Since I’ve answered this prompt before, let’s revisit the world of the Dream Technician and see how they improve their quality of life in ways both strange and mundane.

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As a Dream Technician, my morning routine is… unconventional, to say the least. But it’s the one thing that keeps me sane in a world where the line between dreams and reality is as thin as gossamer.

Every day, at precisely 6:23 AM, I wake up. Not to an alarm clock. It is a malfunction that started a few years ago, but that is a story for another day. Today is about how I improve the quality of my life. 

I don’t get out of bed immediately. Instead, I close my eyes and reach my hands out in front of me. 

My fingers twitch, catching on invisible snags – nightmare residue, fine as cobwebs but stubborn as tar. I start my daily grooming ritual. Pinching each strand between fingernails, I pluck them from my skin with the precise tedium of removing lint from a sweater.

Some come off easily, dissolving like cotton candy. Others cling, their barbed hooks sunk deep. Those require a firm tug, leaving red marks that fade by breakfast.

I roll the extracted wisps into pills, like the ones that form on old blankets. Except these pills pulse faintly, warm with borrowed fear. I flick them into the empty mason jar on my nightstand. By Friday, it’ll be full enough for disposal.

It’s monotonous work, but so is flossing. Miss a spot, and you’ll pay for it later.

The whole process takes about seven minutes. At 6:30 AM, I open my eyes, stretch, and get out of bed. Time to scrub the sleep from my eyes – and maybe the faint, coppery smell of someone else’s nightmare from under my nails.

Then I head to the kitchen for my morning coffee (even Dream Technicians need caffeine)

It’s not a habit I can exactly recommend to others. But for a Dream Technician like me? It’s psychic hygiene. Without it, I’d be a walking dreamcatcher, trailing other people’s nightmares like a comet’s tail. Those fragments would tangle with my own thoughts, blurring the lines between my reality and the echoes of a thousand sleeping minds.

This daily ritual keeps me grounded, reminding me where I end and the dream world begins. It’s the psychic equivalent of washing your hands after handling raw meat – unpleasant, perhaps, but far better than the alternative.

Plus, there’s a certain satisfaction in starting each day clean, my mind a blank slate ready to dive into the next layer of the collective unconscious. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting in someone’s recurring nightmare about some library that is haunted. Wish me luck.

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