Dream Effects

Dreams are interesting.  They are weird.  Like really weird.  One of the inspirations for writing a story about the world of dreams is to explore some of the weird phenomena of dreams that I (think I) have experienced (as well as the stranger content of some dreams).

One of the peculiar things I’ve experienced is re-runs: dreams that I have had before.  And which, by and large, have in the exact same manner each time: the same content, the same sequence, the same everything.  On the one hand, maybe this isn’t surprising.  The generally accepted explanation for dreams is the sub conscious accessing and processing of memories and current events.  So if you see the same things frequently, have the same worries and troubles, deal with the same sorts of crises or happenings on a regular basis, then it would stand to reason under this explanation that you would, at least occasionally, have the same dream as you had at an earlier time.  Moreover, as you experience a dream, you are using your brain (one hopes; unless dreams are some sort of extra dimensional, outer-self form of communication) and thus firing neurons and creating and reinforcing specific pathways.  In short, creating a memory.  It wouldn’t be surprising if from time to time a buried memory of this sort were stumbled upon, as it were, or if our subconscious attached greater significance to a dream-memory for whatever reason and thus it stayed in our active as well as long term memory in a manner wholly unlike our more common experience of forgetting dreams.

On the other hand, it’s really frickin’ weird.  For whatever reason, we don’t really seem to expect to retread dreams; every day is a new day, and as I lay me down to sleep, I am a different man each time.  Maybe not as much as I suppose?  But maybe that is just me; I can’t speak for the minds of others.  Perhaps there is a cultural element.  I don’t know.

And of course, it is perhaps suspect to know that we have had a dream before.  After all, it is well recognized I think that a common phenomenon to encounter in dreams is certain knowledge of a thing, despite waking knowledge to the contrary or appearances differing, often to a degree of absolute certainty that is rarely experienced in the waking world.  But I have as often had that revelation of prior dreaming after waking as I have had during; and when during, I find that elements of the dream can change with some conscious effort, and I know that these are changes, differences from a prior dreaming.

So I don’t really know what to make of that.

And the more cliché issues of not knowing whether something is a dream or not, those occur too.  But they can take different forms too.  I am sometimes unsure if a place actually exists or not; I could swear that I have been there, have detailed memories of doing so, but at the end of it all, can’t say for sure.  I remember looking for a place, feeling certain it I know which area it is in, but not knowing how to get to that area.  Knowing how a place in the real world looks and how a place in my memory looks, knowing they are contiguous, remembering why I was there, but then not really knowing if any of that was real because I can’t seem to find any of it again (or not being in a position to even try).  And all this occurs in the waking world.

That is infinitely more disturbing.  If you were merely uncertain whether you were, in the instant moment, dreaming or not, the question is largely of academic interest only.  What is more important in that situation is whether you will change the manner in which you behave or not; your perception shapes your reality and you still have certainty in what you perceive, and thus your reality.  But to have ambiguity after the dream, when you are awake, is a bit terrifying; it’s a fundamental inability to define your reality and distinguish it from fantasy.  The only saving grace is scale and importance of the ambiguity; if I can’t find a really interesting store or plaza, well who cares.  But that ambiguity remains scary until it can be resolved, one way or another.  Existence is in some ways like a house of cards (the saying rather, is that proof is like a house of cards; but we take it for granted, as well we ought, that we exist); if the foundational evidence is undermined, the whole thing collapses.  Perception defines our reality in the tangible and intangible sense.  If our perception is suspect to alteration, our reality is suspect.  And if our reality is suspect, then our very self and identity is suspect; we are the sum of our experiences and beliefs – in short our memories and those things shaped by our memories.

And I didn’t even get to “sleep paralysis” or the whole myth of waking up before you die in a dream (I have died in a dream more than once, but the most vivid instance being one of having been rendered helpless and then stabbed fatally… blacking out and existing in a black limbo before waking up).

Bullet Time

Clarity.  Certainty.  Conviction.  It possessed these traits.  Its existence was simple, short, but well defined with purpose.  There were no questions as to its abilities, no room for doubt in its ephemeral life, no equivocation in its assigned task.  The entirety of its life was embodied in one question: would it hit its target?  If it did, that was success.  It would explode shortly thereafter, delivering its payload to the designated target.  Whether this resulted in the destruction of the target, whether that hit saved another’s life, whether its actions brought about an end to the conflict sooner rather than later, these questions were beyond the scope of its life, and as such they were irrelevant.

Clarity.  Certainty. Conviction.  A hit was success, the ultimate fulfillment of its being, the ultimate meaning granted to its existence.

A miss, by contrast, was unforgivable.  A miss was failure.  A miss could not be undone.  It would lie somewhere, buried and useless; its entire existence objectively deemed a waste, from construction to execution.  There was no purpose in a fired bullet that missed its mark.  It would lay there, completely without use, capable only of analyzing and reanalyzing its abject failure.  The barest hope of being recovered and recycled was no comfort at all; better it should never have been made in the first place.  A miss was failure.  Failure was absolute.  Total and irredeemable.

It had no name – it had no need for one.  It blurred the line between simple projectile munitions and self-aware intelligence.  Yet there was no question to who or what it was.

Clarity.  Certainty.  Conviction.  A hit was success.  A miss was failure.  Failure was absolute.  It would not miss.

An ellipsoid cone with a pair of wing-like extrusions in the front, the micro-missile was essentially a futuristic arrowhead.  Its form was principally that of a wedge, an incline plane, one of the simplest machines any civilization discovers, consciously or otherwise.  Of course, most wedges weren’t self aware.

The micro missile considered the known information it had available – its default shape, mass, base coefficient of drag, aerodynamic flow and efficiency, and launch velocity.  It requested additional telemetry and information from its weapon systems control module.

Its world suddenly came to life in a flood of visual and mathematical data, its request being processed directly by the craft’s sensor suite.  It could see now that it was loaded in the recessed, dorsal mounted rail gun of a Sparrow hawk scout fighter.  The craft’s sleek, four-winged design was reminiscent of the micro-missile’s own form factor.  Numbers and vector lines appended visual elements, indicating that the Sparrow hawk was undergoing evasive maneuvers, dodging projectile fire from a hostile enemy craft.  The enemy craft was designated as its target; IFF (Identify Friend or Foe) transponders indicated no other secondary targets of opportunity to consider or allied craft to avoid.  Additional information began to clamor for attention; it devoured it all, adjusting its basic trajectory formula for temperature, pressure, gravity, atmospheric viscosity (wind resistance), turbulence, and the air flow gradient  within the engagement area.

It took into account the target’s movements over the pass 30 seconds to create a movement profile of the target and plotted primary and secondary trajectories, marking various points of committal where it would need to choose one path or another on the basis of the target’s motion.  Historical data on the target’s evasive capabilities and tendencies was unavailable – it would be the first round fired by the Sparrow hawk.  A miss was failure. Failure was absolute.  It would not miss.

As the Sparrow hawk came out of its evasive roll, the micro-missile felt the magnetic fields of the rail gun increase around it; the nearly inaudible purr of capacitors building charge and the subsequent burst of electromagnetic energy was like a blood thirsty war cry to the micro-missile.

Clarity.  Certainty.  Conviction.  A hit was success.  A miss was failure.  Failure was absolute.  It would not miss.

The complex field of data the micro-missile lived in began to change dramatically, but in accordance with all of its calculations and projections.  No corrections were required.  Target telemetry showed that the target had not yet reacted, indeed did not seem to be even moving at all.  The micro-missile committed to its primary trajectory; it began the extremely delicate operation of shifting its mass, altering the angle and thickness of its wings by mere molecules to impart a slight spin and lift.  It would make a slight dip, then spiral upwards at a 70⁰ angle off horizontal, directly into the underside of the enemy craft.  Tertiary and quaternary points of no return came and went.  The target had barely moved at all.

The micro-missile stuck: success.  And then things took a bizarre turn.

The design specifications for the micro-missile intended for the projectile to make contact with enemy armor and, as impact progressed, to explode.  The explosion would ideally cause the denser wings of the micro-missile to score the impact area with deep ridges, if not outright tear into the material itself and leave a wider tear in the armor.  This served two purposes.  First, it was intended to maximize damage to armor material and inhibit projection of Material State Energy fields by directly tearing apart the grapheme-conductor super weave (or equivalent) surface layer of the armor.  Without conductive pathways to project the energy in Material State shielding, the afflicted area became more vulnerable to subsequent attack.  Second, it increased the surface area of the weakened area.  Although the secondary effect seemed physically de minimis, it was in fact the more important of the two.  The explosive charge carried by the micro-missile was not intended to damage the target – it was too small.  Besides firing the wings as secondary projectiles, it would also  release and spread the payload: deconstructor nanites.  Increased surface area and weakened bonds increased the number of nanites that could simultaneously attack and the speed with which they could work towards breaching the armor, as well as self-replicate.  Unchecked they could dissolve a target, although in practice it took far too much time.  Weakening structural integrity at multiple points was the more practical approach.

At least that was the idea.  In this particular instance, it quickly became apparent that the micro-missile’s material composition was far stronger than the F-35 Lightning’s armor.  It impacted the underside of the fighter jet and pierced straight through without any appreciable slow down.  As the appropriate interval following impact passed without detonation, the micro-missile realized something was wrong.  A quick query to the Sparrow hawk’s sensors indicated a complete penetration; the micro-missile immediately detonated itself, just before impacting the far side of the chassis.