Twilight was snout-deep in a book when Spike entered the room. She was so preoccupied with reading that she didn’t hear when he opened the door, nor when he strode across the room. Not even when Spike slammed down a pile of heavy leather-bound books on her desk did Twilight take notice. It was only when Spike realized he had misjudged the positioning of the books, causing the top one to fall with a loud thud, that Spike finally managed to get Twilight’s attention.

Her eyes shot up from the book and widened in a mixture of surprise and anger. “Spike!” she said loudly. “Be careful with those. Those books are very old and very delicate.”

Spike sighed, bending over to pick up the fallen book. “Yeah, yeah, sorry about that. Total accident, I promise.”

Twilight, satisfied though not really listening, turned to the pile of books. “So, these are all the ones I asked for then, right?”

He nodded. “Yep, every single one. Ya know, it wasn’t easy finding some of these. They were at the bottom of these huge stacks like a thousand books high.”

“Pssh.” Twilight rolled her eyes. “You’re exaggerating.”

“Only a little,” said Spike wiping a stray bead of sweat from his forehead, “that’s the crazy thing.” He watched as Twilight took the top book and cracked it open, letting its pages spill out gracefully. “So, what’d you want these for anyway? It seems like an awful lot of books just for learning how to keep a dream diary, and an awful lot of trouble.”

Twilight, her eyes scanning the pages quickly as she flipped through them, answered, “Well, it’s not really about keeping a dream diary. I mean, that’s what it was at first.”

“At first?”

Twilight flipped past a few dozen more pages, eventually stopping on one for a second only to read the first few paragraphs then move on. “Yeah,” she said, not looking up, “I was reading a book by a famous psychologist who said that your dreams were the gateway to your soul. He says a lot of meaning can be ascribed to them, and you can use them to discover your heart’s inner desires. Of course, it all seemed a little silly, but I thought I’d look into it.” She stopped on another page, shook her head, then continued. “But the more I read about it, the more interesting it became. So, I decided to try using one of my dreams to test this theory on, but I found myself having a really hard time remembering them the next morning.”

Spike nodded in agreement. “I usually remember that I had a dream, but I can never remember what it was.”

Twilight frowned. “Darn, not here either,” she muttered. She glanced up at Spike. “Yes,” she said, “that was the same problem I had.” She went back to her book, skipping a few more pages then heaving a sigh and setting the book aside. Grabbing another book, she said, “Apparently this is a common problem, but it has a relatively easy solution.”

Spike narrowed his eyes. “Nothing’s ever that easy.”

As Twilight flipped open the next book, she said, “This is.” Opening to the table of contents, she quickly skimmed the chapter titles then skipped to the appropriate one. “All you have to do is keep a dream diary. Every time you wake up from a dream, you write down everything you can remember from it. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. It’s simple really.”

Spike scratched his head, cocking it to the side. “If it’s so simple, then why aren’t you doing it? Why all these books on influencing dreams?”

“Because I—” Twilight stopped. Her ears twitched as she caught a sound coming from upstairs. She waited a moment, then heard it again. “Is… is that knocking?”

“Oh, that?” said Spike, lazily jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. “That’s probably Rainbow Dash.”

“Rainbow Dash?”

“Yeah, I saw her through the window when I was carrying these books downstairs for you.”

“And you didn’t open the door for her?”

Spike pointed at the pile of heavy books on the desk. “When I was carrying these books,” he repeated.

Twilight threw her hooves in the air. “Spike! Why didn’t you at least tell me she was waiting at the front door?”

He shrugged. “You seemed busy.”

Twilight groaned loudly. “Well, we better go see what she wants at least.”

“She does tend to get upset at having to wait for anything,” Spike mused quietly.

Carefully setting the book she had been reading aside, and making sure to mark her page with a stray scrap of paper, Twilight quickly made her way up the stairs, followed closely by Spike, and into the foyer. There, her face pressed against the window, a slightly miffed Rainbow Dash was waiting at the door. No sooner had Twilight reached the door and swung it open than Rainbow came crashing through, knocking over Spike in the process.

“Finally!” she cried, letting out a greatly exaggerated sigh. “I was waiting outside, like, forever!” Hovering a few inches in the air, she looked around the room. “So, uhh, where do you keep your adventure stories?”

Twilight watched Rainbow fly around the room, scanning the books lining the walls. “Is that all you came for? Books?”

Rainbow shot a quick look over her shoulder at Twilight, giving her a grin. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“Didn’t you read those other ones I lent you?” she asked. “There was about ten of them, all fairly decent length.”

Rainbow shrugged, her eyes still on the bookshelves. “I read a few of ‘em, but didn’t really get around to the others. Got kinda bored, I guess. Thought I’d swing ‘round to your place and pick up some more instead.”

“Ah… I see.” Twilight’s horn began to glow as she started pulling books from shelves and towards the hovering mare. “Umm, well, there’s this one,” she said, holding up a bright blue book for Rainbow to see. “The Long Way Around. It’s about these two ponies who go on a journey around the world. Or, there’s always, Space Wars,” she said, holding up another book. “It’s a sort of science fiction adventure about…” She trailed off as she realized Rainbow wasn’t paying attention. Her eyes weren’t even focused on the books. Instead, the were fixated on Twilight’s horn, which was still alight with magic.

“Yeah, that one sounds cool,” said Rainbow, her eyes still on Twilight’s horn. Suddenly, she snapped meet Twilight’s eyes. “Hey, I was wondering something.”

Twilight cocked an eyebrow. “You were?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I was wondering, what does it feel like to do magic?”

Twilight’s brow rose higher. “Why are you asking this?”

“I dunno,” she said, shrugging, “just curious, I guess.”

Twilight creased her brow, her lips pursed. “Hmm, I don’t really know how to describe it” she confessed. “It’s not something I really think about. I mean, what does it feel like to fly?”

Rainbow hummed quietly. “Umm, I dunno. Normal… I guess.” She fiddled with her mane for a bit before adding, “Is there any way you can make it so I can do magic?”

Twilight thought for a moment, then shook her head slowly. “No, not really. The best I could do is give you a horn like a unicorn, but it wouldn’t actually do anything. It would just be for aesthetics more than anything. Pegasi simply don’t have the same leylines that unicorns do. It’d be like trying to trying to turn a cow into a dragon. Sure I could make the cow look like a dragon, but that doesn’t mean it is a dragon.”

Rainbow’s ears drooped pathetically as she gave a sad sigh. “Oh, that’s kinda lame. I’ve always wanted to do magic. It’s sorta always been a dream of mine.”

Twilight’s eyes lit up suddenly. She gave Rainbow a wild look, then grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her. “Dream!” she yelled. “That’s it!”

Rainbow, a little surprised by Twilight’s sudden outburst, pushed her away carefully then said, “Uhh, ya lost me there, Twi.”

A massive grin exploded across Twilight’s face as she grabbed the other mare by the hoof and dragged her downstairs. Before she even knew what was going on, Rainbow Dash found herself standing in front of Twilight’s desk with a huge pile of books looming over her. She opened her mouth to say something, but before a single word could escape her lips, Twilight cut her off.

“Spike,” she said, glancing over at the bewildered dragon who had all but been dragged along with them. “I need a few more books from upstairs. Can you find me, Sleep as Medicine, Sleeping Spells 101, and Case Study’s Lectures on Psychoanalysis?”

Spike eyed her suspiciously. “Yeah, I guess. Why? What’s this for?”

Rainbow’s eyes drifted from the pile of books to Twilight, her expression a mixture of confusion and excitement. “Yeah, what’s this all about?”

Twilight stopped rummaging around in the desk drawer long enough to shoot a Rainbow a knowing smirk. “Rainbow, have you ever heard of something called ‘lucid dreaming’? No? Well,” she said, her smirk growing to a wide grin, “that’s perfect. You’ll have no preconceived notions then.”

Rainbow groaned, massaging her forehead with her hoof. “Just, guh, tell me why you brought me down here. I’m starting to get a little weirded out.”

Twilight paused for a moment, watching Rainbow Dash give her the “Well?” look. She sucked in her breath, then let it all out in one big exhale. “Okay, here goes. I’ve been doing some research lately, looking into the art of lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming, of course, being a state where you are aware you’re dreaming and are thus able to control you dream through conscious thought. It’s sort of like an advanced state of dreaming where the dreamer has complete control over their actions and the events of the dream. Imagine it like you’re writing a story, only instead of it being in your imagination, you’re actually living it.” Twilight looked at Rainbow expectantly, her eager eyes wide.

Rainbow was silent for a moment, her cheeks tugged into a frown. “So, I wouldn’t actually be able to do magic or whatever, right? No matter what, it’s still just a dream.”

Twilight sighed. “Well, in a sense, yes. You wouldn’t be able to perform magic in real life. However, while you were dreaming, it would still feel real to you. So, you can do whatever you want in your dreams without fear of consequence. It doesn’t even have to be doing magic. You could dream about going on an epic adventure, or flying to the moon. While you’re dreaming, the possibilities are literally endless. And it will all feel as real as you want it to. The reason dreams are so powerful is because we believe they’re real while we are experiencing them, but we usually have little control over them. With lucid dreaming, however, you get the best of both worlds. You believe that it’s real while you’re in the dream, but you also have a say in what happens. This allows you the chance to live out whatever fantasy you want.” Twilight shook her hooves wildly. “Don’t you see what a huge opportunity this is?”

Rainbow Dash didn’t share in Twilight’s enthusiasm. Her face was contorted into a look of wariness. “Couldn’t this be dangerous? I mean, if it feels real, what happens if I get hurt or something?”

Twilight frowned. “You’ve had dreams where something bad happened, right? What happens then? You just wake up, that’s all. There’s nothing physically dangerous about it.”

Rainbow considered this for a moment, then finally nodded, satisfied. “All righty then, fine. Let’s do this. Make me a unicorn!”

Twilight grinned, suppressing a giggle. “Well, it’s not me that’ll be making you a unicorn. All I’ll do is put you into a magic-induced sleep. From there it’s all up to you. You’ll be the one in control of your dreams.”

Rainbow chuckled. “Ah, right, duh. So, uhh, how does it work? I mean, how do I make it so that I can control my dreams? I’ve had plenty of dreams before, and I couldn’t control any of them. It’s not like I can just turn on a switch in my brain, right?”

“It’s true, I admit,” said Twilight, shrugging her shoulders. “It’s not something you’ll be able to do right away, not without practice.”

Rainbow groaned, rolling her head to the side. “You mean I’m gonna have to do this more than once?”

“If you want control over your dreams, then yes. It’s going to take a bit of work.”

Letting out a slow sigh, Rainbow mumbled, “Fine, whatever. I mean, how hard can it be?”

“Not too hard, I imagine,” said Twilight. She looked over to Spike who was still standing beside Rainbow, his eyes moving back and forth between the two mares. “Now go get those books I asked for, Spike. We can’t get started until you bring them to me.”

“Oh, right. Sorry.” He gave a little chuckle, scratching the back of his head, then spun around and hurried up the stairs.

“Now then,” said Twilight, turning back to Rainbow. “We’ll need to go over a few things before we get started. Things you’ll need to do when you wake up and things you’ll need to do while you’re asleep and all that.”

Rainbow nodded happily. “All right, shoot.”

“You’re probably not going to like this first one,” Twilight said, laughing slightly. “In order to keep a log of your progress, I’m going to need you to start keeping a dream diary.”

“A what?”

“A dream diary,” Twilight repeated. “It’s basically just a notebook where you write down what you dreamt about the night before.” Seeing Rainbow’s confused expression, Twilight explained further. “It’s important because the more often you write down your dreams, the easier it’ll be for you to remember them in the future. And from there, it’ll be more and more natural for you to manipulate them.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “You mean I have to keep track of all this stuff? Can’t I just, y’know, not do that?”

Twilight shook her head. “No, if you’re not going to keep a dream diary, then there’s no point in doing this. It’ll just be a waste of time.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll keep a stupid dream diary.” Rainbow sighed. “What else?”

“Okay, so what you’ll need to do while you’re dreaming is to do your best to pay attention to your surroundings. Look at something, then look away. When you look back at it, it should be something entirely different. This will tell you that you’re in a dream. Once you know you’re in a dream, that’s when you’ll be able to take control away from your subconscious and start manipulating it however you want.”

Rainbow hummed quietly, nodding her head. “Yeah, I think I can do that. Sounds easy enough.”

Twilight laughed, eliciting another confused look from the mare opposite her. “Sounds easy enough, yeah. But it’s a lot harder than you’d think. See, until you’ve done it a few times, it’s hard to remember to check for things like that while you’re dreaming. Because remember, in a dream, it will just feel like real life. You won’t notice if something changes when you look away from it. It’ll just feel normal. I mean, if you already knew it was a dream, then why would you be checking to see if it was real in the first place?”

“Yeah, that’s a good point. So, how am I supposed to remember to check, then?”

Moving a few books aside, and clearing a space on her desk, Twilight answered, “You need to make it almost second-nature to do so.” She pulled a piece of parchment and quill out and started scribbling down some notes. “Even while you’re awake, start double-checking things to make sure they don’t change. Do ‘reality checks’ every couple of hours. If you come across a sign, or books, or magazines, or any kind of written word, try to focus on it and see if you can actually read it. In a dream, your brain will know what it says even without you reading it, but if you try to read it, it’ll just look like a garbled mess of letters with no discernible meaning.”

Rainbow whistled slowly. “Whoa… that’s kinda cool. So, uhh, what happens if I don’t realize it’s a dream?”

“You just dream like normal then,” said Twilight, scratching her quill across the parchment with a flourish. “That’s probably all it’ll be at first anyway. Just regular dreaming. But if we keep this up, you’ll be able to control your dreams in the future.”

“So, how long do you figure we’ll have to do this for? I mean, I’ve got, like, weather duty and stuff. Can’t really be doing this all day, y’know?”

Twilight giggled softly, covering her mouth quickly to stifle the sound. “Oh, this isn’t something that’s going to be one day.”

“Oh good, because I—”

“This will be week, potentially months, of experimentation. We’ll start with some easy stuff, like seeing if you can simply recognize your dreaming and then we’ll go from there. I expect we won’t see much in the way of results for a week or so at least, more likely a month.”

“—have stuff to do…” Rainbow finished half-heartedly, her cheeks sagging. “Geez, Twi. I didn’t think this was going to, y’know, be so much work. I’m not sure I really wanna do this anymore. Maybe you should find somepony else to—Twilight?” Rainbow stopped when she saw Twilight’s expression. Her eyes were wide in a pleading look, and her lips were curled into a pout, and her chin trembled slightly. Rainbow sighed. “Fine.”

Twilight clapped her hooves, smiling. “Good! We’ll get started right away. Well, as soon as Spike gets back anyway.” She looked over to the staircase, then frowned. “What’s taking him so long anyway?” She cupped a hoof over her mouth and shouted, “Spike!” There was a muffled thud followed by the sound of little feet running across the wooden floor.

“Yeah?” came the voice from upstairs.

“What was that sound? Actually, nevermind. Just hurry up and bring those books, okay?”

“Right, yeah. Be there in a sec!”

Twilight looked back to Rainbow and smiled. “Well, as soon as he brings those books for me, I’ll be ready to put you under.”

Her eyebrows rising, Rainbow asked, “Put me under what?”

Twilight shook her head. “No, it’s a medical—Nevermind that. The point is I’ll be using magic to induce sleep in you so we can get the study underway immediately.”

“Ah… So, how come you need those books to do that?”

Having finished writing on the parchment, Twilight set her quill aside and pushed the paper to Rainbow. “To be quite honest, I’ve never done it before, so I need to look over some spells again to do with suppressing the central nervous system to bring about a state of deep relaxation and eventually sleep, or something like that. Anyway, shouldn’t be too hard to do. Worst case scenario is you end up in a permanent and irreversible sleep, sort of like a coma, but that’s really unlikely. Probably only a twenty or thirty percent chance at best.”

“Umm…”

Twilight waved her hoof. “I’m just kidding, Rainbow, gosh. There’s no way that would happen… I don’t think. Anyway, there’s nothing to worry about. You’ll just be taking a little nap is all.”

“Riiiiiiiight.” Rainbow Dash heaved a sigh, then looked down at the paper in front of her. A bullet-pointed list ran down the center in Twilight’s distinctive scrawl.

Twilight took notice of Rainbow reading the list and used her hoof to point to the first item on the list: Dreams are not real life; keep the two separate.

“That’s the most important thing to remember,” she said. “No matter what events may occur in your dreams, they are not part of your waking life. No matter how real it may feel, none of it is.”

“But didn’t you say earlier that it was good if the dreams feel real?”

“Yes, but you have to be able to tell the difference between the two. If you aren’t careful,you may end up in a state where you don’t know if you’re dreaming or not, and you’ll end up doing something you can’t just wake up from.” Twilight’s expression was somber as she looked at Rainbow, her eyes flitting back and forth as she searched the mare’s face. “Being in control of your dreams can be fun, but you have to remember to wake up when you’re done. That’s the other side of doing reality checks. There may be times when you don’t know if you’re asleep or awake, and you’ll need these tests to check.” Suddenly her disposition shifted to a more carefree one. “But enough of all this doom and gloom stuff. What does the second item on the list say?”

“Uhh,” Rainbow moved her hoof down so it was below the second bullet point. “Have fun.”

Twilight smiled kindly. “Exactly,” she said. “This is your chance to do whatever you want, so do it. You want to know what it feels like to do magic? This is your opportunity to find out. The only limit on what you can do is how far you’ll let your imagination take you.”

Rainbow snorted, trying to hide a laugh. “That may be the cheesiest thing you have ever said, Twi.”

“But it’s true! Your imagination—”

“Yeah, yeah, imagination shcmimagination. Blah blah blah.” She waved her hoof dismissively. “It’s the power of dreams or whatever. Anyway, when are we going to start?”

Twilight’s lips pulled into a frown. “As soon as Spike brings me those books, like I said earlier. He should be here any—Oh! And there he is now!” Twilight’s horn burst to life as she saw Spike awkwardly making his way down the stairs. She scooped the books out of his grip and deposited them next to the other substantially larger stack. She pulled the first one from the top of the pile and placed it in front of herself. “Ah, good, Sleeping Spells 101. This is a good place to start.” She carefully peeled back the cover of the book, opening to the first chapter. Within seconds she had already found the page she was looking for and was happily skimming through it. Once she had finished, Twilight gave Rainbow a confident grin. “All right, seems easy enough to do.” Her horn, brimming with magic, Twilight floated a rather dour-looking sofa from the other side of the room. “Just lie down on this and make yourself comfortable, Rainbow.”

The other mare complied and stretched herself out on the graying sofa. As she placed her head against an old pillow, she nodded to Twilight. “Okay, I think I’m good to go now.”

Twilight nodded in return and walked over to Rainbow. She placed a hoof on her forehead and said, “You sure you’re ready?”

Another nod.

“All right, let’s get started then.”

Twilight’s hoof started to grow warmer as she forced magic into it and Rainbow’s forehead. It wasn’t too hot, but rather pleasantly warm, a perfectly calming temperature. Both Twilight and Rainbow relished the feeling. There was a calm silence for a few seconds before Twilight broke it, speaking softly into Rainbow’s ear.

“As you start to feel tired,” she said, “try to focus on something, anything really. Just pick one thing and put all your attention into it. When you start to drift into sleep, if you’re lucky, that thing you focused on will be in your dream. This will provide a good jumping off point for the future as you’ll need something familiar to concentrate on before sleeping, and the better you get at this part, the easier it’ll become to reach lucidity.”

Rainbow opened her mouth to speak, but Twilight placed a hoof over it, shushing her quickly. Her other hoof grew just the tiniest amount warmer as Twilight pumped more of her magic into it. She was focusing as hard as she could on Rainbow’s brow, where her hoof was pressing down gently. But just as Rainbow started to slip away, her eyes fluttering as he bobbed in and out of consciousness, Twilight’s eyes drifted to Rainbow’s. The two ponies locked gazes as the mare on the sofa became more and more drowsy. Moments before Rainbow’s eyes closed completely though, Twilight could’ve sworn she saw a flicker of a smile cross Rainbow’s face… then she was out.