I let loose a dreamy sigh as I doodled in my notebook. My best friend, Pander, snickered at me from the bench seat beside mine. He pulled me from my wandering thoughts with a hoof jabbed into my side.
"Dude you best pay attention or Professor Beacon is gonna have your flank. What are you drawing anyways?" My friend asked, peering over my leg at my notebook. A blush lit up my face and I scrambled to close my notebook. I ended up knocking it off the table instead, and much to my chagrin Pander snatched it off of the floor. He flipped through it and I buried my face into my legs and chest as I slumped against the bench.
"No way! Don't tell me you're crushing on Princess Luna!" His proclamation falling upon the ears of everyone around us. I was blushing full force now. On all sides of me other students were snickering and pointing at me.
"Yo! Not cool!" I hissed under my breath, snatching my notebook from his grasp. He looked around, noticing the others. Guilt overcame him, but without a beat he reversed the situation.
"Got you!" He said with loud deliberation. "You should have seen the look on your face when I yelled that out." I just just frowned at him but his ploy seemed to work. The onlookers had the sudden 'realization' that I was the butt end of a prank and that I was, in fact, not 'crushing' on Princess Luna.
The reality was quite the contrary. On almost every page of my notebook, and, unknown to Pander, in every notebook I owned was a doodle of some sort that related to Luna. I had drawn her cutie mark countless times. I had even drawn my own and hers inside of a heart on a few occasions.
It has been a little more than one year since she has returned and a little less than one year that I had know about her. You can use my notebook as a reference for the day I first saw her. I made my first entry on the day of Luna's reintroduction. Princess Celestial called a public gathering to announce her sister's return. While I usually did not concern myself with public affairs I happened upon the event on my way home. I stopped to watch, unbothered, because Celestia is beautiful and I had time to spare. Then Luna stepped out to offer her thanks for the warm welcome, and to promise her effort towards a peaceful nation from then on. I was smitten long before she finished speaking.
"Oof!" I flailed my limbs about to recover from the eraser which collided with my face. Several other nearby students were in various degrees of recovery after the assault. Beacon hated interruptions or having to repeat himself. As a result he developed his eraser throw as a tactic to keep his student's attention on himself. He developed the skill so well that he could fling up to five erasers at five different students around the room, and he never missed. So as five erasers floated back I tried my best to look innocent and gave him a sheepish grin.
"Mr. Chase, I'm surprised, I've never had to pelt you with an eraser before! Get it together and pay attention." I swallowed hard and let out a 'yes, sir' and he went back to teaching, and I went back to staring daggers at Pander.
Class ended and I wandered off, knowing that Pander would catch up with me soon enough.
"Yo! What were you thinking?" I heard a harsh whisper, his voice, in my ear.
"No, what are you thinking, calling me out like that in the middle of class. That was not cool."
"Yeah, yeah." He waved it off, "I fixed that, whatever. Point is you're the one crushing on a Princess."
"So what if I am, can't a stallion dream?"
"Nooo I don't mean it like that, in fact I commend you, shoot for the stars bro, or in this case the moon," He snickered at his pun. "wait," He paused to think for a bit, "now that I think about it this is like a challenge!"
I paled at his words. Pander is a 'solution master'. He's great at getting things done. Even so I'm positive that even a solution master like Pander couldn't pull something like this off.
"Hey now, before you get ahead of yourself, this is not a challenge of any sort. I mean I know what your special talent is. Your whole 'procurement of goods and services' thing," I said as I made air quotes with my hooves, "but I don't think this is something you can help me with." I begged him with my eyes to just let it go, but he would not.
"But I can hook you up!"
"I know you've made successful matches before, but; she's a Princess."
We had meandered from the main entrance to a point between our dorm and the main building. Around us were the central gardens and nearby were a few benches. I headed over to one and plopped myself down onto it. Pander sat next to me, a sort of defeated look about him. It was in how he sat, and how his head hung, but I knew better. He was far from done, he was just plotting.
"Dude you gotta give it a chance! Don't you want to at least meet her?" He said.
"Well... Well yeah, that wouldn't be too bad I suppose."
"Great! I already have a plan!"
I paced in front of the doors of Luna's night court. Pander knew that she held night court and that it was a less than popular event. In fact he discovered that Luna had perhaps a total of 100 petitioners in her last year of service.
"Dude the place is gonna be empty and she's gonna be eager to talk to *anypony. Just head in about an hour after it starts and she'll be out of her mind with boredom." He reasoned. It seemed pretty sound, except for one detail that popped into my mind.*
"Hey? I can't just go in and make idle talk, I gotta be there on official business. I need to have something to petition her for..." I trailed off, nothing fresh coming to mind.
"You're telling me that a *sleep doctor, named 'Dream Chaser', has **nothing to petition the Princess of the night and dreams about?" He had a point, and with his words my task became less daunting. I was going to petition the Canterlot U board to add a sleep lab. My thoughts began to blur as the implications and possibilities came together.*
So now here I was, pacing while the guards stared me down.
"You looking kinda shifty buddy, you have business here?" One guard stepped away from the wall to confront me.
"N-no, I mean! Yes, I'm here to petition the Princess." I stuttered. The guards exchanged looks, but relaxed. "Well go on in then, and no funny business."
"Yes, sir." I gulped as I passed through the oaken doors. Once through I walked towards the central podium.
"Speak thy name, title, and business." Luna commanded. I stood on a podium in the center of the room, and there are no other ponies in the room with us. She sat upon her throne and stared me down.
"I- um. Well, my name's Dream Chaser. I'm a student at Canterlot University. I guess I'm here to ask for, um, funding for a sleep lab," I was nowheres near as suave as I thought I was when I practised speaking earlier. I was quaking in my hooves and her gaze bore down upon me, but then her expression softened.
"A sleep lab you say?" she pondered it for a moment, "to what end?"
"Well I study sleep and it's kinda hard to do that without a proper laboratory," I explained.
"Thy name, Dream Chaser was is?" I nodded an approval, "does that have anything to do with your chosen profession?" Her specific question struck me as odd. Perhaps she was trying to find merit in my request.
"Uh, yeah, dreams have always fascinated me. It's kind of ambitious but I'd like to find out why ponies dream."
"Why? I could tell you why. The real question is why they dream what they dream. I've always found that much more interesting," she had leaned forward in her throne at this point. Her interest in what I had to say clear.
"First hoof accounts of dreams are skeptical at best. Ponies don't remember every detail of their dreams. What they do remember is not detailed enough for us to put together data that can help us understand why they dreamed their dream." I explained to her. This was a science based profession. I'm not seeking philosophical answers to questions like 'what does my dream mean'.
"And if you could see the dreams with your own eyes?" her suggestion was off putting, nay the way she said her suggestion was off putting. She laced her voice with possibility, it was almost as if she was asking if I wanted to see somepony's dream right now.
"Then it would be valid to study,".
"Then study it," she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Wha- but, they're dreams. I can't see into a pony's dream anymore than you could," my comment drained all the expression from her face. She sat still for a moment before bursting out in laughter.
"Oh my! Surely you jest?" he laughter fill all corners of the room. It was loud and rancorous. It took her visible might to keep herself from throwing herself onto the floor, and then she vanished. A moment later I felt something settling on my back. I jerked away, and looked to the source. It was Princess Luna, she was draping one of her wings over my back.
"Tell me, my little pony, if I cannot walk amongst dreams why do I walk amongst this one?" she then leaned in and touched her nose to mine and...
My entire body spasmed as I awoke, and I leapt out of my bed. A folder with various document that I planned on presenting to the Princess during the meeting went flying across the room. Pieces of my demonstration I was planning on giving Princess Luna were strewn about room. I scrambled about, retrieving the fallen pages.
I must have fallen asleep while waiting for the right moment to leave to go to the court.
That dream. I stopped fussing with the folder and turned my attention on a dream journal I kept on my night stand. I don't dream often, and everypony knows dreams are notorious for fading from memory in mere moments. I needed to write it down while it was still fresh in my mind. I wrote all I could remember, which was a surprising amount, and mulled it over.
Ever since I could remember dreaming I have wondered why ponies dreamed. At first it was curious questions
"Mommie, why do ponies dream?" my foalself would ask after a particularly nice dream.
"Nopony knows, dear, but they are quite nice aren't they?"
"mmhmm."
Later I became sick for a little while and had to stay in a hospital. My doctor was kind and would often take moments to sit and talk with me, ever inquisitive as I was. One day he stopped in only moments after I woke up. I was still rubbing the sleep out of my eyes when he asked me how I was feeling.
"I'm feeling much better thanks to you, sir," a dream I had just woke from was still fresh on my mind, "do you know why ponies dream?"
The question caused him pause. He pondered the question for a few moments.
"I have no idea, but," he turned to the door, "one of my colleagues is a psychologist. Psychology has been making a lot of interesting theories on dreaming lately. She's definitely the mare to talk to, you wait here and I'll see if she can squeeze in a moment to talk to you."
Moments later he came back with a younger mare.
"Hey squirt," she said, a gentle smile adorning her face as she sat down on the edge of my bed.
"My name's not 'squirt'! I'm Dream Chaser!"
"Is that so? That's a pretty cool name!"
"Thank you miss."
"I'm Tranquility and I heard you wanted to know why we dream."
"Yes, do you know why?"
"Not a clue," she said with too much enthusiasm. I wilted, "But what I can tell you," which perked me up again, "is that our dreams have bearing on our waking lives and vice versa. When we're happy, we have happy dreams. When we're sad we have sad dreams. Of course that's not a hundred percent. For instance: nightmares. We can have a bad dreams even when we're happy, but more often than not they come when we're scared. Plus when we have good dreams we are happy during the day, and sad ones make us sad during the day."
"You're right, I always feel good after a good dream, but that doesn't explain why..."
"It doesn't, does it?" she was quiet for a few moment while she thought, "that's one of 'those' questions, kiddo. There are many of them, and we don't have answers for them, and many we may never have an answer for."
"Well I'm gonna find an answer!" she chuckled at my enthusiasm, but then paused and tilted her head like a curious puppy.
"You know what, Chase, I have a feeling that you will," she got up and headed for the door, "good luck, kid."
I remained oblivious to the new marks that now adorned my flanks for a few hours longer.
I finished my dream entry. I had a day of school before me, but I would be trying to present my case to her court tonight for sure.
This time I was standing outside the doors of Princess Luna's real night court. Like my dream from the previous night the guards were eyeing me. I knew it was real this time around. At least it was real if the tale about not feeling pain in dreams was true; my arm still ached from where I socked myself just minutes prior.
I approached the guards with more confidence this time, going through this in my dreams last night had made it less daunting.
"I wish to petition the Princess of the Night, Her Royal Majesty, Luna."
The guards exchanged looks over my rehearsed line, but shrugged and opened the doors. Once inside I looked about the room but saw no sign of Princess Luna. Instead a unicorn levitating a scroll, peering over it to look at me.
"Ahh you must be Dream Chaser." Confusion came over me when he spoke, but he continued speaking. "The Princess awaits you, of course not through conventional means. Go home, and go to bed, colt. You will find the Princess waiting for you there."
This was shocking and confusing; what in the world was this stallion talking about? I had no chance to ask him, though, he had slipped into a door behind the throne the moment he relayed his message. The guards behind me had already opened the doors for me and so I left.
I arrived home and immediately went to bed. The shock and confusion of my evening did little to hinder my ability to sleep. Wanting to understand dreams was not my special talent. My true special talent I had discovered long ago, before I even knew that it made me different. It is not awe inspiring or anything like that. In fact, if anything, it is nothing more than convenient. My special talent is the ability to fall asleep at will, if I'm tired. Once I reached that time of night where most ponies bedded down all I needed to do was close my eyes and demand sleep to come to me, and it always did.
"Hello my little pony" Luna's voice echoed out from the abyss of my dream.
"Where are you?" I asked.
"Right beside you." her voice entering my ears from my right. She indeed stood beside me, which she had not a moment ago. I sputtered as I stepped away from her. "Welcome to my dream, Dream." She used my first name, most ponies called me 'Chase' or 'Chaser' not 'Dream', but it was my name.
"Your dream? Not mine?"
"Yes, It's much more difficult to learn how to dream weave in your own dream. When you mind has direct control over the dreamscape it will bend to the will of the unconscious mind right away. In a deft moment the dream will overcome you and you wouldn't even know it had taken you. Only a mind in control can recognize a dream. Even so, us Dream Weavers can allow, or disallow, others to recognize a dream in our own dreamscapes. So I brought you here and awoke your conscious mind. So once again, welcome to my dream."
I just blinked a few time, casting my eyes about, "It's not much is it?" She chortled.
"No it is not. I did not wish to overwhelm you. Being aware in a dream can be quite startling; in fact if it startled you too much you would awaken. And besides... I've been feeling rather morose. I don't think the images my unconscious mind would summon up would be appropriate for a meeting with a fellow Dream Weaver."
"What's a Dream Weaver?" I asked her.
"An ancient bloodline of ponies capable of manipulating their dreams."
"Oh... I think you're mistaken then, this is the first time I've ever been aware of the fact that I'm dreaming."
"Most Dream Weavers could control their dreams with little or no instruction from an early age, but not all could. Even during a time where Dream Weaving was well know and celebrated we did not always find every foal capable of doing it. I can imagine that without any training or guidance such a talent would go unrecognized for quite a while. In my one thousand years of banishment I have no doubt that more than one pony died never knowing that they could walk among their dreams. Besides I have methods to prove your capabilities."
"We are in a Dreamscape. Is it an unconscious domain of the mind. A mental canvas where the residual thoughts and emotions of your previous waking hours begin to coalesce. During this phase of sleep the mind sorts all the new memories. It then decides what is worth keeping, and what is not, and stores or throws them away. This process produces fleeting moments of what appear to be memories. Displaying them in elongated time, that is time that moves slower than real time. The mind takes along the dreamer; fastening them in for the ride, whether they like it or not.
Most ponies do not remember every dream they have. Just like the mind sorts the waking memories of the day, the mind, too, sorts the sleeping dreams of the pony before waking. If the dream is memorable enough they will stick around in the mind for a bit, not usually surviving past the next night of sleep. Permanence requires a memorable, or terrifying, dream."
"And what we are doing now is breaking every one of those rules."
I listened to her... lecture. Soaking all the information in. She indeed did know the reason why ponies dreamed, or at least her theory was sound.
"By accessing our conscious mind while in the dream state we can manipulate the dreamscape as we will. We can also choose the thoughts and memories that we select for permanency. If we choose to dismiss the memory of an event that took place earlier today it will become a vague ghost of a memory in the back of our minds. We will likely never recall the memory every again. If instead we choose to relish in an event that took place earlier today it will remain vivid for quite a time. So long as we take time to recall such memories on occasion they will remain in the forefront of our minds.
"Now for a demonstration." She clacked her forehooves together in front of her and the ground turned grey and became pitted. The sky above us turned into a stunning night sky.
"Is this the moon?" I asked her, she pointed a hoof behind me and I turned. Before me I could see our planet hanging in space.
"It is stunning, is it not?" She asked me, after a pause she continued "I am going to continue with my demonstration now, though I doubt you will enjoy it." and with her words came the terrifying reality of the moon. There was no air here, and my body became aware of that.
I collapsed to the ground, gasping for air. My hooves going to my throat, but nothing would come. Luna soothed me as I choked.
"Such a harsh lesson; I'm sorry to impart upon you Dream. Young minds tend learn so fast that they pass this all together, unfortunately the older you are the harder it is to learn. At your age I found desperation being the only way to impart this lesson."
I heard not a word she spoke, I was too busy dying. I rolled around the moon's dusty surface, slamming my hoof down casting puffs of dust into space.
"Like I said earlier, in the dreamscape the creator has the ability to grant others who enter their dreams control. The moment you lost air was the moment I gave you control. The conscious mind is analytical and logical. It sees reason and makes connections, and it can't quite tell the difference between reality and dreaming. The conscious mind remaining active as you slip into a dream often causes ponies to jerk awake."
I thrashed about, my death... well, what should have been my death. My death would have passed long ago, with the amount of monologue Luna had prepared. In fact my heart wasn't pounding, and my lungs were filling with air, even if my mind was telling me they were not. I started to push myself off the ground, no longer writhing.
"I knew you would come around soon enough. The conscious mind, once again, is logical. It knows you're on the moon, and it knows there isn't air here, so it filled in the details. I usually choose the moon for this exercise because there isn't much detail to fill in. Take away the air and some gravity," With a graceful motion Luna jumped into the air and soared over my head. "and that's the moon."
"Was that necessary?" she grinned.
"Perhaps not, but I don't like doing it the long way. It's so much more fun this way." she walked past me flicking her tail at my face. She enveloped my view in her star filled tail. When it passed out of my vision I discovered myself standing on a random street in Canterlot. The weather was overcast and gloomy. The street was grimy. This was a part of Canterlot I had never walked before. "I have taken control away from you once again. I will dictate the parts of your mind that I release as I release them, so you can understand the effects they have on the dreamscape. The first of which is background environment."
With her final word everything shifted. The clouds broke and the moon shined down upon the cobblestone. The dirt and grime was gone and most of the seediness of the area dissipated. Luna nodded.
"This is how your mind sees Canterlot. If we were away and I said 'Canterlot' into your ear this would be the image your mind would conjure up. Our mind creates templates for all kinds of things... imagine a guard." and so I did. Two guards appeared. One was Luna's night guard, in his dark armor, with his dark wings, and unusual eyes. The other was Celestia's day guard, with his white coat and his golden armor. Luna smiled, "I am thankful you are so recognizing of my own guards that they managed to create a template in your own mind."
I gave off a sheepish grin. I was familiar about a lot of things that had to do with Luna. I thought her guards were awesome, though most ponies did not feel the same way.
"Now I shall relinquish my hold over the part of your subconscious that populates the dreamscape with objects." she swept a wing over my eyes and once it cleared my field of view the street had come alive. Before there were no ponies, no tables, no lights, no planters, or scenery of any kind. The homes were all generic. It was empty, but now it was bustling with new 'objects'. Ponies went to and fro, entering buildings and doing generic things that ponies do. They were all just templates. Typical activities that I associate with the general population of Canterlot. One pony was weeding a garden, in other places ponies gathered in small groups and chatted amongst themselves. I couldn't hear a word they said. Instead the template for 'background noise' filled my mind. Creating the droning sound of distant conversation. I wouldn't have suspected these were templates if it wasn't for the fact that I am close enough to where I should be able to hear what these ponies. I was but I still heard the mumbles and murmurs, the clopping of hooves on the cobble, and other sounds of activity.
"Time is different in the dreamscape. It's quite possible to lose yourself for days, and even weeks, inside your mind and the minds of ponies. No matter what, you will always awaken in the eight or so hours that your body needs to recuperate. This is possible because the subconscious mind is not processing the information that the awake mind does. A basic part of your brain is on autopilot, keeping you alive and breathing. The rest of you is not in your control. Even though you can hear loud noises, feel, see, and even taste even while in a dream the subconscious is not processing as much information as it does while you are awake."
The subconscious mind establishes various filters to determine if information it gathers is worth presenting to the conscious mind. While you are asleep those filters are lax. This leaves a large part of your brain power to the dreamscape. Because brain power is not wasted on receiving signals from the rest of you body your mind can simulate the sensations of your senses at the speed of thought. Your mind is generating the sensations you feel, and because of this it creates a recursive feedback loop allowing the mind to predict scenarios faster than the conscious mind is able to process them. The conscious mind is only working on information that the hyper-powered conscious mind feeds to it, so time itself slows down around the individual."
The speed the brain can process information is amazing, even when awake. It is a regulatory system within the subconscious that ties our thoughts and actions to our perception of time. Too much sensory information would overwhelm everypony. Instead the subconscious feeds the information based on our own perception of time. Of course an individuals perception of time, and even the relativity of time is different from pony to pony. Even so most dreamweavers are able to preside within their own dreams for quite lengthy periods of time."
It was a lot of information to take in, but I did so with ease. In fact it the ease in which I recalled everything was extraordinary. I could recall in vivid detail, like hearing a record, the sound of her voice ringing in my ears as she described how the pony mind worked while they slept. It dawned on me at that point why.
"While here we are processing everything we do straight into long our term memory, isn't it?" I asked her.
"Indeed. Which is the reason I choose to give lessons in the dreamscape."
"No wonder I can keep up with your explanations." she smiled and continued.
"So now you understand why ponies dream. As well as some mechanics behind the dreamscape itself, but why are these ponies doing nothing?"
I looked around, a specific set of ponies were all frozen in place. A server with a platter on his back stood before a couple seated at outdoor tables of a restaurant. The ponies were alive, they were breathing and making small idle motions with their bodies as they all stood in place. Time was not frozen, they all just seemed to be standing around.
"I suspect these are not templates?" I motioned to the idle ponies around me.
"Hmm, they are templates in a sense. They do not act because their actions are not based on templates." she walked over to the waiter, "these ponies are not just object templates, they are constructs."
"A construct is a representation of memory or emotion within your subconscious mind. Emotion or memory dictates their actions. Nothing is happening because I still have not freed that part of your subconscious." with her final word the ponies jumped to life. I watched the scene unfold. I suspected that the waiter was just a basic template, he was not acting before, because the two constructs were not acting. Now they they came to life the waiter spoke to them.
"How may I take your order?" he asked the patrons.
"Might I have the eggplant parmesan?" the unicorn mare asked. She was in an elegant dress that hid most of her features, but you could still see her dark blue coat, and sapphire mane. Not quite unlike the dark blue coat, and sapphire mane of Princess Luna. Princess Luna who was standing nearby looking upon the scene; her eyes and smile betraying her mirth.
"Make that one larger order for us to share." the male pegasus said. His lack of clothing betrayed his turquoise colored coat, the color of the stone of the color's namesake. A stone used by ponies of old to decorate dream catchers hung in little fillies and colts rooms to chase away bad dreams. Colors which one can find upon my own feathers, across my own coat. His mane was grey, like the streak of grey that ran through my purple mane and tail. The symbolism was not lost upon me, and from the smile creeping at the Princess's lips it was not escaping her either.
I wanted to die. The waiter entered a door and in the same instant came from behind it with a platter of spaghetti. He set the huge platter in front of the couple and they began to eat. Before long the couple found themselves connected by the same strand of spaghetti. Their mouths came closer together and they were on a crash course when everything froze.
"Pray tell, Dream," Luna's tone was different. Sultry, but almost teasing. She leaned towards me. I found myself unable to move, she revoked my control within the dreamscape. "If that mare were not clothed," she came closer and closer. When our noses were as far apart as the couple seated at the table she finished her question, "would I find wings upon her back?"
Her giggling laughter was the last thing I heared before my eyes shot open.