The Sphere - A Dream of Transformation and Control Artwork

Not your Average Dream

Each night, our minds drift beyond the edges of reality, into places that make no sense, yet feel strangely true.

Not Your Average Dream is a podcast by Matt Brennan exploring the surreal stories that surface between sleep and waking, where imagination becomes memory, and memory becomes something else entirely.

These dreams are raw, unfiltered, and sometimes profound. Matt doesn’t claim to understand them; he just tries to remember them.

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Not your Average Dream

The Sphere - A Dream of Transformation and Control

November 04, 2025 • Matt Brennan • Episode 3

0:00 | 20:07

When a mysterious sphere lands deep in the Arizona desert, the world begins to change quietly, at first.

Faces deform. Identities rewrite themselves. And the air hums with a signal no one can hear.

In this haunting sci-fi dream, Matt Brennan follows the trail of the infected to the origin point: a sphere buried beneath the sand, pulsing with an intelligence that can reshape humanity itself.

Through fragments of memory, strange recordings, and a dream within a dream, he uncovers how the world was once saved… and how it might awaken again.

🜂 The Sphere blends surreal storytelling with cinematic sound design, exploring the boundaries between technology and transformation, memory and reality, control and surrender.

🎙️ Not Your Average Dream is a podcast where subconscious worlds meet cinematic storytelling.

Each episode explores a vivid dream, real, recorded, and reimagined through sound, revealing the strange beauty hidden between waking and forgetting.

Listen, follow, and dream deeper.

🌙 www.notyouraveragedream.com

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1:00:04

I have learned to trustthe hours before dawn.In that hush memory loosens and the mindwanders past the normalfence of reason and time,stitched together by desire and fear andthe small truths thatare not ready to be named.Each morning before the light washes theseams away, I record what I remember.I am Matt Brennan and thisis not your average dream.The dream begins in asky that does not blink.The world has already changed but most ofus do not know it yet,with the sound of silencetoo large for one world.Somewhere a sphere has landed, not withthunder, not with flame,simply there like it had alwaysbeen embedded in the Earth's crust andeverything had alreadyarranged itself around the quietgravity of its will, humming a tone thatmakes the ocean shiver.People begin to change first at theedges, the way frost crawls along window.A cheekbone slants, a jaw unhooks, eyesturn dark and tilt widerthan human, glossy likewhite stones.Bodies remain mostly intact as if theblueprint resists theedit, but the faces slip intosomething bat-made,nocturnal, built for sonar and shack.On sidewalk and subway platforms, theywear masks that covertheir metamorphosis, likeevery day is a tired Halloween, and theycarry balloons, that is the tell.Some orbs tether to wrists and shoppingbags, drifting inclusters of five or ten, bobbingin littleconstellations above their heads.If you saw the balloons, you knewsomething had taken root.I remember thinking, this is how the endwould look, not withsirens, but with balloon strings.I began to record not justwhat I saw, but how it moved.Street corners at dusk were lightstretched to long andthin, alleyways glistening withthe rain, holding reflections that didn'talways match the people who cast them.Every night I watched a little closer,patterns began to surface,the nearer people were toa single point on the map, the fasterthey changed, the facesreshaping into the quiet,gestures turning lesshuman and more deliberate.Sometimes I would see them pass thedoorways without touching the handle.The doors just opened as itrecognized their true owners.Arizona.That's where it began.The clues and the signs point to there, aplace the satellitesread as an empty desertuntil something landed there, not withimpact or flame, but with intention.The sphere arrived in silence, embeddingitself deep beneath thesand, humming in a frequencythe earth had never known.From that moment, theworld started to change.A signal, faint, but constant, rippleddownwards rewriting thelife one cell at a time.The closer you were to Arizona, thefaster the transformation took hold.Farther away, the mutation slowed, likeechoes losing strength with distance.I mapped it, the incidents, thesightings, the facesshifting under masks.Every line I drew curved backto the same point, the origin.A hundred miles north of Phoenix, a blankpatch of satellitesrefused to render, a voidin the image, and that's how I knew.The sphere was there, waiting, calling.In the midst of thisreflection, I called Dory.We need to fly, I tell him.Nor commercial routes, we go ourselves.You have a pilot's license, he asks?I have a need, I say, and a map.We drive for hours through the roads thatfeel like they have been erased and drawnagain by a tired hand.The sky is a sheet of muted steel.The town of Abbotsford unfolds in frontof us as a college ofhangers and gravel andtrimmed grass.Is this not the right place?It has done anexcellent job of pretending.Things land close enoughto the shape of the horizon.The approach is tight, almost reckless,as the air is crowdedwith invisible furniture.Two Cessnas kiss the runway, bounce,settle, and the taxitowards the chain link gateswhere, impossibly, there is a gas stationpump like you wouldsee on a highway exit.Pilots hop down, swipe their carts, andclick their gas nozzles.The smell of fuel is clean and bitter.They top up, nod wave, and off they go.The gate lifts with a chirp, and eachsmall aircraft rollsaway to its private den.We watch them liketourists at a tide-wool.Busy day, Dory says.Or busy world, I say.We head towards the office where aplastic sign promises.Pilot training, walk-ins welcome.The wind carries voices that do notbelong to the bodies.Inside the receptionist smiles with aface that is perfectlyhuman, which makes me suspiciousin a way that is unfair to her."Our instructor?"I ask.She checks a screen, frowns lightly."You're booked at the other field.""The other field?"Dory repeats, like a line from a playthat takes darker turn into act two.Outside, the planes keep landing, closerand closer as drawn bysomething magnetic justbeneath the ground.We get back in thecar, and we turn around.In the rear-view mirror, a cluster ofballoons lift the fenceline and drift like a smallplanet's torn from orbit.Night folds down.The streets shine with fresh rain, everysidewalk like a mirror.I step into the two-story restaurant thathas decided to keep its doors open to theweather.Warm lights, neon accents that hum at theedges, a bar on the mainfloor where the bottlescatch purple and blue.Upstairs, a side room holds a few peoplewhose names hover justout of reach, like a wordon the tip of your tonguewhen you need it the most.A child follows me from the hallway tothe table and back again,light steps like a sparrowthat has learned to become a person."You have to stay here," I say gently,guiding them to the side room."I have to check on a few things."Downstairs, the bartender, the child'smother, moving fast.She slides the bottles across thecounter, wipes spills, calls orders.Her hair falls loose to the curls thatcatch light like a copper wire."Your kid's upstairs," I tell her."You need to watch your kid.I am not responsible, not tonight."She meets my eyes a second too long andthen nods without meaning it.There is exhaustion there, maybe fear,maybe something deeper.Somehow we take a photo.I do not remember asking for that.But later my phone cycles through thefaces like a carousel.It lands on hers, the bartender.I keep tagging,deleting, saving like a prayer.I make a contact card as it could anchorthe child to a name anda home in a world thatis slowly melting at the edges.I see the child again."Stay with your mother, please," I say.The child looks at me with a clear,unfair, trust kids give topeople who sound certain.The child nods once before I leave andfor a moment I wonderif a mask on their facehides more than their skin.In the morning we drove south, endlesshighway, pale desert,swallowing the horizon.The farther we went, the heavier the airbecame, like walking into static.Every mile closer, radiosignals bled into white noise.The compass spun crazycircles on the dashboard.By the time we reached Arizona, we were100 miles away from the sphere.Close enough to feelit, too far to see it.The air itselfbuzzed, faint but constant.Our base camp sat in the dust.An RV park twisted around a rollercoaster park thatshouldn't have it existed.Metal tracks looped above the desertbrush, skeletons athrill against the night.I'm told it's normal here and I believeit because I want theworld to keep its oddities.As we left camp to head towards thesphere, the rollercoaster cars reared and roaredto life, rattling up the incline.At the peak, a stream of gears, a burstof sparks and then chaos.The last three cars broke free andslammed into the servicewalkway, smoke pouring outof a breath from a wounded animal.Six passengers stumbled out, coughing,silhouetted against the stand.The rest of the train kept running,empty, wild, chasing itsown tail in the sparks andthe wind.People ran for the exits.They walked along the steep track, eyesbright with the simplejoy that comes from stillbeing alive, the kind that reminds meyour life is a thinbridge you cross every daywithout looking down.I watched the smoke rise, black againstthe stars, and then aboveit, more balloons, floatingtethered to nothing.This is when I knew thesphere's reach was close.It was changing the air itself.Later that day, I realized I had a kit.I don't remember how I acquired it.It's a hard case, olive green, with foaminside cut to precise shapes.Two keys settled in their nest with aclick that feels like a promise.One is shaped like a teardrop and theother narrow, brushedmetal cylinder with threeprongs at the tip.The case smells faintlyof own zone and old paper.The kit is not a weapon.It is a language.A sequence must be performed not once butin rhythm like the lock thatlistens more than it turns.Plug it into that. Flip this. Wait. Flipit back. Hold your breathfor it counts while the lightmoves from red to white. Repeat. Do notskip. The order matters. I write thesteps on the inside ofmy wrist with the pen that begins to fallat the halfway point. I fillthe rest of the symbols thatonly make sense to the version of me whohas been standing there that day.Knuckles dusty, sun loudin my ears. The scene shakes loose and Iwake. Not in my bed but inanother room in the same dream.The first dream had already happened. Nowit was somewhere afterstanding in the echo of what wedone. Screens flickered around me.Archive recordings, camera feeds,fragment memories ofa looping like an old film. At thismoment I was searching forMitch. An old friend, a mentor.He had helped me face the sphere backwhen it actually happened.He had been there when itended and now he is gone. I call his nameacross the empty digitalroom. Mitch are you there?No reply. Just static. I found a laptopin the room that I was in.I started frantically goingthrough the folders on the laptop lookingfor answers. I open up fileafter file and then a voice.His voice. Matt we didn't. Don't forgethow. A two-minute recording too short toexplain what we did.There had to be more. I reached out toanother friend by instantmessaging. Aaron check theservers I tell him. There's anotherrecording a longer one. Iremember what we did but I needproof. Minutes passed then a reply glowson the screen. Foundit. The words exclaimed.An hour and a half recording. I hit playand the truth appeared. Thefootage shows us ascendinga spiral staircase inside the sphere. Astaircase that seemed to becovered out of the negativespace between atoms. Each step humsunderfoot. The inner skin of the sphereis not metal not stone.It feels like the air has taught us tocarry a new weight.Below us the creatures move.Bat-jawed master balloons drift likeplanets inside a blackmodel of the solar system.They do not look up or if they do they donot see us as something tolook at. Mitch studies thecamera and focuses on me. You ready?yelled Mitch and my voicefrom the other version myselfcame back through the speakers. No but Iam here. We were saving theworld and neither of us trulybelieve it would work. Yet we climbedhigher into the heart of theimpossible. Keep your breathingeven. Mitch says on the recording. I'mbusy trying not to be amyth. I answer in panicand hearing my own voice from the archivemakes the room tilt. Atthe summit we found a chambersuspended in perfect geometry. No seamsno edges only theillusion of a floor that appearedwhen we stepped forward. We set the kitdown. The surface beneathit rippled like liquid glass.The teardrop began to glow brightersynchronizing with theheartbeat of the sphere itself.A deep vibration crawled up through ourboots through our bones.This is it. Mitch whispered.If we break the sequence it resets. Helooked at me. We do thistogether. I nodded always.We began. Connect the prongs. Rotate.Hold the breath for fourcounts. The sphere responded.Pulses a light racing up the inner wallsfolding inward towards the center.The sound was a thunder muffled by waterendless and low. Next stepMitch said slide the teardrop.I did. The surface accepted it like a keyinto an ancient lock. Aharmonic tone filled the airpure and deep the kind that makes yourchest ache. The lightsalong the walls contracted.Billions of tiny stars collapsing intoone. For a momenteverything stilled and then the worldexhaling for the first time. The spherereleased. The pulsestopped. The people's mask belowdissolved like smoke. People fell totheir knees touching theirface as they were rediscoveringthemselves for the first time. Theballoons burst in silence. Tiny flashesdrifting pieces of lightfading into the air. We had done it. Wehad ended it. Mitch smiled exhaustedsweat cutting throughthe dust in his face. If ever it comesback he said you'll knowwhat to do. The sphere openedabove us. A wound in the sky healing inreverse. A ship curved insilver lifted quietly from itsheart ascending into the stars as itbecame nothing but a brightpoint. Mitch stayed behindin the light and then he was gone.Months later, the cityfeels like a body after a fever.Cooler, grateful, unsure whatto do with the extra breath.I sit in an open coffee bar where thedoors were always openand the espresso isalways slightly too bitterin a way I appreciate.Across from me, someone new is listening.I tell them everything,not for proof, but for peace.The kit that had the keyis on the table between us.A green square like any other luggageyou might not want to leave unattended.I have kept it, I wish I had not,but wishes are not contract.The teardrop key glowssoftly through the foam cutoutsand a pulse like a sleeping heart.I pick it up to showthe curious stranger.It is lighter than I rememberand the texture is smootheras something had polished it.I remove the keys from the case.The metal feels warm in myhand as I press the symbol.It clicks from locked to unlocked.For a breath, I freeze.Did I just wake the thing again?I hide it quickly,climbing up on the chair,sliding up in above the rafterswhere the dust in thecobwebs will cradle it."Just changing a lightbulb," I say to the barista.When I sit back down,the cafe looks unchanged,but deep in the air,I swear I can feel a faint vibration,the kind that waits.Sometimes I wonder if thedream invented the evidenceso that I would feel the weightof responsibility in the morning.Sometimes I think theevidence invented the dreambecause it needed amessenger with a pocket.I think about thechild of the upstairs roomand the woman behind the barand how the names anchor us to ourselves.I think about the balloonsand the way that they markthe changed ones with astrange, almost playful flag.I reflect on the wrong airport,the fuel pumps hidden behind the gateand how the routines persisteven as the world around shifts."N. Mitch," his voice inthe recording, calm and sure,promising that endings areonly another kind of beginning.He taught me thecourage doesn't always roar,and sometimes it justwhispers, "Slide, key."If you ever see balloonsgathered where they shouldn't be,look up, listen to the end of the bellbeneath the noise of the world,and remember, somewhere,the lock is still waiting for its key.I'm not afraid of the sphere.I'm afraid of the button inside of methat wants to press it again,just to confirm that the story was real.I'm Matt Brennan, and thisis not your average dream.The door is open, step inside,and welcome to the beginning of the end.

Matt Brennan

Host

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