“In a real sense, all the visions that we see in our lifetime are like a big dream...”
~Chögyal Namkhai Norbu
A Friendship Is Magic Fanfic... By JackShine
I tossed and turned, fitfully trying in vain to once again fall into the calming embrace of slumber. With a soft sigh, I turned over to glance at the alarm clock...
Great, its a quarter to three, and I have managed to accrue all of thirty minutes of sleep tonight!
For what felt like the hundredth time tonight, I mentally told myself, “Hey, I need to get more sleep!” Rolling back to face away from the angry red light that formed the “face” of my digital alarm clock, I started to, once again, use a variety of calming techniques to trick myself into falling asleep peacefully.
And here we are, twenty minutes later, and still, no sleep to be had! What a wondrous way to spend a night, tossing, turning, and cursing everything in my life keeping me awake!
I told myself to stop speaking to myself from my own perspective, as frankly, it was creepy, and slightly confusing to any other facets of my own personality that were wanting to watch my struggles.
Now, mind you, I’m not crazy, but depending upon which philosopher you subscribe to, humanity in general may or may not be crazy, making all the crazy folks right. What a scary concept, the dreaming butterfly,en masse. But I digress, for this is not an analysis of humanities, but rather, a recollection of events gone past and entered into my memory banks, hopefully never to be fully disclosed to anyone else with my name upon it, for fear of actually finally being caught, detained, and locked away for being crazy.
After an indeterminate amount of time, I finally fell asleep.
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“I must be dreaming”, I mumbled to no one in particular. After all, the only logical explanations for the surreal panorama set out before me were either:
A) I have fallen into an alternate dimension, with a whole new set of physics and logics awaiting my discovery and analysis.
B) I was dreaming, and thus physics and logic were apt to fly out the proverbial window at any given point in time, including the immediate present.
I lazily hoped that it was option B, as I really wasn’t in a mood for learning physics - again. I looked around to try and get some semblence of bearing, not that bearings matter terribly much in a dream that looks like it fell out of a nightmarish Dr. Suess book, but it is the principle of the thing, is it not?
Ahead of me was a mountain range, suspended from the sky. Towering peaks drove downwards into the cloud cover below. Tracing the mountains back to my own location, I realized I was standing on one such cloud. Now, does this mean that I am standing on the underside of a cloud, or that I am standing on what is “ground” in this bizarre dream of mine?
I decided that it really didn’t matter, but for the sake of my own sanity, I had best give some attempt at trying to get back on solid “ground”. I began walking towards the nearest mountain, a mighty peak which appeared to pierce through the cloud-cover below with a body wide enough to discourage me from spending an immense time walking around it. As I approached, I noticed that the cloud cover was being, not pierced, but torn asunder by the mountain I was approaching. Between the edge of the cloud and the nearest facet of the rock face ahead of me, there was nearly twenty feet of open air. I gathered my courage, dispelled my acute fear of the “ground” crumbling away beneath me, and approached the edge to see what was “below” me.
Below me was what can only be described as chaos. A maelstrom of every color imaginable swirled and writhed beneath my feet in an angry storm of color. Arcs of electricity jumped from similar colors, leaving lasting impressions upon the insides of my eyes as I stared into the abyss below. “Probably not a good place to fall into” I once again mumbled aloud to no one other than myself.
Well, as fun as this dream has been, the likely-hood of anything interesting happening while I stand here at the edge of the abyss is fairly low.
I stepped backwards away from the edge, took a deep breath, and prepared to do something that would usually be called suicidal had it not been in a dream. I ran forward, sprinting as though demons were on my heels, and just before tumbling over the edge and into the abyss below, I leapt.
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I awoke to feel the gentle rays of the sun upon my face, and grass beneath me. I was on my back, feeling awkward and gangly, which was par for the course in terms of normalcy throughout my life, with my eyes shut. Well, it certainly feels like this dream has gotten a lot more interesting, I should probably open my eyes and see where I managed to place myself after slamming face-first into the side of a mountain and tumbling into the abyss below.
Opening my eyes, I was immediately aware of the fact that my eyes were not showing me the same image. Thankfully, the experience of having my eyes acting independently of each other was not a new event for me, and I was able to quickly get both eyes to co-operate by rapidly blinking while rolling them. Glancing about, I noticed that, once again, the mountains were faced downwards. However, gravity was keeping me firmly glued to the grass “below” me, and the clouds “above” me were gently flowing in an unseen breeze, high in the sky.
Normal effects of gravity and weather, check! Natural fauna and mountain ranges, check! Full scope of all senses and ability to reason, check!
I was beginning to regret making that leap, as this part of the dream was certainly less interesting than the surreal world I had previously been experiencing.
“Well, lets get a move on,” I, yet again, spoke to no one but myself.
I really need to stop speaking to myself aloud.
“I won’t stop speaking aloud to me until I learn to behave and stop thinking at myself!” I shouted angrily at the ground.
Touché.
As I rolled over to stand upright, I immediately realized that something was very wrong with my body.
Ok, lets take accountability here:
Fingers... Missing
Hands... Missing
Toes... Missing
Feet... Missing
Tail... Present
Arms... Missing
Legs... Present, And Bringing Two Friends!
Hooves...
At this point, I would like it to go on the record that I, in a manner most becoming of a gentleman, a scholar, and a scientist, stood up with calm grace, and began exploring my condition. I most definitely, in no manner, shrieked like a small child. I also most definitely did not scream out a stream of profanity in a creative manner to describe my current condition. If I were to describe what profound language came out of my mouth, my utterences most definitely would have followed as such.
“My word, what a bizarre happenstance to find myself in! How indeed this is quite the experience, being of an equine nature! Mayhap I should venture onward and search for others, so that I might find an explanation for my present condition and location!”
Yes, I most definitely was extremely composed with my present situation, and most definitely did not pass out like a dehydrated marathon runner at the end of the iron man competition.
However, despite all these events that definitely did not happen, the last thing I remember seeing was the dark silhouette of a pair of ponies rapidly galloping in my direction. The last thing I remember tasting, however, was dirt.
