Last night was a crazy ensemble of mystery, magic, lively characters, pure luxury high class dreaming, attention to detail you normally only see in the fanciest of places! And it all started very normal. Let's dive into the dream space!
I am standing on a platform at train station Haarlem Centraal, Netherlands. Trains came and went. When I look around, I see people standing, waiting to catch the next train. Looking up, a digital sign said: “Groningen”. The next train went to Groningen, it actually sounds pretty nice, so I wanted to go there.
As I'm reaching into my left pocket, I notice I have my phone with me. I turned it on, and it was open on the Contacts app. On the top of the list, there was a peculiar person I never heard of before: Ben. I decided to give Ben a call.
A robotic voice made itself audible on the speaker. The robotic voice said: “Hi, I'm Ben! A dream AI. I can change any dream for you just the way you like it.”
“Anything?”, I ask. “We do anything for our customers. Your deepest desires, your wildest wishes and your greatest adventures come true. With Ben, you are 100% in control”.
Eager to test that theory, realizing as I was getting lucid — I'm not just anybody! I'm not going to stand here and wait for public transport like normal citizens do! I want a private train!
And so I speak my wishes in a clear English voice to Ben on my phone. No reply. Ben wasn't saying a word.
But something is changing… Looking up at the sign, it starts to flicker, as if someone is hacking into the sign in my dream, and quickly, the sign updated, saying: “Do not board — Private train”.
Not long after, I hear the train rolling into view — and my dragons — was it a marvel to behold, easily 100 cars long. The entire exterior is a silvery white train with red stripes on it. The red stripes are made from precisely cut ruby that is so thin and so flat that it surprises me it doesn't chip or crack. Surrounding the ruby stripes was chrome lining that holds everything together.
It looks shiny and beautiful, modern yet classical, drawing its inspiration from late 80s diners in the United States, along with Sci-fi elements from “Snowpiercer” and “Hunger Games — Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes”.
What really strikes me at this point is that, this all feels man-made. Engineered. My fantasy doesn't extend to these exquisite tastes without much research beforehand. And yet, that initial fear of the unknown made it all the more tantalizing to step in and roll the fast-lane of the dream world.
The car at the front opens its door, and to my surprise, nobody of the crowd steps in, automatically obeying what the sign says. In a split second, Ben had changed the normal aesthetic of a public train station into a capitalist class-divided private railroad for the ultra-rich to get their own private trains. In real life I'd hate this, but now I couldn't care less!
I got inside the train at the front, just before the conductors' car. The first cabin is relatively simple. It has a few chairs, tables that's it. Nothing too shabby. Each car has the same silvery white colour as the exterior, separated by red doors, mimicking the ruby stripes.
For the first time since my command, the AI spoke again: it said the train would be departing soon, but that I'm allowed to explore the train as I wish.
So, I go into the next car — and this one is a freaking tennis court! It was absolutely insane. There even is a small place for people to watch the game!
I walk into the next car — this seems to be a little restaurant, and quickly becoming my favourite car!
Stockpiles of candy and snacks and everything laid for people to grab for free!
There are Maltesers, Snickers, Bounty, and variations of it all!
Sitting on the floor (as the cabin where the candy was held was quite low), I start munching on everything. And I mean, everything!
I started eating the whole supply, there is even white Maltesers, and oh my god, they tasted so good.
Throughout this feast, I keep thinking of how grateful I am that it feels so real, the taste, the crunch, the feeling of getting full… My synapses are firing like crazy at this point to make this taste so real.
After the entire bar is emptied, and I feel almost like puking, I walk into the next car, this one is a literal petting zoo! It has a cow behind a small fence, and some chicken above in a cage.
It was an absolute monster of a train, and it just kept going, and going, and going! Everything stayed so consistent. I could always find my way back to the first cabin and I could even look at the screens inside the train and see how fast we are going.
I could look outside and see biomes consistent of that with the Netherlands… But something happened along the way. The more and more I drove towards Groningen. I started noticing that there are other people around, too.
First just a few, but later on, it starts to become more and more. And I began to ask myself: Where do these people come from?
This was intense and at this point I am a little annoyed because they weren't supposed to get on. We didn't stop in front of a station, so they couldn't have got on in the first place.
At some point, I even see my family. My mom and my sister… I ask my mom: “how did you get in?”
And she tells me that she doesn't know, but she is very happy to be here, there are so many things to do, and it is so special to spend time together with us on this train. I actually feel a little emphatic. Yeah, this could be special, let's ride it out!
I walked also towards other people, strangers… They say they are lucid dreamers and that they wanted the private train. But for some reason, the private train, was the same train for all of us.
I guess the AI made a mistake and thought that this train was the private train and just gave it to every lucid dreamer out there. I don't know, but the whole thing felt almost spiritual because all of these people, felt real. It added life to the scene. I see people hanging out in the restaurant car — just talking to each other about completely random subjects, relaxing. You know, just taking a cup of coffee or something. The train, the engineering, the people, everything was alive. It was so real.
It is even more alive than that. To each other and to me, these people were strangers at first. But riding this out together, starts to feel like days as time begins to drift. We began closing in on each other, some strangers became friends, and the friend groups started doing things together having activities. And the kids started patting the cow together.
Couple of more days in, people start setting up shops together, and they start making their own things. From just a means of luxury transportation it soon shifted into a meters long artist hub. And slowly, but surely, as the days pass, it becomes a city on rails. There are kids playing and everyone knows each other.
It is a crazy experience to see all this unfold, a life intermingled and yet so different all having their own characters and their own clothing, their own movements. Everything. Just… oh… it fell into place in this one thing.
And then I start to feel that I am going to wake up… Being so attached to this place. I don't want to just leave without saying goodbye. So, I walk to the front of the train, to the conductor. Strangely enough, no human is driving the train. In front of me there is a desk with nothing but a single microphone and a button. I activate the microphone to make an announcement.
A jingle starts playing, the same one as in Snowpiercer. I started having my speech, and I remember exactly what I said. It was that I was very happy to be here, and that sadly, it is my time to go, and I hoped that everyone remembers everything.
I let go of the mic and I walk back into the other cars, by now, things have so heavily evolved we have plants growing in every car, mostly food to eat.
But I didn't quite hear anything on the speakers when I made the announcement, so I ask random people if they heard the passenger announcement, but they all reply: “no we didn't hear anything”. So I guess that the microphone didn't work.
I then walk up to my mom. She is playing around with my nephews and nieces in a makeshift playground someone made. I tell her that I really loved everything about it and I hope that she remembers everything, but I am afraid that she won't remember anything. She asked if I will remember anything, and my answer was yes.
I explain to them that them forgetting, but me remembering is some kind of protection mechanism. To make sure that no strange, spiritual secrets about mysterious worlds reveal themselves. Yet that these people like my mum can still feel the positive vibes. Still, a really strange thing to say, but it was how I interpreted it at the time.
I walk back into the other coaches and say goodbye to a few other people that mattered the most to me here since there was no way I could say goodbye to everyone.
I woke up with full closure.
Once I got up, I realized I hit snooze on my alarm clock for maybe about 20 minutes. Which means that this whole thing happened in just 20 minutes. Possibly even less because I wouldn't sleep right away.
And that felt kind of crazy.