Girl In Your Dreams

Imaginary Training Montage

by Cherry

Tags: #cw:depression #cw:gender_dysphoria #D/s #dom:female #hypnosis #transgender_characters #urban_fantasy #but_a_weird_sorta_furry #dom:nb #furry #like_mostly_how_real_life_furries_are #sub:female #sub:male #trans_egg

CW: discussion of bullying

In his dream, Lucas was young. He was young, and he was standing in a playground getting mocked by bullies. He couldn't even remember their faces, even the names were difficult to recall, but he remembered how the names felt when they called him, and even thirteen years after he'd left school they were still haunting him like ghosts. He wanted to lash out, physically hurt them in the way they were emotionally hurting him, but when he threw a punch, it seemed to land with no more physical force than a whisper. The bullies just laughed even harder at his weakness.

A giant, clawed hand reached out from nowhere, snatched one of the faceless nightmare-children by the head and threw it so hard Lucas saw it pass over the horizon.

Myrrah tilted Lucas' chin up with a finger. "Hey kid, wanna learn dream magic?"

AlternianDidact: Why did you get stuck in my brain?

AlternianDidact: I was just thinking it over, and it seems pretty unlikely you never had someone wake up while you were in their dream before.

HypnospacePsychonaut: See Lucas I knew you were a smart boy

HypnospacePsychonaut: And you are totally right!

HypnospacePsychonaut: Usually if I'm in a dream and someone wakes up, I fall into The Void

AlternianDidact: That sounds... ominous?

HypnospacePsychonaut: Hahaha no not relaly katie came up with the name she's turbogoth like that lmao

AlternianDidact: Katie?

HypnospacePsychonaut: Oh right, she's a member of my cule

AlternianDidact: I'm not sure I'm familiar with that word.

HypnospacePsychonaut: Polycule! A group of people, some of whom are in relationships with each other!

HypnospacePsychonaut: Katie's one of my girlfriends.

AlternianDidact: Multiple girlfriends?

HypnospacePsychonaut: Yeah but not just girlfriends!

HypnospacePsychonaut: we got boyfriends, theyfriends and an itfriend in here too!

HypnospacePsychonaut: honestly it's wild

HypnospacePsychonaut: but like

HypnospacePsychonaut: not everyone in the cule is into everyone else in the cule necessarily

HypnospacePsychonaut: so not every dot has a line to every other dot

HypnospacePsychonaut: and some of the lines are dotted or do zigzags or have fuckin loop-de-loops

AlternianDidact: So it's like a multi-protocol partial mesh network for relationships.

HypnospacePsychonaut: That is an extremely nerdy and very accurate way of putting it!

"Alright, let's start with something really simple."

Myrrah was standing with Lucas in what he felt certain was his Year 7 form room. Once she had turned up in his dream, they'd hopped through places and memories for a while until they found one that matched the theme of to "learning" and "education." Part of him was sure that his actual Year 7 form room had looked absolutely nothing like this - the ceiling was too low, the desks were all in the wrong places and the wrong shapes, the stools were the wrong height and the posters displayed unreadable gibberish beneath vague, shapeless images. But the dream told him that's what it was, and so long as he didn't look too closely at anything, that was all that mattered.

"Imagine a green cube," Myrrah instructed, adding "a Perfectly Generic Object, if you will."

Lucas raised an eyebrow, and a slight smile played on his lips. "Last time I referenced something to Homestuck, you called me a nerd!"

Myrrah tilted her head downwards, maintaining direct eye contact with the boy. "Did I, at any point, ever suggest I wasn't also a total fuckin' nerd? Now c'mon, make with the green cube."

Lucas closed his eyes - or at least, his dream eyes - and focused. Green cubes were easy enough. A cube was a simple shape, and green was a simple colour. "Okay, I've imagined a green cube."

"Now this bit's a little tricky 'cause I can't just tell you exactly what to do," Myrrah said, cracking each knuckle on her giant fingers one at a time. "Best I can explain it is: decide that there is a green cube on the desk."

Lucas opened his eyes, looked at the desk and imagined there being a green cube sitting atop it. Nothing happened, and he grunted in frustration.

AlternianDidact: Sorry for getting you sidetracked. You were talking about the Void?

HypnospacePsychonaut: you are fine Lucas!

HypnospacePsychonaut: And yes, The Void(tm)

HypnospacePsychonaut: so basically it's like what is underneath dreams?

HypnospacePsychonaut: idk like a foundation or something, or an originator, or a final destination

HypnospacePsychonaut: the primordial ooze of dreams?

HypnospacePsychonaut: the graveyard of dreamstuff?

HypnospacePsychonaut: (lmao gfdi that's so goth katie would have a field day)

HypnospacePsychonaut: fuck idk its complicated

HypnospacePsychonaut: i bet if you saw it you'd have a much better way of describing it

HypnospacePsychonaut: Basically, dream garbage falls down into The Void.

HypnospacePsychonaut: (hi it's me i'm dream garbage lmao ;D)

Myrrah gave Lucas a sympathetic glance. "Like I said, it's kind of difficult to explain exactly, but it's not about imagining. You've already imagined the green cube. That image already exists. What you're doing now is just putting it into this image."

Lucas focused again, trying to skip past the point of imagining the green cube sitting upon the desk, right to the green cube just being on the desk. Nothing happened.

"Fuck," Lucas growled, slapping the desk. "I can't make it real."

Myrrah stood up, and strode over to Lucas. "Okay, okay, try to think about it this way: Matrix metaphors. This desk," she said, giving the wood a sharp slap, "isn't any more real than the green cube. Everything is imaginary here! We're inside your mind - and if you think about it, you already created everything that's already here! What's one more thing?"

Lucas turned the thought over in his min. Trying to mentally deconstruct the barrier between his surroundings and his imagination was harder than it sounded, even while he was literally standing in his imagination. There was going to be a green cube on the desk. There was going to be a green cube on the desk. Right now, there was going to be a green cube on the desk. At this very moment, a green cube would be on the desk. A green cube was going to become onto the desk? A green cube, right now, at this moment, would be on the desk. Lucas was making a decision, and the decision was that a green cube would be on the desk, right now, at this very moment, here.

And yet, the green cube stubbornly refused to be upon the desk, or at all.

AlternianDidact: What does the Void look like?

HypnospacePsychonaut: have you ever seen a surrealist painting from the 1930s

AlternianDidact: Like MC Escher?

HypnospacePsychonaut: i was more thinking max ernst but good call on escher actually

HypnospacePsychonaut: just a whole ass sea of nothing with disjointed images floating through it

HypnospacePsychonaut: all the bits and pieces of dreams you don't remember when you wake

HypnospacePsychonaut: jumbled and mushed together like soggy oatmeal

HypnospacePsychonaut: everything every color and none all at once

Lucas threw up his hands. "For fuck's sake! I'm never going to get this right."

A big, fuzzy hand reached over and gave his shoulder a comforting squeeze. "Hey-hey-hey, c'mon now, we've been at this for like, what, ten minutes? You don't expect to be master of the art after ten minutes, do you?"

"It just... it feels bad when nothing is happening," Lucas whined, looking away from his teacher. "Just willing the cube to appear and it doesn't!"

Myrrah gave the boy a little shake. "Okay, okay, then let's try something a little different. Instead of just sort of doing nothing and trying to brain-force the cube into existence, why not... okay, try this: pick the cube up off the desk."

Lucas sighed exasperatedly, motioning at the desk. "But the cube isn't there!"

Myrrah gently grabbed Lucas' hand and put it on the desk. "Neither is the desk, but you can still feel it in your hand, right? Push the desk."

Lucas put his back into it, and the desk slid along the floor with a squeal of protest.

"There you go," Myrrah remarked, nodding approvingly. "Desk moved, and that's exactly as real as the cube. Now, instead of imagining it being there, reach down and close your hand around the cube. Pick it up."

Lucas reached down towards the desk, splaying out his fingers just so as he predicted they would fall around a cube of just such a size, applied pressure as his muscle memory told him would be necessary to grasp a cube of just such a weight. His hand grasped empty space, came away empty, and he sighed.

Undeterred, Myrrah continued encouraging him. "Don't overthink it. Fast movement, like you're in a hurry, and you need to grab the cube now."

Lucas looked away, took a breath, looked back, and snatched his hand down along the desk, grabbing the cube.

It took a moment for him to realise what he was holding: a lime-green cube, about the size of a coffee mug. He turned it around and around in his hand, devouring it with his eyes, before looking up at Myrrah with an astonished smile.

She gave him a toothy grin and a satisfied nod, and then clapped him on the shoulder so hard he almost fell over.

HypnospacePsychonaut: sometimes avant garde painters would like

HypnospacePsychonaut: do crazy shit

HypnospacePsychonaut: like stuff that was literally meant to make them crazy

HypnospacePsychonaut: they would deprive themselves of sleep for days

HypnospacePsychonaut: or isolate themselves from all human contact

HypnospacePsychonaut: or fast like monks

HypnospacePsychonaut: or just do hella drugs

HypnospacePsychonaut: and it was all about, idk

HypnospacePsychonaut: trying to divorce themselves from conventional frames of refernece

HypnospacePsychonaut: *refernce

HypnospacePsychonaut: **REFERENCE FUCK LMAO

HypnospacePsychonaut: what do shapes and colors even MEAN without the context of our shared understanding

HypnospacePsychonaut: if you'd never seen the color red before what would you think it meant?

HypnospacePsychonaut: and The Void is kinda like that but, uh

HypnospacePsychonaut: for whole ass images and ideas?

Lucas inspected the untidy pile of green cubes he'd produced. There were about thirty of them, and they were all far from perfect; they were mismatched sizes, some had wonky lines or angles that weren't perfectly square, one was blue for some reason, and one had somehow ended up with seven sides despite undeniably still being a cube. But he'd produced them with only the power of his mind, and given his earlier frustration, that felt like a spectacular win.

He closed his eyes briefly, and opened them, revealing a new cube on the desk. This one was pretty much perfectly square on all sides, and matched the dimensions of the last three he'd made.

"Okay," Myrrah chirped, patting him on the back. "Looks like we've got green cubes down pat. Wanna try something a little less... platonic solid?"

Lucas took a deep breath. "Alright. Let's give it a shot."

Myrrah raised one of her hands to her mouth, and by the time it reached its destination, it was grasping a large white coffee mug. "Coffee mug. More complex shape, but not by much."

Lucas pictured the coffee mug in his mind, and then reached out to grasp it off the table.

He raised a new green cube to his lips, grimacing.

Myrrah grinned ruefully. "It's okay. We're gonna practice."

HypnospacePsychonaut: like i guess one way i would describe The Void

HypnospacePsychonaut: is it's like

HypnospacePsychonaut: where do thoughts go when nobody is thinking them?

HypnospacePsychonaut: down there

HypnospacePsychonaut: The Void

HypnospacePsychonaut: woah fuck sorry lmao that got very wordy and existntenitla

HypnospacePsychonaut: *existential

AlternianDidact: Please don't apologise! It was fascinating to read.

HypnospacePsychonaut: Glad I could fascinate you Lucas <3

It took a few more tries to break out of the green cubes rut, but eventually he was making coffee mugs. They weren't made of anything meaningful in the strictest sense, just the same generic dreamstuff as the cubes. They didn't reflect light in the way he would expect, they didn't feel like ceramic under his fingers and when he threw one against the wall as an experiment, it bounced and fell to the ground with a dull thud rather than smashing. But they were identifiably coffee-mug-shaped, and that was a victory.

Myrrah called it a night after Lucas managed to make a coffee mug with a green cube design on the side. The first few attempts had ended with green cubes lodged halfway inside a coffee mug, but eventually he managed to separate the concepts in his consciousness enough to get the job done. It didn't feel like they'd been practicing all that long, but Myrrah wanted to leave while Lucas still had a lot of time left in his sleep cycle, so that he didn't accidentally wake up and trap her in his head for another day.

HypnospacePsychonaut: But yeah basically the answer to your original question

HypnospacePsychonaut: (why did I get stuck in your brain)

HypnospacePsychonaut: is unfortunately going to be way less fascinating

HypnospacePsychonaut: basically i don't fucking know lol

HypnospacePsychonaut: literally never happened to me before

HypnospacePsychonaut: when you snapped awake i expected to get dumped in The Void

HypnospacePsychonaut: leaving The Void is a giant pain in the ass

HypnospacePsychonaut: But I can do my "wake up now!" routine

HypnospacePsychonaut: or worst case scenario i just wait until i wake up normally

HypnospacePsychonaut: or i get val to wake me up after a set time

HypnospacePsychonaut: (val = cute af itfriend who lives with me, also in the cule)

HypnospacePsychonaut: but for some reason val couldn't wake me up and i couldn't leave

"So what's on the curriculum today," Lucas asked, as Myrrah poked around one of his old memories of his hometown. "Coffee cups that can actually break? Spatulas that aren't perfectly flat?"

This was the fifth session. Myrrah didn't have the time to be in his dreams every day, but it felt like squeezing in five sessions for him in two weeks was still pretty generous on her part.

Myrrah grunted, pulled her head out of a doorway she was inspecting and turned back to Lucas. "Nah. I wanted to try something a little bit different today. How do you feel about architecture?"

Lucas scratched his head. "In a general sense, or..."

"Do you have any strong memories of corridors?" Myrrah enquired, folding her arms. "I need a nice corridor for this to work."

Lucas thought for a moment, and grimaced. "I think I know just the place, but we're either going to need to get very improvisational with the theme-linking, or walk through a bunch of scenes to get there."

Myrrah placed her hands on her hips, looking eager. "What theme are we trying to hit here, exactly?"

Lucas looked her dead in the eye. "Punishment."

There was a long silence.

Myrrah raised an eyebrow. "So like..."

Lucas rolled his eyes. "Not the fun kind."

Myrrah smirked. "Right."

HypnospacePsychonaut: you got a real fuckin sticky brain Lucas, mind like an actual steel trap

AlternianDidact: Well I'm truly sorry about that.

HypnospacePsychonaut: lmfao buddy how could you possibly be responsible for that

HypnospacePsychonaut: it's not like you were practicing psychic brain judo to trap dreamwalker ladies

HypnospacePsychonaut: (unless you were in which case: a. rude b. hot c. rad)

AlternianDidact: People always tell me I have trouble letting things go, but I never thought it would get this bad.

HypnospacePsychonaut: Lucas I want you to know I would usually chew you out about self-depricating humor

HypnospacePsychonaut: but that was actually really funny so you get a pass <3

"Oh, the principal's office!" Myrrah cooed, inspecting a door that clearly said Head Teacher. "So many memories. Lucas, did you get sent here a lot?" She clucked her tongue in mock disapproval. "And here I thought you were a bright and well-behaved young man, not a delinquent! I'm scandalized, you naughty boy."

Lucas turned away, cursing the fact that somehow his blushing was even more obvious in the dream world. He cleared his throat, trying to maintain his composure. "Apperances can be deceiving, I suppose. So what did you want to teach me?"

Myrrah took a look down the corridor Lucas had provided for her - a row of doors on one side, with plate glass windows on the other through which the school's playground could be seen. She really would've preferred something more enclosed for this lesson, something from a hospital or a hotel, but if she wanted perfection she'd be here all night, and if she was here all night she risked being here all day as well. "Alright. We're gonna make this boy longer."

Lucas gave the space a good, hard look. He was sure the actual space would feel incredibly banal to him now, but because it was built from the memory of a difficult ten-year-old child who usually only saw it when he'd acted out, it already felt quite imposing. Stretching it out wouldn't improve his feelings about it, but still, he wanted to try and learn this skill.

"A trick I always find helps with this is to make Ls with your index finger and thumb." Myrrah held up her paws, demonstrating the gesture. "Put them both at the same distance from your face, one covering a point where the wall meets the ceiling close to you, and the other one covering where the floor meets the wall at the far end of the corridor. Then move that one further away, and drag the whole room with it."

Lucas cracked his neck in the same way he'd seen Myrrah do before she got to work on something, squared his shoulders and helds his hands up the way she suggested, his left hand covering the wall-to-ceiling join just above him and the right hand covering floor-to-wall at the end of the corridor. Slowly, he moved his right hand away from his face.

Instantly, the corridor stretched out, doors and plate windows repeating themselves over and over as the end of the corridor slowly vanished into the distance.

Myrrah rumbled happily. "First time! See, you're more confident now! So bring it back for us. Crush that space right back down until we can touch the far wall."

Lucas jerked his right hand back, and the corridor collapsed back into its original dimensions like a telescope, but kept going, kept squeezing itself until they were more or less standing in a closet.

The hyena clapped Lucas on the shoulder again, grinning broadly. "Good night's work! Who said getting sent to the principal can't be fun?"

For the first time in a long while, Lucas felt his sense of humour well up, and he wagged a finger. "Would that make you a head teacher?"

"Ey!" Myrrah chuckled, making finger-guns.

HypnospacePsychonaut: Are you sleeping better btw

HypnospacePsychonaut: Did doing the body scans help

AlternianDidact: Yes, actually. I'm still not sleeping at the right times for the rest of England, but at least I'm sleeping for long enough.

HypnospacePsychonaut: ah you've become permanent night owl

HypnospacePsychonaut: Proud of you though bby that's progress!

HypnospacePsychonaut: Are you still having the bad dreams?

AlternianDidact: Yes, but not the same ones. Now I get the ones where I'm in fights but my punches don't land with any force.

HypnospacePsychonaut: ooof yeah that's no good

So instead, Lucas snapped his fingers, and wondered why he had been so afraid of a bunch of green cubes.

HypnospacePsychonaut: Hey like, feel free to say no if you're not comfortable

HypnospacePsychonaut: But would you like to try doing dream stuff again sometime?

HypnospacePsychonaut: I could teach you how to lucid dream!

AlternianDidact: Are you not worried you'll get stuck in my head again?

HypnospacePsychonaut: honestly yeah a bit lol

HypnospacePsychonaut: but i trust you to be more accommodating about going the fuck back to sleep this time

HypnospacePsychonaut: and at least this time i can warn val i might be gone a while

AlternianDidact: I mean it would be nice to have a little more control over what I see when I sleep. It's just that I feel like I don't have much to offer in return.

HypnospacePsychonaut: If Alex was here he would say something like

HypnospacePsychonaut: "decouple yourself from the capitalist mindset of assuming all services must be repaid"

HypnospacePsychonaut: (Alex = extremely hot snake boy from cule)

HypnospacePsychonaut: but i don't need to be paid to help you out lmao

HypnospacePsychonaut: i feel like we're friends! or maybe getting to be friends.

HypnospacePsychonaut: i have ridden shotgun in your head for a day by accident

AlternianDidact: Alright. Let's give it a try.

I'm so proud of that "head teacher" pun

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