You lay back, pull up the duvet, and close your eyes.
[[Now you wait.|dreamstart]]You are in (either: "a lurid yellow", "a very cold", "a flooded", "a darkened") room. (either: "You can hear singing from a distance.", "You can hear a constant metallic tone.", "You can see outlines of humanoids that seem to continually phase through the walls.", "You think you can see a face in the walls, but it seems to keep shifting elsewhere to avoid your gaze.") For some reason (either: "you keep thinking of a dripping cake with a tree branch stuck in it, and how sure you are that this sums up the 1960s.", "comic book drawings of Wild West cattle stampede high above your head, biting at the air.", "you feel like you've lost something.")
There are two exits; one is a door going [[west|playground]], the other is a door going [[east|desert]].You are in your old primary school playground. (either: "The sky has an artifical pink hue, like a 1980s music video effect.", "There is a rainbow in the sky, which has been drained of colour - towards one end it goes into a tightly coiled spiral.", "You can see that the clouds in the sky are moving extremely fast, and seem to look like scratchy old film projected onto a cinema screen.") Your old childhood friend (either: "Paul", "Amy", "James", "Joanna") is here, (either: "being barbequed by their disinterested mother on a grill as they yelp in pain.", "throwing stones at shadows on the temporary classroom building, and laughing when the shadows run for cover.", "and they just have a vertical fold of skin instead of a face.")
You can either go [[east|dreamstart]], or [[south|TVprog]].You are (either: "in a desert", "in a place which is not a desert, even though it looks like one... it seems to be", "in a desert which you feel is threatening to turn upside down without warning. It seems to be") without any real features aside from a few free-standing doors, one of which you just came out of.
(either: "You feel nervous for no real reason.", "You feel like you need to find something.", "You feel like you need to get rid of something, but you can't think what.", "You hug your arms around yourself and try to feel secure.")
You can go [[west|dreamstart]], [[east|weirdvoid]], or [[south|woodland]]. You are in a wood. The trees (either: "seem to be covered in a sparkling thick liquid.", "seem to have the lower areas of their trunks spray painted in fluorescent orange.", "have all had a Photoshop effect applied to them - they've been hugely over-sharpened.", "have had a Photoshop effect of some kind applied to them - they have a faded red tint, like decaying movie film.")
Among the trees there is a (either: "CD player", "TV set", "VCR") connected to (either: "a mattress", "a weathered block of concrete", "a businessman with wires streaming out of his eye sockets - he is breathing but otherwise not moving").
You can go [[east|weirdvoid]], [[west|lost]], [[south|laughingroad]], or [[north|desert]].(either: "Bright lights, people running around, a constant thumping noise - is it coming from inside you or outside of you?", "Darkness, only lit up by a slow strobe light. You glimpse faces, industrial wreckage, a man in a hat looking at a body of water, a dog swimming in the water.", "Deep blue, and nothing but. The blueness itself is vibrating, and the vibrating is the only sound you can hear.")
You can go [[one way|desert]] or [[another way|woodland]].(either: "You realise you are carrying a box, so you look inside it. Whatever was in there has gone, and you fly into a panic. You spend some time searching for whatever the hell it was, and then you notice you've lost the box as well.", "You pat your pockets and notice you've lost something, except you can't recall what it was. You're not sure if you should be worried that you can't remember it, and this thought alone ends up making you worried.", "You realise you are holding a tiny kitten. You start to stroke it, and then notice that each stroke makes it shrink by an inch. Before you know it, it's vanished. You assume that it must now be at your Mum and Dad's house; it'll be in one of the chests below the Dwelling Bell, no doubt. But which way is their home?")
You can search [[north|dreamstart]], [[south|laughingroad]], [[east|woodland]] or [[west|TVprog]]. Or you can check [[your pocket|mall]] again.You are both watching a TV programme and being the camera filming it.
(either: "The programme is from the 1970s, and is a British documentary on radioactive ghosts. A man is being interviewed about ectoplasm. Between every sentence he says, he looks directly at the viewer / camera and makes his eyes pulse aggressively. The interviewer ignores this upsetting display.", "The programme is from the 1980s, and is a live music performance. A woman with big pink hair is dressed in cyberpunk rags and strands of tinfoil. She keeps trying to start singing, but the musicians can't get it together and fall out of sync after a few bars, prompting them to restart. This keeps going on and on; you wonder why the TV station hasn't cut away to something else.", "The programme is from the 1950s, and is praised by media historians as a daring satire of those times. Two men in white suits dance across a chessboard - there are occasional close ups of their eyes. Every so often science fiction noises are played on the soundtrack, which is otherwise silent.")
[[Close up|oldroom]], [[medium shot|playground]], [[long shot|weirdvoid]].This is a musty old room with purple walls and a tiled checkerboard floor.
(either: "A soldier made of cloth assembles himself in the corner. You notice he's smuggled a pair of blue LED lights into his body, to give the impression of tiny eyes.", "In the corner, you see someone you were in love with once, many years ago. Surprisingly, you make the decision to walk up to them and make conversation. As you get nearer you realise you have no idea what to say when you greet them. Then there's a flash of light from outside; you turn to look, but only see a human nest tumbling about on the road below. When you look back, the former love of your life has vanished.", "A living wisp of smoke floats near your face - you instinctively back away from it. The wisp becomes rather forkshaped in response, and you're not sure if it's doing that to mock you.")
You can [[resume watching the programme|TVprog]] or [[jump into a hole in the floor|laughingroad]].You are on Laughing Road. It's a very wide strip of gravel without any actual road markings, or (either: "a Bus Driver's Pyramid on either side to preserve food matter, as you recall from the highway code", "those mini books in those little plastic eggs that you're entitled to by law, and that should be laid in the gutters by the Utilities Mayor in the manner of a hen", "any place for cars to go without being shot at by the snipers in the bushes. Luckily, today the snipers have been turned into statues, over refusing to recognise the legal status of the local council").
You can go [[north|woodland]] or [[east|mall]].You are in a shopping mall that is also the inside of your mind, and the inside of your pocket.
The name of the mall is "(either: "Quentin's", "Bubbo Hubbo", "Beefy Plem's", "United Oh No", "It's Gone All Milky Again", "Why Do I Smell?", "ICI Scarecrow Warehouse Plus Other Shops")". The mall logo glows a brilliant (either: "blue", "pink", "red", "orange", "yellow") high above you, attached to (either: "what is known as The Forbidden Wall", "a suspended platform shaped like a disagreeable notion", "the late Peter Sellers; he is waving cheerily to no one in particular").
Somehow you are already aware that in this location, people are represented by (either: "throbbing colours", "piles of impacted guts", "glowing tubes", "smiling statues embedded in the ground"), and concepts are represented by (either: "patterns of pastel colours", "cartoon wolves", "actual historical events baked into a thick ball", "a distinct smell of chlorine and hot dog ketchup").
You can go [[north|weirdvoid2]], or [[west|laughingroad]].(either: "A ringing ringing ringing sound. Bright bright slow slow. Nail varnish. Climbing climbing. Skin bubbling folding. Need to get away need to get out. Lights are broken. Deeper into the hospital. Machinery on? They're coming they're coming they're coming. We're being examined. Stretched to breaking point. Angry voice over phone. Scream back at phone. Deeper into hospital. Electrical taste, electrical smell. Thought I saw her over there in oh god what the hell is...", "Covered in gloop. It was an accident. Your mother runs to get help. Chemicals betrayed. I'm telling you it was an accident. Your body encased in hardened shell. Varnish varnish nail varnish. Can't breathe. Mustn't breathe. Your mother is trying to get help. Blurry. Smell of acetone. How long is it? Chemical bubbling. Sinking into the bath, lungs filled, becoming one with...", "Climbing the stairs climbing climbing. The car screeched madly. No driver. Now you're inside. Your parents are trying to trick the car into letting you out. It refuses, it is alive, your baby sister is screaming. Through the second floor, into the trolleys, over the...")
[[Hold on tight|mall]], or [[break out|aagh]]?You're awake. Your mouth is dry.
You get out of bed and stumble downstairs. You switch the light on and squint with pain. You try and focus your eyes on the clock - it's only 3AM.
[[You chug the glass of water you've poured for yourself, and then walk back upstairs.|Nighttime]][[AAAAAAGGH|wakeup]]