And I hope you will come back someday."
I smiled at him too.
"I promise." I said, then leaped out the window towards home, and my waiting body.



This dream was complex, and I couldn't possibly put in everything. Even with maybe half the little details omitted, this is a long post.
I thought about it all day, trying to put it in order, figuring out what was important, and how to explain.
I woke up with my mind buzzing with activity. It can be kinda tiring.