Your experience with The Dream™

LEGO BIONICLE
#1

I’ve been thinking about the phenomena known as “The Dream TM”, wherein it seems many Bionicle fans have reported having dreams involving finding Bionicle sets in stores long after they were retired. I think it would be interesting if the Bionicle community could collectively hire a psychologist to study this shared experience and examine possible causes/meaning.

But in the meantime, if you’ve ever had The Dream TM, what was it like? I can think of 2 instances for myself from years ago. The first one involved me being in a 2-storey Barnes & Nobles /equivalent and going down an escalator to find the 2001-03 sets assembled and on display. I specifically recall multiples of the Ta- and Le- characters each wearing different Mata and Turaga masks in their colors. The second (technically 3 in total, but there isn’t much to the third) involved me finding the 2006 and 2007 sets (these were more around my time) at Walmart, both just seeing them on display and finding them in an ad while shopping for socks with my IRL friend, and while looking for them with my Mom also seeing Aquazone sets.

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#2

Dream. Big Lots. Hero Factory. Star Wars Constraction. 2015-16 Bionicle. Knockoffs of each. All still in original packaging. Took up two whole shelves. Looked moderately picked over. My grandma was there.
I will watch this topic with great interest.

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#3

I had one where I was digging through a goodwill toy shelf and finding bionicle stars parts.

I think I’ve had the dream in a more traditional form as well, but I don’t remember any of the details.

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#4

I once had a dream where I found a second hahli Mahri foot, and I was like “oh neat, I didn’t know I had two.”

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#5

I’ve had this dream many times. Sometimes it was in an ordinary retail store like walmart or target. In those dreams, it was like the year was around the late 2000s’ because I remember see other things from around that time.

Other times it was some privately owned brick and mortar store. Like the ones with that grey concrete floor, cheap shelves, and everything was marked with those neon stickers. In those, I only remember seeing bionicle sets in a small section of the store. I know there were other things in these stores, but can’t tell what they were, it was all a blur.

I particularly hate have these dreams since I would always wake up in the middle of them and soon realize that reality is disappointing.

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#6

I had a weird dream in which I found the rest of the pieces to complete my long lost Gali Master…

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#7

The day before I went to Legoland I had a dream where I saw many G2 sets on a wall in the clearance section of the store.

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#8

Actually, a few weeks earlier I saw a video of a person finding 2015 Protector sets next to the Toa Mahri and the Barraki in a store in South America. They were legit Lego sets.

Oh, how I wish that was here in the USA…

dies inside

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#9

Had this dream dozens of times throughout my life, sometimes I see weird bootlegs, sometimes official sets, sometimes sets that simply do not exist. Every time, I get armfuls of them, and then I wake up. It’s agonizing.

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#10

There are a few recurring scenarios and locations but the sets I find are ALWAYS open and missing pieces. It gets worse the more I look into the stock. I’m talking mispacked parts, HF, bootlegs.

One time I dream bought a Phantoka Lewa made of gummy candy. :yum:

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#11

Wait what the heck other people have had this dream too? Now I’m spooked.

For me it’s always the same one, and it’s an annual occurrence which is the strangest thing. I go to a Wal-Mart, find some BIONICLE set I never got on sale, then go back home and build it and feel content. Then I wake up sad that it did not actually happen.

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#12

I get at least one of these dreams each month. The majority are at a non-existent toy store. Some of the real life locations being Walmart and Costco. The Costco one was very odd. The sets were in very indescript boxes on the bottom of a shelf pretty much in the middle of nowhere.

The Walmart one was a bit different. I didn’t find sets, just a bunch of pieces. For some reason, I knew that there was a complete Maxillos set scattered around. I didn’t find all the pieces.

There’s this weird mega store that pops up in my dreams fairly often, and one time it had Bionicles in it. Even though the style of the store, and what it sells changes a lot, I feel like it’s all one building.

I have a love hate relationship with these dreams. They make me really happy, until I wake up. I rarely even get to touch one of the boxes.

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#13

I’ve had this dream analyzed. It pretty means that we are clinging to our past nostalgia and have a fear of becoming fully actualized and independent, fearing that we may never find small pure joys like that of having a new toy. So much positive association and innocence that may not be found again, and thats scary. Like chasing a high. I think the reason why Bionicle did this to so many people was because for one was how stimulating it was on so many fronts. Fun to build, beautiful colors and designs, an immersive world that we got to watch grow… the family on the website and the magazines. To a lot of people it felt like a small family esq community where we belonged and shared growth and experience with fellow fans and the characters. It’s still sad to think about. I mean look at so many of us, we still want to know what our favorite characters would do if they were around. It’s as if we are acting in mourning because we never felt like we had closure for the endings, perhaps not wanting it to end.

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#14

I’ve had this a few times. But every single time, it’s always just Gadunka and nothing else on the shelf. And I still don’t have him!:cry:

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#15

I think I might have had the dream before, but if so it was very vague and non-memorable - just your typical “yay Bionicle sets - oh bother, I woke up” sort of thing. I certainly haven’t had a super significant/weird instance of it where it really stuck in my mind, but I’m pretty sure I’ve had something similar. I recall having such dreams about other hard-to-get childhood toys too, so they kind of blur together.

I’ve also heard some people have dreams actually in the Bionicle universe, but this never really happens to me - probably because it just feels so distinct from the “human” world to me.

There’s something hilarious about the fact that a Bionicle fan’s subconscious mind would just nonchalantly toss HF in with those other two disappointments. :stuck_out_tongue:

I think this is a recurring thing. Does anyone actually get to appreciate the set before they wake up? Because just about every version of it I’ve heard seems to end before the set actually gets built or anything. :stuck_out_tongue:

Just that thought is absolutely glorious to picture. :stuck_out_tongue:

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#16

I’ve had the dream many times as well. The one that I remember most though, was that I was exploring the river behind my local soccer field, and just began finding large white trash bags full of Bionicles which some one was trying to throw out, I guess. Either way, I was very disappointed when I woke up.

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#17

I really do not like when I have the dream, and then I just snap awake in the middle of the night and realize it didn’t happen.

I also realized that one day I dreamed of buying a Matoro Inika and Zaktan in nondescript boxes (not canisters) just showing the set and nothing else, in a Barnes and Noble (iirc) that also had nonexistent Bionicle books right next to the sets.

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#18

I had a dream where I was at the mall and some Bionicle fan had somehow found several shipments of sets that were still in mint condition and opened some kind of Bionicle tribute store.

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#19

Wow. I thought I am crazy, but it seems I am not. at least not in this aspect
I’ve had one not about Bionicle several times where there was a big white/grey shop with empty/blurred shelves, and on the lower shlef there was full Atlantis theme.
Another one was not long ago, I don’t remember it that well, but I’ve built Zaktan in it, in that weird pose from instructions and then I woke up and… suffered the pain of Bionicle canceleation. Twice.
Add to that at least 10 others that I don’t remember.

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#20

In a more recent episode of The Dream™ for me, I was skateboarding on a street with some of my friends and people I knew, and people who I had never met before. We stopped near the front of some school I think and were just kind of hanging out there, when I noticed a small cardboard box near the bushes. I went to the box and my heart raced, A complete mint condition Cahdok and Gahdok lying around in there. Before anybody else had a chance to take a look, I yoinked it and I assume I headed home. (I woke up at that point, sadly.)

(Bahrag Queens are like my Bionicle holy grails.)

There was this other time, maybe 2-3 years ago where I was in some store in the mall and they had a lot of non-existing sets, like Dark Hunters. I also saw those life-sized Bionicle foam play masks/weapons that LEGO used to sell a long time ago. I remember trying on Nuju’s.

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