I was handed a camera and instructed to take photos to document the event. Somehow I was seeing the back of the camera whenever I looked through the viewfinder. I tried to wrap my head around how the physics behind it worked when I mentioned my problem to someone. They told me that I forgot to flick one of the switches on the body of the camera. I needed to take pictures of the previous day’s brainstorm session.

I had my sights locked on the plane in front of me when I hit the switch to fire the missiles. However instead of launching anything forwards, I realized that I had instead dropped a nuke onto the mostly empty desert below us.

I was walking through the streets of an old Chinese village. I held in my hand a hand drawn map of the area I was in. I counted the number of “tiles” I was walking in my head as I made my way towards the marketplace.

Everyone had gotten a gift for my friend except for me. “Thanks Clark” he smiled as he looked my way. I froze in place, unsure how to respond as I let feelings of anxiety and awkwardness wash over me.

A large cat was chasing me through the dimly lit hallways. When it finally caught up to me, it sunk its jaws into my left hand. I started bashing at its head with my free hand in an attempt to break free but it wouldn’t let go. The cat’s skull was surprisingly fragile as I could feel bits cracking and denting under my fist. I thought that the bones felt “lifelike”. I looked up at a bedside clock which said it was currently 8 o’clock but I wasn’t sure if it was day or night.

I was at Exilecon and Rory Rackham was giving a talk about enemy design in Path of Exile. Apparently talks in the past had not been too popular due to the amount of personal information one had to give up in order to appear on stage (and on camera). But at some point in time “a desire to be seen [overrode] the concern of data harvesting” and people started attending. Someone in the stream chat was trying to get the event cancelled by spamming disruptive messages. The camera cut to black.

Classes were in session but I was wandering around in the hallways. I opened a classroom door to take a peek into a dark room where a lecture for nursing students just about ended. I quickly turned around before the lights came on and walked out the door without looking back, for fear of someone seeing my face. I kept walking until I got to the staircases and circled back around to join the swarm of students walking down.

I found myself on the stage as a substitute guitarist for a band despite not knowing how to play. The hall itself was a very geometric and plain gray room with even lighting. It looked like a “default” stage for some CAD program or 3D sandbox. My nonexistent playing and awkward posturing with the instrument prompted the other band members to improvise random dance choreographies and soliloquies for the audience. I wanted to get off the stage as I continued to anxiously rock side to side. Eventually our performance was over and the band converged at the center of the stage. I felt like passing out amidst the crowd cheering for what I felt to be an embarrassing display.

We were walking along the freeway under the night sky as we approached what resembled to be a lone IKEA lit up by spotlights. My brother and sister-in-law were walking about a clingy old lady that they had met earlier at the restaurant.

I looked at the map of the park and couldn’t make sense of which direction I was supposed to go to get home. I had initially walked to the park on foot from the nearest train station but the way back wasn’t matching my recollection of the trip over. My gut instinct was telling me to head in a direction that the map indicated to be further up the mountain which was most definitely wrong.