Begging the Question

Fear is primal. Fear is overwhelming. Fear is human.
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Most people don’t go down the rabbit hole. It’s deep and dark and scary. It leads back on itself. It leads back to our roots. It leads back to our fears. It leads back to our death. That’s why most people don’t go there. But I have to.

The world, or rather the facade of the world, is bland and boring. Sure it looks exciting. Sure it looks like there’s a lot going on, but most of that has been drummed up by the people who want to maintain the facade. Quietly, slowly, the world is changing. We see the sameness paraded in front of us all the time. The sameness is bankable. The sameness is marketable. The sameness is the wool over our eyes.

The same shows. The same news. The same worries. The same hopes. The same fears. The same goals. It’s the rhythm of it all. We — humans — seek rhythm. Each day gives us a rhythm of sleep and wakefulness. Each week gives us a rhythm of work and rest. Each month gives us a rhythm of darkness and light. Each year gives us a rhythm of traditions and remembrances. Rhythm is numbing. Rhythm is controlling. Rhythm is life — the beat of our heart and the catch of our breath — but rhythm is death too.

It’s my job, my purpose, to break the rhythm. Not so you can follow me, but so you don’t have to.

See, I’m a stress-tester for the LDN — the Lucid Dreaming Network. Everyone wants sweet dreams, or at least dreams with manageable fears. We want the fear of not making the winning shot in the championship game, not the fear of falling to our death, not the fear of being naked in front of our teacher or boss, not the fear of all our teeth falling out. Those fears are too primal, too close, too real. We need fantasy fears and fantasy joys. But the only way to expunge the real fears is to trigger them. The only way to trigger them is to dream them.

Solo dreams are, generally, only lightly monitored by the LDN. You get in and create whatever you want. You don’t need anyone’s permission to dream your own dreams — which is why most people don’t use the LDN for solo dreams. Once you learn lucid dreaming you don’t really need to hook up to a computer to do it. What you need the computer for is to dream with other people. And when you dream with other people things can get messy.

My job is to have the most terrifying solo dreams possible — while connected to the LDN — so the system can calibrate the group dreams to prevent terror.

You’re welcome. 

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