#23 of 100: Dreamstream
My favourite dreamstream creator ensured I was eager to fall asleep every night, but then the dreams twisted into nightmares.
I subscribed to the dreamstream of my favourite creator. Every night I would uncover artefacts in ancient tombs, or discover underwater cities, or soar through the air on the back of a dragon. The creator shaped every dream, putting in far more effort than her competitors. I could feel every individual scale on the back of the dragon, and breathe in the musty smell of the untouched tombs. Sleep was no longer a wasteful disruption to my hectic schedule, but a treasured part of every night.
Fans would flock to her social media to praise her creations and suggest new dream experiences. Ones that were too weird or too vulgar were ignored, but she honoured many fan requests and built a vast following.
One night, her dreamstream changed. Instead of seeing the wonders of the world, the visuals were pitch black. I could hear muffled voices, but could not speak myself. Something long and thin was being thrust down my throat, and I felt a sharp scratch on my arm. My lips and fingertips turned numb from the cold. Pure panic seared through me, undiluted by any other thought.
When I woke, I was shaking. I tried to keep myself together during work, but the dream had been so visceral I couldn't take my mind off it. All of her followers had experienced the same dream. They demanded answers from her on her dreamstream profile, and discussed whether the stream had been hacked, or if she was switching to a nightmare aesthetic.
That night, it took me over an hour to drift into sleep. When I did, the darkness returned, but the rest of the sensations had changed.
I was naked and harsh winds battered my flesh so brutally they seemed to tear into my skin. It didn't make me stumble - I had no sense of an up or down that would allow me to stumble. An irregular thumping sound surrounded me, and whatever was causing it was getting closer. I felt something inside me slither about, as if an organ had displaced itself and was exploring the avenues of my body. Despite the strangeness of it all, I felt neither fear nor sadness nor anger.
Only when I woke did the horror creep in. What my dream self accepted, my waking self found profoundly wrong, like water rushing uphill, or cause and effect reversing places.
When I searched online for any clarification from her regarding the change of the dream content, I instead found a statement from her family.
After being rushed to hospital due to a suspected drug overdose, she had died the day before. The family had assumed the dreamstream would be automatically terminated, but instead it had continued. Some part of her was still dreaming, still creating.
This was a nicely clear-sighted concept. It reminded me of a Junji Ito comic and was exactly the right length.
There was an interesting scene in S01E04 Wolfpack which had a similar concept. One of the group suffered from anxiety, when he has an anxiety attack the entire pack (of four) was struck with crippling panic as they shared a mental connection.