I Dreamed of an Alternate Universe

            I just had the coolest, most complete story dream I have ever experienced, and it fit so well into my current life that it was kinda disturbing.

            In the dream I am waking up and just ready to move home from the current housing I am in and my brother will be arriving to help me move, that is when things start to get "Twilight Zone".

A lesson in subtle tension build.

             I notice subtle differences in how my room is laid out and what items were still there and not there, like I have a space heater and not my portable fan, the nails sticking out of the wall are different than the ones I know are currently sticking out of the wall, and I have a lot more random stuff cluttering up the place that needs to be put in moving bins.  I mention all of this to my brother, Seth once he arrives and he tells me flatly that I am delusional, and I try to tell him something odd is going on but he just thinks I'm being foolish.

            Then shit got real.

            I find out that Netflix is only a fledgling industry, that Facebook doesn't exist, and that the war in the Middle East has ballooned into full on massive multi national brouhaha that demands a draft.  The world seems emptier, and more cluttered with litter, people I know and am friends with don't know me at all.  And I am aware of all the changes, and how the world is wrong.

Thankfully, alternate reality Josh wasn't in the military, a place I would find myself short on training and experience and likely to end the dream missing a limb.

             Being who I am, I come to the conclusion that I am either getting an "It's a Wonderful Life" scenario or I am in a parallel dimension (Warning: Link leads to Tvtropes).  I begin hunting down friends of mine from this world who know science and explain things, but they don't know me from a crazy guy, I have no social networking sites to work with, and it is always apparently raining there, because at one point I am running through the rain down Tennessee Street in front of bizarre-world FSU howling at the dreary wet sky.  I had no idea I liked my life so much.  It is fortunate at that time I run into a friend of mine, Rachel who is running through the rain and I basically follow her talking and joking the whole time.

Sort of a Redemption in the Rain (Warning: Link leads to Tvtropes)

            She jokes about how women in general and her boyfriend wouldn't appreciate the stalker behavior, but she and I get along and she and I end up hanging out in what passes for a gym in the alternate world which is more like a gymnasium with mats intended for stretching and calisthenics, but no weight machines anywhere.  I of course downplay the man from an alternate dimension angle when talking to Earth-2 Rachel, playing off my current predicament as being in a new place that is familiar but so starkly different, more that I am unfamiliar with Earth-2 FSU, then the entire world being dreary.  She talks with me and at the end of it all I resign myself to simply being stuck in the alternate universe and at the very least getting to the extremely sad and lousy task of finding my friends from the other world to enjoy.  She is kind of wise in the real world too, just FYI.

            I begin patronizing Netflix and telling people by word of mouth to do the same, one good thing about the alternate world, DVD's still exist and the complete series of the 90's "X-Men" cartoon is available, and in a moment of brilliant creativity I watch my brain re-do that opening theme with an alternate cast with alternate uniforms, hence why I found the dream so complete with the illusion of a story and world creation, my brain focuses on the little things.

Wish I could draw, I envisioned some cool alternate costumes.  Also, yes watching a cartoon was a highlight of my dream!

             At the end of the dream I am back home in Sarasota county and I am about to walk into a mall entrance with my parents (strangely they are not different in this world, just like Seth) when I actually start to feel the universe crumble.  I, in movie ending fashion tell them, "Guys, I feel different, I think I'm going back."  Which they are thinking, 'why has our son finally lost his mind with the whole parallel dimension thing?'  I start hearing a distant chiming (which was my alarm going off to wake me) and I hug my alternate universe family and brother telling them, "I think I'll go back to being myself again, at least I hope so, but it's good to know that you guys are still as good in any world, even if it is a shit dystopia vision like this one."  (Seriously, if I am not giving you the classic vibe of a world that is bleaker than our own with the, no Facebook,  a GIANT DRAFT DEMANDING WAR, the constant rain, persistent litter, dirty floors like vacuums are outlawed, and a seeming emptiness that permeates the air, then try to crank up your vision of it to match).

            As I feel the world start to pull away from me, my Mom says, "Well, thanks" for my dystopia comment, and I say, "I love you guys" in a dead serious fashion.  They say, "We love you too." Then.  Blackness.

            And I woke up.