What A Weird Dream... Sounds Like I'm Telling It To You!

 So, What A Weird Dream I Had Today, These Visuals In My Head Are Weird... Sounds Like I'm Telling It To You!

The dream didn’t ease in. It opened its curtains with felt and googly eyes.

A sock puppet play was already in progress when I “arrived,” though no one acknowledged me. One sock had a fake mustache glued on sideways and spoke entirely in Shakespearean insults. The other sock screamed stage directions like, “EMOTE MORE!” and “THIS IS SYMBOLISM!” The audience applauded at random, clapping at moments of complete silence. A kazoo played the national anthem of a country that does not exist.

The stage melted—literally melted—into sketchy black-and-white lines, and suddenly the world was a manga panel in motion. Two anime girls, drawn with sparkly eyes and impossibly dramatic hair, stomped arrows on a glowing Dance Dance Revolution pad. Each step caused speed lines to slash across the screen. When they hit a perfect combo, kanji symbols exploded behind them like fireworks. One shouted something inspirational about friendship and footwork. The other tripped, laughed, and somehow still got an S-rank.

The page flipped.

Now five people—faceless, ageless—stood holding hands beneath a giant rainbow that pulsed like it was breathing. They danced in a slow, off-beat sway, as if the universe itself had forgotten the rhythm. Glitter fell upward. Somewhere, a voice whispered, “This represents unity, probably.”

A trapdoor opened in the sky.

I was suddenly seated in a dusty theater. A single spotlight flicked on. One by one, people walked onstage to recite absolutely terrible poetry.

“Love is like… a toaster… of emotions,” one person declared.

The crowd gasped. Someone snapped their fingers. Another poet read a haiku that was seventeen syllables too long. The stage curtains fluttered nervously, embarrassed on everyone’s behalf.

As the applause warped into static, subliminal messages appeared in the sky above the theater, blinking too fast to read properly:

DRINK MORE WATER
THIS IS NOT A METAPHOR
BUY SOCKS
WHY ARE YOU STILL DREAMING

The clouds rearranged themselves into smiley faces and then into legal disclaimers.

Hard cut.

A disco. No walls. No ceiling. Just a mirrored floor floating in space. Happy unicorns danced for no reason, wearing tiny sunglasses and platform shoes. A disco ball spun, projecting rainbows that made no physical sense. The unicorns did finger guns. One did the worm. None questioned why.

Then chaos escalated.

A flash mob erupted inside a Walmart that definitely wasn’t built to code. Characters and fans from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, The Twilight Saga, and Glee burst through the automatic doors in perfect choreography. Shopping carts became props. Someone sang a power ballad in aisle seven. Vampires debated sparkle visibility under fluorescent lighting. Everyone grabbed merch—plushies, DVDs, T-shirts—while still dancing, because the dream demanded commitment.

Nearby, a group of Loud House fans sat cross-legged on the floor, intensely reading cheap fanfiction printed in Comic Sans. They gasped dramatically at plot twists involving alternate universes, too many siblings, and inexplicably dark themes. One whispered, “This is wildly out of character,” with deep reverence.

Then it happened.

The fandoms turned on each other.

Somewhere on YouTube—though the setting was now an abstract comment section made of floating thumbs-up icons—the fandoms of My Little Pony, Twilight, Glee, and The Loud House began a bare-knuckle fight to determine who was “the most tolerant on the internet.” Ironically, everyone was yelling about inclusivity while throwing extremely non-inclusive punches. Comment bubbles flew like debris. Someone shouted, “SOURCE?” before being knocked into a reply thread. The algorithm watched silently, pleased.

Just as the chaos reached maximum saturation, a familiar jingle played.

The world snapped into a brightly lit stage.

At the end of the dream, contestants from a reality singing competition suspiciously similar to American Idol stood in a line, clutching microphones and backstories. Judges argued about authenticity. Someone sang slightly off-key but with “real heart.” Confetti fell prematurely. A host announced, “America has voted,” even though America was nowhere to be seen.

One contestant looked directly at me and said,
“This song goes out to anyone who’s ever had a dream that made absolutely no sense.”

The lights flared white.

I woke up.

And somewhere, very far away, a sock puppet took a bow.