Dream Within the Dream

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My recent experiments with the mind-altering effects of nicotine first gave me some small capacity to gain access to the Hierion Domain. However, Irhit seems to have taken offense at my use of the Bimanoid Interface. Now I suspect that Irhit severed the connection between my zeptite endosymbiont and my replicoid.

Blessing in Disguise?
For the past week I have not been able to use the Bimanoid Interface. At first I was very upset by this, since I feel like I was making progress towards learning about my own future by means of improving communications with my replicoid in the Hierion Domain.

However, isolation from the Bimanoid Interface might be to my advantage. I believe that Irhit has, through the years, been using the Interface in a "reverse configuration" to suppress some of my old memories. Since Irhit might no longer be able to block my old memories, I've been trying to "re-awaken" one particular memory from my youth, a memory that has always haunted and tantalized me.

The Annotated Alice

Through all of my adult life I've had a very clear memory of my sister reading to me from The Annotated Alice. My sister is quite a bit older than I, and when I was small (before I went to school) we would "play school". I learned all kinds of things from my sister including the wonders of adding and subtracting numbers. As soon as I had grown comfortable adding and subtracting, she set me to the task of working in other systems of numbers besides base 10.

In order to recover the memories described below, I used a large dose of nicotine and put myself into a relaxed, nearly dreaming state where I could record myself speaking. What follows (below) is a combination of my recorded speech during the "trance" and the memories that I managed to retain from that session.

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Trance
One hot summer day when my mother had gone shopping and my brothers had gone outside, I was playing school with my sister. I'd just completed an addition and subtraction worksheet given to me by my sister. After completing the problems that she had provided, I next made up some of my own. I kept looking at my sister and wondering when she would notice that I was done. She seemed completely engrossed in what she was reading.

Finally, growing drowsy in the heat and tired of the numbers, I wondered what she was reading that had her so captivated. I was just learning to read and I sat there for a while trying to figure out the words that were on the cover of her book.

"Ignatious Longbottom" by Doktor A

Finally I asked, "What are you reading?" She said nothing, so I went over and sat down next to her and looked at the pages of the book she was reading. I said, "Read to me."

Without even glancing at me, she started reading, but reading like a zombie: "I can't remember things as I-"

Of course, I did not know what a zombie was, but I knew that she was not reading like normal. I started to giggle and then she looked at me. She said, "Oh, my. I was trapped in the book."

[Even then, she still did not sound like my sister, but she no longer sounded like an automaton. In what follows I label "her" (whoever was speaking to me) as S?]

I pointed to the illustration in the book and asked, "What is that?"

S?: The Caterpillar. Look! The Caterpillar is as big as Alice.

Me: What is a Caterpillar?

S?: You know. We put that wooly bear caterpillar in a jar and it made a cocoon.

I protested, "Caterpillars don't have hands."

My sister shook her head in dismay, "You have such a linear mind. This is a fantasy story."

I asked, "What is it eating?"

S?: It's not eating, it's smoking.

Me: Smoking?

S?:  Like your father does. Smoking tobacco. See the tobacco flowers?

I couldn't figure out how a caterpillar could smoke. I asked, "Why do people smoke? It stinks."

S?:  Tobacco contains a chemical, nicotine. Nicotine can change your brain.

I didn't know what she was talking about. The words she was using and the way she sounded reminded me of my father. I asked, "Who are you?"

[At that point, my sister began speaking like my sister again.]

"Shore Leave" conceived by "Ted" Sturgeon

"I think you ought to tell me who you are...." My sister looked at me with wide eyes and said, "That was odd. I was trapped in the Domain."

Me: Like Alice in Wonderland?

"Yes, it did seem like a wonder land." She hugged me and held me for a minute then she let go of me and she wiped some tears from her eyes. "It was like a bad dream. You were gone, but you are fine." She hugged me again.

"Alice in Nukeland" by Aledin

Me: What do you mean I was gone?

She hesitated then she said, "I'll tell you if you promise to be brave."

"I promise."

"This is a scary story." She got up and went to look and see if my mother had returned home. "Listen! It was on Thanksgiving day. Do you remember? We were going to grandma's house."

Me: "I remember. It was snowing."

She asked, "What else do you remember?"

"We were playing alphabet."

"What else?"

"It was hot"

cyberpunk Alice by  Steven Donegani

"Yes, we were burning up. We did not know, but slush from the road had gotten stuck in the grill. Air was not reaching the radiator. The engine was hot and so father was running the heater at full."

"We all took off our shoes and socks."

"Yes! Do you remember what happened next?"

"You talk about this all the time. We followed the snow plow down the highway. It was so slow, we we were late for dinner."

My sister seemed to gaze off into the distance. "Yes. But that is not what happened first."

"I don't remember anything else."

the Time Teller

"You can't remember. The Time Teller said that I would not remember, but I do. I Do!"

I didn't know what she was talking about. I asked, "The time teller?"

"The first time, father passed the snow plow and then our car skidded and we went off the road. It was a terrible crash."

"Suddenly I was in the Domain with mother. It was a strange place, a plastic world. There were stars in the sky and a pool of water on the floor. Mother grabbed me and said, "We're back in the Domain!"

A woman dressed in black was there....the Time Teller.....she looked like an elf, with long pointy ears and big eyes. She asked mother, "Why are you here?"

Mother: We were skidding off the road. I just had time to teleport myself and my daughter.

Time Teller:  Give me your ring.

"Mother took off her ring and handed it to the Time Teller. The Time Teller took the ring to a device on the wall, like a television, and soon we could see the snow plow. Then we saw our car go past the snow plow and skid off the road. There was a terrible crash."

Rodney Matthews "Alice and the Caterpillar"

Again my sister hugged me. "You were killed!"

I shook my head. "No. We followed the plow all the way to the exit."

"That was the second time. Mother was hysterical when she saw your dead body. She shouted at the Time Teller."

Mother: Fix it! Take us back in time. All we need to do is follow the snow plow.

Time Teller: Let me have a look at the future.

"The Time Teller looked into a device that she held in her hand. I could see that she was holding what looked like a tiny television. I said, 'The future?' and tried to see the images.

Time Teller: Here, see for yourself.

Viewing her future self.

I took the device and suddenly there I was, standing in front of me. It was an image of me. Then I got older. I realized I was seeing myself, in the future.

Mother: Is it wise to let her see her own future?

Time Teller: When I send you back to Earth, she will remember nothing.

The Time Teller had another device that she used to look at images of the future. I was fascinated with the images of myself in the future.

Time Teller: What a mess! Everything is ruined after First Contact.

Mother: Just send me back, before the accident. I'll drive.

Time Teller: No, we'll use your replicoid. Oh, my. But your daughter must go back. This creates a favorable microchange. Oh, my......how amazing.

Mother: What? Show me.

"Then another woman who looked just like mother came in, but she was wearing what looked like technicolor silk pajamas. Looking up from my view of my future self, at first I didn't notice that there were two mothers. I said, 'Where did you get those goofy clothes?' The time Teller waved her hand at the woman in the pajamas.

Time Teller: Go back in time. Six hours. There, the program is complete.

"The woman in the pajamas nodded and immediately left the room. I noticed that mother was still there, using the big television device. I said, "Hey! Who was that?"

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Mother: "That was my replicoid, a kind of helper."

"I asked, 'Do I have one, too?'"

Mother: This is crazy. She shouldn't know about any of this.

Time Teller: She'll remember nothing from this Domain.

My sister was silent for a while. I didn't know what she was talking about. "That was all. Like a dream of a dream. But now I do remember! My replicoid let me remember. And now you know what really happened. Well, all that matters is that we are here.....we'll always be together!" She grew quiet again, lost in thought.

I said, "That was a funny story. Tell me another one."

"Very well. I'll read you the story of the Cheshire cat." She started reading to me and soon I was asleep.

Until today, I've never been able to remember her story about the Time Teller.

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Dreams within Dreams

Click image to enlarge. image credits

I like to think that the Time Teller was Grean. The car accident must have been a chance event, not foreseen by Trysta and Grean when they selected the Buld Reality.

Somehow, my death and the subsequent edit to the timeline that prevented my death.....in particular, the fact that my sister was sent back through time and was later allowed to remember her visit to the Hierion Domain.....it all in some way pleased Grean. When looking into the future, did Grean see that I would one day remember that day when I first heard about the Hierion Domain?

I've always had a special connection to my sister. I just asked her to read my reconstruction of her story about the Time Teller (above). She remembers reading Alice in Wonderland to me when I was a young boy and she admits that she used to make up her own adventure stories, but she has no memory of the Time Teller.
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"Strong" by marianne luintje

Image Credits

image credits

For my depiction of "The Time Teller" I needed to illustrate a scene that took place in the Hierion Domain. To create the background (see "Time Teller Room", image to the left) I used a photograph of a leaf called "Strong" by Deviant ART member marianne luintje.

source 1, source 2

To depict the hermaphroditic Kac'hin, Grean, I used two photographs of E. Barbeau.: "Your Call is Very Important to Us Stock 4" and "Secret Agent Stock 7" by Deviant ART member Cassy-Blue.

"sister", details

In order to depict my sister, I made use of three photographs from Deviant ART member "Kristina", at the intergalacticstock gallery. See "Looking Back 6" (these three photographs were taken by "Elizabeth" at PersephoneStock), "Snakeskin 17" and "Snapshot 8".

I wanted to depict both 1) a very young version of my sister and 2) Grean in the act of viewing future versions of my sister (see the images to the left).

viewing the accident scene (source)

My mother is shown near a projected view of the events leading up to the car accident. To depict my mother, I used "Danielle - R.E.S.P.E.C.T. - 2" by FantasyStock.

A couple of other public domain images were also used such as "CIMG2044GS-VIE-Schneepflug" (snow plow).

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