A Trip Down Nightmare Lane

“Argh!” a young woman scoffed, blowing her dark hair out of her green eyes and puckering her red lips like a blowfish. Her nose was buried deep in a dusty book. One of the many that surrounded her at the lunch table. “This is hopeless! There Is no way I can learn all of this in a day!”

“You are really worried about the exam, huh?” asked a more relaxed, if bedraggled, brunette, looking down at her neighbor with a hot cup of coffee in her hand.

“You think? It even haunts my dreams! Last night I had a nightmare where I was taking the exam BUTT NAKED! My teacher could barely control her laughter. Even Brad looked at me like I lost a few marbles! Ugh, I’m finished.”

“Damn, you are even failing in your dreams,” commented another woman munching down a spoonful of cereal. She had sheeny bronze skin and fuzzy hair. Like everyone else on the table, she also had some bags under her eyes.

“Actually, I passed the test with flying colors in my nightmare, which makes it worse! It was so relieving to be done with this crap. Then the alarm sounded, I opened my eyes, and I forgot all the answers!” The woman said, angrily flicking a page of her book.

“Well, some people say that dreams show us the future, so maybe it is a sign that you will pass?”

The woman lifted her face out of her book to side-eye her neighbor. “Clara, are you forgetting the part where I was naked? Why would I want to take the exam without clothes? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe you lost a bet?” the brunette proposed before sipping from her cup.

“Yeah right, Amanda. Who would make such a stupid bet?”

“Dunno, seems fun," Amanda shrugged.

“Other people say dreams are windows to alternate dimensions. So maybe that was an alternate you that took the exam naked,” Clara explained.

“Yeah, maybe that’s a reality where you are not such a chicken about making bets,” Amanda retorted.

“Nah, that doesn’t make sense either. Even if I had somehow made that stupid bet in another world, my other nightmares are too weird for them to happen in any kind of dimension.”

“Oh come on, they can’t be that bad.”

“Really? Can you tell me in what universe would I give a presentation to a packed auditorium full of cameras in my underwear? Or work at an office pantless? Or walk down the street completely naked?! Hell, one time I was topless and had to fish my clothes out of the water.”

“I mean, maybe there’s a universe where you are an exhibitionist?”

“I’m not done. Things get way weirder. Like, there’s a nightmare where I’m walking naked on the tightrope and the balancing stick has my clothes on both ends, so I can not reach them without falling down. Another one where a clothed soccer team chases a naked me across the field. The weirdest one, however, is where I have to sneak nude in the Crystal Palace of the Queen of Fairies to steal a wand or whatever from her. Explain that with your multiverse!”

“I know what you mean,” Amanda said. “I once had a nightmare where I was naked and had a posse of clowns chasing me across the street. How could that ever happen?”

“Yeah, maybe the actual explanation is that dreams are a way for the brain to process all its stimuli and simulate scenarios that would be too risky to try in real life?”

“BORING,” Clara interrupted. “It’s much more interesting if dreams are windows to alternate universes. They just work differently than ours! You could probably learn the questions for your test next time you have that nightmare! That would make studying easier.”

“But I already told you that I can’t remember-”

“You can try lucid dreaming,” Amanda said. “ It’s when you become conscious that you are in a dream, and, because you know you are in a dream, you take control over it. You can take your time and memorize the questions.”

“I’ll think about it,” the woman said. “But for now, can you please shut it? I’m trying to concentrate.”

“Hey, you are the one that started whining.”

“If you want to concentrate, don’t study in the dining room, Kim!”

“Fine.” Kim snapped her book close. “I’ll go study in my room, jeez.”