Adventures in Dreamscapering

"dreamscapering"

The portal in my bathroom mirror led to a different place this time, instead of the bathroom cathedral, it was a dismal version of the patio at my school. The normally bright blue umbrella table-bench hybrids were a dripping grey, with blue auras like the color was melting off it and suspending itself in the air. The cracks in the sidewalk were heavily defined black and slightly depressed into the ground . The sky was really grey, almost a blue black and felt really close, like if I walked a few hundred more yards I'd bump into it.

Everything was tinged purple.

"What is this place?"

Max gave me a funny look. "It's the same place we came to last time?"

"No, last time we were in that cathedral thing, remember?"

Max looked confused, and then gave a face as if he vaguely remembered.
"Perhaps. Sometimes when the Dreamscape is changed, my memory of it changes along with it."

We walked along the middle of the tables, the grass and tree medians were lacking any dimension or texture and were just blocky and grey.
We reached a curb, not where it was supposed to be but I could reach out and touch the "sky" now as I predicted. It was weirdly papery although it looked solid and opaque.
Behind it I could sense there were little graph lines like the rest was still being generated.

"Well. Fix it."
"Fix what?"
"Make it so that we can keep going."

I tried pressing it. I kicked it.

"Seriously?" Max gave me the most incredulous expression.
"I-D-K what to do," I said, and then cringed at catching myself say text acronyms in real life. 

"Imagine it different, maybe," Max suggested.
I closed my eyes and imagined something different...something different...something different.

"Neat. You're pretty okay for your first time. You can open your eyes now." Max said.

In my head I could still see the blocky landscape behind my closed lids and opening them to a totally different and much brighter place (not the one I imagined) was quite unsettling, even though that phenomena is very common in dreams. I guess being lucid enhanced that sensation.

It was a field, grassy and expansive with plenty of clouds and sunshine. The grass was too translucent and reflective, making it shine bright in anime-levels of sparkling.

"Ew," I said aloud (or maybe in my head and it got projected into the atmosphere) and Max laughed.

"Well, here's as good of a place as any to show you the world --"
"Shining, shimmering, splendid?" I interjected; Max looked confused.

"Never mind," I said and Max shrugged and half-smiled.

"Check this out," Max said, lifting up his hand and closing his fist like he was grabbing a handle. As he brought it down, not only did the glittery field come to a normal contrast, the sky slipped into near dusk. It was as if he was using a dimmer switch on the whole world.

"What? How did you do that?" I grabbed at the air myself trying to activate this invisible light adjuster but ended up looking really stupid.

"I'm what you call a dream error, Gwen." Max's voice seemed to hold some incomprehensible power behind it now and warm wind began to softly bend the grass toward the blob of sun sitting on the horizon.

"What's that?" I asked, feeling odd all of a sudden. I ran my hand up my arm even though I wasn't cold.

Suddenly, we were in a cafe, bustling and shining with white subway tile and chrome seats and tables. No transition, like in many dreams. There was a chess board before us, complete with all the pieces in black and white.