The Island of Forbidden Dreams

Occasionally I dream about gaming, and sometimes my gaming dreams are incredibly real and vivid. I think it happens when I eat too much dairy before bed…

Last night’s dream was a weird one for sure. Graev and I were looking for a place to explore or hide — I can not recall which because even now I think it may have been both. We were looking at a map of the world trying to find a place to go when we saw this cluster of islands off the coast of Massachusetts (these do not actually exist). The islands were not labeled on any modern map, but when we dug deeper into historical maps we saw that one of them was named The Island of Forbidden Dreams.

We set sail for the island on our boat that resembled Link’s ship King of Red Lions. As we got closer to the island things felt different. The world did not feel the same. In the distance the island came into view and what we saw elicited nothing short of a “woaaaah cool!” response. The Island of Forbidden Dreams was a real-life version of Minecraft. Pirate-like structures resembling something like Melee Island out of the Monkey Island games rose from the cliffs (see our blog’s header image above for a visual cue).

When we docked at The Island of Forbidden Dreams we cautiously looked around but saw no one. We began interacting with the world as though we were playing Minecraft. We quickly started moving blocks and exploring. We found a few pirate outfits and, keeping with the theme, we dressed ourselves like Guybrush Threepwood. The island and harbor were a mix of Tortuga, Booty Bay, the village on Melee Island, and some jungly place. Very cool.

Things start to blur together from here, but somehow we found some signs — yeah, the wooden Minecraft ones in the ground — indicating that other gamers had been here before and that they were planning to come back. “We can’t let them take our island,” Graev said with gusto. We began building cannons, guns, fallback points, and fortifying our position. We were not going to let them take our base.

Night fell. Torches were lit. In the distance a blocky-like fog began to roll in. We heard dreadful (yet cool) pirate themed music seeming to come from nowhere. Other people began pouring onto our island armed with all sorts of swords and minecraft inspired pirate outfits and weapons. When we would kill some of the people they would pop into pieces like minecraft blocks exploding or leg people falling apart. It sounds gruesome but it was very cartoon-like and PG in nature. We fought a tough battle and somehow I think we won.

The dream transitioned to some weird tribal council like you’d see in Survivor. Graev and I were pirate kings and having to choose our spoils from the battle. We got to vote them off the island and keep their stuff. My wife insists I include this part… Chris Harrison (host of the Bachelor/Bachelorette) was the one leading the council. When we had voted the pirates off the island we also had to vote their pirate princesses off. We had to pick one to keep and the other two had to battle to the death. It was weird… anyway…

The Island of Forbidden Dreams was ours!