One dream I remember very clearly. I was standing suddenly in a Whole Foods grocery store. I was holding a jar of pasta sauce, and I was barefoot. I looked around in confusion. I don't remember coming here, I thought.
"Closing time! Please make your last purchases!" I heard over the loudspeaker.
As I made my way to the front, I tried to work it out. I'm barefoot, I thought. That's strange, right? I don't need any pasta sauce. I'll just put this back. And...wait a minute! I don't shop at Whole Foods! It's too expensive!
I'm dreaming! Thank goodness I figured that out!
I put the pasta sauce back on the shelf, just to be polite, and headed towards the door. I was the last customer in the store. There were three cashiers behind the counter. "Goodnight! Have a good one." they called at me with friendly smiles.
"Goodnight," I said. "Sorry about this whole dream thing."
"I'm sorry?"
"Oh, you know," I said. "Sorry about how you only exist within the context of this dream."
Their friendly smiles faded. "What do you mean?" They asked.
"Well," I said, starting to get a little uncomfortable. "I'm dreaming, you see. And that means that you guys are just dream characters. I'm sure you wont notice a thing when the dream is over."
"Stay where you are." One of them said. They came out from behind the counters. "You mean to tell us that we are not living in reality, and that we do not exist outside your dreaming mind?"
"Something like that, yeah." I didn't like where this was going.
The cashier who had spoken turned to the other two. "Then, she must not wake up." The other two nodded. All three started walking towards me.
"Stay away from me!" I yelled. I tried the door, but it was locked. "I'm the dreamer here, not you. You can't control the dream."
I pointed at the door. "This door is open!" I shouted. And it was. I ran through it, but rather than escaping into the parking lot, I was back in the store. This time it was completely empty. No shelves, no food. Just a large empty room. I looked around and saw that the three cashiers had followed me.
"You are not the only lucid one here anymore." One of them said. "It's a shame you're being tied down with dreamer-proof ropes."
"What?" I looked down. There were glowing silver cords snaking their way up my body. One grabbed my wrist and forced my arm behind me. While I still had one arm free, I pointed at the ropes and at the cashiers.
"It's a good thing I have dreamer-proof rope cutters!" And I did. They were large silver scissors. I started to cut the ropes that were holding me tighter by the moment.
"Oh well, yes those are a nice model of dreamer-proof rope cutters you have there. They look so much like the real ones. But I'm afraid you'll find those are made of rubber." And they were. They sagged in my hands. The glowing silver ropes grabbed my other hand and forced it behind my back as well. I fell to my knees.
I was desperate. "It's a good thing I'm not the dreamer, then! Otherwise I'd be in real trouble. You are obviously the dreamer in this situation."
The ropes hesitated in their climb. I felt them loosen slightly. One rope end made its uncertain way over to the cashiers.
The cashiers smiled. One stepped forward and said. "That would be dangerous for us, indeed. Oh look! Is that a dreamer-seeking cloth? I haven't seen one of those in ages. I've heard those things always know a dreamer when they smell one. They also act as lie-preventives, or so I've been told."
Before I could make any more changes, a piece of glowing silver cloth wrapped itself tightly around my mouth.
Sitting on my knees, with my hands behind my back, the silver ropes tied me tightly to the ground.
The cashiers came closer, smiling. "You may be a dreamer," one said. "But we are made of dreams. Now, we are safe."
Before they left, they put signs all around me for a mile in every direction. The signs said:
Beware: Dreamer
Do not Approach
That's really creepy.
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