What was going on in Stan's mind when the "dreamscaperers" were checking out his memories? Spoilers for AToTS. All characters belong to Alex Hirsch, not me. I don't own the show.

Dream Scrape

Stan's dreams were disturbed tonight. Was it just because he had fallen asleep in his living-room chair?

Images of his grand-niece and nephew, Soos, two iridescent young men, and a triangular creature like the one in the attic stained-glass window were invading his thoughts. They were triggering random memories, like his prison days in Columbia, his stint selling Stan-Vacs, and his disastrous date with Lazy Susan.

Dipper wandered off from the others and opened a door to a recent memory about himself.

Stan and Soos were on the back porch, watching Dipper try to split logs.

Soos said, "Dude, Stan, I've been meaning ask you. Why are you so hard on Dipper all the time?"

Stan turned to Soos and said quietly, "Look, Soos, I'm gonna let you in on something. Wanna know what I really think?"

Soos leaned in closer, and Stan whispered, "I don't want Dipper to end up like a nerdy guy I knew a long time ago. You know what they said about him?"

Louder, Stan said, "The kid's a loser. He's weak! He's an utter embarrassment! I just wanna get rid of him."

Soos was silent for a second or two. He seemed to be pondering how to respond.

Stan felt a disturbance in his dream. A door creaked shut behind him, not part of his original memory. Was someone eavesdropping on him?

Before he could follow up, other memories were triggered, shifting his dreams. Now that someone had actually entered and changed a memory, Stan was more aware. In the background now he could dimly see watchers, as if they were looking into his memories through a window, and he could faintly hear what they said.

A memory flashed very briefly as one of the colorful but silly-sounding young men said, "Opening and closing doors is fun."

"I can do it also," said the other young man, flipping another door open and shut rapidly.

Then came a longer memory of the secret door to his brother's underground lab. Stan couldn't see watchers here, and the pressure of his secret was so high that he couldn't help looking out and saying aloud, "If only people knew the truth, that hidden behind this vending machine, I secretly have a..."

"Booring!" said Soos' voice, slamming the door shut. Stan hadn't noticed his presence in the darkness of the gift shop until he spoke.

"Well, that was disturbing," Stan said to himself.

Did Soos really know, and not care? Impossible. He would have said something, and asked tons of questions. This was just a crazy dream.

Stan was starting to get angry at the invasion of his privacy. In the next bit of dream (a private moment in the bathroom) he hammed it up, summoning dream crackers and feeding them to "Mr. Tummy." That ought to gross out the nosy voyeurs.

In the next segment Stan was wearing short shorts and roller-skating down the hall of the Mystery Shack to blow off some steam.

He sensed the presence of a single watcher this time, Soos.

"Hey, Soos, I need to ask you something," called Stan. "Did you just see me at the vending machine?"

"No, Mr. Pines, but if you dream about it again would you pick me up a snack? My Burrito Bites didn't come with me," said Soos.

"You're really here? It's not just a dream?" asked Stan.

"Yeah," said Soos. "We're, like, trying to protect the combination of your safe."

"Thanks, I guess. Who came into my memory of talking to you about Dipper when he was chopping wood?"

"That must have been Dipper, 'cause he wanted to look for memories of himself. I told him it was a bad idea, but I think he sneaked in anyway. He's sorta mad at you right now."

"Gotta go, someone's opening up another memory."

"Nice to see you in short shorts, Mr. Pines."

Sure enough, the next bit of dream was about the combination to his safe. Stan was forewarned by Soos, so he shifted the dream to be about putting in the deed to the Mystery Shack and locking it.

"And now to input the code. 13, 44, and finally.."

(There was no need to enter a combination when closing the safe, so he just entered some random digits.)

A bit later there was a blur of several memories at once, and then Stan was at the edge of the Bottomless Pit.

"In this land of ours, there are many great pits. And none more bottomless than the bottomless pit. Which you can see here is bottomless."

A piece of wood with a Nyarf dart stuck to it fell into the pit.

"Woah! Whatever that was, it's gone forever."

Stan sensed a disturbance in another part of his mind. Dipper was opening memories, calling out in an angry voice. "Exit! Hello!"

Stan realized Dipper must have gotten the wrong impression from the bit of conversation he had overheard. He had an uneasy feeling about letting Dipper leave mad. Stan had an idea: he could create anything in a dream. The next door Dipper opened was into a re-creation of the memory he had heard before, but not as it really was.

"Aw, this again?" said Dipper.

"He's a loser. He's weak. I just wanna get rid of him," said Stan.

(Was that exactly what he had said last time? He wasn't sure. Oh well, close enough.)

As Stan saw the door start to close, he quickly added, "Heh. Yep. Those are all things people said about me when I was a boy."

Dipper said, "Huh?" and opened the door wider.

Now to lay it on. He was supposed to be Stanford, so he wove the experiences of his brother into a story about himself.

"It was terrible. I was the biggest wimp on the playground!"

Stanley created a door behind Dipper, showing a nerdy Stan getting bullied. The boy was more like Stanford than himself, but with five fingers instead of six. He wore glasses, which the young Stanley had never needed.

"So one summer, my pop signs up me for boxing lessons."

Stanley worked the nerdy-looking Stan into the re-creation of a memory of one of the few times he had lost a sparring match. Stanford was in the background, but his face was hidden by a book. Their father had tried to encourage Stanford to join in his brother's enthusiasm for boxing, but it hadn't worked out. Stanford stayed a bookworm.

"It was even worse than the school yard!" said Stan.

The young Stan in his dream called out "Left hook!" and started punching back.

"Y'know, that time I thought my pop was trying to torture me. But wouldn't you know it? The old man was doin' me favor all along!"

Now to wind it up with a lesson that Dipper should appreciate. It never happened to Stan, but it should have. He imagined a scene where the nerdy Stan saved a girl from a purse-snatcher, and got a kiss. (He modeled the girl as a young version of Carla McCorkle, a woman with whom he had a brief fling while on the road as a salesman. He had made up a story about her before for Dipper's benefit.)

"Do you see?" Stan said. "That's why I'm hard on Dipper. To toughen him up. So when the world fights, he fights back."

Soos said, "Do you think it's actually working?"

Stan pointed to Dipper in the memory, who succeeded in chopping a piece of wood in half.

"I-I did it! Ha ha! Yes!" said the memory Dipper.

"He's really comin' along! When push comes to shove, I'm actually proud of him. Just... don't ever tell him that. His head is big enough as it is."

"That's true," said Soos with a laugh.

That's when Dipper stumbled into the memory. In the back of Stan's mind, he realized his other dream visitors were having trouble with nightmares. Now that Dipper was encouraged, he just needed the ammunition to fight.

"Whoa, kid, what are you doin' here?" said Stan. "Nice hole in your chest, by the way. Let's fix that up."

He fixed up Dipper with a thought.

"Wh-what the- How did you do that?" asked Dipper.

"Word to the wise, kid. We're in the mind! You can do what ever you imagine in here!"

He created a Pitt soda out of thin air and drank it.

"Well, how about that," said Dipper.

Stan transferred sounds and lights from the fight in another part of his mind to the hall, where Dipper could hear it.

"Oh my gosh, what am I doing?," said Dipper. "I gotta stop Bill!"

Dipper ran.

"Huh, fighting back," said Stan.

He might not remember this dream in a few minutes when he woke up, but Stan had a good feeling. Everything was going to be all right.