Cut ties off the shirt he wear

[sovay]

Probably thanks to the quantity of televised science fiction I had recently subjected myself to, I crashed sleeplessly into a nap and dreamed a complex plot full of interstellar politics of which the sole scene I retained was set at an intergalactic university, during a lecture by a diplomat on staff. He's middle-aged, human, conservatively dressed, and he is saying something about protocols when a bucket of water out of nowhere hits him in the face. The students don't know how to react, especially when he just takes off his glasses, dries them on his handkerchief, wipes his face, and keeps talking as if he hadn't been so startlingly interrupted. And a second bucket of water out of nowhere hits him in the face. Now the students giggle nervously and then they just giggle, because it keeps happening, at intervals as unpredictable and unimpeachable as slapstick comedy—catching him mid-sentence with a sputter, forcing him to start over each time and sometimes get dashed twice in a row for his troubles. Few things are funnier than an authority figure losing their dignity despite their best efforts. He keeps lecturing. By the end of it he's soaked to the skin and the class stopped paying attention to anything he was saying several buckets back, when he wasn't dripping into such an impressive puddle. More out of habit than efficacy, since his handkerchief's as damp as the rest of him, he's polishing his glasses again as he says matter-of-factly, "And now you're wondering how you can ever take me seriously again. But I can tell you that sooner or later out there, worse is going to happen to every one of you and you're going to have to make sure they still do," and he puts his still-wet glasses back on and looks out over the class without a trace of embarrassment and they realize that was the lesson and they should probably have been taking notes on the lecture, too. I woke feeling I had just gotten unsubtle advice from my id and feeling a bit weird about it.

Comments

[gwynnega]

That is an amazing dream.

[sovay]

That is an amazing dream.

I never feel I can take credit for these things, but then I don't know who to blame, either.

[vass]

What a great scene!

[sovay]

What a great scene!

It's the one I remembered!

[sholio]

Probably thanks to the quantity of televised science fiction I had recently subjected myself to

The Expanse by any chance? :D

That is one heck of a dream. I feel as if an intergalactic university would make a good setting for something or other.

[sovay]

The Expanse by any chance?

Alas, Star Trek. And tonight I subjected myself to further in the forms of Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis. I should probably watch, like, a noir to recalibrate soon.

(It has been unclear from your posts whether you actively recommend The Expanse or just really loved the physics and the third season.)

That is one heck of a dream. I feel as if an intergalactic university would make a good setting for something or other.

I believe there's one in Phyllis Gotlieb's GalFed, but I don't think it was ever used as a central setting. If you feel inspired . . .

[sholio]

(It has been unclear from your posts whether you actively recommend The Expanse or just really loved the physics and the third season.)

I actually do really recommend it! I think in terms of technical quality it might be the best sci-fi show I've ever seen. It's certainly the smartest. It occasionally misses the mark for me, sometimes in emotional ways and sometimes in ways that I think are objective issues, but on the whole it hits much more than it misses, and I think I'd recommend it to people across the board, at least if they're not too offput by a certain level of gore and darkness.

[thisbluespirit]

That is a very impressive dream lesson!

[sovay]

That is a very impressive dream lesson!

I like how fictional dreams are full of symbolism and real dreams are just like, "Here's a thing you should know."

[choco_frosh]

Your subconscious is brilliant. 10/10, someone should film it.

[sovay]

Your subconscious is brilliant. 10/10, someone should film it.

Casting suggestions?

[a_reasonable_man]

If you post this as a story on Facebook, it will quickly be memed around the world. The story sounds like something that could happen outside a dream, if it weren't for the fantastical element of buckets of water coming out of nowhere. On the other hand, I've twice seen lecturers at Harvard fall off a stage, get up, climb back on the stage, and keep lecturing, and my father once saw a lecturer at the University of New Hampshire fall out a window, then walk back in the room and keep lecturing. (Fortunately, it was a first-floor window.)

[choco_frosh]

...window.

OTOH, there was allegedly a Psychology professor at Williams who was lecturing on the subconscious, and did something on the lines of "For example, last night I had a dream about performing oral sex on a giant chicken < cough >, and < cough cough >..." < starts coughing up feathers that he'd palmed earlier >

Since this is Star Trek, maybe the diplomat could begin the lecture with something like "I've been informed you there's a teleporter incident currently in progress, so there's a slim possibility that small amounts of matter from elsewhere on the planet's surface may materialize..."

[a_reasonable_man]

The falling out the window seems to have been accident; my father remembers this professor as very eccentric. But I do recall being told by a friend about the first day of a Theater 101 class at Williams, the fall of my freshman year, in which a student was being very rude and obnoxious to the professor, who proceeded to pull out a gun, shoot him, and dismiss the class. It was of course staged, and this was 1979.

[sovay]

It was of course staged, and this was 1979.

My beloved high school Latin teacher used to sacrifice Twinkies at the start of the class, to discover whether the day would be fas or nefas. One day the entrails of the Twinkie were blood-Red 40: the day was nefas. There was a pop quiz.

[ethelmay]

My freshman English teacher [ETA: high school] staged a scene like that, which we had to write up afterwards. What I chiefly remember was his using the expression "bullshit" in the heat of the moment, and us all wondering whether we should write it down or not. (In the end I did; I may have been the only one who didn't gloss it over. He didn't dock me any points, but I think he hadn't realized he said it.)

[sovay]

(In the end I did; I may have been the only one who didn't gloss it over. He didn't dock me any points, but I think he hadn't realized he said it.)

You made a valuable contribution to the historical record!

This conversation is beginning to remind me inversely of the time the breaking news of the Kennedy assassination was mistaken for a social experiment because Stanley Milgram was lecturing at the time. (I believe the reality to have been less on-the-nose than the version in Michael Almereyda's Experimenter (2015) where Milgram himself tries to deliver the news and is not believed, but I did make sure it had really, essentially, happened. [edit] Cf. Alan Rosin.)

[sovay]

If you post this as a story on Facebook, it will quickly be memed around the world.

Oh, God.

The story sounds like something that could happen outside a dream, if it weren't for the fantastical element of buckets of water coming out of nowhere.

In defense of dream logic, I'm pretty sure he had a confederate out of sight.

On the other hand, I've twice seen lecturers at Harvard fall off a stage, get up, climb back on the stage, and keep lecturing, and my father once saw a lecturer at the University of New Hampshire fall out a window, then walk back in the room and keep lecturing.

One of my professors at Brandeis once had himself kidnapped out of a class to prove a point to his students. (It was the '60's.) But I am impressed by the window.

[selkie]

...CLANG CLANG CLANG.

That's amazing and... yes, I think I might have needed to read it as you wrote it.

I had a weird fever-dream of the sort in which everything is mostly-right but then, like, I was the one driving Noel places? YIKES? And in addition to my perfectly nice nuclear-queer family I had a 20-year-old Goth boyfriend down to the Doc Martens and kilt, also YIKES, and your cameo in this WTF production was in fact to pull me aside and say BUT YIKES, MY DEAR, MORE THAN ONE YIKE.

You win, in other words!

[ashlyme]

I'll see your Yikes and raise you a Huh, What? (My half-dreaming punlobe kept insisting The Shameless Hussar would make an excellent title for one of your stories. Help me shoo it away.)

[selkie]

But I don't want to shoo it away! I'm sure it has a short story to go with it.

*hugs*

I wouldn't mind seeing you in Doc Martens and a kilt, please don't think that's where my objection to the situation lay! I believe dream-S's actual observation was ugh, don't play with your food.

[ashlyme]

Well if you can use the title, you're very welcome to it. *hugs*

I have some mock-Docs and will consider tartan colours. Something restrained but odd. :-)

[sovay]

I have some mock-Docs and will consider tartan colours. Something restrained but odd.

rushthatspeaks has an orange plaid overshirt that should be an affront to God and humanity and instead they look absolutely smoking in it.

[selkie]

People who can pull off orange AND plaid should be treasured!

[ashlyme]

Hee. I'd expect a husband of yours to have sartorial flair!

[sovay]

But I don't want to shoo it away! I'm sure it has a short story to go with it.

I second this suspicion. Just for the sake of the collection, you know.

[sovay]

...CLANG CLANG CLANG.

I see you detected the sound of the bucket landing on my head!

That's amazing and... yes, I think I might have needed to read it as you wrote it.

*hugs*

And in addition to my perfectly nice nuclear-queer family I had a 20-year-old Goth boyfriend down to the Doc Martens and kilt, also YIKES, and your cameo in this WTF production was in fact to pull me aside and say BUT YIKES, MY DEAR, MORE THAN ONE YIKE.

Okay, from outside the dream, my reaction to that is more than one yike! I am glad you woke up and had not actually committed this life decision. I would worry even more about your new meds.

You win, in other words!

Look, I'm glad it helped.

[selkie]

You are a staunch and honest friend in my subconscious and out! And the visual definitely featured one of your eyebrow expressions. The one where the tip of your nose also goes up slightly because your eyebrows are trying to clear orbit, if you must know.

[ashlyme]

That is an impressive dream.

[sovay]

That is an impressive dream.

Sometimes I think my subconscious is a better writer than I am.

[nodrog]

I'm having increasingly vivid and complex dreams myself lately.  I suspect it's because I don't watch TV any more; my brain is sitting alone, playing by itself.

[sovay]

I'm having increasingly vivid and complex dreams myself lately. I suspect it's because I don't watch TV any more; my brain is sitting alone, playing by itself.

That's really interesting! The major influence on whether I dream complexly—or remember it if I do—is not my watching or reading material but just my baseline mental health. It is a bad sign if I go weeks without being able to recall my dreams, even nightmares. Same deal with writing, even reviews or short poems. I think it's all woven into the narrative-making part of the brain.

[jesse_the_k]

I'm not surprised that your id is so eloquent, and I'm glad you taught yourself that lesson in the sere landscape of dreams.

[sovay]

I'm not surprised that your id is so eloquent, and I'm glad you taught yourself that lesson in the sere landscape of dreams.

Thank you.

[asakiyume]

Sometimes the subconscious speaks with subtlety, and then other times it hits you over the head with multiple buckets of water. Props to your subconscious for essentially breaking the fourth wall and saying, "Do you see what I'm doing here? You do? Good!"

[sovay]

Props to your subconscious for essentially breaking the fourth wall and saying, "Do you see what I'm doing here? You do? Good!"

I do feel the unsubtlety was thematically apropos.

[skygiants]

Your id has a very stylish way of conveying advice, though!

[sovay]

Your id has a very stylish way of conveying advice, though!

I'm glad you think that's what it is!