In the dream, I am in a large, multi-story complex, perhaps a downtown city mall with apartments in the upper levels.

The dream begins in what feels like the middle of a movie, the middle of a plot playing out. There are bombs in the building and I am a detective with bomb-diffusing skills. I have a large team who are spread out around the building & we’re communicating via ear communication devices.

I have just time-traveled from the recent future where a bomb has gone off in the building. I am carrying in my hand and pocket two items from the future. They are just small irrelevant things: two marbles. My team & I are tasked to alter the events of this timeline so that the bomb doesn’t go off – or if its detonation is impossible to prevent then the goal is to save as many lives as possible.

At one particularly memorable moment a large-built man is standing in shadows on a balcony in an open-court yard area looking down across the yard to me standing several floors lower. He signals to me that he knows about the “marble” and he’s not going to let me get away with this. I feel the marble in my pocket and know that it’s too late to stop the first detonation so I turn my back and alert my team that Plan B is in action – we can’t stop the building from burning but we can save lives. “Go NOW,” I tell them.

I start descending floors of stairs and as I do I hear the first bomb explode many floors above me. It has the feeling of what I’ve heard from some survivors of the attacks on the Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. I hear what’s happening above me and am coordinating to get people on lower-levels out before the building collapses around us. Images of that shadowy man keep flashing in my mind – he’s a time traveler too and he knows what I’m capable of and is trying to stop me by jumping many timelines. He jumps to a positive future I’ve created, sabotages it and then jumps back to “check on me”…sees what I’m trying to do to foil his plan and then he jumps forward again, sabotages that too and jumps back perpetually. How many times does he do this? It could be two or it could be two dozen. He’s relentless. I have to think quickly on my feet to avert the threat & damage he’s causing.

As I’m running down the stairs and have an idea: I will throw one of the marbles from the future down the stairs. In this way I “mark” the timeline so that I prevent him from being able to change any thing prior to the marble and that will buy me some time to get more people out and then throw the next marble locking it in.

The marbles from the future have the ability to modify or alter the time travel paradox. The way it works is that I am on Timeline A where many bombs detonate in a downtown building killing 3000 or more people and I pick up a stone or marble from the rebel. This object belongs in Timeline A. When I bring it back in time with me I am creating Timeline B. I go back to a location where there is enough time for me to change the course of events. The marble is neutral so long as it’s with me but when I release it into the “time & space” of Timeline B then I am creating some sort of loop in the space/time continuum because the marble and all its atoms are “supposed to” exist in Timeline A then when it lands on the ground in Timeline B it cancels out Timeline A for some scientific reason involving physics and the space-time continuum. Now me and the marble are the only things remaining of the old Timeline A. That allows “us” to create Timeline B which would involve the building never exploding at all. But the shadowy man already messed with Timeline B so he prevents me from saving the building thus giving me the opportunity to create Timeline C which is the building exploding and lots of people surviving. This Shadowy man does not have the ability to CREATE his own timeline, only to sabotage events and time travel to avoid detection from any “normal s” on earth.

If something happens that can’t be reversed, such as I die, or someone who has a lot of influence in the positive future I’m creating (a burning building with LOTS of survivors) gets hurt or altered in some way then I can’t create it. I have the ability to create a timeline with the future I envision so long as certain events happen in real time. My escape down the staircase & signaling my crew is the first of the alterations so I mark it by throwing the future marble down the stairs. Shadowy man cannot alter a timeline created by something which comes from a future timeline. He does not have the capabilities.

So I throw that first marble and then enter a large call-center style office unit with a hundred or so people. I signal to them we have to go and direct them to the escape route which will avoid the hottest part of the buildings flames. At this point, the fire is not yet burning the entire building but I’ve seen the future of the way the building burns so I know which way to get the survivors out.

We are funneling down the escape route and Shadowy Man sees me and what I’ve accomplished so he activates a cell-phone triggered bomb which is close to us. I have just 60 seconds or so. If I throw the second marble it needs to land in a certain location in order to mark the timeline and prevent the second explosion from killing dozens of people. Although it’s not entirely clear to me in that moment, I am aware that there is some risk associated with throwing the second marble. Something like if I throw it then I won’t be able to time travel for a while, trapped in this timeline until my new future self comes back giving me more marbles. Or something like throwing the second marble signals to a large criminal association like the mob that the first marble-throwing timeline-altering event was not an “accident” but was me intentionally diverting their plan. Throwing the second marble improperly (at the wrong time or place) means that I will become a target to powerfully dangerous people and make my life very challenging.

We continue descending as I play out various scenarios, assessing the best option. I have a plan!

Shadowy Man sees me turn a corner with a group of people and I know exactly where his bomb is and when its set to detonate so I wait for the precious moment and as it begins to explode I slow time and I throw my marble into the sparking flame.

This has the ability to cancel out the second bomb explosion timeline and permanently solidifies this timeline where many survivors free the building. Two things start happening….a vortex opens up in the energy of the flames in slow motion and I have the choice to jump into the future again although I’m not at all clear where I would go or why but just that if I wanted to go I could. Secondly, I start getting check ins from my crew all over the building telling me they have 100 people out from floor 6, and 300 from floor 2 and 50 people from floor five, etc. I feel such relief at the hundreds, maybe thousands of people who have just escaped a firey death.

The dream ends with me gazing into the firy vortex of energy trying to decide if I will make another jump or stay here for a while.

[Note: This dream has so many components of adventure, mystery & action so I’m using it as an outline for a novel I’m writing called 2061. Members will have access to chapters of the book soon]

Copyright Rachel Czifra Perry 2021