Quickload Works in Dreams

The first dream

I was with my old high-school buddies, most of them Asian. The only person I distinctly remember being with me is Allen, but there were others as well. All of us were carrying guns; I had one in my right cargo pocket.

Little girls were playing hula, or some other random games, in the courtyard. I sighed. At this rate, we'll never have an opportunity to terminate the target unseen.

Some members of my assassination team started throwing stones at the nearest shop window, as a diversion of attention from our target, who was a man walking away from the courtyard. I thought this was overkill, because the windows almost broke. I proceeded to follow the target, fingering the gun in my pocket for reassurance.

I wondered if what we were doing was morally justified. The one who gave us our assignment had claimed to be an agent of the
Shadow Broker, a mysterious character in a computer game called "Mass Effect." The Shadow Broker buys and sells "secrets." For example, he buys evidence of a murder, or other such shady business, and sells the information to those who desire it, thus making a profit.

In my dream, the shadow broker wasn't satisfied with what he had; he wanted to cause more trouble, make more "secrets" that he could sell. That's why he sent us to kill this guy; then he'd have more interesting information to sell to others. "Information is a commodity," the agent had said. Since our target was a bad guy himself, it would not be too morally reprehensible. Or would it?

After I had stalked my target for quite a while, he started to make small-talk with me. I knew he was only doing it because he suspected I was trying to kill him, and was trying to make me feel sympathy. It was working. I asked him what his name was, and he hesitated a moment before replying "Debbie Walker."

I never did kill the man. I was curious, though, to see whether or not his name was actually Debbie Walker. When I returned home I facebooked the name and found no faces matching that of his. That's how I knew he was lying.

End of first dream.

Second dream:

It was extremely windy outside of our house. The road in front of the house was no longer the pleasant residential 25 mph street; rather, it was a two-lane highway. Booming waves crashed upon the rocks just beyond, and sounds of howling wind and ocean spray filled the air.

A family knocked on my front door, and I opened it. The mother was asking directions to a location, which will now be known as "Location." I closed the door against the wind and yelled to my mother, "How do you get to Location?" She responded with something about Wine Spring City. I opened the front door and relayed that information to the family, and they were grateful.

Soon after, however, the father randomly turned into a zombie. He bit the mother and the son. "This will not do," I thought. Hastily, I reached over to press the "quickload" button on my computer keyboard: F9.

The game loaded back at the beginning of the scene, with the family knocking on my door. Everything proceeded as before; I even hastily told them the directions to Location. But this time, I knew what was going to happen. I called the mother of the family on my cellphone, warning her that her husband will turn into a zombie. As the first symptoms of zombie-ness started to develop in the father, she realized I was telling the truth and began to back away. Realistically, our phone conversation cut off as soon as she started to run.

Alas, the son could not be saved and was bitten by the father. My front door was locked, but there was a big glass window in the middle, through which the father zombie broke. I ran to the kitchen, but the father zombie was right at my heels! I had to get out of the house fast, so I jump-kicked through the glass of the kitchen window.

I continued to run, but for some reason my shorts were down, wrapped around my ankles and hindering my movement. Fortunately I had my trusty sword. I sliced through the center of the shorts around my ankles to allow my legs to move freely. Conveniently, I also slew the father zombie with the sword by slicing his torso in half.

I had climbed over the wooden fence of the backyard to the neighboring house's yard, but the son zombie was in hot pursuit, beginning to climb the fence. Suddenly, as musical notes drifted from the house, I realized that my sister was still placidly practicing piano. I climbed back over the fence into my own backyard and gave myself an upwards boost...

Which proved to be the worst decision I could ever make in a "running from monsters" dream. These dreams are notorious for their extremely low gravity. When I jumped upwards from the fence, my trajectory was in slow motion due to the low gravity of the dream. The son zombie easily covered the horizontal distance of my trajectory and stood at its endpoint, awaiting my inevitable fall to the ground so he could eat me.

"This will not do!" I declared, and I hit F9. I caught a glimpse of the beginning scene at the front door before I woke up.

End of dream #2

This proves that "quickload," a common feature in computer games, works in dreams. "Quicksave," however, has yet to be tried...



[edit] p.s. I forgot to mention the musical accompaniment of the zombie dream, which consisted of a two-chord progression: f minor - a flat minor, with the melody going F - E - E flat (E being the passing tone). If you can't imagine this in your head, please play it on a piano. This short instrumental sound byte (it seemed to be mostly orchestral strings) repeated over and over again in my head during this dream, providing a fittingly creepy sound scape for the zombie dream. Since it was short and simple, I was able to remember it upon waking up.

I have probably had dreams with much more interesting original musical content, but alas, it is much more difficult to remember longer, non-repetitive themes. Usually, any memory of such musical content is not only extremely fragile, but also restricted to the last couple of seconds in the dream. I therefore urge readers of this note to dedicate their life to the discovery of DREAM-RECORDING TECHNOLOGY. Thank you.