Everything is Exactly the Same as it Always Was

6/26/2025 –

I’m in this wood paneled classroom and it’s a class where I am much older than all the other students. I’m not sure what happens exactly but at a certain point the whole place seems like a trendy gastropub. I’m ordering food and I order 2 Subway sandwiches. While I’m doing this, even I’m thinking that it’s a bit weird. Like, why do I need 2 Subway sandwiches?

As I’m contemplating this a teacher taps me on the shoulder and tells me I’ve upset one of the other students. I don’t understand this at all because I didn’t even talk to the kid. The prof explains that it has something to do with a girl and I see the girl sitting over there as well. Uhhh, OK. I still don’t entirely understand but I’ll go talk to the kid I guess.

In the next sitch I’m in what seems like a pretty nice hotel with my mom and brother. I look across the room at my bro and we link telepathically by peering into each other’s minds:

“EVERYTHING IS EXACTLY THE SAME AS IT ALWAYS WAS!”

Parades through our minds. Then an exchange about how he’s going to hang out with a friend from high school tonight. So am I. I then get up to walk across the room and look out the window. The view is amazing. There are 3 deep blue pools outside. The water is shimmering with a glorious glean as ascending vapor lifts off of it to the heavens. It’s stunning and I think to myself:

“This is Ohio? How could Ohio be this pretty?”

As I walk away from the window I’m still not sure how the view could be so transcendentally excellent.

Later I’m partying with 3 other dudes. One of them has a super fancy seemingly McMansion style house and for unknown reasons we’ve decided to hole up in this tiny square room with no windows. We’re drinking liquor that’s coming out of this circular glass contraption with gold patterns on it. After a while I’m pretty drunk (which I can absolutely feel in the dream) and thinking that I probably shouldn’t have drunk this much.

It’s at about this time that one of the bros puts the circular liquor container on his head and starts kind of motioning around authoritatively with his arms but in a joking manner. Somehow he can do this without the liquor pouring out of the container and it looks amazing. He kind of looks like a super hero, I’d say like one of the Eternals or a cooler looking Mysterio. Yeah, just an awesome mask. Clear glass with these cascading gold bars shifting down the side. Also, the liquor is still in there sloshing around playfully in its own compartment and you can see it.

I tell one of the other dudes how fantastic it is and he’s sort of confused by this. Maybe he’s mad because it was his liquor. Anywho, the dude now takes off the liquor mask and not long after taps what’s on top of this black shelving thing behind us. When he does, this black dust flies in the air and starts forming all these patterns that make it look like a living entity. As I’m wondering what the fuck is going on with that, the dream fades out.

6/27/2025 –

I’m meeting up with my friend in this 7-11 he apparently works at, which is on the 3rd floor of what seems like a downtown shopping center. When I walk in, he’s sitting down nursing a small bottle of clear liquor and watching a game. This seems cool with me, so I purchase myself a 16 oz can of Coors Light and grab a seat near him.

pretty much the second I do, this other guy walks in and my friend is all:

“Shit. Hide that drink.”

Which I do behind this counter that extends to the floor. Except that a few seconds later, at the exact wrong moment when the dude is looking at my hand I somehow slip and it clanks around a bit.

“Fuuuuuuuuuck. How on earth could that have gone so south? Seriously.”

Just one of those experiences where something goes comically wrong. My attempt to hide the beer somehow alerts the dude to its presence. And the guy freaks out. I get the vibe he’s the owner and he is not going to let this go. He’s telling me I’ve broken some sort of law. Eventually I see the solution. Run! I absolutely know this guy is not going to chase after me and it’s not serious enough of anything for anyone to care.

So I jet out of what now seems like an increasingly large shopping center. In fact, at one point there’s like these vortex holes into the planet’s interior where they’re building an increasingly complex array of freaky shops. Cool experience and eventually I do make it outside. I call my friend and it’s like:

“What the fuck? You didn’t run?”

He didn’t. In fact, he’s basically telling me the owner dude isn’t going to let me go. He’s trying to convince me to turn myself in essentially and I’m baffled.

“He’s my close family.”

Is the answer but he does eventually come out. We take a ride in what seems like a Lincoln Town Car. I suggest a certain route and its like we’re immediately elevated to the top of a building, then just as quickly fall off the same building. It was my idea so I’m like:

“Whoops!”

It also makes no sense that the Lincoln is fine. I don’t entirely remember what happens after this but I do know that eventually we do go back to the shitty owner guy. I’m facing my crimes and I want him to show me the video evidence of me drinking a beer in the store. Here everything gets super weird and my consciousness is flying around looking at things mostly from his perspective. Very surreal honestly but guess what? I did not see anything in that footage that definitively shows me drinking in the store.

“I want a lawyer.”

I declare.

In the next scenario, I’m with a tour group of about 15 people and we’re visiting a distant planet. This all seems very Star Wars influenced and I have been watching a decent amount of SW stuff lately. All the tourists are hanging out around this circular table in wherever we’re staying. There are supposed to be multiple alien species here and it’s one of those situations where there obviously wasn’t much of a makeup budget. Most of them look primarily human, just with weird noses or ears or whatever. That kind of thing.

Anyway, it’s made known that 3 women from this one alien species are here and they’re looking to mate with a human. They’re all very pretty but on the other hand, my wife is here with me. On the other other hand, who else are they going to mate with? Not tooting my own horn or anything in any way, there simply ain’t much competition in this small tour group. Not much at all.

Our first major activity is heading to this Tatooine-esque shopping center area which is the main drag in this town we’re staying next to. Very odd. It’s like all the shops and inhabitants here are just costumes moving around wearing veils and masks. Again, like the budget for alien species wasn’t that high. I find it fun though. Definitely a bit weird.

In the next excursion I remember a few members of the group are in this area that’s like the main shopping area but completely empty. All of us find this kind of boring but also, they all thought the main shopping area was super sketchy. I’m am shocked by this. I did not get that at all and it’s also sort of annoying because now if I want to go back there I basically have to go myself.

But whatever. Somehow now I’m back at the place we’re staying sitting around the big table when these two gorgeous short haired alien women walk over and let me know I’m the one they want to mate with.

“I knew it.”

Seriously, the competition was weeeeak. So we go into this stairwell where they take off my shirt and search me for imperfections. They find this old scab on my knee and start picking at it and obsessing. I find this amazingly fucked because like:

“That’s how hardcore you are about finding a perfect DNA match? But you just picked the best-looking guy in a random group of tourists.”

As they’re continuing to pick me over I remember my wife. Oh yeah. Shit.

“I have Hashimoto’s disease!”

I tell them. They have no idea what it is but I’m making the case you’d never want to mate with me and take the risk. With this, I run out of the stairwell and back to the big table. Pretty quickly this other one of the same species comes over and good god is she mesmerizing with her short dark hair and good looks.

“I’m really surprised you didn’t pick me.”

She says as she leans in close. Jesus, when is my wife getting back?

6/28/2025 –

I’m at my old basement apartment and everything is hyper-real. There is no reason that this doesn’t make me go lucid but it doesn’t. I’m just staring there at an exaggerated version of my old pad and not getting it. Yep, there’s no reason I’d be here. Also, it all just feels too intense.

None of it connects and instead the landlord’s daughter shows up. Of course I’m weirded out. I’m not supposed to be here after all.

“Hi Thad!”

She says in an overly friendly way. She has no problem with my presence, in fact, it’s a good time as her Mom (who owns the place) is out of town. I look back and there are these weird staircases that have been inserted onto both sides of my old ceiling.

I head upstairs and there’s some impressive interior design with all these circular wooden bowls and compartments.

“I’ve very rarely see the upstairs of this place.”

I’m thinking to myself. When I wake up I also find it interesting that I’d nearly forgot that I lived under my landlord’s daughter for a little over a year a very long time ago. In the dream she had bright red hair but other than that mostly looked the same from what I remember.

Later I’m in this situation where it’s like I’m working on something all night, except that all I remember is interacting with this enormous black screen with nothing but the time on it in a digitized format. It’s 3am. Only a few more hours until work. I need to get to sleep. I check on the bed and dogs behind me. I guess this is where I’ve been staying. Everything seems to track but instead of going to sleep I’m summoned out into the common area space of what seems like a large school or office building.

I’ve been assigned as a teaching assistant helping with of a bunch of teenagers, which I feel very odd about because I’m not that much older than them. We head over to greet this group that’s sitting in this circular glass seating enclosure that’s almost like a pool sunk into the floor. When we walk over they’re all beneath us. I have what look like surrealist ramen noodles in my hand that I’m using to intentionally obscure my face to the kids below. Again, I’m not that much older than them. It’s just kind of awkward.

After standing there a while with the ramen-esque food substance blocking my face, our introduction portion is done and I’m now back behind the sunken classroom, still holding alien ramen strategically.

“Yeah, I’m going to go out of my way to be as uninvolved in this class as possible.”

I get up and when I get back under I’m now holed up in the opposite side of whatever complex I’d just been sleeping in. It’s the same deal. I’m holed up with a blank screen with nothing but the time on it, although it feels like I’ve been working through the night. In fact, fuck. It is morning now. I’m not worried though. I can make it through a day without any sleep. No problem. This thought is accompanied by an unexpected vision about a cartoon black woman with short blonde hair raising her fist at a podium. She’s seemingly some sort of political activist or agitator.

OK. I can operate on no sleep like her I guess and with that revelation I’m instantly pulled into some kind of conference at the facility. While walking into the presentation, I notice these guys off to my right side that look like sci fi stars from the 70’s. That’s the look with the blown out mid length hair and just by glancing at them I somehow know that they come here all the time and also that they’re sitting in their favorite seats.

And with that knowledge I walk into the presentation area and I somehow also know we took the sci fi bros favorite seats (which are all these weird white sci fi plastic things btw). I do not remember a single thing about what this presentation involved at all. In fact, the next thing I know I’m chilling with a bunch of conference homies in the exact favorite seats of the 70’s sci fi crew. There’s a group of like 15 of us in the area but after a while, yup, here they come.

They walk out of a presentation that none of us is attended and I instantly know there’s going to be minor beef. Sure enough. The dudes stop by and I just know one’s going to say something snide. Sure enough.

“I hate it when people sit in the wrong direction of the chair?”

Is what this aging hunk throws down. We are all so confused. It tracks with none of us. We look around the table and maybe one of us has moved his chair slightly and is sitting slightly sideways in it. Not even much though. We all just sort of laugh at the inept attempt at humor.       

From there I rotate around to another point in the table and turn into a black and white Ralph Steadman-esque cartoon. There is all this amazing food and in this animation world it comes across as a grid of colorful menus amidst the line drawn backdrop. I think I’ve had my fill and I need to leave. I’m done with the conference so I say my goodbyes and head out. When I leave the room I turn into something more resembling a regular human.

I also realize I left the candy bar I was going to take with me back on the table. So I head back and my hand turns back into black and white animation. I’m feeling around the table with art fingers and eventually I find my candy bar in its white boxy container but this lady is now claiming its hers.

“Naw, everybody saw me grab this like 20 minutes ago. Just because I left briefly doesn’t mean it’s yours.”

I’m taking the candy bar lady, everyone knows its mine.   

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