There’s no I in Dream

ATTENDANCE: MANDATORY

“So we really have to do this?” Bea said, looking at the memo tacked to the corkboard on the wall. “We’ve never had like a… motivational lunch? Group get together?”

“Team mixer!” Ted said, holding up a bottle of vodka and a giant sippy cup.

“Mandatory team mixer” Bharat grabbed the bottle of vodka from Ted, putting it back into the freezer. “And you know that this is in response to that little lucid caper you guys pulled.”

“Which is a good thing, actually, because if we break down some um…” Nash squinted at the memo “… silos… then maybe we can understand a bit more about what other departments are doing, and maybe even, you know, learn from each other.”

Josie looked at Nash. She came closer, looking her up and down, sniffing. “Who are you even? Learning from each other? Absolute loser behavior. I’m not going.” Josie floped down into a chair, picking up a magazine, done with this stupid matter.

Bea was still squinting at the memo. “Ok, but look, here it’s talking about opportunites for collaboraton that could actually be kind of cool. I wouldn’t mind taking a stab at a dream for a goat or a bunny or something? Think the ADT is going to be there?”

“I’m pretty sure they will be, the whole ‘attendance required’ thing seems to imply that it'll be like… everyone. Even those freaky nightmare people. I ran into one of them at the gym and they were seriously intimidating. Except when it lifted weights, it made this haunted howl sort of noise each time it did a set. Like EROSOSOOOOOOOAAAHGGGghHHEE” Ted tried his bests to imitate the noise, making a litlte scrunchie face at the end. “Honestly, I was a little embarrased for it. I didn’t see it carring a towel around, either.”

“Ew.” Josie said without looking up. “Ok, so who does our work while we go to this waste of time? Does everyone just not have any dreams while we bond and make plans to to increase emotional ROI and maximize recall rates?”

Bahrat rasied a finger “Ah, it’s held in a time pocket. All of the FlexSpaces are looped out of time, so no matter how long it goes, no time has passed in reality. The tech behind it is really pretty cool.”

“Oh, sweet, I feel like the coolest part is that we have to attend this forever-fest AND still complete a full workload.” Josie was still not having it.

“Yeah, but…” Ted was fully onboard. “pizza!” He’d already snuck the vodka bottle back into his bag.


As they walked into FlexSpace C they saw a table with Hello My Name Is tags and a variety of pens. Ted was the first to reach for it, writing a big T E D in red marker and proudly sticking it to his overalls. Bea recluctantly grabbed for one, writing her name much smaller, Bharat and Nash grabbed nametags as well, while Josie looked right past the table, pointing at the screen “Oh, cool. Get ready for more good times, date TBD.”

A large screen in the front of the room had a super important message for people entering the space:  

Important, please note

Small groups of five to six people stood around, talking quietly and checking out each new group that came in. The lighting was low, and the mood seemed to match. At least it smelled like pizza.

A small woman, wearing a very beige two piece suit with an oatmeal blouse and taupe shoes was moving towards the group, looking like she was trying really, really hard to smile but her eyes were not feeling it.

“Ah, the Basic Dreams Department. Welcome, so nice to see you.” She looked at Bea and even her mouth gave up the whole trying to smile thing. “It’s wonderful that your little… escapade? Helped… uncover? A few things we need to… optimize.” She ended with the slightest attempt at the smile, but again, not happening. “My name is Angelica and I’ll be leading this… event? So if you have any questions or want to… talk? About anything, please find Marcell,, because I will be far too busy.” And with that, she lost all pretence in being interested and walked away.

“Oh, well that’s really… um” Nash started

“Disturbing?” Josie immitated Angelica. “This whole place smells of comproimise and middle management monotony. I did not sign up for this. And I am not signging up for that, either,” she said pointing at the screen “But since I’m here, let’s go get‘procure’ some pizza.” and off she stomped. Ted enthusiatically joined her, and Nash followed behind, adhearing her nametag to her overalls as she walked.

Bea looked at Bahrat .“I feel like good old Angelica isn’t real happy about having to do this thing, and I kind of felt like she wasn’t super happy about me in particular?”

Bahrat was waving at someone across the room who was very, very tall and looked a bit opaque in their middle region. Without looking at Bea he said “HQ never wants to deal with stuff, it’s actually a good thing that we… you… forced them to have a little get together. I’m going to go say hi to Hank” and off he went.

Bea watched him go, and then started scanning the room for her friends. She didn’t see them, but she did see three people – two men and a woman dressed in black overalls –  on the other side of the room staring at her. Not talking, not moving, just staring. One of the was floating. Floating and staring. She looked around to make sure it was, in fact, her they were focused on, and sure enough, nothing else in her direction. She looked back. They were still looking at her. She sighed and walked over to them.

“Um, hi there. I noticed you glaring at me and thought I should come say hello. My name is" she pointed at her nametag “Bea, and I see that you are ... Pitor, Georgio and smiley-face-triangle-bear-emoji?” as she read their nametags she realized their overalls weren’t black, but rather a deep oxblood colour. “So um, which department are you from?” She smiled her best coworker smile.

“We’re from Llucid” Georgio said as if a lucid piece of trash had just asked him the dumbest question ever. “And we know who you are.”

“Oh, ok. GREAT” She kept her smile firmly in place, not wanting to give them the sastisfaction of how squirmy and gross they were making her feel. “What a super interesting department you work in, it’s so… oh hey” she waved at no one “I need to go. Over to there.” She pointed noncommitally towards ‘away.  “But let’s catch up over some pizza later and you can tell me all about how having The Dreamer take over your job every time must get really old. Bye!” and she walked away, smile dropping.

Walking past the drinks table there was coffee, red punch, orange punch and what looked to be some sort of bubble tea? Maybe? Something with stuff floating in it anyway that didn’t seem like an accident. She grabbed a glass and since it seemed like there was a lot of the red stuff left, but orange was going fast, she ladled in some of the orange stuff, taking a sip and then looking at it. Did it taste a little boozy, or was that wishful thinking?

Ted caught her eye across the room, raised his glass of also orange punch, and gave Bea a quick metal sign. She gave him a little half wave back, and he went back to laughing with the group of people in yellow overalls which was… ORA?  Or maybe Dream Media Systems? She made a mental note to get to know who wears what before the next one of thes thingies and also why and how was Ted enjoying this so much?

Nash came up next to Bea, and took a sip of her own orange punch. “Ted spiked it, obviously.”  She took another long sip. Bea sighed. Of course he did. She took a big old gulp. Thank you, Ted.

The lights started to flicker off and on, as Angelica stood at the podium in front. “Hello, thank you, if we could all..? Take our seats now, we can..?  Get started. Hi, thank you, please be…. seated? Yes? Ok, then thank you. Thank you.”

Everyone moved more or less back into their teams and sat together. The room was quiet, Angelica looked pleasedish. She began to speak and as she did, a lithe man elegantly dressed head to toe in shades of ecru, bland but well tailored stood up and walked to the podium next to her.

“Ok, so this is Marcell Munth, he is the Deputy Associate Director of Lateral Dream Alignment and he’s going to be speaking…?  About a very important topic? Understanding Dream Briefings. Thank you…? Marcell.

He confidnetly stood in behind the podium. Clearly confident and happy to be given a platfrom. He raised his arms in greeting: “Good midcycle to you all, dream team.”

“It’s such a joy to see so many departments represented here today.” He looked around the room, nodding at each department as he spoke “From Basic to Lucid, from Prophetic to… Environmental, I think? Yes, great to see you. We are, each of us, a necessary thread in the tapestry of collaborative unconscious content creation.” Josie and Nash exchanged a glance. This guy was good.

He moved out from behind the podium, a little closer to the audience, his sand coloured microphone semi visible against his skin. “Now, we all know that dreaming is not a solo sport. Nor is it a team sport. It’s… well, it’s more like parallel jogging. In the fog. With headphones in. But in the same general direction. That’s why today, we’re reiterating our shared values of cooperative non-collaboration, or what we like to call…”

Dramatic pause as his first slide came up. It said Working Together, Apart™ in big, bold sans serif across the screen. He looked at it, smiled and continued. “Working Together, but apart. Now, this might sound contridictory, but hey, we in the dream biz know a thing or two about contridictions, am I right?” He laughed, and a few people in the audience nodded along. Ted let out a full on “you said it, man!” and slapped his knee. Marcell’s smile cracked just the slightest as he looked over at Ted, but continued.

Let’s take a moment to align on rerouting etiquette. If you receive a brief that contains, say, prophecy markers, animal symbolism not covered by your sector, or emotional resonance above 8.7, we ask that you don’t try to ‘wing it,’ or as one team did last quarter, to” and here he used air quotes  “’see what happens if we just make it funnier.’”

Bea slumped down in her char a little bit, swallowing the last of her orange drink. The beverage station was soooo far away. She slumped a little more.

Marcell hit his clicker, went to the next slide which read:

He continued: “The 3R method is your friend. It can stop you from doing something inappropriate. For example, if a brief isn’t yours, you can what?”  He looked around for a second, no one said anything “That’s right, you can assume it isn’t yours. Even if it feels exciting. Especially if it feels exciting. Excitement is a red flag.” Click. Next slide.

Curiosity is the leading cause of cross-sector contamination.

“Now, I want to touch on boredom and curiosity.” He lookd stratigh out into the crowd. “Those twin motivators that drive so much of our best and, unfortunatley also our worst work. It can lead to innovation, sure, but also to breach events, temporal bleed, and, in one case, a colleue who is in this very room right now, who was made entirely of glass for over two weeks.”

He looked right at Bea. Everyone looked at Bea. Bea looked straight ahead.

“So if you feel curious, Instead, pause. Breathe. Consider the infinite spirals of consequence. Remember the proper Interdream Protocol Chain of Command™. Every brief was approved by Dream Legal, but only for activation by the assigned team. Which brings us to this…” Click.

If it isn’t your dream to dream, don’t dream it.

“Rembmer, when you feel that itch to do more… consider doing less. And whatever you do, make sure that it really is your job that you are doing. Not The Animal Dream Department’s job because you are” Air quotes. Again. “’curious’ about what kind jobs you can do when The Dreamer is a sparrow. Let me tell you, the years and years of experience it takes to get that kind of thing right” He looked over at the ADD, in their grey overalls, sitting up proudly and smiling. “You guys are doing a great job, by the way, keep it up”

He looked back at the screen. And repeated the line that was still up there in that same big bold sans serif font.

“So that’s what I want you to take with you today, as I wrap this up, although this is not really a conclusion so much as a transition into pizza” More laughs and general chuckles. He had them eating out of his hand, and he knew it.” He smiled.

I leave you with our Q3 mantra: ‘If it isn’t your dream to dream, don’t dream it.’ Thank you. And remember: you are not alone… but please act like you are.”

People were clapping, Bea got up, and headed straight for the door. Josie followed, grabbing the rest of the orange punch. In the hallway, Josie caught up to Bea.

“Hey, don’t let those dweebs make you feel any sort of way. First off, it was ALL of our decision. Secondly, those people would not understand a good idea if it was on slide 5 of their boring ass powerpoint.” She made a yuck face. “and C?” Her face brightened as she held the half-full punch container up “Orange stuff! And if we go to finish this bad boy off in “REM Spark West” I believe that meeting room ⁄ exists outside of time, so no one will even miss us”

Bea grinned, half hugged her friend, being careful not to spill the punch, and they started moving in the direction of REM Spark West, hitting a non ADD vending machine along the way.