3KD - A Prologue

 

I had two wild dreams one night this week, which led me back here. 

Dream One: Running Like The Wind; Dream Two: Touring Futuristic Retirement Apartments. 

I want to share those, but first...

Well, well, well. 

Through the dirt and ashes, like a zombie from the grave, my dream diary resurfaces, just in time for Halloween. 

2,974 days since my last post. I'm developing a bit of a routine, eh? 

Three thousand days is hardly an eternity, but wow how my life has changed. And how my perception has as well. 

VR (virtual reality) existed in my world since November 2015, with the release of the Gear VR headset. I remember telling others "I feel like I've leveled up in life" - it only happens when something really, really cool comes into my world. Something life changing. Something I feel like has always been a part of my story, my core programming, yet to be unveiled. That feeling of knowing the first time you lock eyes. Leveling up, as in, I'm on a fresh OS, and there's no going back.

The best way I can describe this feeling is - do you remember being a kid and longing for something that hasn't yet come, something that feels just within reach, but light years away, almost like, painfully missing a part of your identity. For me, as a kid, it was a computer. I'd sit in my room, cross legged - and stare intently, with such focus, at the corner of my room - putting all my effort, all my energy, into the pure thought of "A COMPUTER WILL APPEAR" in this one little spot. Computers weren't even really great yet, (NEVER OBSOLETE lmao), but little kid me had this absolute soul crushing feeling that it was this whole other part of me that was missing. So I waited... and I wished... and one day, POOF! There it was. In reality, years passed and I stopped staring so hard, but instead decided to turn my thoughts into action and bought my first computer when I was around 14, making payments for a Gateway (yes, the cow box) and finding a new obsession in my first ever PC game, Age of Empires II. The point here is, that feeling of extension of myself - literal growth shapeshifting my world from a small little box in the corner of nowhere, to suddenly experiencing expansion in every direction - that shift of perception, it changed everything about me. The way I thought, the way I dreamt, but little did she know this was only the beginning. 

As always, late to the party, I grasped my little paws on an Oculus Rift CV1 September 2018 with the Marvel Powers United VR Rift bundle. Finally, I could do what I only achieved in my dreams in VR - fly around in Google Earth VR to the point of nausea! Get jump scared by Bears in Bear Island and rip droids to pieces in Robo Recall. But wait, what about, Beat Saber? Nope, frugal miss Twist didn't even consider paying $30 at this time to play the greatest VR game in history, because well, she didn't know better. Bad Twist. 

But, there's a silver lining.

Eventually, the Rift CV1 went back into it's box, traveled through a shipping container from one coast to another, and finally got a little use again during the pandemic.

In March, 2021 - Oculus shut down the Marvel Powers VR game servers permanently, so I did what anyone who spent their hard earned cash on a digital product no longer available would do, emailed to complain I wanted store credit for the game I purchased (and hardly played, lol, so I qualified). But what would I use that credit on? For now, it sat, as digital currency, for a couple months, awaiting it's true purpose.

In July, 2021, Google debuted a little rhythm game using arrows on the keyboard. I tap, tap, tapped away for a few minutes, and my heart recalled fond memories in college shredding on Stepmania on my keyboard. Damn, was I good at Stepmania on a keyboard. Wanting to revisit this old friend, I found myself on a new rabbit hole adventure, looking into how to set up the mod files to run the game - when somehow in my research, I came back across Beat Saber - which, now, looked SUPER intriguing to me. And just like that, my store credit purchased the game, some OST songs, and I found myself back inside 'the thing'. (For any Westworld Fans, "am i in the thing" is a quote by the Man in the Black Hat in a mysterious after credits sequence cliffhanger.) So my VR headsets will always be "the thing to go into the thing!" for me.

And oh, boy, oh. With custom songs and insane maps - I can't even begin to describe how incredible Beat Saber is today. The lights, the stages, the music, the maps, the entire worlds crafted before my eyes. Gorgeously floating through space and light and time. It's mesmerizing. Heavenly. And somehow I'm getting a workout and endorphins are rushing and I'm simply happy and not anxious, and wow, life is good! 

So, here we are, because something shifted yet again, and my dreams have returned in full force. 

And the details,...well...the details are shimmery, and bright, and vivid like always. They almost feel like being in VR. Language will never do justice to what I experience - but the feeling of flying in my dreams - and flying in VR - is as close as it gets.

I look forward to diving back into my dreams and exploring the hidden meanings.