#shared dreams?

[20minutesofcoherence]

Part Three

The girl in the bookstore. Right. Her name's Suzanne. Zan, for short. As for how I ended up talking to her... Well, I pretty much just walked up to her. She saw me coming and gave me this weird smile. Like I was being funny but she wasn't sure if it was on purpose or not.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi."

"Jake." I held out my hand. She shook it.

"Zan," she replied.

"Wanna get coffee sometime?" I asked.

"Sure. How about now?"

"Sounds great."

So we went out for coffee. And although I might make it sound like I was oh-so-smooth and stuff, it really felt hella awkward at the time. At first we pretty much just talked about regular stuff... I guess you could actually call it 'first-date' stuff. Standard first-date stuff. I mean, not that I do dates or anything like that. That's the kind of stuff regular people do. Sorry, I'm getting off track. So yeah, after some boring talk, eventually she just couldn't stand it anymore (or something, I guess) and just blurted out:

"I know you."

"Yeah," I replied. I mean, seriously, what else was I supposed to say?

"And you obviously know me."

"Doesn't make sense to me, either."

She gave me this weighing-and-measuring look. I realized that she actually had dark blue eyes.

"So..." she said, "In that case, why?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Why-slash-how-slash-what the hell happened?" she continued. "If this was a coincidence, I have to say it would be the WEIRDEST coincidence ever."

"What, you think it means something?" I said skeptically.

"I... have no idea," she said, starting to smile, "But isn't it cool?"

This I was not expecting. "Cool?! How is it cool?"

Now she was totally grinning. Man, she has a great smile. "How is it not cool?" she said. "If people can share dreams, do you have any idea of what the implications are? The possibilities?"

"But what if it's a one-time thing?" I asked. I just can't help being skeptical all the time. Especially about this kind of stuff.

"Alright, then," said Zan. "Let's see if we can arrange another meeting. Through our dreams. I'll bet you another coffee date that it'll work."

"Whoa, whoa," I said, "Hold up. I don't do dates."

She rolled her eyes and snorted. "Sure you do," she said with another grin. "You're doing one right now."

[20minutesofcoherence]

Part One

Have you ever met someone in a dream, gotten to know them, had an adventure or two, maybe even fallen in love - and then woken up and felt terrible to find out they never existed?

I felt exactly like that one morning. Fuckin' sucks, man.

Of course, in retrospect, everything seems obvious - "Oh, of COURSE it was a dream because yadda yadda this that harbl blah." At the time, though, you would have sworn that it was as real as, uh... well, reality.

So... I met a girl. Of course. And just to preempt those of you with dirtier minds out there, no, it was not THAT kind of dream. Anyway. She had the most incredible violet eyes. I'm not entirely sure how rare those are, but last time I checked they were pretty way far out there. I should probably look it up or something. So yeah. Violet eyes. Long-ish, curly black hair. A bit on the tall side, I think. Glasses. Moderately attractive physically, stunning face. Of course, all of this is pretty subjective information, seeing as it was, well, a dream. But yeah. She was... pretty cool. Couldn't remember her name at the time.

And here comes the interesting part. A day or so later, I met her. Well, when I say 'met' I mean 'saw and recognized'.

It gets weirder. So here I am, staring kinda slack-jawed at this kinda nerdy, kinda hot girl in the bookstore (your standard coffee-and-nietzche hangout for local hipsters, 'cool intellectuals', college students... you get the idea), and, get this, she recognizes me. I had one of those moments when you just know someone recognized you. And I don't really consider myself to be a particularly good-looking guy, so she definitely wasn't amazed at my stellar looks or anything.

This left me with the dilemma, "What the hell do you do in this kind of situation?" On one hand, I mean, sure; I can just walk up to her and say "Hi". But then what? "I met you in a dream?" Please. That's ridiculous and everybody knows it. On the other hand - what, do I just let this pass me by even though I might be missing out on something really, and I mean really fascinating? Fuck that, man. That's for lame-asses and cowards.

So I went with option number one. Ridiculosity. Probably not an actual word, but I'd say that makes it fit the situation even better.

I'll bet now you're interested. Now you're wondering what happened next. At the very least, you have a few questions that you'd like me to answer.

Lemme just finish this coffee and I'll tell you all about it. That dream I told you about? That was just the beginning.