The Dream Chronicles of a Hardcore Sequoyan

August 25, 2023

Lying on the cold forest floor of Sequoia National Park, I stared up at the trees and pondered my own Sequoyah, which I’d returned to after a multiple-month hiatus. After being on summer break for so long, I was now reintroduced to school all at once: four days in the constant company of other teenagers! So naturally, Sequoyah also snuck into my dream life.

I sit in Calina’s Monsters and Madness class (which I don’t attend), taking copious notes with the green metal pen I was given at my ninth grade orientation (in real life, I lost this pen five minutes after I acquired it). We’re going over the finer points of Jane Eyre when there’s a knock at the door.

“Hello?” asks someone next to me. “Who is this?”

There is a deep chuckle outside. “Why don’t you work on your Inquiry LO by opening the door to find out?”

“Okay…” I get up from my chair, open the door, and scream. 

A disembodied head floats outside, its body completely invisible from the neck down. 

“Who… who are you?” I stammer.

“I have gone by many names,” the head tells me. “Some have called me the Design Thinking Cycle. Others think my name is Defining the Problem, and still others consider me to be Nurturing Solutions. But most know me as the Iceberg Man!”

“The Iceberg Man? Why?” someone asks.

I know immediately. “Because you can only see the top 20% of his body,” I say. “Why are you here, though?”

“I come to deliver a warning,” he says. “The downstairs bathroom will flood. The faculty kitchen shall be in shambles. Practice active listening and trust the Iceberg Man! All I say will come to pass–”

I wake up screaming.

Prediction: According to the Iceberg Man, the downstairs bathroom will flood, causing widespread damage. 

Update on prediction (late October 2023): He was right. The Iceberg Man knows all. And he is watching… 

September 18, 2023

Perhaps I was just hungry and stressed about grades (to be fair, that frequently describes me), but both food and school made an appearance in my dreams.

I stand in a large, empty room with a high ceiling, moonlight leaking in through the dusty windows. Actually, the room is empty except for a giant, glowing mirror covered in cobwebs, looming ominously about twenty feet away. 

The rational part of my mind says, That’s the Mirror of Erised! This is a weird Harry Potter dream!

The louder, irrational part of my mind says, Ooh! Shiny! 

So, naturally, I walk towards it. Brushing away the cobwebs, I squint to see my heart’s desire.

A display screen flashes to life on the glass. Are you a Sequoyah kid? 

Puzzled, I click “yes.” The Mirror of Erised beeps softly, and then I see the one true wish of my soul, what I yearn for, what I’ve been looking for since the first moments of my existence…

Me, surrounded by an unlimited supply of Trader Joe’s snacks.

“No, that’s not right,” I say, snapping my fingers. “Hey! That’s wrong!”

Did you just snap your fingers? the mirror asks.

“Well… yeah,” I respond.

You really are a Sequoyah kid. I know this is what you dream about at night.

I see myself on a soapbox, leading the entire world’s population in a whoosh clap.

“Nope!” I exclaim. “Dude! I have other aspirations, okay?”

Yeah, right. When was the last time you made an iceberg model?

I hang my head. “Last Tuesday.”

Exactly, the mirror says smugly.

“Hey!” I swivel to see a familiar face behind me. It’s a classmate, whose name I won’t mention because they don’t want to acknowledge they had this dream. “That’s the Mirror of Erised, right?”

“Yeah, but I think it’s glitching,” I tell them.

“Let me try,” they say, standing in front of the mirror. But after a couple of seconds, they fume: “No! That’s not true!”

“What do you see?” I ask.

“I see myself… but I’ve founded a civilization where everyone snaps instead of claps.” 

“Canada?” I clarify.

“No, somewhere else. Wait, no!”

“What’s going on?”

“I’m locked out because I didn’t read my summer read book. I’m sorry, Atticus, I lost my copy of A Clockwork Orange!”

“My turn…” I reach for the mirror, only to find myself pulled backwards. “Professor Dumbledore, I didn’t mean to snoop, I promise!” I yell.

It’s not Dumbledore. It’s Marc. “No Student Store for you!” he proclaims.

“Please, Marc,” I say. “Let’s have a discussion about this. Maybe you can tell me a rose and a thorn?” He vanishes like a gryphon taking flight as I wake in a cold sweat, craving Trader Joe’s Snacky Clusters.

Prediction: Trader Joe’s will soon shut down and there will be riots on campus. Also, snapping apparently isn’t normalized in the wider world… what?

October 31, 2023

After a night of sugar-fueled mayhem, after I was asked by multiple Baby boomers in my neighborhood, “Aren’t you too old to be trick-or-treating?” and after I had scrubbed the gummy residue of smushed Sour Patch Kids out of the spaces between my fingers, I could barely keep my eyes open.

In my dream, I’m back at Sequoyah (unsurprisingly), watching as the students mill around in their various Halloween costumes and second-guessing my avant-garde gryphon outfit. Wait, who’s that? Oh, it’s Kevin Delin, dressed as… not a CIA agent? What happened to his daily attire of three raccoons in a trench coat? Most peculiar. Hang on, I think I see a walking felony – no, it’s just the members of Sam’s Algebra 2 classes, dressed as graph crimes. (Obviously, C Block has outdone B block in terms of context, accuracy, and labeling.) 

Wait a minute… “Hey! Odysseus!” I yell. “Are you looking for Ithaca?”

Odysseus, dressed in fine linen and looking confused, shakes his head. “No. I’m just trying to find where Health and Wellness is located this week.”

“My sympathies,” I tell him, as he continues on his noble quest. Then I hear screams from behind me.

“Robespierre n'est pas mort!” a voice yells. A disembodied pumpkin head rises from the ground, the blade of a guillotine still half-stuck in its flesh. “I have returned from the dead to take vengeance on Aimee’s advisory! I was robbed of my victory in last year’s pumpkin decorating contest!”

“Bro, all the students graduated,” someone says. 

“Non! Non! My sweet revenge!” Robespierre crumples.

“Sorry, Monsieur,” shrugs a teacher. “C’est la vie.” And with that, the pumpkin falls to the ground, mort encore.

I wake up sweating. What could this possibly mean?

Prediction: Things will proceed as normal at Sequoyah. There is literally nothing out of the ordinary here.