Katamari Dream

 Over the course of the COVID 19 pandemic I discovered the Katamari video game series thanks to the remaster version on Xbox. I knew about the games like how a film nerd knows about every director's canon (Or The Day the Clown Cried) but just hasn't gotten to it. These were also Playstation exclusives for a while and the last I had in that series was PS2 and I was all about the Grand Theft Auto.

The series is endearingly charming and quirky. In short, each game centers around how your dad, The King of All Cosmos, somehow destroys parts of the universe (In the original game he goes on a bender and destroys all the stars in the sky) and tasks you, The Prince, to rebuild them. Your tool is the katamari (I think it is Japanese for roll up) which is a bouncy studded ball (Looks like one of those back massaging balls) you roll around the game and gather stuff up. Get big enough in X amount of time and you move to the next level. Typing that out sounds crazy and also falls short. It needs to be played and if you like puzzlers or are one of those satisfying meme watchers, its worth a try. King of All Cosmos is also a classic bad passive aggressive dad who brutally chides you when you do just ok (Normal is the new black, I guess) much less don't reach size.

I mention all this because I had a lucid and tactile dream where I found myself in one of those trampoline bounce parks. Instead of launch pads the center was a deep pool filled with silicon gummy letters and shapes. Tiny cookie cutter things in the whole alphabet and running from 0 to 10. These also ran up the wall in curated sequences. This wall is all 1234. That wall is all ATGC, a reference to nucleotides in DNA. And I can swim through these quickly even with the katamari in front of me, getting bigger leveling from a beachball to county fair pumpkin. The goal being to push the ball into a hoop with a pattern. Triangle, G, 4,X or Square, B,3,4. It changes with a digital display that sometimes flickers as it cycles between winning combinations. The goal is to drop your katamari into the hoop and hit that pattern but the combinations are approaching factors of pi and you have little control over who you gather. Its infinite and tactile and without pressure even with the game show atmosphere.

I note this because its such a "feeling" dream and one that isn't about work. If you have read this blog, I often treat this as an ersatz dream journal. Note that this blog is coming up on 500 posts and these kind of posts may take it over the milestone.