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[Yume Nikki/Inception] 明晰夢 (Lucid Dream)
Title: 明晰夢 (Lucid Dream)
Fandom: Yume Nikki/Inception
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 771 words
Notes: Nnnot exactly my usual style. This was an experiment that may or may not have worked. Thanks to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
inarticulate for keeping me from scrapping it.
Warnings: Spoilers for the end of Yume Nikki. Deals with issues of depression and suicide.
Summary: Non-standard dream therapy.
i.
Madotsuki jumps off the balcony.
ii.
When she wakes up at the hospital, her parents ask her why she did it. She tells them what they expect to hear: the girls at school are teasing her, she has no friends, she doesn't think her meds are working anymore. Everything she says is true.
It's just not why she jumped.
iii.
The doctor recommends dream therapy. Her parents listen as he explains the mechanics of bringing a psychologist into a patient's subconscious. How this allows smooth communication between patient and psychologist and a greater understanding of the patient's underlying issues.
"What do you think, honey?" her mother asks, hands clutched tightly together in her lap. "It might help."
Yes, Madotsuki says, I'll try it.
All she wants to do is sleep anyway.
iv.
The licensed dream therapist is young woman who comes in wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants and carrying a silver briefcase. "If we're going to be sleeping," she says with a smile, "I might as well be comfortable, right?"
Madotsuki wants to like her, but feeling things requires so much effort these days. So she just nods politely.
The silver briefcase turns out to be the dream machine, which the therapist calls a PASIV Device, crisply enunciating the foreign word. She's happy when she learns that Madotsuki doesn't have any problems with needles, and explains the basics of how the session is going to work.
"It'll be my dream, but you'll be the one shaping it. Before you fall asleep, try to think of a place you're comfortable in, and we'll try to go there. We'll just spend a little while there while you get used to everything, and then we'll wake back up." She smiles, and talks more, soft and reassuring, but Madotsuki has stopped listening in favor of staring at the PASIV. "Okay, Madotsuki-chan? We're taking it easy, this first time."
The needle goes into Madotsuki's wrist and she falls asleep.
v.
She finds herself sitting at her desk in her room, wearing her favorite sweater instead of the hospital gown she's been stuck in since the jump. All of her injuries are gone.
Everything is quiet. It's like she and the therapist are the only people left in the world.
It's nice.
But it could be better.
When they walk out onto the balcony, Madotsuki waits until the therapist is distracted, then pushes her over the railing. When you die in a dream, you wake up, they told her.
Madotsuki takes off her shoes and curls up in her bed and lets sleep take her.
interlude.
"I don't know what happened," the therapist tells the doctor, her voice shaking. "She should have woken up with me. I was the dreamer. The dream collapsed when I died. She should have woken up!"
vi.
She doesn't get panic attacks in the dream. There are no crowds of people to make her breath stop and her chest tighten. The only people who bully her are the strange bird-women, but they're just doing their job, so it doesn't bother her. Sometimes she thinks she sees people she knows from the real world, but they're always just a little bit wrong, like caricatures of themselves. Somehow, that's reassuring.
There's so much to explore. She gets stuck on Mars. She plays her favorite childhood video game from the inside. She changes herself, sometimes in small ways, sometimes in larger ones. It's fun.
The dream gives her back something she didn't even realize was missing.
Oh, she thinks.
vii.
It's tempting to stay in the dream forever, but not as tempting as she thought it would be. Eventually, she starts to miss her parents. She wonders how much school she'll have to make up. If the cat is lonely without someone's legs to curl up on in the evenings.
Eventually, she thinks that maybe she doesn't need the dream anymore.
viii.
Madotsuki jumps off the balcony.
coda.
A week after she wakes up in the hospital for a second time, a member of the hospital's board of trustees comes to visit her. He introduces himself as Saito, and inquires politely after her health.
"I was very impressed by your description of your dreams, Miss Madotsuki," he says. "I have a proposition for you."
He's well-dressed and handsome, but what she notices most is that he says the word dreams with something in his eyes that makes her think that maybe he understands.
"Okay," she says, and smiles.
Fandom: Yume Nikki/Inception
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 771 words
Notes: Nnnot exactly my usual style. This was an experiment that may or may not have worked. Thanks to
inarticulate for keeping me from scrapping it.Warnings: Spoilers for the end of Yume Nikki. Deals with issues of depression and suicide.
Summary: Non-standard dream therapy.
i.
Madotsuki jumps off the balcony.
ii.
When she wakes up at the hospital, her parents ask her why she did it. She tells them what they expect to hear: the girls at school are teasing her, she has no friends, she doesn't think her meds are working anymore. Everything she says is true.
It's just not why she jumped.
iii.
The doctor recommends dream therapy. Her parents listen as he explains the mechanics of bringing a psychologist into a patient's subconscious. How this allows smooth communication between patient and psychologist and a greater understanding of the patient's underlying issues.
"What do you think, honey?" her mother asks, hands clutched tightly together in her lap. "It might help."
Yes, Madotsuki says, I'll try it.
All she wants to do is sleep anyway.
iv.
The licensed dream therapist is young woman who comes in wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants and carrying a silver briefcase. "If we're going to be sleeping," she says with a smile, "I might as well be comfortable, right?"
Madotsuki wants to like her, but feeling things requires so much effort these days. So she just nods politely.
The silver briefcase turns out to be the dream machine, which the therapist calls a PASIV Device, crisply enunciating the foreign word. She's happy when she learns that Madotsuki doesn't have any problems with needles, and explains the basics of how the session is going to work.
"It'll be my dream, but you'll be the one shaping it. Before you fall asleep, try to think of a place you're comfortable in, and we'll try to go there. We'll just spend a little while there while you get used to everything, and then we'll wake back up." She smiles, and talks more, soft and reassuring, but Madotsuki has stopped listening in favor of staring at the PASIV. "Okay, Madotsuki-chan? We're taking it easy, this first time."
The needle goes into Madotsuki's wrist and she falls asleep.
v.
She finds herself sitting at her desk in her room, wearing her favorite sweater instead of the hospital gown she's been stuck in since the jump. All of her injuries are gone.
Everything is quiet. It's like she and the therapist are the only people left in the world.
It's nice.
But it could be better.
When they walk out onto the balcony, Madotsuki waits until the therapist is distracted, then pushes her over the railing. When you die in a dream, you wake up, they told her.
Madotsuki takes off her shoes and curls up in her bed and lets sleep take her.
interlude.
"I don't know what happened," the therapist tells the doctor, her voice shaking. "She should have woken up with me. I was the dreamer. The dream collapsed when I died. She should have woken up!"
vi.
She doesn't get panic attacks in the dream. There are no crowds of people to make her breath stop and her chest tighten. The only people who bully her are the strange bird-women, but they're just doing their job, so it doesn't bother her. Sometimes she thinks she sees people she knows from the real world, but they're always just a little bit wrong, like caricatures of themselves. Somehow, that's reassuring.
There's so much to explore. She gets stuck on Mars. She plays her favorite childhood video game from the inside. She changes herself, sometimes in small ways, sometimes in larger ones. It's fun.
The dream gives her back something she didn't even realize was missing.
Oh, she thinks.
vii.
It's tempting to stay in the dream forever, but not as tempting as she thought it would be. Eventually, she starts to miss her parents. She wonders how much school she'll have to make up. If the cat is lonely without someone's legs to curl up on in the evenings.
Eventually, she thinks that maybe she doesn't need the dream anymore.
viii.
Madotsuki jumps off the balcony.
coda.
A week after she wakes up in the hospital for a second time, a member of the hospital's board of trustees comes to visit her. He introduces himself as Saito, and inquires politely after her health.
"I was very impressed by your description of your dreams, Miss Madotsuki," he says. "I have a proposition for you."
He's well-dressed and handsome, but what she notices most is that he says the word dreams with something in his eyes that makes her think that maybe he understands.
"Okay," she says, and smiles.
no subject
OKAY SO THIS WAS AWESOME FROM THE GET-GO a-and it all works so wonderfully, but then you had to put Saito in it and make me squeal out loud like the huge loser I am.
hnnnnnngh.
no subject
I was debating whether or not to put Saito in, but then I figured, hey, if there's a girl in Japan with crazy dream abilities, he'd be all over it.
no subject